“If your guy isn’t old, bald, or pudgy, I think we can rule out a lot of these profiles,” she muttered, flicking through the many Neil Millers on Instagram. “This one says Neil David Miller. Could that be him?” she asked, but I couldn’t tell her for certain. I didn’t even know if Neil had a middle name.
“Let me see.” I leaned over to peer at the screen and see if the profile she’d identified was the right one.
There were no body shots or face pictures on that page, the way there had been with Tyler and all the other guys my friends followed on Insta. In fact, there were only a few images: a perfectly captured sunrise just as the colors were shifting from night to day; a building that looked more like a hand-drawn image than a photo; and the third was of a hand with a steel ring on the middle finger, holding a cigarette over a skull-shaped ashtray. That was the one that told me for sure we had found the correct Neil.
“His profile’s weird…” Bailey noted. “But, fuck, check out those hands,” she added in a whisper, captivated by the thick, raised veins beneath the amber skin on the back of his hand.
I didn’t say anything, but even I, with my specific tastes, could appreciate the masculinity exuded by Neil’s hands. Then, I looked back at the rest of the photos. The fourth one was of a woman’s butt in a G-string. Someonepoured vodka over her while male fingers tugged at the almost invisible string of her thong. It was a typical straight-guy picture from someone who definitely liked women.
And Neil was that, maybe too much so.
“He has a lot of followers, but he’s only following six people,” Janel pointed out as my attention was drawn to the final photo.
It was of a bookcase in a bedroom with one book turned cover facing out:Womenby Charles Bukowski. Neil’s favorite author. A small smile spread across my face as I remembered when I’d learned that about him. Neil’s bookcase was full of important works, including many by or about Bukowski. I recalled how much effort it had taken to get him to “talk” to me about such simple yet personal subjects like literary tastes. For Neil, talking about his passions, his pastimes, and his taste in anything was infinitely more intimate than getting naked with various women.
His concept of “sharing himself” was an odd one. He would share his sexuality but nothing else. He hoarded himself as though letting go of even a piece of his soul would destroy him and upset the reality he’d created around himself.
“He seems like a private kind of guy…” Bailey said, before grabbing her phone so she could navigate back to Tyler and his ripped muscles.
I had no doubt that Neil could show off his body if he wanted to make men jealous and women horny, but he didn’t seem to put much stock in appearances. Even his profile picture was just a hand holding a pencil. Nothing more.
Unlike the other hot guys, he didn’t like to expose himself. Or, at least he didn’t like to do it in photos. I’d seen him put on enough obscene theatrics to know that he was also an egomaniac in his own way.
A decidedly more twisted way.
“So are you going to tell us how you met him?” Janel asked, following him with her own account. I saw the rapid little movement of her thumb, though she was trying to be sneaky so I didn’t notice. She’d decided to follow him even though she had no idea how beautiful or how magnificent he really was. I could only imagine what she would have done if I’d been able to show her what he actually looked like.
“He’s the oldest son of my dad’s girlfriend, so…” I said it like it was the most normal thing in the world, though I was still filled with doubts.
“So you met him because of your dad? Damn, Matt actually did something right for a change!” she joked, well aware of the conflicted relationship I’d always had with my father.
“Is he cute, at least?” Bailey asked curiously.
Cute?
I was sure these girls had never seen anyone like Neil before in their lives. He wasn’t like the heartthrobs they ogled at college. His beauty was a gift from God and his body had been crafted with constant training. He was six feet four inches of sculpted contours with proportions that looked like they’d been handmade by an artist. Perfectly balanced, clean lines, simply exceptional. Neil had all the physicality of a virile, carnal, seductive man, characteristics that were hard to find all together in one person.
“So do you have his number? Have you guys been in touch?”
I sighed, trying to suppress my irritation at the knowledge that Mr. Disaster hadn’t sent me a single text, even though he definitely knew I was out of the hospital.
“No. He disrespected me on several occasions, and I decided to leave New York because the situation between us was getting too destructive for me.”
Seeing him with Jennifer had been the final straw.
Sure, the anonymous girl in the pool house had shocked me, but it was Jennifer that I hated the most. After all, she was the one who had told Jared everything and she was the one who had beaten me in a jealous rage. I should have been expecting something like that from her.
“Oh, fuck.” Janel was gobsmacked. Bailey, on the other hand, just shook her head.
“If you have his number, why not call him?” she suggested. “Just talk to him. Clear the air with the asshole because running away won’t solve anything.” She gave me a shrug, and it occurred to me that this might be a solution to my problem under normal circumstances. But my friends had no idea how far Neil had gone. They knew nothing of the diabolical side of him that drove him to do terrible things with zero shame.
Neil wasn’t going to change. Not for me or any other woman. He had shown me who he really was, and I had chosen to leave precisely because I knew I’d never be able to handle a man with problems as enormous as his.
I rubbed my forehead and shook my head.
Too many thoughts, too much paranoia, and too much meditation on this would only make my mood worse.
“Yeah, you should call him,” Janel suggested, snapping me out of my thoughts.
