by Vivien Vale
But of course that wouldn’t have worked.
Cassie and Ethan were so fucking bewildered in that moment. And fuck, so was I
My cover was blown so I figured may as well do my best to cover my tracks and explain the truth, right?
Wrong!
That’s when I decided I was totally going to bail. Run, run for it, Chloe.
So, this is it then, huh? I guess Aaron is Ms. Winters and of course I’m Mr. fucking BadBoy.
Now everyone knows, it’s out in the open. This should be a fantastic revelation, right?
No.
Aaron is Ms. Winters.
That means all this time, I’ve been talking to him and not realizing who he really was, but the same goes for him with me. From the look on his face, I don’t think he had a clue about this either.
I can’t believe every time I asked him about his job he was so aloof and unapproachable. He was probably trying to keep it a secret. Like I do with mine.
Maybe for future reference, I should take notes on how to not let guys be vague when explaining their careers to me. Okay, I’ve been vague about my job too. Fine. But still…
How could I have been so stupid?
Now as I make my way blindly across the resort, each step my feet make in the plush snow is a link to embarrassment, a walk of shame.
I need to dig my head out of my ass and take a deep breath to calm the fuck down, but inside my mind there’s a shitstorm happening and I can’t turn it off. Calm the fuck down, Chloe.
I need to sort my thoughts. Focus. Focus.
First things first.
Aaron lied to me.
I don’t take lying lightly.
I’m angry at myself though, too, for falling into the trap. I should have seen it coming. I was too focused on Aaron, on his magic cock, on his fancy words, on the chase…on the ideas that took hold in my mind earlier tonight when I learned about Ben.
But wait a minute, he’s not chasing after me. That means he’s not begging for forgiveness either.
Should I also add that to the list of reasons to throw him in the dog house?
Oh, don’t worry, he isn’t getting out of the dog house any time soon. In fact, I might lock that shit up forever.
I know I’ll have to end up having the dreaded conversation with him, but for now, I just want to bury my head in the snow like an ostrich.
Just kidding, I don’t even think those types of birds live in cold climates. Not to mention, I would probably freeze to death and die if I put my head in the snow for an even five minutes.
Now that’s an idea. Suddenly it doesn’t seem as horrible as having to face all this turmoil right now.
The more I walk (mainly to maintain body heat at this point because I’m cold as shit out here), the more I realize that all this makes perfect fucking sense.
Finding Aaron at the supposed “first date” location.
I shake my head at the damn irony. We were actually on a date, both us and our alter-egos. Then the more than coincidental cinnamon rolls. Then Ms. Winters being here in Reykjavik.
I’m reeling here, trying to regain not only physical balance through the thick snow, but emotional balance as well.
I trusted Aaron and thought he was a decent guy.
Is what he did so terrible? And I did lie too…didn’t I?
See, here I go again, trying to rationalize my thought processes. My subconscious doesn’t want to hate Aaron for lying. My body doesn’t want to either. And my heart? No, it sure as fuck doesn’t. But it’s somehow managing to ache pretty fucking badly.
So, you can see my tormenting conflict here.
Yep, it’s quite the doozy.
I come to a pond with a little fountain in the middle. Of course, both the pond and the fountain are frozen over in the cold weather, and I can’t help but think about how ironic it is that the display in front of me mirrors the way I feel inside.
Icy, cold and yet crying out for help in a way.
I’m surprised that Cassie isn’t running after me by now, either. Where are all these people? It seriously can’t just be the cold keeping them away. Why aren’t they chasing me down?
Hmm…Cassie knows me too well, and probably wants to give me some space to digest tonight’s developments. Must be it.
So much for being in a romantic country in a sexy setting, huh?
Then another gnawing thought rams the back of my mind.
How am I ever going to get over this?
I run past the frozen fountain and make it to the lobby where my hotel suite is.
I shiver as I try to thaw my body. Snow plops off my shoes and becomes a wet and soggy mess on the floor. I glance around and notice the front desk clerk giving me a pitiful gaze.
“Sorry about the snow,” I apologize and give her a sheepish glance.
I try to kick the remainder of the snow off my shoes and onto the mat just outside the lobby doors.
There’s a fire crackling inside by the front desk where a couch and a few tables are placed.
It looks cozy and serene, and now I want nothing more than to just lock myself in my hotel room and pull the covers up over my head. Hide under my covers. Real mature.
“Have a good night,” I bid the clerk behind the desk a farewell as I trek to the elevator.
Now, I’m utterly exhausted. I lean against the back of the elevator car and blow out an exasperating puff of air. I want to shriek, but it’s so damn quiet in this place, I’m afraid I might send off alarm bells.
The last thing I need right now is the fire department coming to rescue me. I need a different kind of saving, and it begins internally.
When I finally get to my hotel room, I open the door and lock it shut behind me, using the little latch to keep the world out too.
I walk to the little kitchen and contemplate whisking myself up a hot beverage of some sort. One with alcohol—in fact, lots of alcohol sounds perfect right now. But I’ve already been drinking quite substantially even before the great reveal and think that it’s probably best if I stay off grandpa’s cough syrup even just for tonight.
I make my way to the bathroom, but I can’t look at my reflection. I’m not there yet to where I can face myself after all this shit.
Drama and misery love company though, so after a few brief moments I finally make eye contact with Mr. BadBoy—otherwise known as me.
Mr. BadBoy. Ms. Winters. Ugh.
“What the hell happened out there tonight?” I ask myself as if I’m addressing a baseball team who’s just lost the season.
I shrug and chuckle bitterly. What else can I do? I walk to the bed and numbly peel the layers of clothing from my body, intricately removing them piece by piece.
This is going to get better, right?
Maybe a good night’s sleep and a fresh outlook when the dawn breaks will help me see clearer.
Well, a girl can dream. If she can sleep with that hollow ache in her chest, that is.
Aaron
I see big, white snowflakes starting to flurry like crazy through the windows by the bar. I’m in the most beautiful fucking place in the world, and I have no fucking clue what I’m supposed to do now.
Is there even a supposed to in this fucked up situation?
The bartender makes eye contact with me, probably sensing it’s the right moment. Of course. From the way I must be looking right now, sadly installed in a lone spot at a hotel bar, it can’t be too hard for him to guess that any fucking moment is probably the right one.
“What else will you be having tonight, my friend?” He thinks I’m in it for the long haul, too. I can’t be wearing my heart on my sleeve that fucking much—not that I care right now.
“Whiskey,” I tell him, letting him fill in the gaps because I’ve got a lot more on my mind tonight than my drink order.
“May I recommend a young malt from right here in Iceland? It’s kind of a whiskey. They distill it just outside of town.”
The consequences are coming hard and fas
t for me tonight. I didn’t ask for ‘kind of a whiskey,’ but that’s what I get for not being exact.
“Just pour me a double from that bottle of Glenlivet 12 I see up there. Neat. There’s enough ice and water outside, I don’t need to drink it too.”
This gets a laugh from the bartender. He must not think I’m that much of a fucking sad sack.
I’m just not normally a ‘sit at the bar and think’ type of guy, but the way things unraveled so fucking fast, I need to be that guy right now. I’ve got no other choice, especially after the bartender presents me with a glass of scotch on a wood coaster. It’s a very heavy pour, more than even the double I ordered.
I sip my whisky, trying to assess what I know for sure.
It’s my fault. That’s something I know. I saw it in Chloe’s face, and her eyes.
I felt it, and I’m still feeling it now. I fucked up, whether I meant to or not.
And no, I didn’t mean to. It’s not like I knew what was really going on with Thebadboys.net, and Mr. BadBoy, and Chloe. I still don’t, so it’s not like I intentionally misled Chloe.
Fuck, I can’t say that. Misleading people is part of what I do, it’s part of what a lot of people do on Thebadboys.net. It’s kind of the beating fucking heart of the whole thing.
I hear the room emptying out behind me. People leaving tables to go off and do whatever they’re going to do on this snowy night in Reykjavik—they’re probably just going back to their rooms and suites, their hot tubs and fireplaces, doing the same types of things I’m supposed to be doing...
There it is again: supposed to. Who the fuck am I to say what’s supposed to happen, especially when it involves other people?
Like the way everything is supposed to work out for me, since it always has in the past. Well, those assumptions need to go out the fucking window when it’s not just me, but someone else. Someone who I can’t stop thinking about, even right now.
I always knew there was something about Chloe, from the very fucking start, and I never denied that. What I never did was make the connection with what a senior editor at the Times once told me back in the day when I was going to be a journalist, before I started Thebadboys.net.
This was someone at the top of their field, a long, illustrious career and all that shit. In short, someone you’d think could lay some profound insight on you that could instantly change your life if they wanted.
Without naming any names, I’ll tell you what she told me over lunch one day:
“When you get seriously involved with someone, the most important thing to remember is to always be honest about everything, no matter how small. If you stray from that, they will find out.”
Doesn’t sound that profound, does it? That’s what I thought at the time. And it’s not like I think in terms of getting ‘seriously involved’ with someone. I mean, come the fuck on.
Yet I’m thinking about that now, halfway through my double scotch, since I did stray from that with Chloe. I had those same fucking thoughts earlier tonight when I finally told her about my son.
When we were first getting on the plane, she said she wanted to have a ‘serious discussion’ about how I make my living. It was lighthearted, because she just found out I have a private fucking jet, but she asked me.
And I told her the truth: I own a business.
I was planning to reveal the rest of it in time. I mean, if you’re on a date with someone and they ask what you do for a living, you can just say ‘I work in a bank’ or ‘I’m in advertising’ or whatever. It’s not like you need to start spouting every fucking detail right of the bat.
That’s not lying, right?
Saying that you own a ‘small company’ when you actually own Thebadboys.net, on the other hand, is totally fucking lying and I’m totally fucking guilty.
I decided to forego honesty, and, wouldn’t you know it, that shit came to light and blew up in my face in the worst way it could.
I’m already getting close to the bottom of my expensive glass of scotch. I better figure this out quick, or I’ll need to order another round.
I do realize that the New York Times editor’s advice is spot-on, although it’s probably too late for that to make any fucking difference for me.
There’s something else I’m also starting to realize, and that’s just how much of a role that deception plays throughout the workings of Thebadboys.net.
Most users on the site know that things become much easier once you make a good first impression, and when that first impression is just a screen name and some text, it’s much easier to employ outside help than if you’re face to face at some bar or club.
And fuck, one thing that I really should have figured out by now is the ingenious idea of hiring women, who have a natural understanding of what would appeal to other women, to make the perfect first impression.
My drink is finished, but this is all just starting to make a lot more sense.
Just starting.
“One more round of the same, please.”
The bartender signals to me that it’ll just be a minute. He’s a few spots down, where he’s trying to decipher drink orders from gaggle of intoxicated, seemingly well-off American businessmen—the type of guys who are probably not too smooth socially, but can afford to employ help with the impression they make online.
Of course. I guess I’m still working on vacation, because I’m just realizing a thought that’s something I’m sure is rampant on the site now, and likely has been for a long time.
A man hiring a woman to pose as a man to attract women is obviously a deception, but the women who pose as men must assume that the deception only goes one way, and that they’re talking to other women. I’m sure they usually are.
Not Ms. Winters, though. Chloe, as Mr. BadBoy, was pretending to be someone else, talking to Ms. Winters who was pretending to be the same thing, both of us trying to appeal to fake personas we thought were real.
I hope that scotch comes soon because I’m getting motion sickness just fucking thinking about it.
But even with the layers of playacting and phoniness, we had such a great time during those chats. That’s another realization. I had a lot of fucking fun talking with Mr. BadBoy, and I could sense the chemistry.
That was part of the puzzle for me, that this person was so skilled they could get me, or anyone, to enjoy typing on a goddamn website so much—but now I know it’s Chloe, that’s what I liked so much about those chats. That’s why I became so determined to find out what his deal really was.
Even when I’m Ms. Winters and she’s Mr. BadBoy, it’s pretty great. When I’m Aaron and she’s Chloe, and we’re together, in real life, in the flesh, it’s fucking magical.
It was, at least.
The snow’s stopped, for now, the skies have cleared up and the northern lights are back. Nobody in the bar seems to give a damn. If you live here, it probably gets old after a while.
It’s tough to fucking imagine that, but I’m watching them dance and twinkle and it’s not doing much for me either, at the moment. The wind’s howling so loud against the outside of the window that I think the panes might break.
Maybe I need more scotch. I’m about to remind the bartender when I see he’s already pouring my drink.
Honest about everything, no matter how small.
Maybe that advice was a sly insult, knowing what business I’m in. Either way, it’s come back to haunt me.
I notice my next double scotch placed neatly on the coaster in front of me. As the wind keeps howling outside, I take it down in a hearty gulp.
Chloe
“How many people fucking live here? It can’t be that many.”
Cassie’s complaining from the front passenger seat, absentmindedly checking her lipstick in the rearview while her face twists with annoyance.
“About 120, 000,” Ethan replies, unaffected by the traffic jam that has Cassie so up in arms.
“In the city or the whole country?”
Cassie’s
still looking at herself in the mirror, and her mind seems to be on something else, now. There’s something bothering her, and it’s not the traffic.
“Just in Reykjavik.”
“Ah, I guess they’re all out today, then.”
Her matte lipstick looks so perfect, it’s almost irritating. But she starts senselessly blotting at her lips with a tissue, not paying attention to what she’s doing.
“Cassie, stop that,” I scold her, sounding much harsher than I mean to.
“Why are you watching me?” Cassie puts her tissue away and starts rooting around in her purse for some other excuse to use the mirror. Despite her protests, she’s the one watching me in the mirror, trying to read my mood, and maybe trying to communicate something to me.
Ethan lets out a low scoff as he brings the car to a stop behind the silver Mercedes in front of us. The traffic’s become so bad that we’re now basically parked, and Ethan’s supply of patience is starting to grow sparse.
“Are we going to Keflavik?” I ask, realizing I don’t even know the departure point of my flight.
“No, just Reykjavik, thank God. Now, that would take forever.”
I try to hide a disappointed expression, since I know Cassie’s still sneaking glances at me in the mirror, but I probably don’t want to walk through that Keflavik terminal again.
Those may be sweet memories one day, but right now they’re sour and I don’t want to think about them.
Cassie pulls out a bottle of lip gloss and makes a point of turning around and showing it to me.
“My lipstick’s getting dry, and it’s looking too intense right now,” she explains, as if mundane details will make everything seem normal.
“So? Are you planning to do a YouTube tutorial or something?”
Cassie shakes her head, ready to verbally jab back at me. She stops herself so she can sadly dig around for a lip brush or something. I don’t see my sister like this often, and I suddenly feel awful.
“You look great,” I tell her.
Cassie misreads me and shoots a very sarcastic smile my way.
“Oh, thanks dear,” she says caustically.
