Chapter Three #2
I hit play, watching myself on screen one last time. The lighting was perfect, catching the subtle shimmer as I blended it across my lid. I'd paired it with a soft pink gloss and a cream blush that made me look naturally flushed.
In the video, I smiled as I demonstrated the application, completely unaware that a few days later, I'd be posting it for an entirely different audience than intended.
For him.
Before I could overthink it any further, I hit post and tossed my phone onto the couch like it had caught on fire.
"You're being stupid," I told my empty apartment, though I couldn't stop the smile tugging at my lips. "He's probably not even going to see it."
But if he did?
I paced around my living room, trying to focus on anything besides my phone. I rearranged a stack of sketch books, wiped an invisible speck of dust from my coffee table, and checked the soil in my plants.
Ten minutes. I'd give it ten minutes before checking.
Five minutes later, I was sprawled across the couch, phone in hand, refreshing the post.
Comments were already trickling in, the usual mix of compliments and product questions. Likes accumulated steadily. But no sign of @AdrianCatalyst.
"Of course not," I muttered to myself, a bubble of disappointment forming in my chest. He's a famous boxer. He's probably training or doing something important. Not watching makeup videos online.
My apartment suddenly felt too quiet, too empty. I switched on some music, trying to drown out the hopeful voice in my head that kept wondering if he might still see it and might still respond.
I'd nearly convinced myself to put the phone down when the notification appeared:
@AdrianCatalyst liked your post .
My heart leapt into my throat, and I nearly dropped the phone.
Then, seconds later, a comment:
@AdrianCatalyst: Peaches have always been my favorite. Sweet enough to bite.
A high-pitched sound escaped me, something between a laugh and a gasp.
I clapped my hand over my mouth, staring at his comment with wide eyes. It wasn't subtle this time. It was deliberate, playful, maybe even a little bit dangerous.
And I loved it.
I fell back against the pillows, clutching my phone to my chest, a grin spreading across my face that I couldn't suppress if I tried.
He'd seen it.
He'd commented. He was still playing this game, whatever it was.
My fingers itched to reply, but what would I even say? Thanks? I like being bitten? Every potential response seemed either too casual or too forward.
While I deliberated, another notification appeared, this one a direct message.
@AdrianCatalyst
Better than running away, angel. Though I do enjoy the chase.
By the way, I do the chasing. Don’t respond.
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest. Incredulous, delighted, slightly hysterical.
Was this really happening? Was Adrian, professional boxer and the most eligible bachelor, really flirting with me through comments about peach eyeshadow?
The rational part of my brain, the part that had made me run away in the first place, tried to insert caution. He was famous. He was dangerous. He could have anyone.
But the rest of me, the part that had kissed him first and remembered every second of it, didn't care about rationality .
He was chasing me, specifically instructing me not to respond…
I was floating on a high I'd never experienced before, a giddy, breathless feeling that made me want to dance around my apartment.
So I did. I turned up the music and twirled through my living room, phone still clutched in my hand, giggling like I'd lost my mind. Maybe I had. Maybe Adrian had made me completely, gloriously insane.
I didn't care. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn't thinking, wasn't planning, wasn't reflecting on the past. I was feeling wild and hopeful and alive.
I spent the day in a dreamlike haze, my body still humming with the memory of Adrian's touch.
Everything seemed brighter somehow, the sunlight streaming through my windows, the colors in my paintings.
I curled up on my window seat, sketchbook abandoned beside me, and opened Instagram again.
This time, I switched to my private account, the one where I followed tattoo artists and men with dangerous smiles—the one my regular followers would never guess existed.
I scrolled through my feed with new eyes, past the thirst traps that I usually would have lingered on.
Now they seemed... flat. Two-dimensional. Just bodies without the electricity, the intensity, the raw presence I'd felt with Adrian.
I searched his name again, scrolling through his profile with hungry eyes. There he was in photo after photo. In the ring, at press events, goofing around with his friends.
In each one, that wild energy radiated from the screen. I paused on a video of him training, shirtless and sweaty, laughing as he landed a brutal combination on a heavy bag.
I bit my lip, remembering how that powerful body had felt pressed against mine, how his tattoos had seemed to ripple with life under my fingertips.
Those hands that could deliver such damage had cradled my face with such gentleness.
My phone buzzed with a text from Bailey screaming about a knife-throwing video he’d posted…?
I quickly found his profile again and dug in. Sure enough, there was Adrian in a dark room, casually flipping a blade between his tattooed fingers like it was nothing more than a coin.
Then he launched it across the room, the camera panning to show a perfect bullseye into a target, returning to Adrian's face as he winked at the camera.
The comments were filled with fire emojis and women practically begging him to murder them.
For once, I understood the sentiment completely.
I fell deeper into the rabbit hole, consuming every piece of content I could find: A video of him laughing with his friends, a slow-motion clip of him landing a knockout punch, an interview where he showed up in a pink crop top that made the reporter blush.
Each one peeled back another layer, showing me glimpses of the man I’d kissed silly.
He had nothing on Noah.
The thought came suddenly, a comparison I hadn't intended to make.
But it was true. Noah had been my high school sweetheart, my first boyfriend, the safe choice everyone had approved of, at least at first.
He'd liked me well enough, loved me, in his own way. He'd bought me flowers on the right days, taken me to nice restaurants, and told me I was pretty when I dressed the way he liked.
But he'd never looked at me the way Adrian had, like he'd die if he couldn't touch me.
Noah's kisses never made me forget my own name, and they never left me trembling and hungry for more .
Noah had never made me want to be reckless.
I rubbed my thumb across my lower lip, still feeling the phantom pressure of Adrian's mouth.
Noah and I ended things bitterly after we both stopped making an effort to see each other in college. We just… drifted, I suppose.
The memory still stung, but it felt distant now, like something that had happened to someone else.
Adrian's comment from earlier happily appeared in my mind: Sweet enough to bite.
Heat bloomed in my cheeks as I imagined exactly what his bites might feel like and where they might land.
I never revealed myself as the type of girl who'd be interested in that kind of intensity, that edge of danger. But now, I couldn't imagine wanting anything else.
My phone pinged from Bailey, who sent me another video of Adrian. This one showing him in the gym with his friends, all three friendly as they sparred.
The caption read: What’s a therapy session include without consensual violence?
I watched it three times, mesmerized by the easy camaraderie between them and the controlled power in Adrian's movements.
These were dangerous men who could break bones and end fights in seconds, yet they were also just... friends. Teasing each other, showing off, being normal despite everything about them that screamed extraordinary.
I wondered what it would be like to be part of that world. To be the girl Adrian came home to after a fight, to trace the stories in his ink with my fingertips, to learn what made him laugh, what made him growl, what made him gentle.
The thought was both exciting and confusing. A man like Adrian would never fit into the carefully curated life I'd built for myself. He was chaos incarnate, while I'd spent years making everything perfect and predictable .
Yet I couldn't stop thinking about him. Couldn't stop wondering if he was thinking about me, too.
I closed the app and opened my messages, scrolling until I found Noah's contact. The last message he sent before I blocked him flashed on the screen: I’m sorry I couldn’t be good enough for you.
Those words, half apology, half condescension, still stung a year later.
They were his final dismissal wrapped in fake humility, a way to shift blame even as he'd stopped putting in any real effort long before our end.
The message felt like him throwing his hands up in defeat while somehow making it my fault for expecting more.
In the weeks after we'd broken up, I'd hoped, naively, desperately, that he'd regret losing me.
That he'd come searching with frantic calls and pleading texts, finally realizing what he had carelessly let slip away.
I'd imagined him showing up at my door, wanting and desperate, admitting he'd been wrong about everything.
But he never did. No desperate messages, no late-night calls, no signs that the man I thought loved me had even noticed I was gone. Just silence that stretched on until it became clear he'd moved on without a backward glance.
I'd been wary of Noah's passive-aggressive manipulation, his way of making me feel guilty for wanting more than the minimum he was willing to give.
But Adrian... Adrian terrified me in an entirely different way. He terrified me because he made me want to tear down all my walls, to be reckless and honest and completely, thoroughly consumed.
I found myself hoping, praying, that he would find me again. That this game of comments and likes was just the beginning of something I couldn't name yet.
Something that would finally make me feel alive.