“I don’t think anyone can predict what catches the internet’s attention.”
Katrina clicked on Ross’s profile and scrolled through his tweets, her ire growing as she read. His tweets were either retweets of other people virtually high-fiving him ormore coy acknowledgments about him being the focus of the twittersphere.I didn’t realize I was internet famous til my mom told me, what a trip, haha, she read from one tweet, then clicked to the next.So #grateful for everyone who cares so much about our happiness.She looked to Jas. “Our? Who the hell is our?” She shot to her feet. “Is he implying that we actually went out? Or that it was the love match this... this Peeping Tina spun it as?”
“Seems like it.”
“This is bananas.” She paced and scrolled, and scrolled and paced, growing ever more agitated as she read.
She stopped when she got to a quote tweet.Did you really hook up with her?
And Ross’s gross, coy, winky acknowledgment.I don’t kiss and tell.
Katrina swallowed her bile, feeling vaguely violated. No, not vaguely. Actually, genuinely violated. “I don’t kiss and tell?” She shook her head. She’d been homeschooled for all of high school as she’d moved from modeling shoot to shoot, so she’d missed out on some experiences, but she imagined this was what it felt like to have the most popular guy in school tell everyone she’d gone all the way.
Only on a more massive, global scale. “Do you know what he’s implying? That we...” She dropped her voice. “Hadsex.”
Jas’s nostrils flared. “Yeah. I know.”
“That’s disgusting. What kind of man implies something like that to hundreds of thousands of people?”
It was amazing how much she could hate someone who had seemed so benign.Your body knew not to zing. At least you didn’t go out with him. That’s something.
Jas shifted. “No good man.”
“We were only gone for a couple of minutes! Do these people know how sex even works? Have you everhadtwo-minute sex?” She bit her tongue as soon as she said the words. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth, trying to sidestep from that intrusive question that placed Jas in the same world as sex. “This could have disappeared if he hadn’t revealed his identity. All these people will want to know who I am now, they’re already asking. He fed the beast.”
“You don’t know that.”
She didn’t hear him. “I was having a normal, innocent chat with a stranger. And he and this woman seem fine—possibly even thrilled—about this attention. And they don’t care that I feel...”Terrified.Violated. Exposed.
Furious.
She reached into her pocket, but the rock couldn’t cool her anger now. “It’s not fair.”
Jas came slowly to his feet and braced his hands on the back of a chair. “It’s not.”
“Aren’t you mad?”
“I am. I’m so mad for you.”
But his voice was monotone. His growl told her he was upset about this, but she wanted him toragealong with her. “I want to throw something.”
He picked up his mug, drained it, and then offered it to her.
She scowled. “I’m not breaking your mug.”
“Okay.” He shrugged. The loud crack as it smashed against the wall made her jump.
“The fuck, Jas?”
“It’s not china. Pretty sure my mom got this stuff from a thrift store. In 1998.” He offered her her empty plate. “Go on. Just one.”
She eyed the plate. Before she could overthink it, she grabbed the ceramic plate and threw it on the floor. The crash was intensely satisfying. She looked up at him. “That felt so good. It was amazing.”
“Better than two-minute sex, for sure.”
