Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“Besides, now you’re a hot commodity, Connor.” He takes another bite and chews.
I’m still daydreaming about Fizzy’s loud mouth and what she did with it, so this takes a second to penetrate. “You mean the confessionals? Ah, that’s just a small bit.”
“That small bit is likely a huge part of the reason Blaine’s trying to put some fear in you.”
I still, looking up at him. “What are you talking about?”
Ash appears to do a mental obstacle course before he carefully puts his fork and knife down. He lifts his napkin to his lips, tapping gingerly. “Are you unaware of what’s happening online?”
“You mean our ratings?” I nod as I say it because Brenna sends them to me every morning. “They’re great.”
“No, I mean your fan base.”
“I’ve had a few people stop me, but that’s just because they recognize someone from TV.”
“A few?” he says pointedly, and I follow his gaze to a group of women in a booth across the restaurant. As soon as they see me, their eyes snap back down to the table. “I’m talking about Connor Prince stans.”
I shake my head. “It’s not like that.”
With a condescending chuckle, he pulls out his phone, mumbling to himself, “I tell him his phone is good for more than texting and reading the news, but does he listen? No.” Ash taps his screen a few times with a flourish and then turns it to face me. “First of all, your Instagram. You have almost three hundred thousand followers.”
I blink. I haven’t posted anything in years. “What?”
He gives an exasperated sigh and swipes through his phone again before setting it on the table in front of me. “There.”
I scan around, trying to orient myself. “What am I looking at?”
“It’s Twitter.” A finger comes down, pointing at a cluster of letters. “What does that hashtag say?”
“It says…” It takes me a minute to read because the words are all smushed together, no spaces. “ ‘Daddy Prince The True Love Experiment’?” I look up at him. “Who’s Daddy Prince?”
“You are. That’s what the True Love fandom calls you.”
“The—fandom—?” I break off, confusion deepening. “Daddy Prince?”
“Twitter blows up when confessionals start.”
“I’m not even on-screen that much. There are more successful, better-looking, and frankly more agreeable men for them to get excited about.”
“Can’t argue with that,” he says with a grin. “But they’re writing you in anyway. Apparently, Daddy Prince, they love your deep voice and your sexy accent, and the way you and Fizzy banter.” He glances up at the sound of my stifled mortification. “Oh, come on, stop looking so horrified. ‘Daddy Prince’ is pretty tame compared to some of the other stuff here.” As he continues to scroll, his grin turns into a frown and he muses, “I didn’t realize ‘choke me’ was such a common phrase.”
I ignore this. “What does that mean, ‘write in’? Can’t they only vote for the contestants?”
“You wouldn’t know this because you’re a social media troglodyte, but no. The way your team has set it up, if the show is tagged, a tracking program considers it a vote and keeps a tally. It could be ‘#GiantAnacondaCock_TheTrueLoveExperiment’ and Giant Anaconda Cock gets a vote.”
I stare at Ash. “What?”
“Don’t worry. Most people use it the way you intended. They hashtag Colby or Isaac or whoever. It’s quite smart, really; lots of the big music award shows do it. I think the Oscars even started doing it for fan favorite and favorite movie moment. It’s a great way to get engagement because the tags are visible to everyone, you can tweet—aka vote—as many times as you want, which means tweeting and retweeting puts it in everyone’s feed. You can’t buy exposure like that. It’s all there on your pocket computer if you care to look.”
This entire conversation has thrown me off-kilter now that it’s sinking in what Ash is telling me. Viewers are voting for me? Blaine doesn’t know as much as he’d like everyone to believe, and I have to assume that if he did know something about this—or, worse, about me and Fizzy—he would have mentioned it, right? Either way, I’ll need to be very, very careful over the next few weeks.
“Of course, there are people writing in all kinds of names,” Ash says. “Lots of Your Mom and other random things. I think Captain America had a pretty decent number one week.”
“Great,” I say dryly. “A flawless system.”
“There will always be idiots,” Ash says, dismissing this as he pushes his plate aside and leans in. “So far, Isaac has the most votes every week. But you’re definitely gaining.”
I lean back with a soft gusting exhale, feeling Ash’s attention on me while I process this. “For sure Brenna sees this. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Maybe they’re trying to ignore it.” He picks up his water glass and takes a sip. “I mean, it’s not like you can win this thing.”