Page 7 of Going Viral for Christmas
By the time she shut the book, took a prim sip of wine, and said, “Five stars. Would recommend for anyone suffering from insomnia,” the internet had blown up.
#BellAndTheBlade was trending by morning with two million views.
It was war. Beautiful, vicious, intoxicating war.
Until it wasn’t.
After that, I actually readThe Lumberjack’s Love Lettersin its entirety, rather than skimming the spicy parts for ammunition. I discovered Ava’s not just good. She’s fucking brilliant.
Between the catalyst and the climax, tectonic plates shifted beneath my feet. I ended up staying awake until 4 a.m., wrecked beyond reason.
That ending? A gut punch wrapped in flannel and burning sincerity, dipped in whatever literary witchcraft she uses to make fictional kisses feel like sacraments.
The prose? Gorgeous.
The pacing? Immaculate.
Her character arcs? Absolutely lethal.
I will never admit this to anyone, but I cried—big, messy, not-cute,ugly sobs. Then I preordered the special edition. Twice. Downloaded her entire backlist and tore through all ten in under a week.
Her words revealed a part of her that she never shares. The part that bleeds into the pages. The part only another writer would recognize for what it was.
After that, I saw my online nemesis in a whole different light. In those late-night moments, while reading her works, I developed averyreal,veryinconvenient,majorthing for Ava Crowley Bell.
Yes, I know her middle name. I did some light internet stalking. Mind your business.
I tried to deny it at first. Then, I caught myself anticipating her posts, like a teenager waiting for a text. Watching her lives with the sound turned up, studying the way she laughed at her own jokes.
My sparring changed, too. It became something else entirely. My comebacks stopped being defensive. They turned smokier, more intimate, charged with an energy even I didn’t recognize. Her razor-blade insults started landing differently, no longer feeling like attacks, but invitations to dance.
Ava Crowley Bell became the highlight of my week. As we traded barbs across the digital divide, I felt good. I was me. I wasn’t “The Blade,” or the fantasy thirst trap—just Soren. Unfiltered, vulnerable, alive in a way I’d forgotten was possible.
She made me want to be wittier. Also, deeper, more honest. That stopped me from viewing her as my enemy. In return, I saw her as the woman who could, and did, cut through all my bullshit with a single, perfectly crafted comment like the one she wrote in my “Brooding Heroes Need Love Too” post:
Soren, your heroes don’t need love. They need therapy, a personality transplant, and maybe a dictionary so they can learn words other than ‘mine,’ ‘claim,’ and ‘destiny.’ But sure, let’s call it romance.
Yep, I was in trouble.
With all her fire and brains, Ava drags on my tropes as though it’s her civic duty to educate the masses on everything wrong with a dark fantasy. Sheloathesmy genre, my face, and the fact that I once called her “adorably demented” during a live.
I meant it as a compliment, by the way.
For months, I’ve kept up playing the fantasy authorslashbook boyfriend role, flashing the grin that’s becoming more of a grimace each day, spinning the sword that’s become more prop than passion, and feeding the fandom the version of me they crave while quietly wondering:what if I dropped the mask for once, and let people see the man drowning beneath all this leather and manufactured mystique?
Between you, me, and the smirking devil on my shoulder, Ava Bell is the only person I want to witness that drowning. Which is, of course, peak irony, considering she’s also the one who keeps handing me the metaphorical bricks.
She hates me—publicly, enthusiastically, and with just enough lingering eye contact to make me think she’s either plotting my murder or imagining hate-fucking me with the lights on.
Which I’m all for.
And know this, if she ever gave me the chance to, I’d destroy that pussy of hers with every ounce of pent-up hunger she’s stuffed into me since the day we started exchanging verbal daggers.
Captain Pembry twitches.Down, boy. Nope, not today.
Ava’s watching me, so I send her a wink to see what she’ll do. Predictably, she pivots back to the guy beside her, suddenly riveted by whatever brilliance he’s pretending to offer.
She laughs easily, the sound hitting me square in the chest. His hand grazes her arm, and a territorial burn courses through me. He’s too close. Too familiar. I’m building a list of reasons to hate him—none of them rational, all of them mine.
