Chapter 4: The Algorithm's Demand
The champagne from last night’s non-celebration had left a fuzzy pressure behind Dee’s eyes. She moved through the silent studio, wiping down mirrors already clean, rearranging bottles of product into precise, color-coded rows. The morning light through the floor-to-ceiling windows was harsh, exposing every dust mote dancing in the air. It felt like the aftermath of a party she hadn’t enjoyed.
His cologne was gone, evaporated. Only the persistent ghost of lavender and her own regret remained.
Her phone sat face-down on the sleek vanity. She hadn’t looked at it since last night’s text exchange. Distractions, huh? Her reply felt stupid in the daylight. Coy. A deflection of a deflection. The three dots had come and gone, but no final reply had ever landed. The silence that followed was a vast, empty chamber.
The studio door burst open, the bell jangling with violent cheer. Liza sailed in, a storm of linen and purpose, a leather folder tucked under one arm and two oat milk lattes in her hands.
“Don’t even start,” Liza said, pre-empting Dee’s groan. She thrust a latte toward her. “You drowned your sorrows in cheap bubbly, I saw the Story. Today, we build a castle from the rubble.”
“I don’t want a castle.” Dee took the latte, the heat seeping into her palms. “I want my comments section back. I want to talk about layering techniques without a hundred amateur therapists diagnosing my love life.”
“Tough.” Liza dropped her folder onto the vanity, right next to the silent phone. “The genie’s out. The algorithm is a beast, and it’s hungry for this. You fed it a single bite of ‘will-they-won’t-they’ and it’s salivating. We either control the meal, or it eats us alive.”
A cold trickle of dread traced Dee’s spine. “What does ‘control the meal’ mean, Liza?”
“It means we give the people exactly what they want, but on our terms.” Liza flipped open the folder, though Dee knew there was nothing inside but blank paper; Liza’s plans lived in her head. “A live stream. Tomorrow. You and Matt. A ‘friendship check-in.’”
Dee barked a laugh that echoed flatly in the bright room. “No.”
“Hear me out. It’s casual. Just banter, maybe you give him a trim, let them see you’re fine. It’s authentic. It’s transparent. It takes the mystery—and the fuel—away. You show the world the normal, boring, platonic friendship so they get bored and move on.”
“It’s a performance,” Dee said quietly. “You’re asking me to perform our friendship for clicks. To use him.”
“I’m asking you to protect your brand and, incidentally, protect whatever that is.” Liza gestured vaguely between Dee and the empty silver chair. “Right now, it’s this mythical thing they’re building in their heads. It’s a monster. Show them the real, mundane thing. It’ll demystify it. Take the pressure off you both.”
The logic was seductive. It was also a trap. Dee could see the second act so clearly: the live stream would be dissected frame-by-frame. Every glance, every laugh, every accidental touch would be uploaded to TikTok with heartbreak lyrics over it. They’d compare it to the Paul Wesley video. The scrutiny would intensify, not fade.
“He’ll say no,” Dee said, but it was a weak protest.
“Will he?” Liza raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “You said the contract is trust. So trust him. Ask him. Explain it. Frame it as damage control for both of you. He’s a smart guy. He knows how this works.”
Dee turned toward the window, watching a pigeon strut along the fire escape. The contract. The unspoken rules. Don’t make it weird. Keep it professional. We’re friends. This would blow a hole straight through the center of all of it.
“I don’t want to abuse this,” Dee said, her voice barely above a murmur. “It’s the only real thing in this whole… circus.”
Liza’s expression softened, just for a fraction. She came to stand beside Dee, following her gaze to the pigeon. “I know you don’t. But ignoring it isn’t preserving the real thing. It’s just letting the circus narrate it for you. Be the author, Dee. For once.”
She picked up her folder and finished her latte in two long gulps. “Think about it. But don’t think too long. Momentum is currency. I’ll call you at three.”
She left as suddenly as she’d arrived, the door clicking shut with a note of finality.
The studio was quiet again, but the quiet was different now. Charged. Liza’s words hummed in the space. Be the author.
Dee’s eyes fell to her phone. She flipped it over. The screen was dark. She tapped it, and the notifications from last night’s text thread glowed up at her. His last message. Her reply. The dead air after.
Asking him to do a live stream felt like stepping over a line they’d spent years carefully drawing in the sand. But wasn’t the line already erased? Wasn’t it blurred beyond recognition by a million anonymous comments and a midnight phone call and the way he’d looked at her in the glow of the ring light?
She picked up the phone. Her thumb hovered over his name. A direct call felt too vast, too intimate for a proposition. Text was a coward’s tool, but it was also a shield.
She typed slowly, deleting, rewriting.
Dee: Liza’s idea. Not mine. She wants us to do a live ‘check-in’ to try and normalize the noise. A trim, some chat. I told her I’d ask you, and that you’d probably say no. It’s a big ask. So, feel free to say no. Seriously.
She sent it before she could dissect the tone. It was out there, a live wire.
She busied herself with the brutal tangles of a synthetic wig head, yanking a comb through the pink fibers with more force than necessary. The silence from her phone was a physical weight in the pocket of her jeans.
Ten minutes later, it buzzed.
Not a text. An incoming call.
His name filled her screen, the letters sharp and accusatory. Her heart launched into her throat. She wiped her suddenly damp palm on her thigh and answered.
“Hey.”
“A live stream.” His voice was even, calm. No greeting. It was all business, and that sent a fresh wave of dread through her.
“Yeah. It’s a terrible idea. Liza thinks it’s genius. I’m… negotiating.”
“What’s the angle?” he asked. She could hear the faint echo of a space around him, a trailer maybe, or a high-ceilinged room.
“The angle is we show them nothing’s changed. That we’re just friends. That it’s boring. So they get bored.”
Another pause, longer this time. She could almost hear him thinking, weighing the private truth against the public spectacle. “When?”
A sharp, unexpected laugh escaped her. “That’s not a no.”
“It’s not a yes,” he countered, but his tone had shifted. There was a thread of something there now—resignation, or maybe a strange curiosity. “It’s a ‘when.’ If we’re going to do this, we do it soon. Rip the bandage off. My schedule is clear tomorrow afternoon.”
Tomorrow. The word hung between them, a deadline. Dee’s mind raced through the logistics—lighting, camera angles, what she’d wear, what they’d talk about, how to keep her hands from shaking if she had to touch his hair in front of a live audience of thousands waiting for a spark.
“Okay,” she said, the word coming out steadier than she felt. “Tomorrow. Just a trim. Just talking.”
“Just talking,” he echoed. But the phrase sounded different in his mouth. Like a question. Like a promise. Like the title of a chapter they were both afraid to read.
“I’ll send you the link before we go live,” she said, slipping back into professional mode, a safe script.
“Dee.” He said her name, and it stopped her. “We’ll be okay.”
It wasn’t an answer to anything, and yet it felt like the only answer that mattered. He ended the call.
She stood in the brilliant, unforgiving morning light, the phone held tightly to her chest. The contract was officially void. They were drafting a new one in real-time, its terms unknown, its consequences a terrifying blank page.
Tomorrow, they would perform friendship for an audience of millions. And she had no idea which one of them was lying.