Page 90 of Tricky Business

I frown. I can’t go back to Aspire and see Em every day. As it is, it’s taken every ounce of willpower to stay away from him.

That ache in my chest that I’ve tried to ignore only becomes more insistent. God, is it ever going to get any better? I have to take a deep breath, and the ache slowly passes. I miss him more than I want to admit.

There’s just not a perfect answer. I stand up and walk down the path to where a hotdog vendor has his cart. My stomach is rumbling, and there’s something about eating a hotdog in Central Park that just feels right.

When I approach the middle-aged man wearing the little white hat and green apron, he’s looking down at his phone.

“Could I get a hotdog with mustard and relish?”

He looks up, and immediately, he’s pulling a bun from the bag. Then he stops. And squints.

“You’re her,” he says. “You’re the girl everyone’s talking about.”

I can’t help but laugh. “What girl?”

He moves his finger across his phone before showing me a picture of me. The one I use as my profile picture for BookDragonMaddie. “You’re her, right?”

He sounds so excited, like I’m a celebrity or something. “Yeah, I’m BookDragonMaddie. Do you read romance books?” I know some men do, but it’s always strange when I meet one in real life. Like seeing an albino unicorn or something.

He shakes his head. “What? Romance books? No, there’s a man looking for you. Look!” He points at the billboard I’d seen from the office, and my face is plastered over it with a little tagline that reads, “This is for you, BookDragonMaddie. TheRealEmBrooks.”

What the…? I don’t even pick up the hotdogs. Instead, I pull out my phone and walk back to the bench I’d been sitting on. Is this what the notifications were about?

As soon as my phone turns on, I see that I have over a thousand notifications. I didn’t even know that you could have a thousand notifications. It’s mind-blowing. What has Em done?

I sit down on the bench and ignore the notifications, going straight to ChitChat. My heart’s racing as I look down at the videos on my feed. All of them are duets with a single video. Of Em.

I click the first one, not to watch the duet, but to see Em’s video. When did he start using ChitChat? He doesn’t look like the man I told to leave my apartment. The charismatic smile and radiant energy have faded away to nothing, and I’d have sworn this was a man that’d had the life kicked out of him.

Wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans, he’s sitting on his couch. The wall behind him is new. A deep navy blue rather than the ivory plaster that filled his house before.

My hands are shaking as I hit play. Em immediately begins talking. “I think this is my last video. I thought it would be easy to go viral and get my message across to the only woman I’ve ever loved. I thought I could do what she does so flawlessly. I guess I was wrong, though.”

He runs his hand over his cheek, brushing against probably three days’ worth of stubble. What’s happened to him?

“I’m begging you. Any of you on ChitChat. Help me get my message out there because I’ve tried everything I can think of.”

Emery Brooks, the man that can do anything without a bit of effort, is pleading for help on ChitChat?

“The first video I made is for her, and it’s linked in the comments. I don’t know what to say other than that I love you, BookDragonMaddie. Madison, I promised you I wouldn’t tell you lies, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t make you any empty promises.

“I don’t know if I’m the real me anymore. I’ve stopped thinking about anything else, spending all day trying to sort out who the real me is. So I can’t knock on your door and promise you I’m done with the lies. What I know is that I’m willing to change, to drop the facades.

“I won’t ever expect you to become someone else. All I want is you, Madison. All I think about is you. When you told me to leave, it’s like the sun stopped shining, and my world stopped turning. I love you Madison.”

He gives the camera a broken smile and says, “You can have anything you want in life if you’re willing to sacrifice everything else. I’m willing to sacrifice it all for you. So this is me, signing out and hoping that this message finds you. More than that, I hope that you’ll come back to me. I miss you Madison.”

The video ends and goes back to the beginning, playing on a loop like all videos do on ChitChat. I can’t look away, listening to him beg people to help him, and begging me to come back to him. There’s no mask between him and the world now.

He killed Emery Brooks and broke his own chain.

Chapter 56

Madison

I catch the first cab I can find, telling him to drive to Aspire, and the cab driver turns around with wide eyes. “You’re her. The girl on the videos.”

I smile at him and nod. “Yeah, I’m that girl.”

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