Page 31 of Breakup Games

“You sleep okay last night?”

It took me a while to fall asleep last night, and my fear of laying in bed, unable to fall asleep while my mind whirls, is something I’m still working on. “Yeah,” I say. And I did sleep well…once I finally fell asleep. “You?”

“I sleep like a baby. A naked one.”

I just make a face, trying my best not to imagine Mason naked. I fail. “So…why are you here?”

“Ah, straight to the point. I like it.” He gets something from inside his jacket pocket and gets up, coming to my desk. “To give you this, for starters.”

“Uh, thanks?” I take the brand new iPhone from him and cock an eyebrow.

“It’s your new phone,” he starts. “Check it out. Passcode is zero-one-seven-five-five-seven-seven. You can change it to something easier to remember.”

I tap the screen and lean back in surprise when I see a picture of myself on the screen. I’m standing next to Thor…only it’s not us. Because I’ve never taken him trail riding in the woods.

“The fuck?”

“What you said about your social media got me thinking, so I had our tech department set something up. Mya has an Instagram, a Facebook that’s pretty locked down on private, anda TikTok. You’ve only posted a few horse videos and mostly repost things about horses.”

I unlock the phone and open Instagram, ready to tell Mason nice try, but it’ll be really obvious when all my social accounts were started today. But there are two hundred posts on “my” Instagram, dating back years. Most are photos of places I “traveled” to and there are photos of me dating back five years.

“How?” I ask, slowly moving my head back and forth.

“I’m a federal agent.” He says and winks when I look up and meet his eyes. “I can’t give away all our secrets.” He looks down at the phone. “The number you were using is already set. If Enzo texts or calls, it’ll go to that phone.”

“Wow. Okay, I’m starting to think those spy movies aren’t so far off.”

He laughs. “Some of them are, and some are behind in what we can actually do. I actually cannot tell.”

“It’s good to know our national security secrets are safe with you.”

He settles back on the chair and puts his feet on the coffee table.

“What are you doing?”

“I booked a session,” he starts. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I’m feeling?”

I narrow my eyes. “No. I’m busy.”

“I’m a paying customer?”

“Really?” I click over to his file. “Because it says here your insurance is covering this.”

He shrugs. “Good thing the US Government takes mental health seriously.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Fine. You want me to treat you like a real client then I’ll go over an intake form with you.”

Letting out a dramatic sigh he rolls his neck to the side. “You don’t look busy.”

“That’s because I’m sitting here talking to you,” I shoot back and pick up the phone again, scrolling through the rest of the Instagram photos. “The photoshopping is really good.”

“They were done by the same person who puts out all those UFO photos that get “leaked” anytime Big Brother wants to distract the public from what’s really going on.”

I laugh again, looking up for a moment. My eyes meet Mason’s and my smile grows as something rushes through me. I’m starting to like him—as a friend, of course. Nothing more.

“You could have just taken photos from my real profile, but those could be traceable.”

“Exactly. You’re just different enough not even facial recognition software would like you.”

---