Chapter Sixteen
Appa
Everything hurts. My shoulders, my back, my legs.
I asked for more from Rook. And he delivered, to the point I almost tapped out, but he read my body well and knew when I approached my limit.
I stretch my limbs, evaluating how sore each one feels.
My shoulders and neck seem the worst. Probably from being slammed into walls and having Rook’s cock forced down my throat.
I’ll make good use of the bath salts he sent me.
Although I haven’t had many, that was the best, most soul-shattering orgasm of my life. And would I redo last night? In a heartbeat.
My bed is warm this morning. Closing my bedroom curtains has become a bedtime habit, as if it’s a ritual to manifest Rook into the darkness. Last night, I must have left the curtains open, so the morning sun is pouring in. It’s all a blur now, and I can’t even remember what I had for dinner.
My sleepy eyes open, and I rub them with the back of my hands out of habit.
A warm breath against my shoulder makes my eyes dart to the other side of the bed.
He’s in my bed. A familiar face that I recognize…
from somewhere. But he’s still here. In the daylight.
I know he’s Rook, given away by his exposed nipple piercings.
I drift my gaze lower over his abs. The white sheet covers his lower abdomen and legs, and he’s an absolute heater in my normally cold bed.
He was soothing when I was in pain during my period, and I can picture him kicking the covers off himself in his sleep.
I reach up to whisk my fingers over his short black curls that rest on the top of his head.
They spring against my fingers and are in a tighter coil than mine.
The sides of his head are faded shorter, which he must get trimmed regularly to maintain.
I trail my fingers down the side of his head, over his faded hair, and down his warm neck.
I glance back at his face. He’s incredibly handsome, and I can’t believe he’s kept himself so hidden from me.
But where do I know him from?
His face is perfectly symmetrical, framed by an angular jawline that somehow still makes his face look soft.
A five o’clock shadow dusts his cheeks and jawline, and I bet he could grow a serious beard if he wanted to.
But I can tell that’s not his aesthetic.
Which is my preference, too. A metallic glint catches my eye—his rook ear piercing.
His lips are perfect, full, not too big for his face, but I already knew that from our shared kisses, even if they were few and far between.
His cheeks are soft, and I resist the urge to graze my fingertips over them.
And then his eyes… He’s asleep, so I don’t know what color hides behind his slightly darker eyelids.
I always knew there was much more to him.
I don’t have to wait long to find out his eye color. His eyelids fly open as if he had been reading my mind in his sleep.
“Robby.”
His name escapes my lips like a whisper. Seeing his dark eyes meet mine transports me back to that night when I went to a frat party looking for someone older to take my virginity. But this man in my bed was in his early twenties at the time and told me to go home.
A tall, dark-haired guy started walking toward me.
Finally. No one else at the party, which reeked of beer and future regret, seemed interested in me.
I stood there all night wondering if I smelled bad or had toilet paper stuck to my shoe.
But the crowd of college co-eds seemed to part to let him through to me, and my eyes rose to take in his height—easily a foot more than mine.
He was a little dorky but hot as hell in a ‘take the glasses off,’ Clark Kent kind of way.
He’d more than do for my purposes. But after opening with a cringe pickup line and telling me my name meant something in Korean, the handsome devil in the buffalo check flannel and too-loose jeans just told me to go home.
He backtracked like he thought I was some little girl who wasn’t ready to handle him.
I always hoped to bump into him again. For the next four years, my stomach flipped every time I saw a tall, dark-haired guy on campus, followed by disappointment that it wasn’t him.
I knew a couple of years after we met, he must have graduated and moved on, but the sliver of hope stayed grad school.
“It was always you,” I say, bringing my hand to cup his stubbly cheek. “This whole time. You were right here.”
“Fuck,” he mutters, sitting up. I prop myself up on my elbows with the sheet still covering my bare chest. His voice is loud without trying to be. I see now why he was always so hushed as Rook. “I fell asleep; I shouldn’t be here.” He stands, but I quickly grab his hand instead.
I’m not getting rejected this time.
My eyes stay locked on his, not dropping them to look at his naked body in the light. “No, no, you can’t leave,” I plead. “Please. I know it’s you from the party. Do you remember me?”
He looks back at me with an absolutely unreadable expression but stops moving. His jaw flexes. “Are you kidding? I’ve been kicking myself for six fucking years for not claiming you then.”
I let the sheet drop from my naked body and sit up, kneeling on the bed to replicate his seated height. “That’s all I wanted then and now.” I return my hand to his cheek. “But why have you been hiding? If I had known it was you…”
He cut me off. “Because you didn’t want me. You wanted Rook.” He looks away and clears his throat. “I’ve been hiding because…” He pauses and exhales loudly. “Of what happened later that year, after we met. I thought you’d think the worst of me.”
I move my hand from his cheek and shake my head. I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
He scoffs. “You just don’t remember. My roommate…he overdosed, and I got blamed for it on social media.” It rings a bell in my mind that a student died during the spring semester, but I never paired Robby with it. “It ruined everything, and I had to disappear. But I never forgot you, Appa.”
“That’s crazy. Come here.” I throw my arms around him and hold him to my body as tight as I can despite my screaming shoulders. “I’m not letting go of you ever,” I whisper, melting into him. He wraps his arms around me, too, and gently squeezes.
Even if it hadn’t happened six years ago, he was destined to be my first. Was I holding out for him subconsciously? I couldn’t have known it was him from the Rook videos, but the familiarity could have been what drew me into Rook’s world. And allowed it to invade mine.
Robby pulls back, studying my eyes. “You don’t hate me? I did so much to you last night.”
“No, you didn’t. It was…someone else.” Robby bites his lip and looks away. “What? What’s wrong?”
“I hated it. I mean, I love the sex, but the force, the roughness. It’s not me. It’s an act,” he says. “I’ve hurt you, and that kills me.”
I shrug and drop my eyes. “The only time you ever hurt me was the first time. Only briefly. But it was to be expected.”
“To be expected?”
“Well, yeah, it was, um, my first time. Ever. When you asked last night if I used my vibrator inside, um, I really haven’t. You’ve been the only—”
“Are you serious right now?” he asks, getting off the bed. He snatches his briefs and pulls them up his legs with more vigor than necessary.
I knew that’d scare him off.
“Don’t leave,” I whisper so quietly I don’t think he could hear my desperation.
He puts his face in his hands instead of dressing further and paces beside my bed. “Are you fucking kidding? Why didn’t you tell me?” He places his hand flat on the wall above his head and keeps the other covering his face.
“Because Rook wouldn’t have cared.”
“Fuck Rook! He’s not even real. I’m ready to post a video imitating his death and be fucking done with him forever!” Robby shouts. He straightens his stance, and his facial expression visibly softens. “That’s not how I would have done it, Apps. You deserved better.”
Apps is a good sign.
“How would you have done it?” I ask quietly.
I made a mistake letting Rook be the first, but it was Robby underneath it—a surprising relief. I shift my eyes downwards toward the mattress, and something black against the white sheets catches the corner of my eye. My eyebrows furrow as I pick up the picture.
“That’s, um…” Robby starts.
I’ll love you forever. Goodbye, Appleygirl.
I flip the picture over, revealing the inside texture of sweatpants and part of his genitalia. It’s a bit from one of Rook’s more recent videos.
“What the hell is this? How do you know about Appleygirl?” I calmly ask despite my empty stomach dropping. I shift my gaze upward to read Robby’s expression, but he’s gone pale. Caught in the act.
He knows my first username ever and was going to dump me via fucking Polaroid. Unbelievable.
My throat goes dry. “What is this?” I ask more firmly this time.
“It was time to shut the Rook chapter for both of us,” Robby gently answers.
“What was your plan? Leave this after everything you took from me and disappear?” I can’t hide my temper as it spikes. But who does he think he is? What kind of fresh hell audacity is this? “I mean, you’ll love me forever?”
“I’ve been obsessed with you since I met you, and I know you’ve been following Rook for a long time, too. I just thought you wanted him, and I can’t be him any longer,” he adds, repeating himself.
I pinch my nose bridge between my eyes. “Then don’t? I knew there was more to whoever Rook was.”
“Let me show you who I really am…”
My eyes dart straight to him. “You’re not going to bail after, right?” I ask.
“No, as long as you want me, Robby, here. I’ll be here for you, Appa,” he breathes like it’s an exhale.
I mean, how do you not immediately swoon?
“Let me show you how I would have made your first time if I had known…” he offers.
I exhale. It’s been a whirlwind of a morning already. “I want to shower first.”