7. Rio
seven
Rio
Itold her my name was Ryan because she already knew ColdSaint, but Rio felt like too much. Ryan was the first forgettable thing that came out of my mouth when she asked.
She texted back immediately. I half expected her to leave me on read and make me wait like some girls do when they want you to know they have options, but she didn’t. She answered, and then kept answering, and hours had disappeared before I noticed they were gone.
I’ve had her number for less than twenty four hours and I’ve already read the conversation three times this morning.
Not looking for anything really, just reading it.
How she types, fast and lowercase with no punctuation except when she’s making a point.
How she talks to me like she’s known me longer than she has, like I’m someone she doesn’t have to perform for and I keep getting stuck on that thought because who she is when we talk isn’t how she is in her content or on her streams. This way, she just seems real.
The photo she sent is still on my phone and I’ve looked at it more times than I’m going to admit.
She sent it like it was nothing, like she was just complying, but there was nothing organized about it.
No angle, no lighting, no side of herself she’d prepared for a camera.
Just her hair up, glasses, no makeup, and a shirt that’s two sizes too big.
She doesn’t know what she looks like.
In her content and streams she knows how to look good on camera. It’s clear she’s learned the angles and lighting and when to lean in. But that photo she sent me had none of that and it was the most I’ve wanted anything in a long time because that was her.
The café tried too hard. Exposed brick, Edison bulbs hanging from black cords, and a chalkboard menu with prices that don’t match the neighborhood.
It’s eleven in the morning and there are maybe six people here, all of them on laptops pretending to work while they scroll through whatever keeps them from doing anything productive.
The barista has a nose ring and looks like she’d rather be anywhere else and I can’t even blame her.
I’m at a table near the window with a black coffee I haven’t touched in twenty minutes and my phone is face down on the table. I haven’t checked it in ten minutes because checking it would mean I’m waiting for a notification that might not come, and I’m not ready to be that pathetic in public yet.
The coffee’s gone cold and the barista’s wiping down the counter for the third time.
A guy in the corner is on a video call with his camera off, nodding along to someone he’s clearly not listening to.
I’m starting to wonder if she even comes here at this point.
She’d said in a stream a few weeks back that she grabs a coffee every morning from this place and seeing as how this is the only location in the state, I can’t be wrong. Could I?
As if someone heard my thoughts, the door opens and a redhead steps through and my blood runs warm knowing she’s here.
Remi fucking Rose just walked through the door.
Three feet away and she’s real now. Solid and moving through the same space as me, living outside of my screen with no idea that I’m right here.
My plan wasn’t even to talk to her. I just needed to see her in person, watch her float through a space she considers safe. Not knowing the whole time that she’s being watched by someone like me.
You’d think for as known as she is online, she’d be a little smarter to not have her location on streams and her social media. She can’t be too innocent to know that there’s monsters like me in the world watching her every move.
I just sit there with my hand on a cold cup of coffee and watch her walk past me to the counter and pretend like the last six weeks of my life didn’t just collide with right now and make my chest feel like it’s caving in.
She’s on her phone, thumb moving across the screen like she’s got all the time in the world, completely in her own world and completely unaware that I’m ten feet away memorizing every tell she’s got.
The way her lip catches between her teeth when she’s thinking about something, how she goes quiet when she’s angry instead of just acting it out, the sound her voice makes when she’s close enough to touch.
I’ve spent six weeks learning her in ways she’ll never know, and sitting here watching her move in real time instead of through a screen is making me realize how far gone I really am.
She’s wearing black leggings that sit low on her hips and a cropped hoodie that shows a strip of skin at her waist when walks.
All I can think about is pinning her against something solid and running my hands over that exposed skin to see if she’d pull away or lean into it.
Her hair is down, falling down her back in waves and I want to wrap it around my fist and tilt her head back and make her look at me.
I crave to see her eyes go wide when she realizes I’m not some random player in her lobbies anymore, but someone who’s been inside her head for six weeks.
She’s smaller than I expected and thoughts of how well she’d beg for it dominate my mind.
She orders something complicated, of course. Iced latte with oat milk and an extra shot, caramel but not too much, and the barista nods like she’s heard worse. Remi pays with her phone, taps it against the reader, and steps to the side to wait.
She’s fucking perfect.
Not pretty or attractive …but perfect. Perfect in the sense that makes me want to take her apart piece by piece just to see how she’s put together, to figure out how she keeps looking so untouchable when she clearly has no idea what could touch her.
It makes me want to find the exact pressure point that would make her stop pretending she’s got it all handled.
I’m desperate to know what she sounds like when she’s not performing or if she’d fight me or give in… if she’d hate me for it or thank me after. I want to break her and worship her but I can’t tell which one I want more.
She leans against the counter, still on her phone, and I can hear her voice for the first time outside of a stream. She’s talking to the barista, something about how long the wait is, and it’s the same voice but different. It’s purely just her when she thinks no one’s paying attention.
I’m paying attention, Remi.
Her drink comes up and she takes it without looking at the barista, just grabs it and heads for the door, and we are finally getting to the reason I am here.
I wait and count to fifteen, then I head for the door.
She's already pulling out of the parking spot across the street when I get to my car. I give her half a block before I pull out behind her, keeping two cars between us. She drives like she’s never had a reason to look over her shoulder.
No mirror checks, no hesitation at lights, just moving through traffic like the world has always been as safe as she thinks it is.
It pisses me off more than it should and I note that I’ll have to tell my girl to be more careful.
I stay back keeping my pace as she signals left and I follow at a distance. When she turns onto a street that makes my jaw go tight, I tell myself it's a coincidence. It's a nice neighborhood and a lot of people live here.
Three more turns and the houses get bigger, the yards get wider, the cars in driveways newer, and I know before she slows down exactly where she's going. I know this street and every house on it.
She turns into a driveway and I coast past, pull over two houses down, and cut the engine.
I know this fucking house.
I watch her in the rearview mirror. She gets out of her car, doesn't hurry, drink still in her hand as she walks up to the front door like she belongs there. Apparently, she does, because she doesn't knock, just pulls out a key, unlocks it, and disappears inside with the door closing behind her.
I sit with my hands on the steering wheel and stare at the house I haven't seen in six years.
My father's house.
The house I left when I was eighteen and never came back to.
The house where my mother died and my father disappeared and I learned that some silences are louder than anything you could say out loud.
The house I've been ignoring for six years while my father sends me texts on my birthday and wedding invitations I send back unopened because starting that conversation would mean finishing it, and I don't have the energy for that.
RemiRose. DeadGirlAFK. The girl I've been watching for six weeks and have jerked off to more times than I can count, the girl whose voice I know better than my own at this point… She just walked into my father's house like she lives there.
I sit there for long enough that my hands start to ache from gripping the steering wheel and I have to remind myself to breathe.
There’s no way that…
Fuck.
The wedding invitation.
I pull out my phone and scroll back through my messages until I find the last text he sent me two weeks ago. It was a photo of him and a woman I didn't recognize with a caption that said, 'Thought you'd want to see this.'
I open the photo and the woman is blonde, smiling, and holding a glass of wine. She and my father actually look happy. But standing next to them, just barely in frame, is a girl with red hair which means…
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the seat.
She’s my fucking stepsister.