Chapter 562

“Um. What? I-” Amanda stammered. “I geo-locked North America though...”

You blew out a breath.

“Ooh,” Sabrina winced. “Um, OK, so I use a VPN for everything to do with content for safety and stuff, and that includes research, so ... that’s probably how I found your actual account. But I definitely originally saw you posted on social media first.”

Amanda looked like she was about to cry. Her eyes were brimming with tears and she’d put both hands over her mouth.

“Hey,” you said, standing from your barstool and scooping both arms around her, pulling her tight to your chest. “It’s OK. We can help you figure out what you want to take down and how to do it. There are processes for that.”

“Oh my God,” she whimpered through her hands, leaning against you heavily. “Oh my God.”

“Well, I was kind of expecting a different reaction than this,” Sabrina mumbled, more to herself than to you or Amanda, then reached over and pulled one of the other girl’s hands down to hold it tightly. “OK. So ... first, you have nothing to be ashamed of, OK? You’re stunning and gorgeous, and putting content online doesn’t reduce any of your intelligence or wits. It’s just making use of the tools your Momma gave you to get ahead. And like I said, John and I have been doing content too.”

Amanda sat up at that, blinking and wiping her free hand under her eyes to try and get rid of her tears. “You- you do?” she asked.

“We do,” you said, still with an arm around her shoulders. “It’s Sabrina’s account, but I’ve been helping for a few months now.”

“Helping is an understatement,” Sabrina said. “He’s helped on the back end, and he’s an absolute stud in front of the camera too. Imagine what we did last time but with cameras.”

Amanda looked up at you, her brow slightly furrowed. “Seriously?” she asked. “You guys just ... do it all?”

You gave her shoulder one last squeeze before perching back on your bar stool. You’d settled in at a Sports Bar, wanting to make sure you didn’t accidentally run into Eric, Joy and the blonde, and now you wondered if Sabrina had done it to make sure you could have this conversation in relative privacy as well - between the unnecessarily loud music, the din of the crowd on a Thursday night, and someone turning up one of the games on the numerous huge TVs hung around, there wasn’t a shot anyone was listening in on the three of you.

Checking out the girls, for sure. But not listening.

“Sabrina set a precedent with her content ahead of time. She only shows from the lips down, and we’ve stuck with that. And no names, obviously,” you said.

“And that worked, and keeps working. The only exception was John stumbling across my page and recognizing the carpet in our office,” Sabrina said. “That’s technically how we ended up getting together, too. He came wanting to let me know I’d missed a hole in my security, and offering his support. I thought he was trying to blackmail me at first, I was so scared. Then we ... Well, the rest is history.”

“Fuck,” Amanda said, burying her face in her hands again. “How long have you guys known?”

You grimaced, glancing at Sabrina. She nodded slightly, agreeing to field that one. “I put two and two together before our night with Maeve,” she said. “I would have mentioned something sooner, but we didn’t know if Maeve knew, and I didn’t know if we wanted to out our secret or not. But we decided we like and trust you, and wanted to connect over it instead of burying it.”