Call It What You Want- Joe Burrow

7

"Cami," he pulls my phone out of my hands and places a bottle of gel into them, "oh sweet girlfriend, will you do my hair?"

"Yeah," I squint at him, "why?"

"Because I don't like the way it looks when I do it," he shrugs, "and you're a girl, so I want it to look good for you."

"You're a sweetheart," I put my free hand on the side of his face.

"Yeah, yeah," he turns away sarcastically and we both grin.

I squeeze some gel into my hands and start working it through his hair. He stands between my legs, lowering himself by putting his hands on my thighs so I can reach better.

"There," I ruffle it just enough so that a couple pieces fall forward, "your personal stylist strikes again."

"Thank you, dear," he kisses me and then picks me up off of the counter like a rag doll. I wish I could say I hated it, but there was something so attractive about him tossing me around like I weigh nothing.

The self restraint we were showing was impressive. We'd talked about how we didn't like it when relationships were just hooking up. Both of us, hopeless romantics at heart, liked sweet kisses and cute hugs, not just meaningless time with one another.

I look down at my phone and it shows that it's almost 10.

"We need to leave pretty soon, lunch with Olivia is at 11:30," I say, and Joe nods.

"I'm almost done," he sprays cologne on himself and nods, "now I'm done."

I walk out of the bathroom and make my way through the house, grabbing my purse and my other clothes on the way out.

Joe catches up to me and leads me to the garage, "A day like today deserves the Acura."

The bright yellow sports car stares back at me, "And here I thought it would be a low-profile day."

"You're officially my girlfriend," he opens the door for me and I get in, "I want people to know."

I shake my head at him and he shuts the door.

✧

"This is a huge problem," Olivia announces as she points back and forth between Joe and I.

"Hello to you too," I give her a suspicious look.

She sticks her hand out for Joe to shake, "Olivia Grey, I'm her publicist."

"I'm Joe," he says, and shakes her hand. All three of us sit down.

"He can be here, I don't care," I say, hoping that's what Olivia meant when she said it was a problem.

"No dear," she shakes her head, "the whole thing. You're getting bad press. Really bad press."

"I don't care," I chuckle and Joe puts a hand on my leg under the table.

"Well Camden," Olivia sighs, "you remember what happened to Olivia Rodrigo when she put that album out and everyone thought it was about Joshua? She got so much hate for it and it flopped because everyone loved Joshua."

Josh was another one of her clients and one of my confidants. He was going through a lot when Olivia released that album, so I made sure to watch over him. We've been friends since then.

"Well I'm not planning on the next one to be a breakup album," I shake my head.

Olivia raises her hands, "It's my job to keep up with your appearance to the media. If you want to go against my advice, then you'll have to deal with the consequences."