Page 30 of Dark Breaker

“I haven’t been paying attention,” I tell him. I’ve actually purposely been avoiding any forms of social media, because I don’t want to be distracted by her.

But I grab my phone now and pull up my Snapchat. I click on Rosa’s story.

I see a picture of the ring on her finger. It’s captioned: “Getting married to the bestest most awesomest man in the world!” The next slide shows a picture of a toad in a tuxedo. No wait… that’s a picture ofmein a tuxedo, taken directly from my own social media feed, with a toad pasted over my head.

I grit my teeth.

She’s trolling me. In front of all her friends.

Angrily, I scroll through her feed and find a suitable picture of my own. I turn on airplane mode so she won’t be notified when I take a screenshot of the picture to save it, and then pull up a photo editor to work on it.

“What are you doing?” Nicolo asks.

“You’ll see,” I reply.

I edit out the Vespa she’s riding and replace it with a white stallion. Then I caption it: “A picture of what me and my future wife will be doing every day.”

I post it and can’t help but chuckle when it goes live. I show it to Nicolo and he finds it uproariously funny.

Notice that I’m the one on top,Rosa comments publicly on the photo a few minutes later.

She knows how to get under my skin. I delete the post and rotate it so that the horse is on top. It looks like she’s riding upside-down, but it should get my point across. I post again with the same text.

She doesn’t comment this time.

I won that round.

My phone pings. A Snapchat notification. It’s Rosa again. A video this time.

She’s kissing someone—the woman who was with her at the party a few days back. There are little hearts floating above their heads. The picture is labeled:With my wifey.

Even though it’s not another man, and it’s obviously for show, I’m just fuming. That’s her idea of a joke? Infidelity? I’m almost tempted to take a picture of myself and Nicolo kissing, except for the fact it’d be too gross to plant my lips anywhere near his.

I smile widely as an idea hits me. I airplane-mode my phone again and take a photo of her video. I edit the still, replacing the woman with a horse head, and post it. I even leave the same text.With my wifey.

Rosa comments publicly almost immediately.

Not amused.

I show Nicolo and he’s just laughing his ass off.

“Man, you guys act so cute,” he says.

I feel my face darken. “What do you mean?”

He notices my change in mood. “Never mind.”

Good answer.

Nicolo says goodbye. But I’m not done messing with Rosa: I run downstairs to pick up a cake from thepasticceria, thencook an extravagant meal to go with it. A ribeye, with rigatoni, and spinach. I take a picture of everything and when I post it, I label the photo:Look what the wifey cooked for me!

She sends me a direct Snap. Text only.

Did you bake that cake yourself? I’m impressed. You should let your feminine side loose more often.

I growl as I type back:You just wish you could cook as well as I do.

No I don’t, she replies.Though it’s good to know you’ll be cooking the food for us.