by Lindsey Hart
Mr. Nightshadow36, thirty-six because of his age, which he listed in his profile, had a few pictures. One of his face, up close, of that beautiful strong brow, the glorious eyes, the lips that were deliciously kissable and probably tasted like strawberries…
Get a grip here. Right now. Ash debated about punishing herself by closing the laptop and forcing herself to get the sleep she needed, but she shrugged off her stupid thoughts and clicked on the next photo. It was obscured, like most, given that the guy probably wanted to maintain some semblance of privacy. She’d done the same. Her lone photo on her profile was a side shot that didn’t even make her look like her. She’d heard that pretty girls received hundred messages or more a day. She received about ten and none of them were dick pics, so she must have done something right. Nine out of ten were guys fishing to know what she really looked like, so that was also a blatant confirmation.
Putting yourself out there on a dating site for others to judge was completely humiliating. She got the whole wanting to hide his face in the shadows and take even darker, grainer photos of his body. Even through the dark and low resolution, it looked fantastic. He had, like, an eight pack. The guy was solid muscle, though he was lean. His shoulders were broad and tapered to a narrow waist. His arms were well sculpted and though there wasn’t a picture of his legs, they were probably equally as fabulous. He wasn’t the typical jacked hunk that most women fell all over. No, he was tall and athletic and streamlined and absolutely gorgeous.
Ash clicked back to the first photo. Those eyes… they were mysterious, smoky, vulnerable. A little sad, but also hinted at a sense of humor, given the tiny lines bracketing them at the corners. His hair was gorgeous. She wondered what it would feel like to sweep her fingers through the silky strands. Was man hair as soft as a woman’s? Or softer? His looked softer. Oh my god. This is just sad.
Ash bit down hard on her bottom lip. There was no way a guy like him would respond to her. Although… the old cliché was true. She’d never know if she never tried.
She slid her finger on the trackpad, over the message button. She left it there for a moment, shaking, wavering, trembling. Her breath caught in her lungs as she turned into a sweating bundle of nerves. Messaging a guy online was no better than meeting one in person.
“God, I’m cursed to stay single for the rest of my life.” She glanced at Slappy. “Unless it counts that I have a hot old man sleeping at the foot of my bed right now?” He didn’t even crack an eye.
She didn’t know about being single, but she was cursed to go to her high school reunion and be the same dorky dweeb that people picked on. The one who the girls called Cinders or Charcoal and the ones the guys joked about having an Ash Bash with.
Not that that would ever happen. She couldn’t attract one man, let alone the attention of an orgy. Not even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t.
Thanks for the name, mom and dad. Mostly mom. It was her choice.
Ash shut her eyes. The thought of showing up, looking like a complete moron and getting picked on and teased again, was enough to give her strength. She couldn’t not go. She’d received the online invitation to the group and clicked accept in a moment of weakness. She’d already RSVP’d, in yet another moment where her senses fled altogether. She thought it might be fun. That it might be okay. That she’d like to reconnect with a few friends who weren’t on social media. That it would be good to see everyone again.
She had no idea what she was thinking and if she didn’t show, she didn’t want to think about the things people would say behind her back. Not showing would be admitting defeat. It would be like showing them they were right all along.
Ash was a lot of things, but she sure as hell never had backed down from a fight. Not then. Not now. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t have got picked on so much. She wouldn’t have made an enemy of Sonja Wills. Now, it would be just plain embarrassing to not go. She knew she’d regret it for a long time if she was too afraid of what others said and did. She couldn’t let them dictate her future. Then they’d win.
Hot pinpricks burned the corners of her eyes. Before she could chicken out, she clicked on the message button and typed something quick and to the point. She hit SEND and before she even really had time to register what had happened, the message went through.
She was left staring at the confirmation screen, horror welling inside of her.
“Oh shit! What did I just do?” Of course, Slappy didn’t offer any answers. He was a cat. And a quiet one at that. She hadn’t heard him meow in ages.
She snapped her laptop shut, as though that could undo the message and make the whole thing better. Furious with herself, she threw the laptop onto the other side of the bed and drew the comforters up around her chin like she had when she was a kid and heard a creak or a weird noise in the house at night.
She was exhausted and sleep closed in quickly. Right before the blackness claimed her, she let herself breathe out a sigh of relief.
There wasn’t any real harm in sending the message. That guy, a guy who oddly enough reminded her of one of her comic book villain crushes- and why not like the bad guys when being bad, at least in movies and comics, was so much more kick-ass than being good- that kind of guy, would never respond to a silly, desperate message.
Never in a hundred years.
Never in any galaxy, particularly the one she was forced to inhabit.
Never in any life or any lifetime.
She was safe. And given that her reunion was exactly one week away, she was also totally screwed.
CHAPTER 3
Trace
Receiving odd messages on an online dating profile wasn’t anything new for Trace Russell- or for the rest of the population who gambled on finding love online. He’d made the terrible decision to make a profile and join the ranks of the helpless and graceless men out there who had tried and failed, to find someone in real life.
The online version of himself, of course, was much, much better.
He was funny online. Unreserved. Polite. Kind. He was just another person there. He wasn’t THE Trace Russell, self-made billionaire, owner of a massive chain of supplement and vitamin stores.
Oddly enough, money made it hard for a person to be understood and liked for who they were.
Go fucking figure.
After a year of dating around, dabbling in relationships, having fun, doing the whole going out and being social thing, he decided what he needed was a hiatus.
And maybe the chance to be a little less- conspicuous. All his life, he’d craved recognition. It was the ultimate irony that when he’d finally got to the place he wanted to be, a place where he figured he’d achieved it, he wanted anonymity.
Was it so much to ask that when he took a woman out they weren’t already contemplating dollar signs and bank account figures, clothes and jewelry and private flights to exotic destinations.
Oh right. Of course, it was.
He liked himself online. Mr. Nightshadow36, a ridiculous name that he’d had far too much fun making up and typing into the stupid site, was an intriguing man. A man who could carry on a conversation. A man who was witty and didn’t get tongue-tied. A man, who deep down, wasn’t still that little boy kids used to throw rocks at, who went to school hungry, who ate mustard sandwiches for lunch since there was no meat in the house.
Yeah… online he got to forget all about his clichéd past. He wished he wasn’t a rags to riches story. That he was old money. That his parents were stodgy and held house parties and that he’d been forced into an arranged marriage with some snobby bitch who didn’t like him but had his kids anyway so that they could both live for them and ignore each other forever thereafter.
At least he’d be married.
At least he’d have someone to fight, be pissed off and annoyed with. At least he’d have done his duty and provided his mom and dad with a few grandkids.
It was fucking true that money didn’t bring happiness. It bought him a big house, which was totally empty.
Yup. Trace Russell wished, more than anything on earth, he hadn’t turned into the ultimate parody of the sad rich guy who made his money and found it didn’t add worth to his life in any sort of meaningful way.
He wished he could kick his own ass.
It wasn’t a surprise, that once again, he couldn’t sleep. He never slept. He walked around like a zombie all day, so fucking tired, but when night rolled around- wide awake.
It was like he was burning up inside, but he could do nothing to quench the flames.
Annoyed, Trace threw back the sheets but didn’t get out of bed. He let the cool air in the room chill him. It was nice, the pinpricks and chills against his clammy skin. He reached for his tablet and logged into the ridiculous dating site. There really is no hope for humanity.
He received anywhere between ten and twenty messages a day and had since he first joined two weeks ago. It had never spiked or tapered off. His pictures sucked. He made sure of that. The point wasn’t to get laid. The point was to find someone who had no idea who he was and stick with that.
He knew he could have whoever he wanted. That his eligible bachelor status and bank account made him a good catch for just about anyone. Models. Singers. Actresses.
He didn’t want any of that.
He wanted something real.
Yeah, he knew he was on an online dating site, but hell… he was desperate.
Trace scrolled through his messages, starting from the bottom up. He was annoyed at the single word ones. The ones that said HI and left it at that. He deleted the lame ones. He deleted the ones about people wanting to lick melted ice cream off his abs. And the ones about sucking on his toes (which weren’t pictured in any photos), and the ones about his ass (also not pictured).
He stopped when he came to the most recent message, the last message in his inbox. He clicked on it and his eyes widened. He found himself smiling less than a second into reading. His eyes quickly devoured the rest of the strange message.
I know, Mr. Shadow, that you probably get a lot of messages. You’re obviously built like sin and with a name like a villain instead of a hero, who couldn’t help but be attracted to you. Likely, you’ll think that I’m crazy or that I’m joking. I can assure you that I’m not joking. I don’t know about the crazy. Definitely nerdy. My mom would say I’m a lost cause. Still not sure about the crazy.
Anyway, I’ll get to the point. I wasn’t exactly popular in high school and I’m still not. I’m a classic charity case. I’m not asking for a pity fuck or anything. I know this is a dating site, so I’ll put that out there. I’m a nice girl. I have a cat and I might be on the verge of becoming a plant lady. Still not sure if I should write crazy in front of that. I work at a mom and pop shop. I love what I do. I have a few good friends because I think in life, that’s all we really need. I have a brother and a mom and dad. They’re average. I’m painfully average.
The thing is, I have a high school reunion coming up. The big tenth year. I think I’ve done a lot with my life. I’m happy with it and that’s all that counts. However, I’ll confess to being shamefully insecure deep down, as we probably all are. I just want for once, to feel like I excelled at something. Even, shamefully enough, if that’s my upcoming high school reunion. I don’t want to be the kid who gets picked on and bullied ten years later. I don’t want to come across as an emotional wreck who needs to binge watch all the movies related to her favorite comic books as a form of self-help since she can’t afford real therapy.
I’m a geek at heart. Truly. And I love it. But for just one day, I’d like to be the cool kid when it counts.
You’re probably wondering (if by some mercy and miracle you’re still reading) how you can help. Well… in short, you’re hot. I think you’re more than that though. Your eyes are incredible. I’ll confess that I imagined what your mom and dad look like to give you such astonishing genetics. Damn, they did a good job. Next time you see them, you should thank them for your eyes. You look intelligent, witty, smart, charming. You also look like you have a little bit of a dark side. You have this vulnerability in your eyes that I was immediately drawn to. You look a little sad, like maybe you have a shit history or maybe someone said something particularly awful to you the day that photo you posted was taken. You also look like you’d be the life of the party when it counts and like you’d laugh until you cried, and you wouldn’t be ashamed at all of those man tears.
I’m probably way off. I’m not a stalker or even creepy, I swear.
I know this is a long shot, and by long shot, I probably have a better chance of marrying my teenage heartthrob (who just happens to be an animated character- I’m a geek through and through. Please don’t judge) than I do of having you meet me and agree to pose as my fake boyfriend for a day for my high school reunion so I can, for the first time ever, kick some prissy, snobby, fake, bitchy, jock, ass.
If you do decide that you’d like to win the Nicest Guy Of The Year award, message me back. I’m sure you’ll have good karma for the rest of your life for doing me this favor.
Thanks in advance,
Ashton (yes, I have one of those guy-girl names, but I truly am a girl). Also something I was teased unmercifully for growing up right along with the bad skin and the braces and the glasses.) I know my photo on here isn’t good and that’s on purpose. I can send you a real one if you’re interested.
For the record, I was captivated by your eyes first, your six-pack second.
And also, for the record, you look a little like my favorite villain. Or like you’d play a good one, based on your looks. And villains are always more kick-ass than the heroes. Even if they always lose.
Ash.
A sense of humor. Trace liked that. He admired the wit and the courage that had gone into the writing of that message. It was different. Different wasn’t always bad.
He’d always had a sense of chivalry. He wasn’t the knight in shining armor, but he was a sucker for a damsel in distress.
He’d been working on his appearance since that photo was taken. He’d grown out his hair. Put on a little weight, all muscle since he’d changed his workout routine. He still ran every single morning, mostly in an attempt to clear his head, but he also ate protein like it was going out of style and bulked up.
All in an attempt to be unrecognizable.
It wasn’t just enough to go on some site and take shitty, unrecognizable photos of himself. He had to make sure he sold it in real life too. Like an undercover cop.
God, it would be so much easier just to have an arranged marriage. He stood by that.
Ultimately, he didn’t believe in the notion of love. That wasn’t possible for people like him in the current bullshit version of a life that was supposed to be all gold and unicorn farts. Yes- unicorn farts. Because his niece was just as obsessed as the rest of the world and just that morning, she’d happened to draw a unicorn farting out a rainbow.
Most of the world probably agreed with him, given that marriage was hard enough. Celebrities and rich people weren’t expected to maintain the norm.
He’d never wanted to be an average person, but it would have been nice to just have enough to be comfortable. He’d never expected the fame when he set out to help people get healthy and to make sure his parents were taken care of, that they could retire and stop working themselves ragged.
He couldn’t exactly regret the money, but was it a sin to just wish that people could leave him the hell alone for the most part? He should probably just buy a private island and hide away from humanity for the rest of his life.
Which would be tempting, if he knew he wouldn’t go crazy from the whole cabin fever, bush fever, whatever fever. The private island was so much more tempting with someone to appreciate it with. A real someone. A nice someone. Someone who liked cats and plants and was a little geeky.
Trace cleared his throat. His hand hovered over the tablet.
Why not respond? It might be fun. He’d get to play a role. This woman wanted a fak
e boyfriend. She wouldn’t be trying too hard to fall in love. She wouldn’t be looking into his background or going on sites that combined their photos to figure out what their potential offspring looked like. She wouldn’t have a list of expectations a mile long. She didn’t expect a mansion or to bathe in unicorn tears. Right- he should really get off the whole unicorn thing.
Even from the side, he could tell her profile picture was pretty. He liked her profile name too. TheDarkHorse. So mysterious. So unfeminine. So… different.
Okay, he was shit with descriptors. It was cool. She seemed funny. Legit. Down to earth. Painfully normal. She probably didn’t even own a shovel and if she did, she probably wasn’t looking to go gold digging with. Another bad analogy. It’s even worse than the unicorn shit. No pun intended.
Ha, fucking ha.
Trace hadn’t had fun in a long, long time.
His hands flew as he responded to her message. Even if he eventually regretted it, he was pretty sure he’d enjoy the ride until the horrible crash and burn ending.
CHAPTER 4
Ash
The first thing Ash did, shamefully enough, when her alarm went off at nine the next morning was to open her laptop.
She was still logged into the dating site since she hadn’t clicked out the night before. She remembered shutting her laptop and tossing it aside like it was a burning pile of dung.
Her heart leaped up annoyingly before crashing into the pit of her stomach when she eyed the mailbox. It had a single-digit over the envelope symbol. One.
She had a message!
She really hoped it wasn’t just some random guy. Her breath came in hard, dizzying pants which caused a cold sweat to break out over her body. Her heart hammered hard and her pulse was so frantic she wondered if it might actually be dangerous for her health.