The art of being a beard (Camila/You)

Chapter 1

Narrator's POV

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Y/N was in the middle of a conversation with her manager about how the sales of her books are going, and even though she was already prepared for some bad news, her manager's new idea was just a plain joke. It gotta be.

But when her manager, Jackie, stared right back at her with a boringly serious expression, the young writer got the feeling it might not be a joke.

"How the fuck is dating gonna help with my sales?" Y/N scoffed with a roll of her eyes.

Jackie got off of her chair to stroll around in her office. "She has a really large fanbase and a hell lot of good connections. If she can pull the right strings for you or even just get your name well-known, you'll be the big winner here."

Y/N turned around in her seat, her eyes following her manager. "Then why does she need to be in some fake relationship with me?" she asked, confused because of the lack of information.

The manager took a halt in the middle of the room. "Well... two reasons. One is, she took a break from music so now that she's coming back, she gotta catch the media's attention again first." Y/N made a sign to protest but Jackie held up a finger, silently telling her to shut up and let her finish. "And two, everyone had always labeled her as straight but the pronouns of her new music isn't exactly he or him. So to prevent people thinking she's just queerbaiting, she gotta have a muse... and now that's you."

"So how long did she take a break for?" Y/N asked with a raise of her eyebrows.

Jackie cleared her throat and just awkwardly turned to look out of the window instead. "Uhm..."

That certainly raised suspicious on Y/N's side. "When was the peak of her career again?"

She could've almost heard her manager gulping before a really unsure "about ten years ago" came out.

"Ten years ago?" Y/N repeated, completely astonished. "How old is she? Wait no. Who is she even in the first place?"

"She's uh... Her name is Camila Cabello." Figuring that the writer won't exactly love their age difference, she just decided to leave that tiny piece of detail out.

Knowing better, Y/N immediately pulled out her phone and typed the singer's name in the search bar. Indeed a lot of stuff popped up, but only about 2 things caught her attention. One's that apparently she's the Havana-girl, aka the song everyone was listening to back in fucking middle school. And the other thing is... "She's 31?!"

Jackie sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah..."

Comparing that to the fresh 21-year-old that is Y/N, there was quite the distance between the two. When her manager told her about this PR, she was expecting it at least to be someone around her range of age, like maybe tops someone in their mid-20s. Now it's someone that's a total of ten years older than her.

She wasn't having too big of a problem with that, but it is definitely a surprise. A surprise she's not digging too much either, may I add.

And also Camila apparently had a four-year-long break because she wanted to go to college and earn a degree, which she's succeeded in. But four years... not even a single song in four years and they're expecting the fans to still be there.

This really can't be.

"Dude, I'm out," the young writer said, her hands held up in surrender.

"No, you're not," Jackie said confidently. "We have a contract, remember?"