Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Joey
DFW @BodaciousBuckaroo211
Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Pine is the best “Chris.” Rose murdered Jack. Team Jacob all the way.
54 ?1.4k ?870
I see Dallas’ post as soon as I go to lunch, and I can’t decide what to do. I want to ignore it because interacting with “Buckaroo” as “JoeyB” when I know the truth just feels wrong. But it’s already weird that I didn’t respond to his last post, and my paranoia is rising up, making me think Dallas will get suspicious of me if I don’t respond to this one .
I know it’s ridiculous. No way would he ever figure out I’m JoeyB on his own. Not unless I get careless.
But at the same time, I don’t want to take any chances, so I slowly type out a response.
JoeyB @JoeVSVolcano
Die Hard is most definitely NOT a Christmas movie. Everyone knows Pratt is the best Chris. And Team Jacob? Yeah. It makes sense that you’d root for a man-baby who manipulates people to get his way and throws temper tantrums when it doesn’t work.
0 ?0 ?0
I feel kind of shitty being an ass to him now that I know he’s Dallas. But seriously? Team Jacob? You never know anyone as well as you think you do.
That thought almost makes me chuckle. Almost.
My notification icon flashes red, and my eyes widen when I see he’s already responded. Dallas must be on his lunch break, too. Dragging my fingertip down the screen, I refresh the page to see Dallas’ reply.
DFW @BodaciousBuckaroo211
There you are, Joey. I’ve missed you. And yeah, Pratt is pretty awesome, maybe even more so than Pine. And the Team Jacob bit was a joke. I’m no TwiHard, and I couldn’t care less. But Die Hard IS a Christmas movie, and I’ll die on that hill.
0 ?0 ?0
Did he…just agree with me on something? My eyes widen. He doesn’t know that I know who he is, right? That would mean he knows who I am, too. No. No way. Dallas would’ve said something. I bite my lip and type out a response.
JoeyB @JoeVSVolcano
Did you just agree with me on something? You’re getting soft, Buck.
0 ?0 ?1
My response gets a like from him immediately, and I wait for several minutes before I accept that he isn’t going to reply. But that doesn’t mean he knows who I am. He probably just had to end his break and get back to work. Yeah. That’s it.
There’s no way Dallas knows the truth.
Closing out of the app, I pull up my text thread with Twila and shoot her a message.
Me: Want to come over tonight when I’m done with work? I’ll order Antonio’s.
Twila has a cosmic connection to enchiladas suizas––her words, not mine––and I’m not sure she’d ever turn the dish down for any reason. Especially the ones from Antonio’s .
Twila: I would have come without the gooey, cheesy bribe, but no takebacks! I’ll be there at five-thirty.
Twila: With margaritas.
Me: Perfect. Thanks, bestie.
She sends a heart emoji to end the conversation, and I send one back before closing the app and setting the phone on my desk. I feel a bit better knowing she’s coming over and will listen to me vent about this whole situation with Dallas.
A little one-on-one time with my best friend is exactly what I need.
That, and margaritas, of course.
“Oh, my God. I think I just came.”
I laugh at Twila’s over-exaggerated groan as she shovels another cheese-drenched bite into her mouth. The food is amazing, as always, and I decided to put off the conversation about Dallas until we’re done eating and maybe a little buzzed from the tequila.
“Okay,” she says before licking her fork clean after her last bite, “thank you for dinner. And now that the eating portion of the evening is over, do you want to tell me why you really invited me over? Does this have something to do with the sexy guy across the hall?”
“More like the annoying guy who’s been trolling me for the last year,” I mumble under my breath, but she hears me anyway.
“Aren’t they one and the same?”
Tilting my head back, I groan toward the ceiling. I look back at Twila as I take a too-large gulp of my frozen margarita. My head explodes with an epic case of brain-freeze, and I groan again. Twila waits patiently for me to recover and finally spit out what’s bothering me.
“Dallas posted something on Cackle today at lunch. I didn’t want to ignore it like I did the last one, so I responded with my usual snark…and he was nice about it.”
“What?” Twila asks, more confused than surprised.
“Here,” I say, pulling the thread up on my phone and clicking until it shows only our replies.
I watch Twila as she reads, taking much smaller sips of my drink until her eyes meet mine over the top of the phone. Then she cocks her head and hands the phone back to me before she speaks.
“So, what do you think it means?”
“I don’t know,” I say, dropping the device to the couch beside me. “At first, I was freaking out that he may have somehow figured out it’s me. But Dallas is the type to get things out in the open and talk them through. If he knows, he would’ve brought it up already.”
“Maybe he’s just too happy right now, in real life, to engage in online shit talk,” she offers, and I close my eyes and groan again.
Sure, the thought of making Dallas happy should make me ecstatic, but it only makes me feel terrible. I’m lying to him, at worst, and keeping secrets, at best. No matter which way you look at it, his happiness with me isn’t real. It’s based only on the parts of me I show him.
“You should just tell him, Joey. The longer you keep this secret, the more anxious you’ll get. You’re going to end up blurting out the truth just to make yourself feel better, and then you’ll have to explain how you figured it out and admit how long you’ve been keeping it a secret. Better to just get it all out in the open now, when it’s only been a few days instead of waiting and having to admit you’ve known for weeks or months, right?”
“I know you’re right,” I say on a long sigh, “but knowing what’s right doesn’t make doing it any easier.”
“I think you’re overanalyzing this whole thing,” she says. “You found out he’s your online nemesis, and it didn’t make you want to end things with him. Don’t you think there’s a good chance he’d react the same?”
“I know you’re right,” I repeat, this time a lot more sullenly.
“Of course, I am. I’m a genius.”
“Okay, genius,” I say, more than ready for a subject change. “How are things going with Emerson?”
“Ugh,” she groans, frowning. “He’s started tacking my videos and acting like we’re besties. As if that’s not annoying enough, the videos are getting more views and likes than my originals.”
“Tacking is that thing where you react to a video and it shows them side-by-side, right?” I ask.
I have the BingBang app, but I only really use it to watch, like, and comment on Twila’s videos. I prefer Cackle because I can contribute without showing my face or using my voice. It’s more anonymous.
Which is what got me into this mess in the first place, isn’t it? The anonymity of it all?
“Yeah,” she says, answering my question with a pained nod.
“So, why don’t you tack his videos, too?” I ask.
“Because I don’t think I can successfully pretend I like what he’s doing. My face would reveal how much I don’t like him, and his fans will turn on me. I’m not looking to get doxxed.”
“You’re a better actress than you think,” I say, giving her a real smile. “You made it seem like you loved those vegan cheese puffs you were pushing last month.”
“I only did that because they’d already paid me an advance. You know I don’t usually push products I don’t really like.”
“I know,” I say, offering her a gentle smile.
“Besides, this isn’t the same thing. I’ll never meet that asswipe in real life. You, on the other hand, are having sexual relations with yours, so you need to figure this out.”
“Oh, my God. Please never say ‘sexual relations’ again.”
“Knocking boots?”
“Uh, no.”
“Bumping uglies? Hiding the sausage? Boning? Porking?”
“Stop,” I say with a chuckle.
It feels good to laugh. Some of my stress pours out of me with the sound, and I end up smiling at Twila. She shakes her head to make her curls bounce and grins back at me.
“You’re welcome.” Her smile drops and her expression turns serious. “If you don’t talk to him about this soon, you’re going to drive yourself crazy. Then, you’ll end up doing something you don’t want to do, like cutting things off with him because you’d rather hide your head in the sand than have a difficult conversation.”
“Ouch,” I say, flinching before my shoulders sag. “But valid.”
“I love you, and if Dallas has a single working brain cell, he does, too.”
“He doesn’t love me,” I say, but she continues talking like I didn’t speak.
“He’ll probably be surprised at the coincidence, then laugh it off. It’ll be a funny story you tell your grandkids one day.”
She’s doubling down on the ridiculousness because she knows I need it right now. But what she doesn’t know, what I haven’t admitted to anyone, is that I’m really falling for Dallas. That I think I do love him, and the possibility of losing him fills me with dread.
If I tell him the truth, he could leave.
And Twila is right. If I keep everything buried inside me, I might end up exploding and dumping him before he can do it to me, first.
I need more time to figure this out. A few more days won’t kill me, right?