Love Under Quarantine

I hate feeling helpless. When you get down to it, I’m fortunate and privileged. Right here and now, I donate to a local food bank and give away a couple of gift cards to readers in my group. I don’t spend huge amounts, but it’s something at least.

Suddenly, Evan jerks besides me and says, “Fuck me.”

“I told you we need to take a short break on that front,” I mumble, still focused on watching a book trailer for one of my peers. It’s awesome. I make a note to contact her and ask who designed the video and also to score me an advanced reader copy. The books look incredible.

“No. It’s her. It’s fucking her. The girl who drugged me at the party. Mindy.” He stabs a finger at the screen of his computer. A blonde-haired woman is raising a glass of wine in the picture alongside several others. “I was starting to think I was going crazy and had invented her or something. But there she is!”

“Evan, that’s fantastic.”

“This was posted by an ex-cheerleader a while back. She quit to have a baby, if I’m remembering right.” He shoves a hand through his hair all aggravated-like. “Drinks with friends. That’s all it says.”

“She didn’t tag the people in the picture?”

“No. Shit.”

“And no one by the name of Mindy liked or commented?” I ask, setting my laptop aside and pushing closer to him.

“Doesn’t look like it. I’ve spent the last hour going through the cheerleaders’ pages and this is the first time I’ve caught sight of the woman. No mention of a Mindy or Melinda or anything even close to it. Dammit!”

“Calm down and give me that.” I confiscate the laptop from him and get busy saving the picture in question. “I have an idea.”

“What?”

“Reverse image search. Sometimes I see a random picture of a male model floating around the Internet. And I’d like to use them for a cover, but their name isn’t mentioned, right? So I do a reverse image search to track down other photos of them to find out who they are.” My fingers dance across the keyboard. It’s a simple enough matter really, putting the photo into a search engine. I just hope it works.

He stops his freak out and stares at me. “Baby, that’s genius.”

“Thank you. Though to be fair, I didn’t actually invent it. I just happen to know about it. Which possibly means I spend way too much dicking around on the computer, but oh well.” I smile. “Did you know if you send the words pew pew from your iPhone to another iPhone it does this little laser light show for you? I saw that on Twitter last night.”

“Focus, sweetheart.”

“Right. Sorry.” I inspect the screen. “Not her. Not her. Bingo! Yes. Here’s a shot of her on Instagram. Okay, here we go.”

I enlarge the picture and Evan scowls. “That’s Levi with her at some party.”

“Who’s Levi?”

“One of the guys on my team.” His jaw is clenched so hard I worry his teeth might crack. A dental visit is not in our near future.

“Okay. Well, the account belongs to one @mindybegood. I’m guessing that’s not her real surname, but some made up saucy cutesy nonsense. She’s apparently a dancer and dog owner. Nothing about where she lives or her place of work. And she’s a little careless with her online security and hasn’t locked down her account. Which works for us.” I slide the cursor up the screen, bringing more of her pictures into her view. “What can we see here?”

“Throwback to her school’s cheerleading outfit.” I point to the picture in question. The girl is really pretty. Blonde like me but that’s where the similarities end.

“Is that worth searching?” he grumbles.

“Eh. Hard to say. It would show where she came from, but not necessarily tell us where she is now,” I offer.

A grunt from Evan.

“Family BBQ. A selfie with her French Bulldog named Button. Button actually features quite prominently. What else have we got?” I scroll through the screen. “A shot of her in a bikini. What a hot bod. I can see why you followed her into that bedroom.”

“Your body’s better and those days are long behind me.” He huffs, clearly unhappy looking at pictures of a woman who screwed him over big time.

“Oh yeah?”

And then he goes and does it. Gives me the softest, warmest look with love-filled eyes. “Got everything I need sitting right here beside me.”

“Evan,” I whisper.

“Not going to lie to you. I was a player, Sadie. Those days are over.”

I don’t want to give into the unwelcome anxiety swirling in my gut. But then I’d rather not have to lie and smother my concerns either. Doesn’t seem like that would make for a healthy relationship. So here we go. “You really think once we’re out of lockdown and all of this is cleared up you’re not going to want to go to those team parties and run wild again?”