Page 30 of Gluttony

Furrowing her brows, she hummed.

There were no updates; nothing new had been uploaded in days, not since his tattoo.

“Huh. What the hell?” Shaking her head, she scrolled, thinking there was a glitch and the feed was broken, but…. No, there was nothing new. “What does that mean?”

Had he…?

No. Not possible; the man thrived on praise from strangers, he couldn’t go a day without posting something that would get him likes and comments.

Speaking of comments….

She returned to the two pictures of his tattoo, and the comments had exploded. There were 2,000 plus people trolling the comments—many were thirsty women commenting on his body, many were bitches talking shit about her, a woman they didn’t even know, and there were some who’d actually boasted about being the women in his previous videos. Those were the ones she couldn’t peel her eyes from—because of her stupid ability to remember things she’d seen, she recognized the women…and she knew exactly which hair tie belonged to each one.

God, she was a fucking looney toon, using her mutant mental powers for evil.

Shaking her head, she tried to pry her eyes from the comments, but she couldn’t stop her mind from connecting the dots…err…hair ties, and with each dot connected, another pang hit her chest.

Each of those women got a piece of cake that was meant to be hers, a piece he’d gladly given away.

I’ll wait for you, my Daisy….

Why couldn’t she get over him?

It’s only been a few days, it’ll take time….

How much time?

She didn’t know, she had no experience suffering and then healing from a broken heart—she was still dealing with her mom’s death. She did know, however, that cutting him off had been the right decision. Right?

You should have made him beg for forgiveness…on his knees…in broken glass…naked….

Shuddering at that thought, she closed out the app and tossed her phone on the counter.

No, it was better to never speak to him again…even though it felt like she’d pulled out her fingernails one by one, then peeled lemons.

That stupid voice returned,aren’t you being a little unreasonable? Yeah, he hurt you, but did he really betray you? You weren’t together, not a couple…and you only have yourself to blame for that. You let your fears keep you from being with him IRL.

Her stomach churning, she turned off the stove, ignoring the boiling water and unopened packet of ramen.

She’d lost her appetite…and apparently her mind.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought about it before, but it took driving all the way into Dalton, a forty-minute ride from the clubhouse, to remember something Val had mentioned during one of their first conversations. His woman loved the convenience of ordering her groceries online and then having them delivered. She said it made her feel like royalty to have someone wait on her, hand and foot.

“Yes, they’re paid to do it, but I feel like a grocery VIP when I have them bring me garbage bags and tampons at 6 AM.”

If he knew Valentina—and he fucking did—she was scatter-buying, which meant she wasn’t making lists and buying her month’s groceries in one order; she was shopping purely by immediate need. Why? Because she was stressed by what he’d done, and when she was stressed, she purchased random items. It was a quirk of hers he’d gladly encourage, if it made her happy.

He could remember an instance when she got stressed about something she was working on, and ended up buying bean dip, Fritos, orange soda, and baby powder one night, then another instance where she ordered Doritos, ground beef, tater tots, and paperclips two nights later—she bought what she felt she needed in the moment, leading to some seriously weird shopping lists.

It was easy enough to power through the firewall in the corporate server, find the store location, then search through the delivery orders. Her address was right there, but, for some reason, he didn’t want to just slide over there, he wanted to be absolutely sure it was her address, and the only way to do that was to see if she was the one who came to the door for her groceries.

No, not a whole lot to go on, but it was better than sitting around on his ass, waiting for her to contact him, especially after that clusterfuck of an Instagram post about the tattoo. Still, days later, people were leaving shitty comments about, “Who is Valentina?” “She’s probably a bitch!” “He’s too much of a slut to stay with one woman.” And on and on and on—and with each one, the angrier…and guiltier he felt. Angry that people could be such assholes, and guilty because something he’d meant for good had been tainted.

Also, all the women commenting about him and what they’d done together after the cameras were off…well, that certainly wasn’t going to help his cause with Val. She already knew all about that bullshit, but having it smashed in her face? That was disgusting.

You only have yourself to blame, dumbass dick boy.

Yeah, he could take the post down and stop the dripping poison, but he was holding out for Val—had she seen it yet? Was she curious? Did she care about what he’d done for her? Had she read all the comments and been scared away?

---