AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The message had barely posted beforeDeliveredswitched toRead. Oh, hell. Ian was on his phone right now.
He started typing. Stopped. Started. Stopped. Started. Stopped for almost a minute. Started again.
I stared at the screen, my heart pounding. I had no idea which direction this was going to go, or which direction Iwantedit to go.
That wasn’t true. I knew exactly what I wanted—for us to meet and find out this connection wasn’t just in my imagination.
But I was still terrified that meeting him would change how we looked at each other, and not for the better. The way things were now was perfect, and I was afraid that this restlessness to see each other’s faces would be like getting greedy and cutting open the golden goose—the magic would be gone.
Or maybe that puck had hit me harder than I thought, and I needed to be on concussion protocol.
And speaking of… I needed to keep icing my lip, because the local anesthetic had well and truly worn off. The stitches stung like a motherfucker, and everything on the left side of my face from my cheekbone down throbbed and ached.
I got up, phone still in hand, and went into the kitchen. I set the phone on the counter and pulled an icepack from the freezer. I got as far as wrapping a dishtowel around it before the chat app chimed.
In an instant, the icepack was forgotten and I snatched the phone off the island.
Yeah, I’m serious,Ian had written.But I’ll understand if you don’t want to. Just… we’ve been talking since forever. IDK. What do you think?
Well, at least I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t make up my mind and might’ve been a little nervous about this.
I returned to the couch, settled in with the icepack against my face, and stared at the screen again. I was about to start typing, but Ian beat me to it.
Part of me thinks I’m an idiot for waiting this long. Part of me is afraid of what’ll happen if we meet.
I swallowed hard. Okay, yeah, we were definitely on the same page. It took me a moment to gather my thoughts. Another to type them out coherently. Then I hit Send, and I waited.
Same, TBH. I feel like I’ve known you forever. And the me you know through here is the real me.
I cringed as I reread those last few words. They were true, but they also weren’t. I didn’t know how to explain to him who I really was. He knew all the important things, because God knew we’d talked about everything, but he didn’t know my name. He didn’t know that he’d seen me hundreds of times already. For all I knew, we’d met in person before. I’d even wondered at a few signings or when I stopped to sign things for fans outside of practice or after a game. In the back of my mind, I’d caught myself wondering if he was there. I’d skimmed over the faces, half-tempted to call out, “Ian?” and see if anyone jumped.
But I hadn’t, and as far as he knew, we’d never been in the same space before. Would he be angry over that? He understood the need to be discreet, but where was the line between discretion and paranoia?
My phone pinged with a message from him.
You know the real me too. Just… not my face.
Then he was typing again, so I waited to see what he was going to say. When the message posted, my stomach flipped.
Okay, I need to be honest here. I’ve been so afraid to let my real life and my burner account cross—in case someone ever hacked me or catfished me or whatever—I haven’t told you everything. Including some important details.
I sat a little straighter, swallowing as I adjusted the icepack against my lip. Then I wrote,Such as?
More typing. Then he stopped. Several times, he started and stopped before a message finally came through.
Fuck it. If I can’t trust you after all this time, then I can’t trust anyone. My name isn’t Ian. It’s Isaiah.
My breath hitched. Oh, shit. He’d used a fake name, too? Well, that killed the fear that he’d be mad at me for using a fake one.
Blood pounded in my ears as I started typing, but I kept hesitating. Twice, I nervously chewed my lip, instantly regretting it both times.
Before I could articulate a response, he wrote,I’m sorry. If you’re mad at me for lying to you, I get it.
No,I wrote back quickly.I’m not mad. Not at all. Hang on a sec.
Then I was back to trying to sort out my thoughts. Like his, my name wasn’t exactly a common one. I was also afraid of being hacked, catfished, or otherwise outed, and if someone found a DM of me giving out even one identifying detail… Fuck, just thinking about that made me queasy. I missed the days of being an absolute nobody who could say stupid shit online and didn’t have to worry about an unflattering comment ending up on the news or something. It wouldn’t end or necessarily even hurt my career, but it would hurt my reputation and follow me everywhere I went.
That, and I didn’t need some of my political leanings and philosophies getting back to my family. They were conservative enough that my sexuality had caused some friction, though they’d eventually learned to accept it. Politics and religion were banned from the Thanksgiving table for a reason, and I didn’t need the Pandora’s box that was my anonymous social media presence being trotted out for all to see.
