His corporate profile at Matiz pops up and his social media accounts. I scroll through those, most of them a tribute to his job and his love of the outdoors. There are pictures of him hiking and fishing last summer. A few of him are with two men his age who must be his friends.
I'm back to the search function again, and I type in her name. It's just her first name because that's all it takes. Gem.
Her Instagram page is the first result and as my thumb hovers over the link, my stomach clenches but I click it anyway. I click it because I want the reassurance that her picture won't bother me anymore. I want to know that I can look at her and not feel the twinge of jealousy I used to.
That's not what I feel when I scan the most recent picture at the top of the page.
I feel like a fucking idiot.
Ryker, with a shadow of a beard covering his jaw, is in the very first picture I see. I click on it. It was posted sixteen minutes ago at a diner two blocks from here. He's sitting on a leather bench next to a table with a cup of coffee in front of him, and a container of cream to the side. He's wearing the same black wool coat he was last night and his hair looks exactly as it did before he fell asleep in my arms.
He's not looking at the camera. His head is tilted slightly; his eyes cast down.
I read the caption. Once and then again before I leave my phone by the window and walk back to my bedroom, the words Gem posted suffocating me from the inside out.
My boy is back and our future is bright.
Chapter 18
Ryker
"You didn't post a fucking picture of me, did you?" I seethe. "I told you no pictures, Gem. I meant it."
She shakes her head. "Calm down, Ry."
I pick up my phone and immediately open the browser. I search for her name because I've cleared my history of all links to every single social media account she has. I open the first link. "Jesus. 'My boy is back and our future is bright?' That’s bullshit. I'm not back. We don’t have a future. Delete it."
"I need you, Ryker." She doesn't pick up her goddamn phone to delete the picture of me. "My fan engagement has dropped by thirty percent since I stopped posting about you. People have noticed that you deleted all the pictures of me from your Instagram."
It was one fucking picture taken at a concert three months ago. I never wanted whatever we had to be official in any capacity. "Take down the goddamn picture, Gem."
"No." She pushes her phone away from her. "You're ruining things for me, Ryker. You know I'm close to signing a deal for a reality show. The producer will only do it if you're part of it. He wants the friction between us. He says it's good television."
"I came down here because you texted me forty-five fucking times in the past two days." I tap my finger on the coffee-stained white table between us. "I don’t know how the hell you found out about Cremza but that final text you sent last night was the end of it. If you go there and speak to either of my grandparents, I will ruin you, Gem. I will post pictures of you without all that shit you wear on your face."
I'm bluffing. If I took a picture of Gem, I usually deleted it within days. I had no reason to save a picture of her. She put enough of herself out into the world that her pictures feel like worthless currency now. If I ever felt the urge to gaze at a picture of her while we were together, I could just go online. I rarely did.
"You wouldn't," she screeches like I just threatened to lock her up and throw away the key. "That would destroy my career."
"Career?" I toss the word back with a smirk. "You don't have a career."
"You've never understood what I do."
"I never wanted to," I respond calmly. "We were never good for each other, Gem. I need you to take down that picture of me you just posted and I then I want you to fuck off."
She laughs. "You need to step off the merry-go-round, Ryker. We do this again and again, around and around we go. You know it's just a matter of time before we're back together. Don't prolong this. I want you back today. "
I study her face. I don't know what I ever saw in her. She's attractive in an abstract way. Brown hair, blue eyes and a body that's been touched by a plastic surgeon or two. I liked her best when she didn’t wear makeup and her phone was out of her hand but once her online profiles caught steam, her obsession with her fan base grew. I was a prop in her picture perfect world. It was never about me after she gained notoriety.
It was always a shallow escape from what I thought I could never have. I thought Lark was out of my reach so I settled.
"I'm done with being part of your circus." I pick up her phone. "Delete the picture you posted and the one you sent me this morning that you took of me inside Cremza. I want out of your world, Gem. I'm not playing the game anymore. I'm finished and this time it's for good."
"If I delete all those pictures, you'll delete the bad ones you took of me?" She takes her phone from me. "I'll leave you alone if you promise to trash the images of me without makeup and the ones you took when I was bloated after that dinner we had in the West Village. I hate that picture. It could wipe out my career just like that if it ever got out."
I stifle back a laugh. How I was ever attracted to her is beyond me. "You've got yourself a deal, Gem."
***