Episode Ninety-one: #couplegoals

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Next: Episode 92

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Episode Ninety-one: #couplegoals

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After Edward went to the set in the morning, I couldn’t relax. It was still early in the day, the sun just making the sky purple over the mountains. Laying in our shared bed, I watched as the fiery orb lifted over the horizon. I sipped on a cup of coffee my loving boyfriend had brought me before he went to work, where he was going to pretend to be a vampire for a million dollars. My other boyfriend had sent me a pretty video he shot of the moonlight on the water, while hanging out on the beach, sometime in the night that he filmed while spending time with his friends. 

It was so surreal.

After working out, I showered and edited pictures in the kitchen while I slowly cooked lunch. I decided to do something a little different since I was craving some comfort food. I made spicy sloppy joes in the slow cooker. And I even made the slider buns to have them on. To go with it, I made jalapeno popper mac and cheese with loads of bacon mixed in and a jumbled assortment of lettuce and spinach tossed with avocado and cucumbers in a creamy sweet chili dressing. For dessert, I went for lighter. Angel food cake with homemade strawberry syrup and whipped cream. Mrs. Lettie would have very much approved of my meal choices. Most of the recipes were hers. 

Zafrina arrived precisely on time, well dressed as always. Her tight yellow dress clung to her slender body like a glove, her extra shiny hair straight as a board down her slim back. Bright neon yellow heels that were at least four inches high finished out her outfit. She looked as if she was ready to walk the red carpet herself. 

She hugged me when she came in, kissing my cheeks just lightly. She was at least a foot taller than me.  

“Bella, I want you to know that you’re very quickly becoming my favorite client,” she teased when she sat down at the dinner table with her leather briefcase. 

“Really? Even though Eddie buys you Jimmy Choo’s and Fendi?” I asked cheekily as I passed her the salad bowl. She put a large pile onto her plate, making sure to pick out extra cucumbers that had lots of dressing on them. Zafrina dug to the bottom of the bowl for even more of the dressing. 

She waved me off. “Oh, well… You’re sort of a package deal now. He makes me money and buys me the shoes. You’re going to make me even more money and feed me delicious food,” she answered with a little smirk, giving herself a serving of the cheesy pasta. She didn’t wait to try a bite, humming at the flavor. She put another scoop on her plate, sucking some of the cheese off her finger. 

I giggled softly, taking two slider buns for myself. “I honestly don’t know how I’m going to make you money.”

“Girl, seriously? With all these sponsors?” She made a face at my disbelief. 

“Because of Eddie,” I said with skepticism. “That’s not really me. I’m just his cute little sidekick.” 

She made her own sour face, rolling her eyes. “They want Eddie because of you. You make him even more appealing. Nothing is sexier to a woman than a man who is into commitment,” she insisted before taking a bite so big that it was nearly half the little sandwich after making herself two as well. “Oh, my god. This is so good.” She finished it quickly. 

“Thanks,” I giggled. “I guess that’s true. I’m just not sure I believe it yet, though.” 

“I wouldn’t have signed you otherwise.”

“I suppose,” I mumbled through my own mouthful. “How’s the spice level? I didn’t want to overdo it. I like my crazy hot.”

She gathered a large bite of noodles onto her fork, shoving it into her mouth. “It’s not bad at all. I wouldn’t mind it a little spicier, actually,” she admitted. I had made it just about as spicy as Edward would willingly handle and probably actually like. He definitely enjoyed his food hotter than the average person, but nothing close to me. 

“Me too, actually. Would you like some hot sauce? I’ve started my collection here,” I offered. She beamed at me before nodding. I briskly went to fetch several bottles for her to choose from.  

We sat and ate for a long time, just chatting. I think that she liked that we weren't focused on work. But after dessert, we could no longer ignore the business at hand. Her laptop came out, along with a leather-bound portfolio. It had ‘Eddie Cullen’ in gold lettering to one corner.  

“Sunday could not have gone any better,” Zafrina began as she opened her computer. It quickly came to life, tabs already opened for us to look at. “Between Eddie’s wins and both of your performances on the red carpet, I’m so pleased. I don’t think I’ve ever had someone with such a good first time out,” she spoke proudly, taking out a pen and a pad to take notes with as well. She was ready to work. 

“Um, really?” I questioned in surprise. “What did I do that was so special?” I thought we just talked to people, even then, I didn’t say anything interesting. Edward was the one that handled everything. It was his night.  

Zafrina sort of rolled her eyes. “Well, you two are on a lot best dress lists for the night. E!, Entertainment Tonight, Extra. Buzzfeed has you as their best-dressed couple of the night for the show.” 

She showed me each of the other articles first before she moved onto the BuzzFeed list. Then she brought up another that they just posted that morning on their website. It was titled, ‘Best-dressed, best voice, best life. Eddie Cullen and his new girlfriend are total #couplegoals’. It was short with a lot of pictures. I skimmed it quickly. It had my face over and over again.  

"I don't know if you know this, but Eddie Cullen, actor, voice actor, writer, YouTube star, and overall hottie, has a new sexy girlfriend." There was a picture of Edward alone walking a red carpet and then another of us at New Years at the party before going inside. "This lucky girl is Bella Swan, photographer, chef, and rising internet personality who just happens to be equally as smoking hot. Don't believe us. We have photographic evidence." There were a couple of stills from me on the channel. They were of me cooking in the kitchen with either steam or smoke around me. They were actually pretty good pictures. 

"Sunday night, they walked their first red carpet event as a couple at the Children's Choice Awards, and they have officially become my new #celebritycoupleobbession. Why you may ask? (Besides the fact that they are extra in love and it is super cute?)" There was a picture of us brushing our foreheads against each other and then a gif of him thanking me at the awards and me smiling up at him. "It's simple, really. It's because, besides being #couplegoals, they're also #fashiongoals. Classic, classy, and just look at those shoes!" Several pictures of us were scattered throughout with little blurbs about each, one of them was a close up of my red bedazzled Jimmy Choo heels. "Sigh. We would be totally jealous of Bella if we didn't want to be her BFF. We can't wait to see what the pair wears on the red carpet next!" The final still picture was of Edward looking down at me with a big smile on his face, his eyes focused on mine. I was beaming back at him, his arm around my waist and holding me close to his side. 

"Want to see the darling duo in action? Check out their ever-growing video library of enchanting content on Eddie's channel. Their food videos are some of our favorites in the Tasty office." There was a gif of us in the kitchen, him eating while I was laughing at the mess he was making. It was from one that we filmed around New Years. There were a bunch of links down at the bottom.  

“Holy shit…” I drew out thickly, sitting back in my seat with my mouth wide open. My head went completely empty for a moment. 

Zafrina sort of wiggled her shoulders as she leaned forward, obviously very proud. “Between this and all the attention that he’s getting for the super bowl commercials-”

“Pardon me?” I interrupted her. I didn’t mean to be rude, it just surprised me. “Super Bowl commercial?” This was the first I heard about it. 

“Yeah, he did the voice-over for several Lay’s commercials for the Super Bowl. They’ve been doing fantastically. They all went viral last month. You didn’t know?” She asked in astonishment. 

"No," I breathed out as I shook my head. "But the past few months have been hectic." 

Zafrina looked as if she instantly understood. “Mm,” she hummed as she took a sip of her lemony ice tea. “I think they aired around the time you went into the hospital. I talked to him about them while you there, I think. He wasn’t much in a chatting mood, though.”

“Oh, well, that makes sense,” I said quietly at that added detail. It did help a tiny bit, but I still felt more than a little left out of the loop. Was I really so out of touch with my own boyfriend’s career? Or pop culture in general? I just felt incredibly obtuse.   

"He wasn't allowed to say anything about it until after they aired," she continued, seeing that I was rather upset at the news. Clearly, she didn’t want to get her client in trouble. "Honestly, I don't think that he cares about any of his commercial work. Eddie said he had a meeting with Lay’s the other day and almost fell asleep during. He just did it for the money, truthfully.”

I nodded absently. “Sounds about right.” 

“You know, he got paid just over a hundred thousand for the four! Literally, a day's worth of work in a box." She shook her head a little to herself like she couldn't understand how that was even possible. Neither could I. A typical ad was around thirty seconds, meaning he got paid hundreds of dollars per second to just speak. I was going to have to watch all of those commercials. “He doesn’t care one bit.”   

I laughed a little at the absurdity of it all. "Probably not. And he does so much other stuff. I know he does tons of commercials that I haven’t watched either. I just feel stupid for not knowing, though. But I don't know the last time I turned on the television and watched a regular show. I've been so isolated lately," I admitted to her in a tiny voice. Even with my friend visiting and spending time with Lauren and Tyler. It wasn’t the same. "And I feel like I can't keep up with everything he does.”.  

"Don't even try," she chuckled lightly. "It takes me and a couple of others a lot of work to even attempt it, and he's always coming up with more ideas and tasks for us. That man is a machine." 

I bit my bottom lip at her wording. She wasn’t wrong about that. “Yeah, he is.”

Zafrina looked me over slowly, considering me for a long minute. Then she pointed one of her fingers at my chest. “You hate this stuff, just like him, huh? He acts like it’s monotonous and he doesn’t care, but it’s actually that it makes him insanely anxious. The way they speak about him, his appearance. He can’t control it.”

Thinking about it for a moment, I glanced up at her. “He was a husky boy growing up, and I think he was bullied and teased because of it. It’s why he has an actor’s mask in the first place. I can imagine people talking about his appearance, even if it’s overall mostly nice, still feels like that.”

“I can see that,” she nodded thoughtfully.

I shrugged. “He’s probably smart for avoiding it.”

“He’s doing well enough on his own, for now. Hm, well, I don’t think you were a chubby child. I don’t think that’s why you dislike it,” she said slyly. I shook my head with a slight smile. “I don’t see this becoming a regular thing with us,” she continued with a small grin, trying to be comforting. 

“Mm, no. Probably not,” I replied a bit timidly. “If that’s okay.” 

"Of course, it is! In the future, there might be things we have to go over, but I will let you know. I'll keep an eye on the media and just keep you two pointed in the right direction. Right now, though, I don't see any problems in the immediate future. Oh," Zafrina paused for a minute as she remembered something. "I wanted to let you know that you've gotten a couple more sponsorship offers. Eddie said that he wanted to wait to go over them all until he's done with his movie. Would you like to go over them before then?" 

I was a little stunned for a minute. I was already surprised by the ones we had received. “Oh! Um.” I shook my head in answer swiftly. “There’s no reason for you to go over it twice because I won’t make any decisions without him on those kinds of matters, anyway. It’s going to be us together in those. Makes more sense.”

“Okay, just checking. Honestly, I wouldn’t doubt we see more coming very soon anyway.” She put the leather folder back into her briefcase. Then she started to make herself another slider from the leftovers still on the table. She had tried each of the different hot sauces I brought out. “I want you to know that I’m going to find any excuse that I can to have as many meal meetings as possible, though.”

I giggled softly, nodding my head again. "That's fine. I enjoy cooking, and Eddie is going to be happy with the leftovers. I can send them to the set with him tomorrow with a bottle of Tums."   

“Ha,” she threw her head back with a little laugh. Taking another bite, she quickly wiped her mouth. “That boy needs to get himself a good supply because you’ve got some very interesting hot sauce deals.”

I barked out my own laugh. “Really?”

“Mmhmm,” she mumbled through her bite. “They want you to do some rating videos, some cooking videos. Maybe a challenge video with the boys. That sort of thing. Some of Eddie’s favorite things to film.”

“Yes, it is.”

She smirked a little. “They loved it when you wiped the floor with him. You’ll definitely need to do it again soon.”  

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Next: Episode 92

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