I stepped into the cab and scooted toward the middle of the seat as Silas shut the door.
Keeping my gaze straight ahead despite feeling Silas’s eyes on me as the driver pulled away, I pulled out my phone and searched for my train ticket. I hoped my phone had enough battery life until I arrived home. I’d forgotten to pack a charger in my mad rush out the door as I’d been too preoccupied with getting to and being with Silas. I didn’t think to borrow his before we drifted off to sleep.
Maybe one day, one of us wouldn’t have to sneak out in the morning like a thief in the night, but until then, I had to acceptthis empty, frustrating-as-fuck feeling as normal whenever we parted ways.
Despite how much I hated it.
I arrived home around one and found Auden working from my kitchen table. Taylor was watching TV, at least out of her pajamas today. I was letting her lounge until her softball camp started next week, another expense that reminded me of how reckless my impromptu trip to see my secret boyfriend had been.
Or forbidden boyfriend. Either term pissed me off.
“Hey, guys. Nice to see you awake, sis.”
Taylor grunted a hello as she burrowed her head into the couch cushion.
“Hey, girl. Have a good trip?” Auden asked with a lilt to her voice.
Taylor had been at a friend’s house when I’d left, so she hadn’t seen me all dolled up in a red dress and lipstick. She was a teenager who noticed more than I liked to think about, but if she’d seen what I’d looked like before I’d left for Boston, finding an innocent way to explain would have made me break out in a cold sweat.
“I had a great trip. I’m still a little worried about him, but he’ll be okay. I hope they win so what’s going on with Becker doesn’t get into their heads.”
I fished my phone out of my purse and plugged it in after I set it on the table next to my work laptop. My phone had died right before my train pulled into Penn so I couldn’t text Silas like he’d asked me to.
“I told Gayle I’d log on late this afternoon just to check in, but no meetings so I don’t have to fix myself.”
“Lucky you. I have a management meeting at four. Who does that on a Friday afternoon? Personally, I come in checked out on a Friday.”
I laughed until I noticed the slew of notifications on my screen and three missed calls from Gayle as my phone chirped back to life.
The alerts were from social media. I didn’t get many notifications other than during a book launch, so to see this many was already unnerving enough to kick up my heartbeat.
I swiped on one and my heart seized. It was a shot of me at the bar next to Silas. You couldn’t see where his hand was, but both of us looked at each other with enough intent not to be innocent.
A sports gossip influencer had tagged my author account in the shot and wrote, “Silas Jones has a hot date as Becker waits to find out if his season is over.”
How had they recognized me? My phone shook in my hands as my vision blurred.
“What’s going on?” Auden asked, gripping my hand. “You look like you’re having a heart attack.”
“Because I am,” I said, my voice quavering from the rapid and sudden increase in my pulse. I went to the next notification, and a surge of panic rushed through my veins. It was a picture of me, draped outside the door of Silas’s hotel room as he approached, the logo on the back of his Bats T-shirt facing the camera.
“R.M. Dioro, an indie romance novelist linked to Silas Jones, has also been identified as Rachel Manning, copywriter for the same PR agency that has put the Brooklyn Bats on everyone’s radar this season. Now that’s what I call doing business.”
It hadn’t even been a full day since that photo had been taken, and I had already been doxed and humiliated.
I slid my phone to Auden, unable to speak, and I let the photos, tags, and notifications speak for themselves.
I didn’t want to know what else they’d seen and posted, and right now, they’d posted enough.
Not only was I seen with Silas, my pen name and personal identity had been linked and shared all over the place, and this was just one platform. Influencers like this always cross-posted over a ton of different sites.
I’d been ready to be caught as Silas and Rachel, but I hadn’t planned on coming out as R.M. Dioro to everyone. I didn’t hide it and would show my face when I had to on my author pages and events, but I had a pen name for a reason.
I could choose who I told about my other career, and while I’d had moderate success as an author, I wasn’t big enough to be recognized on the street or during a work meeting. I’d been happy and comfortable with that and only told who I felt needed to know or who would be supportive and safe.
I wasn’t ashamed of writing romance. I was proud of all the books I’d written and always believed that it was a privilege and a blessing to be able to get lost in the worlds I created. But not everyone viewed romance as the amazing genre it was. I was looked down upon by some and, in some spaces, ostracized by others.
I didn’t want that to extend to Taylor.
