Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
EVEREST
I’ve done nothing but lie in bed since waking, replaying the video again and again. I’ve watched the video over and over. My attention isn’t on me, but her. It could’ve been anyone else in the video, my eyes would’ve still been held only by her.
My dorm is dark, quiet, unusually so. Thankfully, Tanner had an early class this morning so he was up and out of the room by seven thirty. I don’t have class or a shift at the gym today so I saw no reason to get up.
I stare at the screen, debating. Do I watch the video again? Do I take a shot in the dark and message her, hoping that she’ll reply?
Our conversation at the carnival was amazing. It was as if we were one person. Our interests are similar, our likes almost identical. She’s the girlfriend I imagine myself having. Even before yesterday our conversations in messages were thrilling.
What am I becoming? Simple. A guy who hasn’t slept, who’s been thinking about one girl far too much. Guilty.
My thumbs hover over my screen. The messaging app on her cam site opens, as I ponder what to say. Then as if on their own my fingers begin to move, rapidly typing out a message.
Immediately I hate everything I wrote. It oozes of desperation.
I hit the backspace, deleting it and start again.
I’ve barely written four words and I’m already hating it.
Again I delete it. I do this over and over for about ten minutes.
Everything sounds wrong—too eager, too intense, too transparent.
But the truth wins out, like it always does with her.
I finally write and hit send before I can second guess myself again.
Me: I can’t stop thinking about you.
Then my fingers are moving, typing another message. I hesitate only a second before pressing send, long enough for my ribs to tighten like something inside me is bracing for impact.
Me: It was… unreal.
I don’t expect her to answer, not right away. Maybe no reply at all.
I’m already rehearsing excuses why she wouldn’t respond back. It’s simple, it was just a contest. We did what we were supposed to and that’s it. We’re back to the relationship we had before. Her performing and me watching.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in my phone and groan.
I look like shit. Like death has found residence in my body.
I can already hear Tanner giving me shit about what I look like and I’m immediately coming up with the reasons—“late homework,” “couldn’t sleep,” anything that doesn’t involve the truth.
But I don’t have to wait. Her response comes almost instantly.
My phone buzzes. A soft little chime. And then—
A photo.
Nothing explicit. Just her, cheeks flushed from God knows what. She’s holding a stick of cotton candy up to her lips, winking—playful, knowing, like she can feel exactly what it does to me through the screen.
My breath catches, but it’s not the same as before. Not heat. Not hunger.
Something gentler knocks into me.
Under the photo she’s typed a message.
Cove: Can’t stop thinking about you either.
I sink back against my pillow, the tension in me dissolving into something warm, something dangerous. My fingers move without thought, the conversation opening like it always did before things got complicated—before the video, the kiss, the rush of everything.
And just like that we fall into a natural rhythm.
Our conversation flows.
Cove: So what’s your favorite song?
Me: Don’t laugh, but I’m a total Swiftie. So if she sings it, then it’s my favorite.
Me: What’s yours?
Cove: FMRN by Lilyisthatyou.
Me: Never heard of them. But don’t judge me, I'm also a lover of 90’s boy bands. Blame my mom for that.
Cove: Hey. I listen but I don’t judge.
A voice memo follows with a clip of her groaning and it goes straight to my cock.
Cove: Here, take a listen and see if you like it.
She immediately sends me a link. But not just to the song. To her playlist. She’s inviting me in to sneak a little peek at her.
We continue to chat about bad takeout—she swears the sushi place by her apartment tried to poison her; while I swear the campus taco truck actually did.
We talk about weird dreams—hers, where she showed up late for a chemistry exam she never took; mine, where I lost my shoes in a supermarket and somehow ended up giving a motivational speech in socks.
Hey, it could happen.
She sends a LOL response and I swear I can hear her laughing in my head. The memory of what it sounded like from the carnival lives rent free in my brain.
She’s not performing for views. She’s not the girl on the camera. She’s just her. The girl who’s captured my heart.
Somewhere along the way the teasing goes quiet. Our messages slow but the content in them deepens, slipping into the kind of honesty people usually avoid.
We talk about our life dreams. If we were afraid of disappointing anyone.
Cove: No one has looked at me like you did. No boyfriend in the past. Random stranger on the street. You looked at me like I was someone. Special. I felt like I was more than the persona I portray on the website. I felt really seen.
Me: Because you are more than that. I’d love for there to be more between us.
I’m past the point of pretending this is casual.
I’m past pretending I didn’t fall for her the first time I saw her on the site. That seeing her in person was everything I wanted it to be. Sex or not.
My pulse thuds in my throat, reckless and loud, as I type the words before I can talk myself out of them.
Me: I’d like to see you again. Even if the cameras aren’t rolling.
I stare at it, thumb hovering, heart pounding so hard it’s almost painful.
Then I hit send.
And all I can do is wait, every second stretching out, every heartbeat its own question.
What will she say? What will this become? And am I ready for the answer?