Pressing on the button, I look to see what he’s said, but it’s not much. Instead, he’s forwarded a link to a post on social media with a string of question marks typed beside it. I tap on the link, and as the webpage comes to life, my jaw goes slack.
“Oh my…” Looking up, I wave my phone at Jake. “Well, I know why Tim was referring to me as your girlfriend now.”
“What?” Jake’s across the room and standing beside me in no time flat. “What are you looking at?”
Handing him the phone, I treat Jake to an image taken of the two of us yesterday at the dog park. We’re snuggled together on the bench overlooking the park, arms wrapped around each other and laughing. It’s a great picture, honestly.
“Oh,” he says slowly, his shoulder slumping. “This is the side of being in the public eye that I don’t like. People think they know me. Like tonight, now they may think they know you.” He shakes his head. “I hate putting you in this position.”
As he keeps his eyes on the photo, the weight of its impact hits me. “This changes things, huh?”
“Kind of.” Jake looks at me, his big brown eyes flooded with worry. “This kind of thing can accelerate a relationship and hurt it. I don’t want that to happen for us. Not when we’re still trying to figure things out.”
I take the phone from him, shrugging my shoulders. “As long as we stay on the same page, right?”
Then, I see it. I shouldn’t have looked, but I did. For a moment, I forgot and let my eyes skim across the comment section.
The comments. UGH.
There’s one that says, “Good for you, Jake! Get your happy ending!” But then there’s another one that says, “You can do better than THAT.” I scroll down, scanning them all, findingthat there’s no balance of good-to-bad ratio for comments given; they’re a minefield, is what they are. And I feel like a woman obsessed.
“Hey,” Jake whispers, taking the phone from my hands. “Stop it. This is one thing you can’t do.”
“What, look at photos posted of me online?”
“Read the comments. Those folks don’t know you and yet they’ll act like they do.”
“Like our friend tonight.”
“Exactly.” He places the phone on the counter as his arms wrap around my waist. “I’m going to ask that you step away from the social media channels for the night, okay?”
Nodding my head, I let him brush his lips across mine. “I can do that.”
“Good.” He lets me go and gets back to work. “We have a few more things to put away, but we’ll be out of here soon.”
I watch as he focuses on getting everything put away, his attention fully shifted now. I can’t tell if it’s the fact of what almost happened here or if he’s as tripped up about the photo as I am, but all I do know is that in the last thirty minutes, it feels like everything’s shifted suddenly. And nothing is ever going to be the same.
I don’t know if that’s a good thing…or a bad one.
SEVENTEEN
Jake
Sitting down alone at the cafe Travis brought me to a little over a week ago, it feels like things have come full circle in a way. I take a sip of my coffee and look around, this little corner of the world becoming one of my favorite places for a variety of reasons.
As I scan the crowd, my eyes fall on the fountain where Riley and I have sat a few times talking and I get a feeling of good. That things are going to be fine, that we can make the blip of the distance that’s going to be between us work. But before we do, I need to not only sit down with her and prepare her fully for what it could be like dating me, if we’re going to pursue this. Especially now that she’s had a bitter introduction to it thanks to Tim the jerk-head brother.
But, I also have one of my own hurdles to get over, too. Tidbits of my old life I need to right so I can step into my new one without any hesitation or baggage weighing me down. I prop up my phone so I’ve got the camera on me and tap the button to join the meeting. It’s time for the last stop on the apology tour.
There’s a whirring sound from my phone as the app opens, and soon enough, the face of Coach Ben Masters is sternly waiting for me.
“Hey, Coach,” I begin, already feeling like my stutter could sneak up on me. I worked hard to get rid of it when I was younger; it was born out of my low self-esteem as a young teen. It likes to appear when I’m super nervous, like now. “Thank you for agreeing to talk today.”
“Better we do it now than the day you get in, December.” He sits back and crosses his arms in front of him. “Do you want to go first or should I?”
“I will.” Swallowing my anxiety, I clap my hands in front of me and lean forward. “I’m not going to mess around and give any excuses. I messed up. I saw something shiny and new, and I thought it was going to be better. I jumped ship for all the wrong reasons, including letting the way I saw myself play into it.”
I can tell he wasn’t expecting this by the way his arms slowly come unthreaded. And the way he leans in, too, so he’s closer to the camera. Seeing this as a good sign, I press on.
