Page 5 of Come Find Me Tonight

I’ve always hated my loud, Italian-sounding voice. I sound too much like my dad, and I try to lower my voice in my Rook videos when I speak in them to disguise it.

No one else has turned their camera on, thank God, so I allow myself a peek at Appa’s profile. She added to her story for the first time today. It’s just a picture of her tiny hand holding a melting iced coffee in front of a vast window in the sun, captioned: ‘Good morning’. If I were her boyfriend, she’d be drinking espresso straight up and never go back to what I’m assuming is store-bought iced coffee.

“Robby?” a voice on the call asks.

I hold down the spacebar to unmute myself. “Yeah, I see it’s looping. Easy fix. I’ll get on it after we hang up,” I answer.

A few hours later, I check Appa’s profile again. More stories. In one of them, she’s dressed in a bright-colored matching activewear set—biker shorts with too short an inseam and a sports bra. My heartbeat hammers in my ears, and I nearly blow a load in my pants seeing her like that. Knowing thousands of people could see this photo makes my jaw clench. If she were mine, only I would get to see her dressed like that.

Workout, Appa?

I smirk to myself.

The workout I’d give her.

At five, I log off for the day, jot a couple of notes down for tomorrow, and stand from my desk. I have leftover Sunday gravy from the weekend, so I opt for that. My grandparents came here from Italy when my grandmother was pregnant with my dad, who is now the oldest of five. They saw crowded, mafia-laced New York and took a train to California instead. They named my dad Robert, thinking he should have an American-sounding name. I was named Robert Junior after him and nicknamed RJ my whole life, but once I got to college, I became Robby.

I grin at the red wine bottle as I pop the cork out with a loud pop. It’s from the vineyard Nonno started in Napa that my dad and his three brothers still run. My aunt, the only daughter of the five, moved to San Diego for love, and she’s always inviting me down for weekends, which I take her up on when I tire of LA.

Ever since high school, I have had a glass of red wine with dinner for the antioxidants and other health benefits Nonna claims red wine has. She’s probably right since she’s well into her eighties and still strong and feisty as hell, and I’m grateful to still have her in my late twenties. Every time I go home, she asks me why I’m not married with kids like most of my many cousins, and all I can do is laugh. My mom was always there to reassure me she was ten years older than I am now when I showed up.

My phone dings and lights up on the counter, likely from the recent Rook video that just posted at five. I pick it up to see what thirst comments await me, unlocking the screen with my thumbprint. A verified creator liked the video, @AppaPie.

The grip on my wineglass loosens, making the thin glass connect with the tile floor of my kitchen with a clink. I look down at the shattered glass mixed with the spilled wine pooled at my feet. Splashes of red stain my sweatpants, but I click the profile and see that it really is her…liking a Rook video before dealing with the mess. Risking cuts from the glass is worth refreshing my page and tapping her username.

Holy fuck. Does she follow Rook?

My breath stops as I tap into the tab to see who she follows, and she doesn’t. But she must enjoy watching videos of men if the algorithm pushed my latest video to her feed. My dick reacts in my sweatpants the same way it did all those years ago at the party, but I ignore it for now. She liked a video where the caption said something like: ‘What would you do if I snuck in at two a.m.?’

Does Appa want to find out?

I set my phone down on the stone countertop.

No, that’s insane, Robby.

Her finger must’ve slipped while she was swiping through videos. It’s a coincidence; nothing more. No need to spiral. But that’s a joke.

I’m absolutely going to overthink this.

After cleaning up the wine and glass, I sit at my personal computer in my bedroom with my overheated leftovers in a plastic Tupperware container, and what do you know? Start spiraling and digging into her history with my profile. Has she liked any of my other posts? Something to tell me it’s not a fluke? I search my followers’ names for anything remotely related to apples.

Honeycrisp, Gala, Granny Smith, Apple…

Until I see it.

@Appleygirl.

It’s clearly a burner account with an old, grainy picture of her as the profile image, no followers, and only ten followed accounts—all thirst trappers, which makes my fingers drum on my desk. I shouldn’t be jealous, but the familiar pang in my core stings. I have to look on the bright side.

That could mean she’s single.

If she’s not and following ten men, including Rook, who flex their abs for followers, her guy isn’t doing it right. I would every night if I had the damn privilege.

I know she changed her username a while back, but it looks like she couldn’t let Appleygirl go. I pull up my social media profile on my laptop, and the keyboard clacks as I hit control-F to search for her username in the comments section and likes on my videos. It turns out she has liked almost every single video, with comments sprinkled in sporadically.

@Appleygirl: Imagine posting this and expecting me to act normal.

@Appleygirl: Respectfully, come rearrange my guts.