Chapter 118: Regret And Forget

Jenna’s text arrived at 7:14 a.m., which Adrian considered a hostile act.

Jenna: Your place. Four o’clock. Do NOT let this become a "we should."

He knew the phrase. It was where good ideas went to be discussed forever.

At 3:58 she was on his couch with her laptop open and the first recording paused on a frame of his own face, mid-sentence, utterly serious. A sticker of a sad cartoon peach sat on the lid. Rose had claimed the floor, back against the cushions, her tote at her feet like a dog on duty.

"Forty-one minutes," Jenna said. "Nobody’s watched it. I want a second one by Saturday."

"I’d like to establish whether the first one’s worth showing anyone."

"It’s worth showing." Jenna hit a key. "You were at a hundred percent retention through the bicycle. I checked."

"You checked retention on a video nobody’s posted."

"I imagined it. Rigorously."

Rose turned her pencil over. "I like making it. I don’t want us making things because we think strangers will click." She said it to the carpet, evenly. "That’s how you end up wearing a costume."

"Nobody’s wearing a costume," Jenna said.

"You wrote ’hook’ on the clipboard."

"Hooks are structure."

Adrian did the arithmetic nobody else would. A recording was two hours of setup, one of filming, three of editing, nothing coming in. Three people, a calendar, a problem set with his name on it. "I’m in," he said, "if it’s the kind of thing that justifies Saturday. Not the kind that eats it."

"Fine." Jenna took a breath like a woman counting to ten. "So not a script. A shape. Three rounds, a rough order, no lines."

"And something that needs all three of us," Rose said. "No spectators."

"Rose?" Adrian asked. "Idea?"

She had one. He could tell by how long she took to say it, the careful pause of a person setting down something she’d carried up a hill. "We draw each other. Three minutes. Then we auction the portraits."

"Auction," Jenna repeated.

"With fake money. Whoever bids highest wins it. You have to sell the picture."

"I don’t judge," Adrian said.

"You don’t judge," Rose agreed. "You’re a portrait."

It was a good idea, which was inconvenient. It needed a seller, a buyer, and a victim, and no seat was empty.

Jenna was already typing. "Audience-wise, it works. A hook, a payoff, a bit where somebody loses."

"Visually it works," Rose said. "Charcoal reads on camera. Nobody has to paint a wall."

"Financially it’s free," Adrian said, which made both women look at him with grudging respect.

They filmed at five. The phone sat on the textbooks again, the mic beside it like a bishop. Adrian’s job was to sit still while two women studied his face like a crime scene.

"Stop frowning," Rose said.

"I’m neutral."

"You’re guarded."

"That’s what neutral looks like."

Jenna’s portrait of him took ninety seconds and a sigh. She’d given him eyebrows like awnings and a chin she described, later, as "aspirational." Rose’s took her whole three minutes, in charcoal, and was irritatingly him: the lean, the half-lowered gaze, the mouth she’d caught a second before it did something. He didn’t look at it for long.

Then the auction started, and Jenna’s competitive streak woke up with a roar.

"Lot one." She held up her own drawing of Rose. "Sold at an introductory price of thirty dollars, which is below market, and I’d like that noted."

"Nobody’s bidding on a pigeon," Rose said.

"It’s a portrait."

"It has wings."

"It has dignity."

Rose complicated the second round without warning. "Switch hands." Jenna switched, glared, and bid twice against herself. By round three she was shouting numbers and Adrian was holding a prop paddle like a man holding a hostage’s hand.

Jenna slammed her palm on the coffee table. "Order! We need an auctioneer."

"You’re the auctioneer," Adrian said. "You’ve been bidding against yourself for ninety seconds."

"That’s market research."

"That’s a meltdown."

She pointed the paddle at him. "You’re next on the block."

He raised the paddle. "Fourteen dollars."

"Fourteen?" Jenna turned. "On whose portrait?"

"Rose’s of me. And a favor."

"What favor?"

"Unspecified. To be redeemed at the buyer’s discretion."

Rose’s face did something he hadn’t seen before. It started to laugh and then stopped halfway, as if the laugh had been caught by surprise, and he understood he’d just found her switch: the exact distance between deadpan and delight. It was a lot of power to hold in a cardigan.

"Sold," she said. "To the man who’s afraid of commitment."

"I’m afraid of invoices."

"That’s what the favor is."

"I’m writing that down," Jenna said. "That’s content."

Somewhere in the last ten minutes, he stopped watching the audio meter.

He noticed it at the end, the way you notice you’ve stopped holding your breath. Jenna had let a pause run. Instead of jumping in, she’d waited, a full second, and the line she’d been about to rescue had landed twice as hard. Rose, for her part, had started asking questions she already knew would break him. He answered in the voice of a man giving testimony.

The footage was fifty-six minutes long, and it was a mess.

They watched it on Jenna’s laptop with the volume low and snacks nobody touched. The funny parts were there, scattered like coins in a couch: Rose’s pigeon verdict, the wings, the favor, Adrian’s face when Jenna hit round three. Between them lay long gaps of Jenna reading her clipboard like a ransom note.

"We cut the dead air," Jenna said. "Tight. Fifteen minutes max."

"If you cut every quiet part, we look like three people performing for strangers." Rose pointed with the pencil. "That pause after he bids fourteen. Keep it."

"Nothing happens in that pause."

"His face happens."

Adrian looked at the timeline. He pulled the slider back and forth. "Trim the dead space between rounds. Don’t touch the reactions. They’re the only thing you can’t fake."

"I don’t fake—" Jenna started.

"You scripted a wink," Rose said.

"A suggestion of a wink."

They went clip by clip. Each fight told him something he hadn’t expected: Jenna cut for rhythm, Rose cut for truth, and he cut for the thing that would still hold up on a second viewing. At 9:40 they had fourteen minutes and three people who weren’t entirely happy with it, which, he’d learned, was how you could tell it was theirs.

"I’d put my name on it," Jenna said.

"It’s not perfect," Rose said.

"It’s ours," Adrian said, and heard how it sounded.

Then the argument moved to publishing. Jenna wanted it up while they were still excited. Rose wanted one more viewing. Adrian, who’d said nothing, opened the title field. They could control four things: the title, the thumbnail, the description, and how much money they spent on any of them. They couldn’t control whether anyone watched.

Rose got her extra viewing first, all fourteen minutes, pencil still. At the end she nodded once.

"Portrait Auction (We Are Not Good At This)," he typed.

"That’s a confession," Jenna said.

"It’s accurate."

"It’s honest." Rose leaned over his shoulder. "I’ll redraw the pigeon for the thumbnail. Charcoal. Free."

Jenna looked at the screen a long moment, then nodded. "Plain description. Our names. Three friends, one bad drawing contest."

"No ads," Adrian said. "No extra spend."

"Spend zero," Jenna agreed. "I’m starting to like your face when you say that."

He pressed publish at 10:12 p.m., the cursor hovering over it longer than necessary, like a man mailing a letter.

Nothing happened, loudly.

Jenna refreshed the page at 10:13, 10:15, and 10:16, insisting she was only monitoring the upload. Rose had decided not to care and kept glancing at the laptop whenever Jenna made a sound. Adrian went back to his problem set and found that every line made him check his phone.

At 10:41, it buzzed. He looked at it for a full second before he allowed himself to read.

One comment, under the video, from a username he didn’t recognize. "the pause after he says fourteen dollars and a favor killed me. when’s the next one?"

Nobody spoke. He turned the phone around, and Jenna read it, and her mouth fell open. Not for the views. For the specifics. Someone had watched, laughed at a particular moment, and wanted more.

"They noticed the pause," Rose said quietly. "That’s the part I fought for."

"They noticed the favor," Jenna said.

"They noticed you," Rose said, to Adrian.

He still didn’t treat the channel as an investment. It had been a microphone, three jackets, and a sad cartoon peach. Tonight it was something else: a stranger had given them a reason to continue.

"When’s the next one?" Jenna asked.

"Saturday." He set the phone down. "After we figure out how to do this again without ruining it."

Rose tapped her pencil against her knee. "Don’t turn it into a formula."

"Formulas are how channels survive," Jenna said.

"A formula that notices itself stops working," Adrian said.

They both stared at him. It was possible he’d said something wise. It was more likely he’d said something he’d regret.