Chapter 4 #4
“Take a look at that body,” Bailey said, showing us the relevant Tyler’s Instagram.
His profile was nothing but a succession of shirtless pics: in a swimsuit, at the gym, with friends at the club, with beautiful women, even in the mirror.
And in all of them he wore the same narcissistic smirk.
It made him look like an immature boy showing off his make-believe virility.
Nope, absolute reject.
“Just your average self-absorbed clown,” Janel said, and I agreed wholeheartedly. “Let’s see what your lover boy is posting instead. What’s his full name?” she continued, making me grimace.
A warm flush made me blush terribly. I realized I had no idea what kind of photos he might have on his profile.
If there were a ton of shirtless ones or any that featured his firm ass, I probably wouldn’t have been able to handle the kind of filthy commentary my friends typically reserved for the hottest guys on our campus.
I shook my head. What was I doing? Was I getting jealous over the idea that my best friends might see some pictures of Mr. Disaster all while other girls were very likely rubbing up on him in a bed somewhere, enjoying him in a much more indecent fashion?
I hesitated for a moment, but Janel was insistent, so I told her, “His name is Neil Miller.” I sighed in defeat.
“Hmm… Let’s see…” she murmured thoughtfully.
I’d never used social media to find out about someone, and, in that moment, I felt like a teenager with a powerful crush desperately trying to figure out what the object of her affections got up to in her absence.
“If your guy isn’t old, bald, or pudgy, I think we can rule out a lot of these profiles,” she muttered, flicking through the many Neil Millers on Instagram.
“This one says Neil David Miller. Could that be him?” she asked, but I couldn’t tell her for certain.
I didn’t even know if Neil had a middle name.
“Let me see.” I leaned over to peer at the screen and see if the profile she’d identified was the right one.
There were no body shots or face pictures on that page, the way there had been with Tyler and all the other guys my friends followed on Insta.
In fact, there were only a few images: a perfectly captured sunrise just as the colors were shifting from night to day; a building that looked more like a hand-drawn image than a photo; and the third was of a hand with a steel ring on the middle finger, holding a cigarette over a skull-shaped ashtray.
That was the one that told me for sure we had found the correct Neil.
“His profile’s weird…” Bailey noted. “But, fuck, check out those hands,” she added in a whisper, captivated by the thick, raised veins beneath the amber skin on the back of his hand.
I didn’t say anything, but even I, with my specific tastes, could appreciate the masculinity exuded by Neil’s hands.
Then, I looked back at the rest of the photos.
The fourth one was of a woman’s butt in a G-string.
Someone poured vodka over her while male fingers tugged at the almost invisible string of her thong.
It was a typical straight-guy picture from someone who definitely liked women.
And Neil was that, maybe too much so.
“He has a lot of followers, but he’s only following six people,” Janel pointed out as my attention was drawn to the final photo.
It was of a bookcase in a bedroom with one book turned cover facing out: Women by Charles Bukowski.
Neil’s favorite author. A small smile spread across my face as I remembered when I’d learned that about him.
Neil’s bookcase was full of important works, including many by or about Bukowski.
I recalled how much effort it had taken to get him to “talk” to me about such simple yet personal subjects like literary tastes.
For Neil, talking about his passions, his pastimes, and his taste in anything was infinitely more intimate than getting naked with various women.
His concept of “sharing himself” was an odd one. He would share his sexuality but nothing else. He hoarded himself as though letting go of even a piece of his soul would destroy him and upset the reality he’d created around himself.
“He seems like a private kind of guy…” Bailey said, before grabbing her phone so she could navigate back to Tyler and his ripped muscles.
I had no doubt that Neil could show off his body if he wanted to make men jealous and women horny, but he didn’t seem to put much stock in appearances. Even his profile picture was just a hand holding a pencil. Nothing more.
Unlike the other hot guys, he didn’t like to expose himself. Or, at least he didn’t like to do it in photos. I’d seen him put on enough obscene theatrics to know that he was also an egomaniac in his own way.
A decidedly more twisted way.
“So are you going to tell us how you met him?” Janel asked, following him with her own account.
I saw the rapid little movement of her thumb, though she was trying to be sneaky so I didn’t notice.
She’d decided to follow him even though she had no idea how beautiful or how magnificent he really was.
I could only imagine what she would have done if I’d been able to show her what he actually looked like.
“He’s the oldest son of my dad’s girlfriend, so…” I said it like it was the most normal thing in the world, though I was still filled with doubts.
“So you met him because of your dad? Damn, Matt actually did something right for a change!” she joked, well aware of the conflicted relationship I’d always had with my father.
“Is he cute, at least?” Bailey asked curiously.
Cute?
I was sure these girls had never seen anyone like Neil before in their lives.
He wasn’t like the heartthrobs they ogled at college.
His beauty was a gift from God and his body had been crafted with constant training.
He was six feet four inches of sculpted contours with proportions that looked like they’d been handmade by an artist. Perfectly balanced, clean lines, simply exceptional.
Neil had all the physicality of a virile, carnal, seductive man, characteristics that were hard to find all together in one person.
“So do you have his number? Have you guys been in touch?”
I sighed, trying to suppress my irritation at the knowledge that Mr. Disaster hadn’t sent me a single text, even though he definitely knew I was out of the hospital.
“No. He disrespected me on several occasions, and I decided to leave New York because the situation between us was getting too destructive for me.”
Seeing him with Jennifer had been the final straw.
Sure, the anonymous girl in the pool house had shocked me, but it was Jennifer that I hated the most. After all, she was the one who had told Jared everything and she was the one who had beaten me in a jealous rage. I should have been expecting something like that from her.
“Oh, fuck.” Janel was gobsmacked. Bailey, on the other hand, just shook her head.
“If you have his number, why not call him?” she suggested.
“Just talk to him. Clear the air with the asshole because running away won’t solve anything.
” She gave me a shrug, and it occurred to me that this might be a solution to my problem under normal circumstances.
But my friends had no idea how far Neil had gone.
They knew nothing of the diabolical side of him that drove him to do terrible things with zero shame.
Neil wasn’t going to change. Not for me or any other woman. He had shown me who he really was, and I had chosen to leave precisely because I knew I’d never be able to handle a man with problems as enormous as his.
I rubbed my forehead and shook my head.
Too many thoughts, too much paranoia, and too much meditation on this would only make my mood worse.
“Yeah, you should call him,” Janel suggested, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“No way,” I said decidedly.
“But why not?” Bailey pouted.
Because it would make me look like a naive girl, that’s why.
I had already compromised my dignity and my pride each and every time I cried out for his body.
I had indulged all of his desires because I thought we’d made a deal: Every time I gave him something of myself, he had to tell me something about himself.
And I’d believed that was the right thing to do.
I believed it right up until Halloween night.
“Oh, gimme your phone. I’ll do it for you.” Janel took advantage of my distraction to make a grab for my phone. I felt a moment of panic but came to my senses when I remembered that I’d never actually put his number into my phone.
I smiled victoriously because I knew Janel would be searching my contacts in vain.
But then she waved the phone in front of me, the screen displaying the text messages I’d told her about, and I blanched.
She scrolled up to the number and immediately called it.
I lunged for the phone, but Janel got to her feet and fled from me like a gazelle.
“No!” I cried in defeat.
Janel put the call on speaker, and the sound of the first ring echoed around the living room. Bailey bit her lip, amused, but I immediately began to panic.
What was I supposed to say to Neil? How was I going to justify calling him now? I began to hope that he would hang up or just not even answer.
I leveled a glare at Janel. “I’m going to look like a child,” I said, reduced to a whisper by this juvenile, embarrassing behavior.
He always called me “Babygirl,” and now I was going to give him one more reason to continue doing so.
Bailey got up off the carpet and then sat down next to me, pulling her knees up against her chest. Janel remained standing with one hand on her hip, and her eyes rolled up toward the ceiling, bored with waiting.
Ring number four, and still nothing.
I was just about to breathe a sigh of relief—he wasn’t going to answer. Perfect! We could all forget about this moment of insanity, and I could come out of it untouched by any hypothetical embarrassment.
But fate was not on my side because, on the sixth ring, Neil answered.
“Hello.” His voice resounded off the walls, like he was right there in front of us. All three of us gave a stupid little start, and Janel quickly pushed the phone into my hand. She stifled a delighted laugh as the deafening silence settled in around us.
All it took was one simple five-letter word, and the authority Neil exuded had put a halt to my friends’ puckish mood.
I stared at the number that appeared on the phone screen and didn’t utter a single word. My lips fell slightly open. He was on the other end of the line; I could hear his impatient sigh while, meanwhile, I couldn’t breathe at all.
Interminable seconds went by. Seconds when I held my breath, seconds when the earth seemed to stop spinning. Even it was waiting to see what would happen.
I looked to Janel, completely embarrassed and totally unable to explain how his voice sent shivers of fear and pleasure through my entire body. I moved my thumb over the screen and did the first thing that came into my mind: I hung up the call.
I really just hung up on him.
Now I was truly acting naive!