love.

He realized that the best way to please her is to actually listen, well at least let her speak. She is beautiful it’s a shame that she seems to believe she is completely off limits to him. As someone with as big an ego and false confidence as he does, it’s hard for something to be unattainable. He nods at her. “Fine fine I’m done now go ahead.” 

“I’m not going to sneak, I’m ‘gonna get them on The List and then off of it when I think we should switch it up. It’s so boring having the same damn people in there all the time.” He immediately regrets the decision to cooperate as Rhiannon’s brought up. “What? She sending you to communicate with me now?” 

She shakes her head disapprovingly, though there’s the ghost of a smile on her face. It is difficult to actually stay mad at Zac when he is constantly so charming and easy going. Rhiannon is obviously more talented at that, but she simply couldn’t. It is exactly how Aaron won her over in the first place after all, how he still wins her over again and again. “How are you planning to get them on the List? Batting your eyelashes at the main boss?” They both know Heath’s secret, but still Elena doesn’t want to take any chances.

“No, she isn’t. In fact, she would probably get super pissed if she knew I’m here trying to reason with you, but I’m doing this in the name of love.” She sighs. “You need to pull yourself together and stop acting like a man-child.”

“You can’t confirm that, you’re nice to everyone. You may not even know that they’re creeps, like with this guy for example.” She can’t help but scoff slightly at the ease her friend had with getting what she wants by simply saying please. “Well yeah, you could ask them to do anything in those videos and they would. The creepy ones are the guys who don’t give a fuck and do whatever they want anyway. Maybe you should get better security.” 

“Or install some loud dog barks in your doorbell, or I guess when you approach the door. That would have gotten rid of him, or at least given him wet pants and then he’d have to go home. But I guess Brenton coming back will be enough of a startle.” She opens the cupboard and pulls out two glasses. Then pours them both a glass of rosé, she walks over and hands one to Elena. “How are you two anyway? Not that I’m at my 100% approval rate yet, but I haven’t seen him in a while.” 

Elena rolls her eyes. Rhiannon was never going to understand, because she was used to distrusting anyone without giving them a chance. She was the exact opposite herself, always trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. There were obviously pros and cons for both their ways, but it was in their nature now, and neither of them was going to change any time soon. “What do you mean better security? Do you want me to hire a bodyguard or something? That would be insane, Rhi. Though I have been invited to Vidcon this year and I will have security there.” She chuckles. “Can you imagine? Me? Surrounded by bodyguards?” She sighs. “I don’t even know if I’m going but still it sounds so cool.”

She smiles as her friend hands her the drink, taking a little sip. “We’re fine. He’s just busy all the time and it’s hard to coordinate our schedules. He works all day, I edit during the night. But it’s not like I can say anything. He’s been working so hard, and he’s absolutely brilliant. I don’t want to rob him of that just because I need attention.”

There’s a call that beautiful women have for him, as soon as Elena speaks he is powerless but to shift his attention to her. Since she is obviously more attractive than those he is trying to interact with. “You want me to be done Lima?” 

“Why can’t you be nice to me gorgeous? I didn’t do anything, you know I’ll even buy you a latte or whatever.” He’s not too great at acting innocent. “Yeah, but c’mon they’d really give the place some variety. We’ve ‘gotta expand eventually.” 

She rolls her eyes. “Of course I want you to be done. I want to talk to you. I thought that was clear.” Elena frowns, not really understanding the meaning of his tone. Or maybe she does a little, but she decides to ignore it in favor of not thinking her best friend’s ex? boyfriend is now flirting with her. 

“I don’t drink latte, I drink tea. Caffeine makes your body cells grow older faster.” She rolls her eyes. “And I am being nice. You’re the one that has left me hanging because you’re trying to sneak in some girls into the club. By the way, you better convince Kat because there’s no way you’re going to get them approved otherwise,” She shrugs. “We need to talk about Rhiannon.”

Each word Elena spoke only made Naia’s heart sink deeper, it wasn’t often that the designer was at loss for words — however, when her best friend expressed how lost she felt it was difficult to find the right thing to say. “Lena, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you,” she assured, moving in closer and wrapping her arms around Elena. Whenever the topic of the affair came up it was difficult because it had been a situation she had never been in herself, what was even the right advice to give? Naia wasn’t close to Aaron, so he was the least worrying factor in that equation, but Brenton was her friend too and sometimes she felt guilty for carrying a secret that wasn’t hers. She could only imagine how much worse Elena felt.

“Do you think you can’t end things because you’re used to him and you’d feel bad or because you’re still in love with him?” That was probably a difficult question for her friend to answer, but Naia was trying to understand how she felt. “It’s not wrong to love two people,” she mumbled, wiping Elena’s tears away. “You have a big heart, we both know this, it just needs to choose one. It’s not going to get any easier, nena.”

“You think so?” Elena asked, still sobbing, as her friend wrapped her arms around her and she buried her head in her shoulder. It was really hard to think that way right now, when Brenton had apologized so many times for not being at home, and Aaron was calling her non stop because she was basically ghosting him. She felt like she was dying inside, like she had dug her own grave and now she needed to lay in it. And on top of it all, she was forcing her friends to carry her secret as well. Naia, Heath, they were all forced to participate in this and they hadn’t even asked for it. So now she was a bad girlfriend, a bad lover, and a bad friend. 

“No, no, I’m in love with both of them.” It was so difficult to admit it out loud, but she had known for a while now. That was the root of all her problems. “They’re so different, but they’re both crazy about me, so how can I not be crazy about them? I feel like I would drown if I lost any of them. Like I need both to be happy.” She pulled back, wiping off the tears. “Is that strange? What if I can’t choose?”

“What the fuck? I keep telling you to stop being so nice to creeps babe! Look what they do when you simply like one of their Instagram photos, they’re ready to come to your door like there was an invitation.” Her nose is scrunched up in disgust as she sits up properly in her seat to make her opinion even more known. As if her judgement of Elena’s choice in men wasn’t present enough. 

“Okay well you did the right thing, you shouldn’t be staying there when he’s lurking. But also you should have called the police, they’d get him off of your property. I just hope he didn’t follow you here, because I’m certainly not afraid to turn on the sprinklers and scare him.” At least her friend was safe here, she was relieved that she didn’t think she had to wait around for this guy to take photos of her for his shrine or something. Rhiannon gets up to lock the door at the thought. “Do you want a drink?” 

“Hey! First of all, I’m not being nice to creeps. I didn’t even know this man existed anymore. He must have watched one of my videos or something. Besides, he’s not the first to do it. Some viewers have already waited for me outside my house but fortunately they stopped after I asked them to in one of my videos.” Elena sighed, shrugging. She was generally nice to everyone. It wasn’t her fault if said people ended up being creepy stalkers, right? They were the ones in the wrong. 

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I took a peek while I was going out and he was still there, trying to see if I was at home. I texted Brent and told him to scare him away if he runs into him when he gets to the apartment. He wanted to hurry back, but I told him not to worry, that I was here.” Not that she didn’t love spending time with Rhiannon, but in all honesty, she would have liked for Brenton to come home early that night. She nodded. “Sure, why not? I’m not going to do much more editing tonight.”

( june 13th / naia’s home / evening)

Elena knew she could trust Naia. In fact, her friend was probably the person she trusted the most in the world. She was the only one who she could tell absolutely everything to. Not that she didn’t love Rhiannon, because she did, with all her heart, but she was also terrified of what her reaction would be when or if she found out about what she was doing. They all had seen what had happened with Zac, how his deceitful ways had affected her friend, and Elena was sure the second Rhiannon learned about her treason it was going to be like having the enemy home. 

Naia didn’t judge her, though. Or maybe she did, but at least she was kind enough not to let it show. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Nai.” Elena finally spoke, tears rolling down her face. “I feel like I can’t stop. It’s like I see Brent and he’s so wonderful and perfect, and I’m like, I’m going to end this. I’m going to talk to Aaron and tell him I can’t do this anymore. But then every time Aaron touches me, I just melt. What is wrong with me?”

It wasn’t often that Aaron took pains to get dressed up, normally the one to skip these town events where the only purpose was to stroke the ego of the wealthy. But tonight was different for the mere reason that Elena wanted him to attend - and she broke him down far enough that he actually promised her he would. As his gazed scanned the crowd, he was sure it would land on the beautiful brunette and her clueless boyfriend, the thought making Aaron’s stomach twist.

There she is. Alone, flashing her ever-so-popular smile to person after person who wanted to fawn all over her. It was like magic - the way she was able to pull people under her spell so easily - Aaron included.

Champagne in hand, he made his way around her once the coast was clear, pressing himself against her backside as his lips drew closer to her ear. “I could eat you up,” he growled just audibly enough for her to make it out, a smirk teasing at the corners of his lips as his hand smoothed around her hip, encouraging her to turn around to face him. “Where’s your other half?” he inquired without any actual interest in the answer.

@limaelena

She had seen him, of course she had. In fact, there wasn’t a moment where she didn’t find herself scanning the place in search for him. This was an official event though, and Brenton was here, so there was no way she could sneak and talk to him, not unless she wanted to pretend they were simple friends. It was painful to do that, to have him so close and not being able to reach out and touch him, to see him flirt and talk to other people, knowing very well that she didn’t have any right to say anything, that she was there doing something worse. 

Still, when he pressed his body against hers, even before seeing him she knew it’s him behind her. By now she had memorized his touch, his scent, his whole presence. She knew every inch of him too intimately not to notice him. 

It’s a good thing there was no one around, otherwise they would be in serious trouble. Though when his voice reached her ear, she wanted to forget about everything and just kiss him right there and then. “You still can.” She replied, her lips curving into a little smirk. “Just not here.” His second question made her shrug. “Not with me right now, fortunately. I think he’s checking on Tristan at the bar. Why? Do you want me to call him?”