Page 14 of Come Find Me Tonight

And Rook would be bold as hell with them.

#RawOnly, #StayClean, #CreamPie. I add an apple emoji at the bottom of the description in case the pie hashtag isn’t obvious enough.

Sorry, Appa. People are going to catch the nod to you in my caption, and you’re going to get tagged all over this video by them.

If this doesn’t drag you out of hiding, I’ll have to take the felony route again.

Chapter Seven

Appa

I rub my eyes and yawn, instinctively reaching for my phone on my nightstand. I turn ‘Do Not Disturb’ off, and as always, my notifications are swarmed with overnight comments, likes, emails, and reminders. I press the back of my head further into my warm pillow and open up my social media app. I’m bombarded with many, many notifications, all of which are tagging me in a video. My sleepy eyes squint at the unnerving number of mentions. I tap one, and it takes me to Rook’s newest video.

He never posts that late.

I can’t stop my jaw from dropping when the video starts with him shirtless, as always, but also likely pants-less based on how low on his body I can see with nothing exposed. My breath hitches as his large hands drift down his torso, reaching lower out of frame. His arm muscles ripple as he grabs himself. I sit up in bed, and I can feel my curly mane sticking up in every direction. The video transitions to show him standing to the side, ripping a damn condom open with his obscured teeth. Just to toss it over his shoulder.

Why was I tagged?

I expand the caption… Daddy?

What are you? Forty?

And he could be. The caption is stupid, something about only raw and always clean, and I roll my eyes at it.

Sounds a little pick-me for Rook’s usual style, but whatever.

My still sleepy eyes scan over the hashtags…cream pie. With an apple emoji right after. I gasp out loud as my throat tightens. He went there and publicly blasted me to anyone paying attention to our cryptic comment exchange a month ago. He knew what he was doing with that hashtag, and my blood boils, heating my ears and face.

Don’t drag my name down with yours, motherfucker.

But let’s get messy then. He doesn’t know just how scrappy I am. I clench my hand under the sheet. Being the only girl with three older brothers gave me thicker skin than he could ever imagine, and I suddenly know exactly what I’m going to do today.

“I’ve been craving something sweet and salty, so let’s make cookies with a little twist,” I tell my camera.

Growing up, Mama baked cookies weekly, usually at the request of my dad and older brothers. It’s one of the few things I can make in the kitchen after being forced to help her for years, usually while being told I was doing something wrong. Her kitchen always smelled sweet, but her stern judgment was not.

I have to wipe the dust off my heavy stand mixer—off camera, of course—and cream sugar and butter together. I slowly add the eggs and a splash of vanilla, and I breathe in as the fragrant extract fills the air. All of my body products are vanilla-scented because I find it intoxicating.

My caramel-colored mixture thickens into real cookie dough after adding the dry ingredients and chocolate. It’s so simple, and my neighbors will be thrilled about cookies when I pass them out later. Editing this video will be more difficult, but I never post cooking or baking content. It’s a refreshing change, but my friend will probably tell me she could have replicated the recipe with bananas or some other healthy alternative.

Tell me you live in LA without telling me.

“You know, the baked thing is great, but the raw dough is the best part,” I say and lick the grainy dough off the silicone spatula with my tongue on camera. It’s suggestive for my normal vibe, but most of my followers won’t notice or care.

Rook will, though, and I hope he’s weak in the knees.

To be honest, I’m eager to post this. I ignore my bouncing knee and splice it together quickly into a one-minute video while the aromatic cookies bake. I upload it with the caption: ‘Spoiler—they taste better before baking.’ I know Rook will hear my spoken line in the video loud and clear.

The video gets a lot of reactions throughout the day, but none from Rook. I shouldn’t be disappointed like I am, and a tightness forms in my ribs when my notifications come up free of Rook. Some commenters, who are deeply invested in our on-and-offline entanglement, connect the dots to the ‘raw dough’ reference, and a few viewers tag Rook.

While I’m answering emails after dinner, my phone resting on my desk pings with a notification that Rook commented. I’ve been waiting all day for this, but my fingers still tremble as I pick up my phone to view the comment. This could either be a red herring… or the hinge point of everything.

@Rook: Daddy knows you like it raw.

A smile tugs at my lips before I can stop it. He must have been missing me while I stayed quiet, but what’s the next move? Are we going to go back and forth on social media forever? He’s broken in once without a trace, so he could do it again…maybe he has. My stomach drops. He could be in my house for all I know.

But that doesn’t freak me out like it should.