Page 67 of More, Daddy
I don’t like being someone’s goddamn joke, either.
With my food reheating, I quickly open mylaptop but find that Cadence—or whoever the fuck has her computer—is not online. She hasn’t been online since that night, and I don’t know why. Or whywhoeveris pretending to be Cadence hasn’t been online.
Did they finally ditch the laptop? It makes zero sense for them to use it comfortably for months then all of the sudden toss it.
I scratch at the side of my stubbled jaw, wondering what the fuck is going on. Kicking off my boots and hanging my hat on the rack by the door, I shrug out of my suit jacket and plop down on the couch, my meal cooling on the table nearby.
I glance at the laptop next to me.
CCaine is still not online.
I don’t think that’s gonna change, my gut is telling me, so now I’m lost.
I snap on the TV, landing on a college football rerun flickering across local cable. Staring at the screen, my eyes trace the players with a numb, detached haze, but every time my mind loops back to how I fell hard for a stranger—only to be deceived by the one I was falling for—a molten mix of rage, pain, and bewilderment surges through me so intense, I can barely keep my ass on the couch.
Digging my phone from my pocket, I decide to open social media in the hopes of distraction. I know she’s not going to come online—something in my gut is screamingquit fucking waiting, but I keep glancing at the computer, hoping. Because what else can I do? WhoeverDaddysGirlis has me by the fucking nuts, and she knows it.
She has naked photos of me.
She knows who I am.
And I know nothing, not really.
I mean, am I falling in love? How can I know if the love that’s been growing, slowly working to rebuild my soul, is even real ifshe’snot real?
She’s real.
I mean, she’s someone. She’s not a computer.
But who the fuck is she? And did she truly mean everything she said to me?
Sickness ribbons through my limbs and curls my toes in the carpet through my socks. I can’t think about this right now. I have no plan, which is so unlike me and honestly adding to the emotional self-destruction taking place right now.
While having no plan and feeling like I’m going to be sick, I choose a social media emotional spiral, because why not? I pick my poison, selecting Instagram first, and tap. A few new notifications, a few new messages, too. Clicking messages first, I see that Dean sent me a reel of a man smoking three briskets, and underneath the video, he wrote:should I get a smoker?The second reel he sent is of Jake Turner at the farmers market, working at his booth. Beneath that Dean wrote:I took this. He owes me for being his marketing genius, don’t you think?
I quickly type back, and by the time I’ve switched over to my new notifications tab, I don’t even remember what I wrote.
I have a new follow request.
Yes, since I work at a high school, my profile is set to private. The last thing I need are high schoolers knowing that I drank six beers at the county fair last summer, and I surely don’t need them to see that photo of me shirtless at the lake two years ago when Dean, Jake, Hudson and I decided to rent jet skis.
Clicking my follow request folder, my mouth falls open and my brows pull together. My chest rises and falls in silence as I blink at the screen.
CCaine27 wants to follow you.
It’s not the name of the account trying to follow me that has my jaw in my lap. It’snotthe fact that someone pretending to be Cadence continues to play me that has me absolutely motionless and not blinking as I stare at the screen, eyes burning.
It’s what’sbeneathher request.
Three little words that have me absolutely fucked up.
From your contacts.
Thanks to Leah, I now inadvertently know thatDaddysGirlis not Cadence. But had I not stopped off in her office today and been nosy, this right here would tell me.
Because I donothave Cadence Caine’s phone number. No way, no how.
Whoever sent this friend request, whoever is pretending to be Cadence, they either have no clue that their number is programmed into my phone or they don’t know that the app tells me who is already in my contacts.
