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I simply didn’t know how to answer Anya’s question. How did I process what I’d just seen on my phone? Shock is funny like that, and fuck, that’s what I was in.
Total shock.
I stared at Anya for what felt like a year. My thoughts were scrambled about as much as the phone that dangled from my hand. That’s what happened when you went through a moment like this—when your life transformed overnight. When you stopped being a relatively anonymous person living in a small town on the outskirts of a medium-sized Midwestern city.
Everything scrambles.
My phone was overloaded. It couldn’t handle the data and interactions coming at it—all the notifications, text messages, direct messages, and tags. They say “RIP to my mentions” online for a reason. When you go viral, it kills you off because it never stops. It takes over everything.
And fuck, we were viral. That really was the best word for it. Viral and... famous.Infamous?
I held up my phone as if Anya would simply know what had happened by looking at it. “We’re everywhere.”
“What?”
She didn’t understand me. But why would she? It was barely six thirty. We’d just had a passionate, intense, unforgettable night together; she hadn’t had any coffee, and I wasn’t giving her a lot of information.I probably sound like a fucking dumbass.
I dropped the phone on the bed. “Someone posted a video of us yesterday at the float competition.”
“Okay.” She walked into the room and handed me a coffee cup, her gaze fixed on me. “That’s not a surprise.”
“It’s everywhere.”
Anya cocked her head. “What do you mean, everywhere?”
“Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook...Daily Mail...”
“What?”
I shrugged, incredulous.What the hell is happening?“And BuzzFeed, The Cut... and probably a bunch of other news sites.”
“No way.”
“I can’t get my browser to load because my phone is full of notifications right now. I think I have about a hundred unread text messages.”
“Because of the float competition?”
“Not the competition. What happened afterward.” I paused. “The argument and our kiss.”
She sat on the bed next to me, the crumpled duvet fanning out around her. “Oh.”
“As far as I can tell, somebody remixed it, edited it a few times, and posted it on TikTok. And that... spread.”
She sipped her coffee, her expression giving me no indication she understood what I’d just said.
“Went viral,” I tried. “You know what I mean?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. For fuck’s sake, this was the last thing I expected to wake up to after such a fantastic night. She’d even confided in me this morning; she’d trusted me, and I’d been enjoying the peaceful bliss that came with waking up in Anya’s bed. This was not the way the rest of the morning was supposed to unfold. “People keep reposting the video.A lotof people.”
“Come on.” She frowned. “We can’t be that interesting.”
I grabbed my phone from where it landed and handed the device to her. “See for yourself. The code is 45612.”
She took it and unlocked the screen, the cup of coffee dangling from the fingers of her other hand. I took it from her and placed it on the nightstand as she attempted to read through my phone. But it didn’t take long for her to see what I did.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “That’s about right.”
