Page 1 of Rough Daddy (REAL DADDIES: Boone Brothers #5)

One

Tessa

W e should be filming this.

Or at least snapping selfies and posting with #dinerlife, #influencermeetup, #itgirls.

With the headline, “They say rock bottom has a trap door. Immabouttofindout. ”

I lie my head back on the sticky vinyl of the booth. Diners are supposed to be charming and low-end chic, but this one just smells like Lysol and rancid oil.

I only half listen to my friends’ conversation over bad coffee and worse food as my temples pound and my anxiety whispers in my ear that the sky is absolutely falling, and its destination is the top of my head.

My phone sits on the booth seat next to my left thigh. It lights up with another text from Ethan, my fifteen-year-old brother I left at home. I squeeze the button on the side, darkening the screen.

Guilt makes the sad breakfast in front of me impossible to eat.

But this is an adventure I need to take on my own.

Out the grease-smudged window of The Last Stop diner sits my white Tesla Model S. I’d say it looks out of place, but next to Marla’s rented Mercedes, Kit’s blacked-out Denali and Eliana’s shiny new Porsche, it fits right in.

A testament to the power of social media and the wild truth of just how rich, and screwed up, it can make you before the age of eighteen.

And after.

Inside my trunk is my entire set of Louis luggage, stacked on top of at least three black garbage bags full of shoes that probably outvalue the car.

Yesterday, after reading the email threatening to bludgeon me with a claw hammer, then the next one that offered me explicit advice on just how to stop my heart with a few household chemicals and pain relievers, I finally snapped.

The crack had been forming for a year, especially with my dad’s temper making me flinch every time he punched a wall or stomped on one of my intricately glued-together scale-engine models, wondering if one of these days it might be me he decides to break. But once the fault line split, so did I.

By two a.m., I’d chosen a destination that seemed as far away from my current life as I could get, and yet wouldn’t entail a drive more than a few hours from civilization, because my anxiety is constantly telling me I’ll surely be lost with no phone sig and a very large, expensive white paperweight on the side of the road.

Marla's voice cuts through the fog. Sitting with the only people in my life who understand how it was all unraveling makes up for the shitty food.

"Wildfire?” Marla holds her half-eaten double cheeseburger in both hands, grease, condiments and pickle juice dripping off the wilted lettuce onto the white porcelain plate. “Surely someone with your IQ could pick somewhere that at least sounds like a real place, instead of a sound effect?"

Her face is selfie-ready, as always. Lashes heavy, lips too red this early.

She looks like she's heading to a red carpet, not a back road diner with a hand written ‘Cash Prefer’d’ sign taped to the front door. But that's Marla. Always ready. Always curated.

She was America's YouTube sweetheart by the age of twelve. Now she can't go to a grocery store without someone calling her a bitch on TikTok.

But unlike me, she’s a duck. All the shit just rolls off her back, turning to gold in her bank account.

"It’s a nowhere , which is exactly where I want to be right now," I say, rolling the warm coffee mug between my palms.

Kit reaches across the sticky table and squeezes my wrist. She's the only one of us who got out clean. From pigtails and brand endorsements to kindergarten teacher. Long skirts. Bare nails. Mom to Mom sales on Sunday.

"You don't have to disappear." She tries to look encouraging. "Not all the way."

"I'm not disappearing," I lie. "Just... pausing."

Eliana snorts. She hasn't emerged from her black hoodie since she got out of her car. "Pause? Girl, you deleted every account you've ever had. That's not a pause. That's a funeral."

She's not wrong.

I push my plate away, a wilted egg white omelet growing cold beside a lemon wedge and a sad sprig of parsley. No cheese, no toast. The kind of meal you order when you want to look like you're in control of your life, even if you can't remember the last time you chewed without guilt.

A month ago, my plan was to reclaim my life. Post what I wanted. Say things I wanted to say.

I was finally feeling like a woman instead of a product.

I’d turned the corner on official adulthood. I was going full-on Miley after Hannah.

"Are you sure about this? Really?" Kit asks, eyes soft. "Maybe you can talk to your mom—"

"I'm not going back," I snap.

My parents aren't parents. They're brand managers. They’re already trying to push my little brother into the same ring of fire.

The already crumbling empire that was Tessa Quinn has turned into a napalm dumpster fire, which only made them double down on pushing Ethan’s content as I imploded.

Only, with him. It’s a thousand times worse. They’re making him the poster child for a cute, teenage neurodivergent effigy. Flying his autism flag like it’s his best interests they have in mind. His coping skills are a fraction of mine, and look where I am.

O kay , so I got an OnlyFans account and posted a video of my new bathing suit. I showed a little skin.

I got in the pool at my house. Nary a nipple was in sight. I demonstrated no sex toys, no requests for used panties were fulfilled. It was just me, being me. In my home. Sure, it wasn’t fuzzy slippers and sippy cups, although that might have earned me more money, but it wasn’t porn either.

God forbid the chubby-cheeked sweetheart of the internet grew up. I opened my mouth, spoke my truth, and the world shoved a ball gag in it.

As soon as I had my car packed and hit the freeway, I messaged our group chat, letting my friends know I was on thermal meltdown.

And, like the wagons circling the camp under attack, we picked a central point on my route and booked the best Airbnb Coldwater, Michigan, had to offer. Which turned out to be a more than reasonable log cabin set back on twenty acres of pines with a pond as calm as Loch Ness.

Kit drove up from Cincinnati. Marla flew in from LA. Eliana drove from her new brand headquarters in Chicago.

But our little impromptu get-together is coming to an end. We've been in this booth for an hour, the period at the end of our little graveyard reunion before we all splinter back in four directions.

No cameras. No hashtags. Just the four of us and the wreckage of growing up as a child influencer.

Last night, they helped me cut and dye my hair. Kit picked the color at the local drugstore. Onyx black, of course.

Eliana held the towel. And Marla wielded the scissors like a weapon, turning my oh-so-Instagram-friendly highlighted blonde beach waves into goth princess meets Morticia Addams.

We laughed too hard and cried too much. When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone new. Someone I might want to be.

None of us ask for a take-out box. We lay out far more cash on the table than Kit says is necessary, and head out the door into the late morning of nowhere, Michigan.

"Hey, should I take my Denali to the shop?" Kit asks, turning to me as we walk. “It shakes when I’m sitting at a stoplight.”

I’ve been told all my life that nobody wants to hear about engines and transmission ratios from a girl whose whole life revolves around a carefully-curated lifestyle image. But these three women know me better than anyone, and they know that if it’s engineering-related, I’ve probably read about it.

"It’s not going to blow up on you." I take in the clouds that look like white cotton candy. "But def take it in. It’s probably a worn spark plug or dirty throttle body."

“Damn, what I wouldn’t do for a dirty body throttle right now,” Marla snorts with a cock of her dark eyebrow, earning a giggle from all of us.

I stare at my Tesla. Why couldn’t my parents have gotten me something with an engine, instead of a brand deal?

The hug before we leave is long. Like we're trying to stitch ourselves back together with our arms.

Then I walk away, heels too high, back too straight. Into the fire I go.

Wildfire, that is.