His page was public, and, as predicted, his grid was full of superficial selfies and social pictures.
He had an alarming amount of gym selfies. Usually, I found those pictures a little too try-hard. But, annoyingly, he made them look natural. Just him shirtless or with a tank top, standing in front of a mirror with his signature cheeky smile. No pouts, furrowed brows, or flexing. Granted, there was no need to take that many mirror selfies in the gym, but I had to concede that he looked good. I may or may not have spent an unreasonable amount of time scrutinizing them.
His other pictures showed him wearing expensive, form-fitting suits for work. I always had a thing for men in suits.
There were group shots of him with friends at parties, bars, or hikes. There were no solo shots of him with women - but, oh boy, were there a ton of comments from them.
They ranged from fire emojis to heart emojis; a few even had the tongue emoji with a wet splash.
Gross.
I had gone to exit one of his pictures when the worst thing ever occurred - I accidentally double-tapped and "liked" one of his pictures. And, Jesus Christ, it was a shirtless gym one, too.
My stomach had dropped, and I swore up a storm. I hadn't planned on accepting his follow request or following him back, but I had no choice now. He would've seen the notification on the Lock Screen on his phone, even if I "unliked" it.
So I accepted his request and reluctantly followed him back. To cover my ass, I liked a few of his current, more tame pictures - nothing older than a month. I wasn't completely stupid.
It wasn't long before he had sent me a message:
Simon: Thanks for accepting! And thanks again for letting me stay the night :)
I exhaled at his message. It was...surprisingly nice.
Sofia: Don't mention it.
Simon: Did you manage to square things away with Brad?
Sofia: Who?
Simon: Walmart Boy.
I rolled my eyes at that.
Sofia: BRIAN
I had a feeling he already knew that.
Simon: Right. Brian. So did you talk to him? Is he cool with what happened between us?
Sofia: You mean you getting wasted, being kicked out of your fuck buddy's apartment, and me graciously saving you from the evil clutches of Lissa and having to sleep on the mean streets of New Haven? Yeah, Brian understood.
He didn't reply for a long time.
Simon: Whatever, he drives a Prius
I had rolled my eyes even if I felt a bubble of amusement at his sulking.
I didn't message him back. But the following morning, I woke up to a banner full of notifications.
The fucker had gone through all one hundred and twenty-three posts I had made on my Instagram and liked them. Every. Single. One.
"How's Mama Sefina doing?" Ryan's sudden question pulled me out of my distracted musings. "She still contemplating a move to Trenton?"
"What?" Eden turned to me in shock. "She's moving?"
My friends adored my mom, and the feeling was mutual. When we were younger, we all used to congregate at my house for homework or to hangout. I had fond memories of my mom sitting on our couch, patiently and encouragingly watching Eden, Ryan, and I perform dance routines to the Spice Girls. She was a typical Samoan mom who would overfeed and fret over her guests, and they all loved her.
"No," I quickly replied before hesitating. "Well...at least, I don't think so. I was telling Ryan that Mom's spending a lot of time out in Trenton. My aunt's pressuring her to move out there." I swallowed, feeling like a rock was sitting in my throat. "I feel like she's considering it."
