“What are you talking about? It’s so early, Darc.”
“I know, sorry, but I couldn’t wait. I saw your little secret, you hoe.”
“Seriously Darcy, tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Go check Techie Rumors, right now.”
Adrenaline hit me hard. Techie Rumors was a popular East Coast gossip blog for tech companies, and it was the exact place I didn’t want to hear about right now. I unrolled myself, grabbed my laptop from the floor next to my bed, and navigated to the website.
I thought I was having a heart attack, my chest was pounding so hard. Two posts down, put up right around midnight last night, was a picture of Shane and me leaving his townhouse. We looked washed out and frazzled, a combination of not having seen the sun unfiltered through windows for a few days, and having been ambushed by an asshole paparazzi. I looked bad; bags under my eyes, hair a mess, clothes wrinkled. Shane looked radiant, as usual, despite the enraged looked on his face. That scene played itself out in my mind again: the man appearing with his camera, Shane hustling me into the car, Shane nearly attacking the guy, and our eventual getaway.
The text accompanying the image wasn’t too bad. They didn’t know my name, so they referred to me as “Brunette Hottie with Shane Green,” and speculated about the reason for my visit. They talked a lot about Shane’s reclusive nature, and how I was the first person they’d photographed leaving his house in over a year. Remembering Darcy, I picked the phone up to my ear again.
“Darcy, you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m still here. See it yet?”
“I guess we should talk.”
“Yeah we should talk, you lucky whore! Holy shit, Shane Green?”
I had never heard Darcy this excited before, and I couldn’t blame her. I still questioned my luck every time I saw his beautiful form and his soft, full lips.
“We’ve been together for a little while now, but I haven’t been able to tell anyone.”
“Why the hell not? I’d be screaming it at every random stranger. Shane Green! He’s so hot, and rich too.”
“He’s amazing, Darc. But it’s complicated.”
“Yeah, everything’s complicated kiddo. Except, you have a hottie billionaire, which seems simple to me.”
I sighed. How could I have explained this to her without making Shane sound like a psycho? Or me, for that matter.
“He’s really into this privacy, you know that. It’s not a coincidence that they hardly ever print anything about him, because there’s not much to print.”
“How did you guys meet?”
I laughed. “We met on that dating app you suggested, Matchstick.”
“Shut up.”
“Seriously, that’s how we met.”
“No really, shut up. He’s your boss now, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, but we met through the app first. Apparently he used to go on there anonymously to flirt with people, because it’s hard for him to meet girls as a normal person. We hit it off before I knew who he was. When I went into that meeting to sell my app, we recognized each other. And it sortof went from there.”
“Shut up. That’s absolutely unbelievable.”
“I know. It’s all true, too. And you can’t tell anyone about it.”
“Too late for that, honey. Your picture is all over that blog.”
“They don’t know my name, and they don’t need to. Please, Darcy. You can’t tell anyone about this.”
“You have my solemn word. My god, Shane Green! What’s he like?”
“He’s amazing. Seriously, he’s perfect. I don’t know what he sees in me.”
“You’re a catch yourself, Amy. He’s the lucky one.”
“Yeah, right. And I’m the rich one.”
She laughed. “You have to tell me everything.”
And I did. For the next half hour, I ran through the beginning of our relationship. Eventually, I had to hang up and get ready for work. As we talked, I felt something leave me, and I realized it was the burden of a secret I didn’t want to keep. Since this first started, all I wanted was to tell Darcy, or anyone really, about my relationship with Shane. In a lot of ways, it felt unreal or fake. But this image on that awful gossip site, plus my conversation with Darcy, made it all solid.
I got dressed, and as I went to leave the apartment, I realized something. Everyone in the office reads that blog. Everyone. And they were all going to recognize me.
When I got to work, I could feel the whispers more than I could hear them. There was an odd hush in the room as I walked through it. People looked, but looked away just as quickly, and what was once a vibrant, loud place was suddenly quiet and awkward. I quickly made my way to my desk and sat down. I kept my eye away from everyone, pulled out my laptop, and booted it up. Before I could put my password in, Linda’s head poked around the divider.