Page 8 of Just Between Us

The kitchen light blinked to life, casting a glaring yellow fluorescence across the small kitchenette. I padded to the refrigerator, untucking my blouse from my skirt and rolling my shoulders.

The sad fridge held a few green olives, some peppered turkey slices, and half a loaf of sandwich bread. I was too exhausted for a trip to the grocery store and attempted to make do with the offerings of the local convenience store in town after work.

I arranged the sad contents of the fridge onto a small plate and uncorked the half-full bottle of white wine from last night.

Girl dinner it is.

Once that first check from JP King cleared, I was giving myself an upgrade. The fact he didn’t balk at my negotiation irritated me—I should have asked for more.

Still, after the humiliation I’d faced in Chicago, havinganyposition was a stroke of luck in my favor.

Our circle in the business world was impossibly small, and people liked to gossip. Sharks in the water could always smell blood.

With my pathetic attempt at a charcuterie board and a paper cup of white wine, I plunked myself onto the couch and flipped on the television to drown out my neighbor’s episode ofLaw & Order.

When nothing caught my attention, I took another sip of wine and eyed my phone.

That’s one way to kill time.

Nerves and curiosity tickled my belly. It had been a year since I’d first logged on to the Pulse app. No one could escape hearing murmurs of the app’s appeal. It seemed like, overnight, people had flocked to the app and launched it into a resounding success.

I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about ... until I stumbled on a small corner where everything changed.

I nibbled my bottom lip as my index finger hovered over the icon.

Would he message me again?

One lonely night after a particularly hard day at the office, I was scrolling, a little tipsy, and had fired off a rude comment. To my dismay, the creator actually responded. His messages were witty, and he didn’t shy away from the bitchy banter I dished out.

He didn’t need to know that part of the reason his content annoyed me was how fucking hot it was. On his main page, he didn’t take off his clothes like some of the other creators, but rather, he talked. Sometimes it was subtly sexy; other times it was him pretending to simply inquire about the day. He’d give motivational snippets, and before long I found myself logging on and watching before work, just to add a little pep in my step and feelsomethingbefore I headed to the office.

How dare he.

I opened the app, and a hum of excitement danced through me when I saw the little red icon indicating a new video for me.

Well ... for me and the thousands of other sad, lonely women who were pathetic enough to pay for a fictional man to be nice to them.

It had started as nothing more than a challenge.All you had to do was ask nicely.

Mr.Right.Nowoffered a code to access his exclusive content—content that was oftentimes spicier than the motivational morning messages on his main content page.

MsBlackCat:If you need to meet your code gifting quota, I can pretend to be impressed.

My bristly response didn’t scare him away. He sent the access code and nothing else. The next day there was a video waiting, and I fell down the rabbit hole of a suit-wearing sex god covered in an ungodly number of tattoos.

No man had any right to be that freaking hot.

It had been a few days since I had last logged in, and my fingers tingled as I wondered what waited in that inbox. I knew from experience that the videos he shared privately were different from his main content. His exclusive content was magnetic and mouthwatering. My thighs squeezed together in anticipation.

Deep down I knew logging on and watching his videos was a crutch—a way to zone out and not feel my way through my pathetic, empty existence, but I didn’t care. There was something exhilarating and wrong andhotabout having this tiny piece of myself that no one was privy to. I didn’t admit aloud how tragic it was, but so many times it felt as though he was speaking directly to me.

On an inhale, I opened the message.

The room he was in was dark, but his bare chest was illuminated by some kind of background lighting. He was sitting on his couch, a white dress shirt unbuttoned and a pair of black slacks hugging low on his sculpted hip bones. The clasp of his slacks was undone. The zipper dangerously low.

I had no idea what his face looked like, but over the months I’d memorized every single tattoo.

The dagger on his finger.Red flag.

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