Page 66 of His Every Move

I walked along the wooden planks until I saw him.

Damon sat on a bench, silhouetted against the sky. He wore a blue Yankees hoodie and ripped jeans and looked tense, his shoulders hunched forward. He spotted me and stood up, his expression shifting from wary to friendly as though he’d put on a mask.

“You Benji?” He sounded different in person, his tone higher-pitched. It was a surprising contrast to the heavier, bass-filled tone he used when he streamed.

“Yeah, thanks for meeting,” I replied. My pulse pounded inside my head. Everything I’d been going through could be culminating in this very moment. Damon could have all the answers we were looking for. I just had to crack him, had to play this right.

He narrowed his eyes. “You said something about a modeling gig? You scouting people off cam sites now?”

I decided to keep my cover going. For now. “Exactly. You’ve got the look.”

He scoffed but looked intrigued. Good.

“You been streaming for long?” I asked, studying him. I needed proof before I did anything drastic.

“Long enough.” Damon shrugged, flashing me a crooked smile. He really wasn’t bad-looking, although an actual modeling career may not have been in his future, but a restraining order and possible jail time? That was a different story. “Sorry I didn’t come more prepared. I’m taking my headshots next week.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I sat down on the bench and he followed my lead.

How could I fish this out of him? “To be transparent with you, you aren’t the first person I contacted off the website. I’ve also reached out to a few other models. There’s one who’s made it to the final rounds of casting, and we want you to do a chemistry test with him.” This was complete improv, but Damon appeared to be buying it.

“Is this for a commercial? TV show?”

“I’ll tell you a bit more once we get closer to the audition. For now, I want to know if you would work well with him. EliGoldStroke is his username.” I watched his face for any changes. He remained surprisingly neutral.

“I think we would get along. I mean, I’ve never met him in person. Just interacted with him a couple of times.”

He wasn’t exactly lying, but that wasn’t the full truth, either. Damon had interacted with Eli far more than just a “couple of times.” I had to push a little harder. “We’ve already chatted with him. He says that you two have a history but wouldn’t expand. And we really like your look, so we wanted to just make sure things were clear.”

He paused and started to bite his nails. “I mean… I guess? This is feeling a little invasive, honestly. Is this even part of the audition?”

Fuck. He was starting to catch on. Of course he was. I was drunk and emotionally drained, my mind fired on zero cylinders. I came unprepared. I fucked up. I was a terrible fucking detective.

I had to try and salvage this.

I had to cut straight to the chase.

“So you haven’t been stalking Eli through burner accounts named Nomad, then? Because the obsessive chats on different message boards, the long articles written about him, the DMs you sent to him asking him to collab first, then turning on him, all of that isn’t real? That’s a clever name, by the way. Did you pick it randomly?”

He hesitated, thick black brows slamming together. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s just interesting. It’s Damon spelled backwards, right?”

His expression hardened. I saw a spark of anger ignite behind his eyes. “Who the fuck are you, really?”

“Someone who’s done playing games,” I said, voice dropping dangerously low. My own anger was barely contained beneath the surface. Eli’s hurt face flashed before me, reigniting my rage. “Were you at the Broadway theater the night of the bomb threat?”

Damon’s eyes widened with shock, then narrowed with defensive fury. “What the fuck are you talking about? Broadway? Bomb threat? Are you insane?”

My chest was tight and breathing shallow. “Answer the fucking question.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped. “What night are you even talking about?”

“Last week. Sunday.” I clenched my fists, trying to stop the ground from spinning, both from anger and alcohol.

“I was streaming that night. I always stream on Sundays. Check my damn channel. Why the fuck would I even bother with a bomb threat?”

“Because you’re jealous of Eli. Jealous he’s always at the top. Jealous he’s got everything you don’t. And even though you’re jealous, you also want him. And now that you see he’s happy with someone else, you want to ruin that. It’s classic stalker behavior.”

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