Girl Gone Viral (Modern Love #2)(33)

When the meal was ready, she placed a sprig of mint on her crepe and turned the plates around with a flourish. “Voilà, savory for you, sweet for me.”

“Thank you.” He accepted his plate and tipped his head to the round dining table, which he’d already set with silverware and coffee and orange juice. She followed him and sat in the chair he pulled out for her. They ate in silence for a moment.

“Good?” she asked, when he paused.

“Excellent.” He dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “I was hungrier than I thought. Must be the fresh air.”

She straightened up a little and smiled at him, warmth flowing through her at his enjoyment of the meal. “Good.”

“You seem . . .” he eyed her. “Fine.”

“I am, thanks.” Her tone was light, but she understood what he meant. She was doing well, jumpiness over spotting a strange man right outside her door aside.

She traced her finger around the green ivy encircling the white plates. The plates and utensils were as old and worn as the countertops and equally sturdy. “So you own this house.”

“Yes.”

“Your grandfather doesn’t live here, though?”

“No, my grandfather has a bigger house, on the other end of the farm.”

“And the farm is . . .”

“Very large. Hundreds and hundreds of acres.”

“I definitely feel . . . far away from everyone.”

“In a bad way?”

“No. The internet, it has a way of making you feel like everyone in the world is in your living room. There’s no one here. I like it.” She smiled at him.

He polished off the last bite of his crepe. “Good. I’m glad you’re getting what you want.”

“Speaking of the internet though . . . Have you seen the hashtag yet? Are there any developments?”

He took a sip of his juice. “I checked. No one’s found out who you are.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What else?”

“Isn’t that all you care about?”

She made a face. “You know I need more details.”

“Do you, though?”

If you look, then you can get on with the rest of your schedule. She pulled out her phone and opened the Twitter app. She clicked on the search button, but didn’t have to type in the CafeBae tag. It was still trending.

Her stomach sank. So much for someone or something else absorbing the internet’s attention.

She scrolled through, many of the tweets stuff she’d seen before. Becca the Witch’s original post had grown exponentially in likes and retweets. It took her a few minutes to discover what was responsible for the unflagging interest.

Ross.

His smile beamed out from his avatar, and he was as handsome as ever. His handle was RossAlwaysWins and she was glad, on the basis of that alone, that she hadn’t accepted his date invitation. The tweet after it cinched her certainty.

Haha, thought you were taking pictures. #CafeBae #itme



A layer of cold settled over her. This. Dick. “Did you see this? Ross, the guy I sat with, he revealed himself.” Her voice was dull. The sharp taste of fear came and went, but for the most part she was insulated by ice.

Jas’s growl would have surprised her if she weren’t so numb. It was so much louder and more ferocious than any grunt. “I did.”

“What the fuck?” She stared at Ross’s face, bewildered. “If he knew she was taking pictures, why didn’t he stop her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he know this was going to happen?” Ross’s tweet had been retweeted almost as many times as the original, and the numbers climbed as she watched.

“I don’t think anyone can predict what catches the internet’s attention.”

Katrina clicked on Ross’s profile and scrolled through his tweets, her ire growing as she read. His tweets were either retweets of other people virtually high-fiving him or more coy acknowledgments about him being the focus of the twittersphere. I didn’t realize I was internet famous til my mom told me, what a trip, haha, she read from one tweet, then clicked to the next. So #grateful for everyone who cares so much about our happiness. She looked to Jas. “Our? Who the hell is our?” She shot to her feet. “Is he implying that we actually went out? Or that it was the love match this . . . this Peeping Tina spun it as?”

“Seems like it.”

“This is bananas.” She paced and scrolled, and scrolled and paced, growing ever more agitated as she read.

She stopped when she got to a quote tweet. Did you really hook up with her?

And Ross’s gross, coy, winky acknowledgment. I don’t kiss and tell.

Katrina swallowed her bile, feeling vaguely violated. No, not vaguely. Actually, genuinely violated. “I don’t kiss and tell?” She shook her head. She’d been homeschooled for all of high school as she’d moved from modeling shoot to shoot, so she’d missed out on some experiences, but she imagined this was what it felt like to have the most popular guy in school tell everyone she’d gone all the way.

Only on a more massive, global scale. “Do you know what he’s implying? That we . . .” She dropped her voice. “Had sex.”