Page 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

Mikah

“It’s been a month, Mikah. I can’t take this anymore.”

“You should be grateful I’m here, Zach.”

“Under normal circumstances, I would be,” he says snarkily. “I appreciate you helping with the kids and letting me work more, but this—” He gestures around at me. “I can’t take the moping. The constant sad and sour mood. And that cat. God, he’s got to go. He’s worse than you, and that’s saying a lot.”

“Don’t be rude to Captain Fluffy Paws,” I mutter, reaching over to pet him. He hisses and swats at me, so I yank my hand back.

“See! This is what I’m talking about. He’s a menace, and you are fucking depressed and depressing. You’re making me miserable, and that’s hard to do.”

He’s right. It is hard to do. Zach is one of those glass half full kind of guys. Sees the best in things. He’s happy just living his life, and since I’ve been here, well, he definitely seems a little off .

“Don’t you think it’s time to go home?” he suggests.

“How the hell can I go home when I live next door to him ?”

“If I didn’t think you were absolutely head over heels in love with the guy, even though you keep denying it, I’d suggest selling your house and buying another, but that would be a bad idea.”

I’d considered it. Every day, honestly, I thought of selling my house and buying another far away. Like on the other side of the country. I’ll hide away in the mountains of Vermont or Maine. But every time I seriously consider it, my chest hurts. Aches like I’m having a damn heart attack.

“You need to talk to him, Mikah.” Zach sighs. I know he’s trying to help, but this isn’t the kind of help I need.

“I’m not talking to him.”

“You are so fucking stubborn,” he mutters, looking upwards with his hands on his hips. Shaking his head, he turns his attention on me, glaring. “Mikah, I’m sorry to do this, but it’s for your own good. If you don’t talk to him by the end of the day, I will go there and do it for you.”

“No, you won’t,” I mutter, blindly reaching for the blankets to pull up to my chin. I basically live in this bed nowadays.

“Try me,” he seethes, then walks out of his room.

His tiny room that he can barely fit in, never mind the both of us who are squishing in here now. We’ve been sharing his double bed, which is awful, by the way. Zach gets way too hot when he sleeps, and even though we keep distance—as much as we can in a double bed—he heats the entire room.

He’s nothing like Dominic. Which is good, I guess, since I’m avoiding him at all costs.

I don’t miss living in a trailer, I’ll tell you that. Even this double-wide, which has a good amount of room, is terrible when eight people are living in it.

Zach has the smallest room since he has a room to himself. Well, not now, but normally he’s alone.

The four younger boys share a room with two sets of bunk beds. You got a bunk on each side, with just enough space to walk between them. The other bedroom is his mother’s and sister’s, though since his sister is a teenager now, she’s been sleeping on the pullout couch in the living room. She offered it to me when I got here, but I wouldn’t take that from her. I’m helping every way I can, mostly by watching the kids when Zach works, or dropping them off at school or whatever after school stuff they have. I paid their rent for the month I’ve been here and bought them a ton of food. Even ordered pizza a few times. His siblings love that I’m here. They don’t care that there isn’t much space, they just like that I’m spoiling them.

I haven’t been in any kind of mood to make new content, so I paused my page. I let my boss at BTL know I needed to take some time off due to personal issues, and she told me it was fine for now, but to keep her updated on what was going on and when I’d be back. They won’t keep handling my website stuff if I’m not working for them, which is fair, so I’m on a time limit.

I got all my identity stuff handled, opened a new account, and updated the info everywhere it needed. I thought doing that would make me feel better, but it didn’t. I felt… nothing, which is strange because handling things like that used to make me feel accomplished. Like a bit of weight was pulled from me, but everything is so heavy that I guess something small won’t make a difference. Like taking a pound of bricks off when there’s already a semi-truck on top of you. That’s what it feels like lately. I’m drowning and being crushed all at the same time.

I curl up on the bed, scooting closer to the wall. There’s nowhere to hang out in this trailer that doesn’t require socializing and I’m not up for that. I’m nearly asleep when I hear Zach say he’s leaving for work, though I don’t remember him having to work today since it’s Sunday and he doesn’t work on Sundays, but maybe he picked up an extra shift I lost track of. Wouldn’t be the first time.

I wake up some time later to my phone going off. I blindly reach for it, but can’t get it, so I ignore it. Until it goes off again. Rolling over, I find it on the floor. Not sure how that happened, but whatever. I scoop it up, squinting my eyes to see it’s Zach. I answer because maybe he needs something, and since he’s letting me stay here, I can’t tell him no.

“Yeah?” I clear my throat when I hear how raspy it is.

“Have you read the latest copy of The Scandal Sheet?”

“Seriously? That’s what you woke me up for? You know I don’t read that trash. ”

“Well, you should read this one. I’m sending screenshots.”

“Pretty sure that’s illegal,” I comment, pushing myself up to sit. I pinch the bridge of my nose to stave off the ache in my head.

“Don’t care.” He ends the call.

Zach subscribes to way too many gossip magazines. It’s how he fills his time, which you’d think he wouldn’t have much of, but he always knows what’s going on.

My phone dings with the text, so I open it up, knowing there must be a reason he told me about it. It’s probably something stupid, like another celeb couple getting divorced. People I couldn’t care less about, but Zach thinks is important. When the front cover pops up, my eyes bug out of my head and I jolt upwards, nearly falling off the bed.

There, on the front page, is Dominic. I recognize the suit as the one he wore to the award ceremony—what he wore the last time I saw him—and it causes a pang in my chest. I close my eyes, sighing.

Why the hell did Zach want me to see this?

I open my eyes, and the title catches my attention.

Drama on the Couch?

What the hell does that mean?

In smaller print, it says to open up to page seven to read the story. I swipe to the next photo. There are a few small images of the ceremony, including a picture of him and me sitting at the table. It makes me sick. Because I miss him, and I hate how much I miss him after what he did. And the fact he hasn’t even tried to come find me even after filing a police report isn’t helping. Did he do that just to clear his conscience? To make sure I wasn’t dead and then he could wash his hands of me? Real nice.

I read through the article, and honestly, I can’t even tell you why. This is all trash, and it’s unlikely true.

One month after the MAIF Awards brings some juicy drama—our favorite! While checking up on award winner Dominic Blake, staff here at TSS noticed some changes on his subscription page. No, it’s not the changes you’re thinking.

We’re all aware Dominic is in a committed relationship nowadays and has put a halt to the couch scenes—his claim to fame. But what we noticed was something even more.

Though Dominic mentioned he would be taking a different direction with his work and would be pausing his subs, so they would still have access to what is available but not be charged considering there is nothing new being uploaded, he did not mention anything about videos being removed.

Especially of one creator in particular.

Care to guess who it is?

Well, if you said Trent Ballz, you’d be right!

“What the hell?” I mutter to myself. Why would he take that video down?

Why would he take that video down, you ask? Well, we here at TSS wanted to know the same thing. So, we paid Dominic a little visit. He wasn’t keen on answering many questions, but he did make a comment when we asked why he decided to remove the video of the man who got him the award.

Here’s what he had to say.

“First of all, you’ve got that backwards. Trent got the award because of me, not the other way around. He was a nobody before I agreed to make a video with him, because I’m not one of those people who care about fame. I care about my content and who can make a good video. At the time, that was him. But after learning the kind of person he is, I don’t want anything to do with that.”

When asked to elaborate, he said he wouldn’t. At least, not right now.

Which begs the question of—when?

Dominic says he’s dealing with some personal issues and the last thing he wants to worry about is making content. His personal life is more important.

Is there trouble in paradise already?

The new couple, Dominic Blake and Mikah Reed AKA Michael Preston, who is also an adult content creator, were all over each other at the award ceremony. So where is Mikah now?

I huff out a sigh, annoyed that they’d just post my legal name all over the place for everyone to see. Also, we were all over each other? No, we weren’t. I did my best to stay professional, not wanting to screw things up for him. Yet, somehow, things got all screwed up anyway. Only, none of it was my fault. It was all on him.

I can only assume this has to do with something going wrong between him and Trent. Had they had something all along and I was the sidepiece? Did Trent finally get sick of Dominic’s shit? Did they have a falling out because Dominic realized Trent’s the reason I ran off? Guy was probably hoping to live a double life. Trent seems like the type who wouldn’t even care about it, either. Me, on the other hand? Fuck all of that.

I still don’t know how I managed to have a threesome with him and Storm. Even today, thinking about Dominic being with anyone brings on a rage in me I didn’t know I was capable of.

I was in love with him. There’s no denying it. I wouldn’t be so torn up over him if that wasn’t how I felt. But do I still love him?

How can I after what he did?

He never came to look for me. He hasn’t called in weeks. I told him where I grew up. He knows I have a friend that lives out here. He could be looking for me, but he’s not. And that says more than anything coming out of his mouth could.