Page 130 of Only Mine
One shot lingers on my hands, not with the clinical skill of a cooking tutorial, but with awe. She zooms in when I crush the herbs, catching the way my knuckles flex, holding the shot longer than necessary.
Her breath catches audibly in the voice-over. The microphone picks up the smallest inhale, a sound I recognize from when she watches me in the kitchen, from when I’m inside her.
And her laughter. She laughs at something she remembered I said, quiet and breathy, the sound you make when you truly like someone, and you can hear her smiling even though she’s just recording her voice. That one-sided banterof hers that she keeps in, the way her voice tilts when she’s talking to me instead of her audience ... it’s all there.
Goddammit. This isn’t curated content. This is a confession.
Which means the comments themselves aren’t the problem. The problem is that two million people can sense exactly how she feels about me. This video didn’t go viral because of my knife skills.
It’s because Wrenley is in love with me. This is a love letter she didn’t know she was writing.
That’s why people are responding the way they are. They feel it. The intimacy. The way she sees me. Not as some mysterious chef or potential brand partner, but as something real. Someone she wants.
And it scares the shit out of me because I want her, too, and I don’t know how to want her without ruining the life I built to protect Ivy.
Apparently summoned by my thoughts alone, Ivy pads over, dragging the blanket behind her, thumb stuck in the collar of her onesie.
“Papa, can I have your phone?”
She always says it like that. Can I have your phone. Never, can I play a game. Can I watch a show. Just the phone. Like it’s a portal to a grown-up world she’s desperate to be a part of.
I hesitate. “Not right now.”
She tilts her head. “I want to watch the egg video.”
I peel my gaze off the phone and stare down at her, my spine straightening. “Egg video?”
She shrugs. “The one where you break the yellow part. Auntie Noa was talking to Uncle Stone about it last night.”
Fuck.
Wrenley didn’t mean for this to happen. But she filmed it.Edited it. Posted it. And she knew what she was doing. Maybe not all the way, maybe not with malice, but enough.
And I let her.
Ivy stares up at me with big, innocent eyes, waiting for my answer. Her gaze is free from the multiple sucks this world has to offer her once she’s old enough.
“Not today,mon trésor,” I say, keeping my voice even. “We’ll find something better to watch.”
She accepts it without question, running into the den where our television is, shouting, “With popcorn!” before she disappears around the corner.
I set the phone down and rinse my mug out at the sink, slow and methodical, the way I handle most breakable things.
Because dinner’s off.
And if Wrenley doesn’t know it yet, she will soon enough.
TWENTY-NINE
WRENLEY
I’m setting the table for a dinner that might not happen, arranging silverware with the attentiveness of someone who’s lost her mind.
Fork on the left. Knife on the right. Blade facing inward because that’s what civilized people do, even when their world is imploding in real time.
My phone sits face down on the small kitchenette counter of my apartment, silent since I texted Saint this morning. The one when I said I was looking forward to tonight. Before the comments started rolling in. Before his anonymity became a group project for millions of strangers.
I smooth the napkin for the third time, then catch myself rubbing the front of my shoulder raw. The skin is already pink from my nervous scratching. I pull my hand away, tucking it under my arm before I do more damage.
