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Chapter Twenty-Two

Arlo

Curled into the corner of the shower, with my knees pressed to my chest, I wrap my arms tight around myself like a lifeline. Warm water beats down my back, but I’m freezing, and every drop feels like salt in an open wound.

Tears blur the tiles beneath me as rough sobs escape my throat. I can’t stop the sting in my eyes or the tremor in my hands.

I lost everything that made me feel whole. How fucking stupid am I? A woman on the internet, someone I bared my soul to, turned out to be nothing more than my worst nightmare. Every secret, every confession I thought was safe, she used against me .

My chest feels like it’s caught in a vice—tight, unrelenting pain that no shower can wash away. My dream job, the thing I built my life around, was nothing more than a cruel joke.

And here I am, drowning, wondering how I let myself fall for it.

The second I got home, I wanted to put my headset on and talk to her, to tell her what just happened, but she is the same person. They have broken me more than Millie Baker ever did.

After way too long—my skin’s all pruney—I drag myself out and wrap a towel around my waist. The only thing I can do is get wasted and pass out.

Hopefully, when I wake up tomorrow, this will all be a bad dream.

It sure as shit was not a dream.

I’m woken by the chiming notification of an email on my phone. I forgot to delete the app, but there is no way I am going to work. How can I show my face there again? I will be the laughingstock of the office when word spreads about what happened. I open the app, intending to sign out.

Subject: My Office.

Arlo,

Be in my office at 10am. I expect you on time .

Ridge Ellington

Chief Executive Officer

Ridgeland Enterprises

Fuck Ridge, he is as bad as they are.

I ignore his email and throw my phone across the room. He can fuck right off. I should write a nasty reply, but I won’t, that isn’t me. Maybe I could write a simple fuck you .

A glance at my monitor shows it’s only eight. I could sleep for a few more hours, but now I don’t have a job and I need to apply for more. First, though, I need coffee. I get dressed, simply going through the motions until my normal coffee shop comes into view. Memories of Zeland being there every day and buying me breakfast sting.

There is no way I’m stepping foot in that café.

So I turn on my heels and hurry down the street, mindlessly walking until I smell the sweet scent of roasting beans. As I push through the door, I look around and see it’s a gaming café, and a young guy greets me as I walk in.

“Hi, welcome to Game and Grind. How can I help you?”

“Can I get a medium coffee, two creams, one pump of vanilla?”

“Sure thing. I’ll bring it over when it’s ready.”

I find a seat and look around. This place is nice. I swear there used to be a bar here, but maybe I’m wrong. When the young guy brings over my drink, I ask him, and he says it was called The Syllabus, but it was shut down not long ago.

I sit and drink my coffee while scrolling for jobs, but there is nothing as good as Ridgeland, though I don’t think anything would ever compare.

My phone alerts me to another email, and I must be a masochist because I open it.

Subject: No Response.

Arlo,

It’s past ten. I don’t appreciate being ignored.

You have fifteen minutes to explain yourself. In person. Don’t make me come find you.

Ridge Ellington

Chief Executive Officer

Ridgeland Enterprises

I scoff. As if he will be able to find me. Where will he look? At my house? Well, I’m not there and I’m clearly not at the office—that’s the end of the line for my known hang-out spots. I shut off my phone as the young guy comes over.

“You should try out the games here, on the house.”

He winks at me and I blush, then a wave of nausea hits me. I nod just so he will go away. Shit, I can’t even think of anyone hitting on me, not when it makes me think of Zeland.

The barista’s name is Heath, and he sets me up on a computer and gives me one hour of access for free. He told me they have new games they are trialing here. I click on one and pull my headset over my ears, needing to lose myself in the game and forget about everything around me.

I barely hear the ding that tells me my hour’s up, just the faint sound of the café’s background noise mixing with the static of the game still in my ears. The screen has already faded to the menu, and my fingers have stopped twitching over the keys, but I just sit there, staring like I’m trying to lose myself in the monotony.

Large hands clamp down on my shoulders, and I flinch, then freeze as Ridge leans in, his breath brushing against my neck. He doesn’t say anything until he lifts one side of the headset off my ear like he owns every part of the space I’m occupying. “You didn’t show up.” His voice is low and hushed. Someone like him doesn’t want unnecessary attention. “I waited.”

I blink hard. My throat closing as he crouches next to the chair, his body radiating tension.

“I know you’re hurting. I get it, but the least you could do is hear Zeland and Aspen out. They’re hurting too. Just as much.”

I try to swallow down the lump, but it won’t budge. “They lied,” I whisper, barely audible. “They let me fall for them. All those nights, all my firsts, and they never told me the truth. Not until it was too late.”

Ridge doesn’t flinch; he just nods. “You have a week. Paid leave. After that, I expect you back at the office. If you don’t want a damn thing to do with any of us, we’ll respect that.” He leans closer, his voice even softer now. “You earned your place there. Don’t let what happened take it from you.”

I shake my head, but my vision blurs, and I hate myself for my weakness. Tears slip past before I can stop them, and it’s humiliating. “They knew who I was,” I rasp. “And I didn’t even know who I was kissing. Who I was letting touch me. It wasn’t just a game—not for me.”

Ridge places the headset gently on the desk in front of me, then straightens. “It wasn’t a game for them either.” He doesn’t wait for me to answer, turning and walking away.

I sit there in the blue glow of the café, crying into my hands while the menu screen loops, the vision hazed by my tears.

How could it not have been a game?

I’m frozen, numb, the weight of Ridge’s words pressing down on me. They’re hurting too. That’s fucking rich. They knew—the whole fucking time, they knew who I was. Aspen sat next to me at work, shared coffees and inside jokes. Zeland laughed at the stupid memes I hesitantly sent back in reply to his flirty emails. He smirked when I would stutter at his flirting in person. And Ridge—he may have been cold, unreadable, but he watched everything, as if he masterminded this entire thing.

All the while, they were the ones behind the masks.

Chasing me. Touching me like they already owned me.

They took everything .

All my firsts. It was the first time I ever trusted someone with my body. My submission, my fantasies. All of it I gave freely to these masked strangers, who were never really strangers at all.

God, I would’ve saved those moments. I would’ve waited if I knew. I would’ve made them real. Not part of some twisted fantasy they let me believe was anonymous.

I bury my face in my hands and let out a heaving breath that turns into something jagged, something broken. My shoulders shake and I don’t care that I’m in public. I don’t care that people are watching me.

The worst part isn’t that they wore masks. It’s that I didn’t realize how much I fell for them until they’d taken them off. And now... now I don’t know if I can distinguish what was real and what was part of their game.

Ridge saying I have a week of paid leave is laughable—I can’t go back. Men like him think they just speak and everyone will jump, but not me. He says they will respect my wishes, but I know Zeland won’t—he will rush me like a bull in a china shop the second I walk through those doors. Though I could be wrong. It’s not like he or Aspen have tried to contact me, only Ridge, and something seems off about that.

“Hey, man. Are you okay? Was that your boyfriend in here before?”

I wipe my face and look up at Heath. “I’m fine—it’s complicated. Thanks for the free game. I have to go.”

I push my chair back and rush out. I need some fresh air and time to think.

The days blur together. Morning, night, it all feels the same. I go through the motions: wake up, stare at my ceiling, and try to pretend I’m not hoping for a message that never arrives. God, I miss them, though I fucking hate that I do. I miss Aspen’s smart mouth and the way she’d always beat the teenagers in that stupid game, then smack talk them. I miss Zeland showing up at my favorite coffee shop, pretending it was a coincidence, always with that smirk, like he knew something I didn’t. I hate how they knew who I was the whole time. Every moment I thought was real, every look, every touch.

For the first time, I actually felt wanted. If I’d known, if they’d been honest after the first time, I might’ve saved some pieces of myself. Or maybe not. Maybe I still would’ve fallen for them. Maybe I already had.

Sometimes I wish they hadn’t told me. At least then I could still game with her and pretend she was just the cool girl on the other end of the screen who made me feel seen. At least then I wouldn’t feel this hollow ache every time I check my messages and they are empty.

“Okay, that’s it!” my mom huffs, coming down the stairs. “I have let you mope, and I have tried not to pry, but it’s been days, and you’ve barely come out of your room. It smells like something died down here. Did you lose your job?”

I shake my head.

“Is it that girl you game with, or the man with the cheeky smile? ”

“I thought they liked me, but they don’t. Please don’t ask me to explain because I have just stopped crying about it. Just give me time.”

She nods. “I love you, baby, but you smell. Get your ass up and shower while I strip your bed and clean this mess up a little.”

I don’t argue; I don’t have it in me. Instead, I do as she asks and go shower. The water is scalding, but I let it burn. It’s the first thing I’ve felt in days that wasn’t just... numb. I lean my forehead against the tiles, water sliding down my back, and for a second I just breathe.

Then it hits me—this can’t be it. I can’t let them be the reason I fall apart.

They already took pieces of me I didn’t even know I was handing over, but I won’t let them take everything. Ridge said I earned my place, that he didn’t give me a job to mess with me. I don’t know if I believe him, not yet, but I’m going to prove I deserve it.

To him.

To Zeland.

To Aspen.

And to myself.

I’m going back to work. Not for them, but for me.

Let them keep their secrets and their masks—I’m done hiding behind mine.