Rumor Has It (Limelight) by Elisabeth Grace

Are you crazy?” Katie asked.
    “Have you forgotten what my life has been like since that video came out? I can’t even go on social media for fear of what people are saying about me. The last thing I want is to be dating someone who makes that kind of attention look like a drop in the bucket.”
    “If that was me I’d be all over it. All over it if you catch my drift,” Katie said.
    “Drift caught,” I deadpanned.
    I looked over to Skye who had finally recovered from her stunned state and was sipping her drink through a straw; the level of the drink going down and down, without her taking a breath.
    “You must understand where I’m coming from?” I asked her.
    “I’m still processing over here. I can’t believe you’ve been dating a real celebrity,” she said.
    “I’m not dating him. Haven’t you been listening to me at all?”
    “Okay, whatever. Past tense then,” Skye said to mollify me.
    Katie piped up again. “Come on, Skye. You can’t really think she has a good reason not to date this guy?”
    I looked to Skye to back me up. She looked sheepish. It seemed I was outnumbered.
    Skye spoke to Katie. “Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is. I can see she likes him…a lot. So what if he’s a celebrity? He’s only here for like, what, a month or something? Why doesn’t she hang with him while he’s in town and have some fun?” Skye asked.
    “Exactly. It’s not like they’re going to end up on the front of US Weekly as the celebrity couple of the year. They’re not going to be walking red carpets together,” Katie said. “It’s this whole video thing that’s got her so freaked out.”
    “I know. And I get it, but it shouldn’t hold her back from enjoying her life,” said Skye.
    “Exactly. If it does then every asshole who wrote some idiotic comment about her without knowing her wins,” Katie said.
    “And you can’t let assholes like that win,” Skye agreed.
    Apparently I’d been dismissed from the conversation. I sat back in my chair and sipped my drink while they continued to discuss me as if I wasn’t there.
    A part of me knew they were right. How much press could we really get hanging out in his beach house for a few more weeks? More than anything I didn’t want to end up in the news, on the internet or wherever else gossipmongers posted their shit; but we didn’t have to go out in public.
    Another part of me, which I’d refused to acknowledge up until now, worried that Katie had nailed what was really holding me back. I didn’t have any illusions that I could hold a candle to the women Mason must associate with in his normal life. Don’t get me wrong. I had self-confidence. Before a bunch of random strangers decided to have an opinion of me on every social media channel available I’d had quite a bit. For a regular girl I was attractive, but I didn’t come close to the models or celebrities Mason was used to.
    Once Mason’s time in Virginia Beach was over he’d be wheels up and back to his regular life, with me only a vague memory. Was that what I was really afraid of? That I’d fall too deep to shrug off our time together and move on with my life?
    Damn, I didn’t know. My mind was moving a mile a minute and Katie was still going on to Skye about how swoon-worthy Mason was. I’d have to sort my own thoughts out later.
    “So you’re both saying that I should keep seeing him?”
    “Yes!” they said in unison.
    “What about the press?”
    “Screw the press,” Katie said. “Stay inside. And horizontal, I say.”
    I laughed. You never had to wonder what she was thinking.
    “At least consider it. How often do you meet someone like him? It’d be a great opportunity to get past the shit-head you dated last,” Skye said.
    Shit-head being my co-star in the infamous video.
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “I’m just gonna put it out there...if you do sleep with him, I want a full debriefing,” Katie said. I raised one eyebrow at her. “What? I have to