Sliding into His DMs

I've spent way too long firing thirsty, unhinged DMs at a faceless abs influencer. A total stranger. Tonight I send another one.

Then the phone on the pillow beside me lights up.

My boyfriend's phone. He's dead asleep.

Same message.

Word for word.

Chapter 1

I was in love with Cole for three years, and my one real accomplishment was that he never found out.

Then he slid into my DMs.

It started with a post I dropped on the campus app, the anonymous one, where you can say anything because nobody knows it's you. My post: somebody please set me up, I am tragically, aggressively single.

Cole: [a screenshot of that exact post] [This you?]

My heart did something stupid. I played it cool.

Me: [yep, that's me]

Cole: [My roommate's kind of into you. You interested?]

Damn.

What was I even hoping for. This is Cole. We hadn't traded a single word in years. The fact that he still had my handle was a miracle on its own.

Fine. If we're doing this, we're doing it right.

Me: [Does your roommate meet my standards? Six foot plus. Hot. Abs. Sunny smile, genuinely decent human being.]

Cole: [...that's a high bar.]

Me: [Just tell me if he clears it.]

Cole: [...he clears it.]

Excellent.

Me: [Have him add me. Now. And find out which school district he wants. For the kids.]

Cole: [...]

Cole: [He's a little shy. How about I set it up and we all grab dinner.]

So Cole was going to bring his roommate to dinner. For me.

I felt a little out of body.

I was going to be in the same room as Cole.

Quick math: we hadn't seen each other since high school graduation. Same university now, technically, but he lived in a different orbit. These days I only saw him in the athletics posts the school put out.

Cole was a recruited snowboarder. The real kind. Sponsors, the world circuit, the only athlete on campus people actually lined up to photograph.

In high school I'd worshipped him too. Quietly. For a long, humiliating stretch of my life.

He never knew. I never told him. It was mine to keep.

Half a block from the restaurant, I spotted him.

Black clothes. Standing under a streetlight that couldn't decide whether it was on. Long legs. Completely at ease.

There was a girl planted in front of him, cheeks blazing red.

"Cole, I watch every single one of your competitions," she said. "I never thought I'd run into you near campus. This has to be fate, right?"

She'd clearly rehearsed. She saved the landing for last.

"Cole. I like you."

The air went still.

From where I stood I could only see the side of his neck, gone cold-white against the black collar and the black of his hair.

A gust of wind moved through. Then he spoke.

"I'm not interested."

Flat. Final. Like she'd stopped him to ask the time.

The girl hadn't braced for a no that clean. The color drained out of her face. She stammered an apology and bolted.

What stayed with me was the temperature of his voice.

And just like that, my nerve was gone.

Standing there, the whole plan curdled. Using his roommate as cover to buy myself thirty minutes near a guy I'd never get over. Pathetic.

I'd been gone too long. I'd almost forgotten the math of him: girls threw themselves at him on a loop, and their feelings landed at his feet like loose change. He didn't even look down.

I started backing away, already drafting the excuse text in my head. I got maybe four steps.

Then a hand closed around my arm.

That voice, older now, colder than I'd kept it in my memory, came from just above the back of my head.

Cole. Holding on.

"Snow. I'm right here. Where are you going?"

He walked me into the restaurant.

Just the two of us.

Chapter 2

"Where's your roommate?" I asked. "Why is it just you?"

His lashes were long. He looked like he couldn't be bothered to care about anything.

"A professor needed him. He couldn't make it. Next time."

That was suspiciously close to the excuse I'd been about to use.

"Bad timing," I muttered.

He heard me. "You're disappointed?"

"No. I just thought today was a setup."

He laughed, low. "It basically is."

Me: ??

He had a good laugh. It thinned out the distance in him and left something younger behind.

I didn't get to chase what he meant. The menu slid in front of me.

The wait for food was unbearable, so I went hunting for small talk. "You're back on campus because the season's over?"

"Mm. Back to deal with Spanish."

"Recruits have to clear the language requirement too?"

"If I want to keep my scholarship and keep competing, yeah." He tipped his head. "You? You pass it?"

"Tested out freshman year."

"What'd you score?"

"Perfect, on the placement."

That was when my phone buzzed.

The dorm group chat had lost its entire mind.

Roommate 1: [SNOWY. Report. Is it going well???]

Roommate 2: [is he hot. send a pic. immediately]

Roommate 3: [idc about Mr. Six-Foot-Abs, I just need one photo of Cole, I am BEGGING you]

A photo was, obviously, not happening.

I typed back under the table.

Me: [Hotter than the recruiting shots.]

Me: [...Cole's. I meant Cole's shots.]

They screamed about that for a while.

Then Cole said, out of nowhere, "Perfect score. That's high." He turned a pen over in his fingers. "I've missed a lot of Spanish. Tutor me?"

"Huh?" I had not seen that coming. "I've never taught anyone."

"Doesn't matter. Just wing it. Call it a part-time job. I'll pay you hourly."

It did sound like a sweet deal.

But I poked at it anyway. "There's really nobody better for this? Get your girlfriend to tutor you."

Half a smile. "What girlfriend?"

"Oh. You don't have a"

"I'd take one, though. A fake one, even. Saves a lot of trouble. Confessions, for instance."

"So hold auditions for a fake girlfriend," I said.

"Recruiting a stranger is its own headache." He picked up a clean fork and moved the best cut of meat onto my plate. Then, lightly: "Unless you want the job."

I froze.

When I didn't say anything, he added, "Kidding. Old classmate."

Right. Obviously. He was out here playing matchmaker for his roommate. This was probably a test. So, to prove I wasn't the kind of girl who'd say yes to anyone, I said, "Yeah. That wouldn't be a good idea."

His smile dimmed. He pressed his lips together and said nothing else.

I took the tutoring job. Mostly because the pay was, ahem, obscene.

He drilled vocab. He worked through practice sets. It didn't even eat into my own coursework.

But today, of all days.

We'd barely sat down in the study room when the dance-team captain came looking for him.

Chapter 3

The dance-team captain was a certified campus goddess. Performance scholarship, killer body, the kind of poise that made hallways part for her.

She clocked Cole first. Then me. Her eyes did a slow, surprised lap of my entire existence.

"Cole, I've been hunting for you forever." She walked over smiling, looking through me like glass. "You? Studying? In the wild? Never thought I'd see the day."

Cole looked up. "Something you need?"

"Did you not check your phone?" Easy, familiar. "I keep telling you, glance at it once in a while. You miss everything. How many times now? Anything comes up in the department, I have to come tell you in person."

Then, like she'd only just noticed me, she asked, way too brightly, "This isn't your girlfriend, is it?"

Wow.

Meaning what, exactly. That I didn't make the cut?

I was annoyed. I stayed polite. "Hi. I'm his teacher."

She faltered. "Tteacher? Sorry, that came out wrong. Wait." Her eyes dropped to the desk. "Why is a teacher doing a Spanish worksheet?"

Then she found the name in the corner of the page. Snow. Journalism. Sophomore.

Her brow arched. "Oh. I thought you were faculty. You're just the tutor."

Was the teacher thing a bluff? Completely. Did it buy me three glorious seconds? Also yes.

"What do you actually want?" Cole cut in, already out of patience.

She unfolded a flyer. "Team trip. I already signed you up."

"Pass."

"Why? Everyone's going. You're the only holdout."

"Not while I've got Spanish to pass."

"It's one day. You'll have time to study after."

"No, I won't." He tipped his head toward me. "My tutor's expensive. I can't afford the downtime."

The dance captain raked over me again, this time with teeth in it.

"You know, if you actually need tutoring, I can set you up with a real one. Discounted, too." She aimed the next part at me, sweet as poison. "Real talk, is this even working for you? Be a shame to pour in all that time and walk away with nothing."

Cole smiled. "You're serious? With your grades, I'm supposed to trust a tutor you picked?"

She choked on that. Pivoted hard back to the trip. "We're doing the beach this time. I'm bringing a grill, we cook our own food, very summer. Oh, and all the girls are packing swimsuits. Just think about it."

"Pass," Cole said again. "I don't like the ocean."

"Then what do you"

"I only like snow."

He said it so plainly.

For a second I just stood there.

Then I caught up with myself. He's a snowboarder. He's lived on snow since he was a kid. Obviously that's all he meant.

The dance captain finally retreated, empty-handed.

The second she was gone, Cole turned to me. "How'd I do?"

"How'd you do at what?"

"I turned down fun. For studying. Don't I get something for that?"

He was watching me with this light in his eyes, like a giant dog who'd done one good trick and was waiting, tail going, for a hand on his head.

My pulse went like a fist on a door. On the outside, I was a calm and rational adult. "Mm. Good job."

I don't know why a throwaway line did it, but his whole mood lifted. He bent back over the worksheet, suddenly the most diligent student in the state.

I couldn't settle.

I only like snow.

It kept circling my head and would not land.

Chapter 4

I told them I needed the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face.

Bent over the sink, the memory ambushed me. The first time I ever saw Cole.

Freshman year of high school, first class of the day, and he banged in late, the bell still going, catching himself on a desk and vaulting into his seat.

I'd turned around just in time to catch it: the wind pushing his open jacket wide, the hem of his shirt lifting an inch, a clean drift of soap coming off him. He grinned at the homeroom teacher, all lit up, every inch of him still a boy who hadn't been told no yet.

Years later, that picture can still walk me straight out of a conversation.

But I'd warned myself a long time ago. Cole lived in another world. Don't reach for it. And whatever happened, no one could ever find out about the years I'd spent on him. Him least of all.

To get my heart rate down, I opened my alt.

The account followed exactly one person. A fitness guy. @quietgains. He posted the occasional workout clip and never once showed his face. Not even especially jacked. Just right. Lean where it counted, nothing try-hard about it.

Exactly the body I'd build a boyfriend out of, if anyone let me.

I scrolled and commented as I went.

Me: [hi HUSBAND]

Me: [just clocked the pecs today. obsessed. devastated.]

Me: [the back's not bad either, just saying]

He never replied. Didn't matter. Comments are for me, not for him.

Once the influencer had successfully evicted Cole from my brain, I went back to the study room.

Cole had finished the worksheet. I walked him through it. Last section was an essay. I figured I'd pull up a sample online for my hopeless student.

I opened my phone.

The abs video I'd half-watched came roaring back to life on the screen.

For one full second, Cole and I both went completely still.

"And then? How'd you explain it?" My roommate was vibrating with the need to know.

"I didn't."

"Incredible, Snow. He thinks you're a full-blown menace now."

"Menace? I'm a young woman in her absolute prime. I looked at a man's abs. I had a thought about a man. This is the most normal thing a person can do."

I defended myself with everything I had.

Then I deflated like roadkill and groaned into my hands.

She wasn't wrong. In that second, the look Cole gave me had been complicated and a little stunned.

But what was I supposed to say? That I'd stumbled on it by accident? The progress bar had already sold me out. Paused dead center.

Garbage app. Ruining my good name.

In the end I just pretended none of it had happened. Cole, mercifully, pretended right along with me.

So thoroughly that I forgot to chase the obvious question. Where was the roommate who supposedly wanted to date me? Why hadn't he added me yet?

I was mid-pillow-punch when my phone chimed.

The fitness guy. The one I'd been thirsting on this whole time. He'd liked my comment.

I assumed I was hallucinating.

This guy was cold as a vending machine. Fans could throw themselves at him in the replies all day and he'd act like the comment section didn't exist.

And today he liked mine.

Then, like he'd swallowed something, he went off. A string of new posts, back to back.

And he followed me back.

I, naturally, noticed nothing. I rolled up my sleeves and got back to work as his number one fan.

Me: [cold out? is that why the pants? so formal of you. so distant.]

Me: [wild that someone this young is out here posting this. where is the decency. where is the moral fiber. where do you live]

Me: [muscles need work though, be honest. train harder, send me a progress pic daily and I'll supervise. no need to thank me. helpful people are a dying breed]

It didn't register at the time, but here's the timeline, if you're paying closer attention than I was. The man who'd ignored me this entire time came alive the exact day Cole saw what was on my phone.

Chapter 5

Then the influencer went and liked every single comment I'd ever left him.

Tutoring day came back around and I wanted to die.

In the study room, Cole twirled his pen, tone and face totally ordinary. Looked like he genuinely didn't remember.

He'd brought me breakfast, thoughtful as ever. I groped for small talk. "Where's your roommate? How come he still hasn't shown?"

Cole's hand stilled. "He's not coming."

"Why?"

"He's not good enough for you."

"That's a little harsh. You said he had abs. Said he was hot."

"How do I put this." Dead serious, and somehow plainly full of it. "Once you've looked at this face long enough, nobody else really clears the bar."

I had nothing.

The problem with a line that self-absorbed coming out of his mouth is that there's no arguing with it.

"Then why'd you say it," I muttered. "This is your fault."

"Yes. My fault," Cole agreed. "So. Want me to take responsibility?"

The air solidified.

I didn't move for a while.

"You mean," I said, once I'd wrestled the logic into a shape that couldn't hurt me, "you'll responsibly help me vet boyfriend candidates to the bitter end? Wow. Thanks, old classmate."

Cole's smile folded up. His eyes dropped.

I yanked the worksheet back out. "Less chatting. Write."

But the pen didn't move.

I don't know how long passed before he asked, out of nowhere, "Snow. Back in high school. What did you think of me?"

"With my eyes, mostly."

"I'm serious."

"Uh. Same as everyone. Figured you were impressive."

"That's it?"

"Mhm. Do your problems."

I gripped the pen and drifted off.

Obviously I was lying.

In high school I'd been obsessed with Cole. From a strictly long-distance, surveillance-only position.

You know how it goes at that age. Acne. Soft around the middle. Standard issue. There were already too many girls in his orbit, and I was about as eye-catching as a ceiling. Nothing on me worth a second look.

So I took what I could get. A glance in his direction between classes, under cover of talking to a friend. An eraser knocked off my desk on purpose, so I'd have a reason to look his way while I picked it up.

One break, the class drifted somehow onto the subject of acne.

I happened to be hosting a monster of one at the time. Tip of my nose. Dead center. I'd spent that whole week walking the halls with my chin welded to my chest.

Somebody joked that I looked like Rudolph.

I laughed extra loud, to sell how completely I didn't care.

That was when Cole spoke up. "Acne, yeah." He pushed the hair off his forehead, taking his time. "Got a few coming in myself right now. Look."

The whole room swung toward him. Everybody started trading cures, talking over each other.

I kept my head down. I never once looked at him.

"Tutor Snow."

Cole's voice hauled me back out.

"Finished the cloze. Want to grade it?"

He dropped the pen and lounged back, the very picture of a man who'd outsourced his entire life.

I checked it. Half wrong. Again.

Cole wasn't bothered. "Tutor Snow. Can I ask you something?"

"Don't call me teacher. Ask."

"Your standards include abs. Right?"

"Yeah."

"So. What do you think of guys who post abs online?"

Chapter 6

I almost sprayed water across the table.

"Not not much," I said.

Cole frowned, like the question was genuinely complicated. "Why?"

"No decency."

"...what?"

"I'm just saying. I'd never date a man that shameless."

His whole expression locked up.

I was deeply pleased with my own righteousness. No way he could see through that.

What he actually made of it, I had no clue. All I got, after a long silence, was a quiet "Hm." Completely unreadable.

Not laughing at me. Probably.

He never brought it up again.

And my abs guy, after that one manic posting spree, went dark. Never updated again.

I checked every day. Logged off disappointed every day.

Finally I cracked and DMed him.

Me: [babe. why'd you stop posting.]

Me: [did you abandon me and the kids. they're getting bigger. they ask for their mother every single day.]

Me: [you can hate ME all you want but the children are innocent]

Half a day later, he sent back a single row of dots.

Good. Confirmed alive.

He posted one video, the bare minimum, a man clocking in for a shift.

I commented, full of feeling: [babe this is too short. not enough to look at.]

The replies filled up with people losing it.

Commenters: [too short?? what's too short]

Well. Now we were getting somewhere.

I considered explaining myself, then remembered this was a burner. Nobody here knew me. Why not let it rip.

Me: [the video. the VIDEO was too short. why, what were YOU picturing]

Then the man himself replied.

Him: [behave.]

Some time later, the Spanish exam came and went.

I texted Cole the second I walked out, asking how he did.

Cole: [Not great. Might have to take it again.]

That landed wrong, somewhere under my ribs. If he'd bombed it, that was on me. Maybe I was just a bad teacher.

He asked me to keep tutoring him. We set a time in the study room to go through the test first.

What I hadn't planned for was getting photographed.

It went straight up on the campus app.

[Is this Cole's girlfriend?? Always see them holed up in the study room together. When did Cole get off the market??]

Shot from the side. No blur. Half my face, right there for the whole school.

Naturally, I went viral.

Messages poured in asking if it was true.

I sat with it a long time, then texted him.

Me: [Been thinking it over. You should find a professional tutor. I'm probably not the right fit.]

Cole: [?]

Cole: [Is the post getting to you? I can have the admin take it down.]

Me: [that's only part of it lol. getting shipped with you is genuinely bad for my love life. the guys who added me off the app all went quiet on me. huge loss. and you can't even afford to make it up to me lol]

Cole: [Why can't I afford to?]

I went still.

The typing dots appeared. Then, for a long stretch, nothing came.

So I changed the subject. Blamed his score on my bad teaching. Recommended an actual tutoring center. Pushed the card on him. Good luck out there.

After that, whatever Cole sent, I stopped answering.

And just like that, he walked out of my world.

Chapter 7

A few days later we ran into each other in the dining hall.

He was surrounded by the athletics crowd. His eyes caught on me for a second, then went right back to the people laughing around him.

Like nothing had happened.

Which was fine. He was the main event. The rising star. We were never in the same world to begin with.

But of course. The thing you're dreading is always the thing that finds you.

I finished eating, went to drop off my tray, turned around, and walked straight into Cole.

I gave him a nod. Call it a greeting.

He looked at me and didn't move a muscle.

He was probably annoyed I'd bailed on the tutoring with no warning.

As I stepped past him, he spoke. His voice came out a little rough.

"You're really... done with me?"

So I explained it again.

I wasn't ignoring him. I just didn't want to hold him back. And, fine, the rumor had genuinely made my life harder.

I thought he got it this time.

Then the next morning I was sleeping in when my roommate came flying through the door.

"Snowy. You've made it. Every girl in this building is asking about you."

I cracked one eye. "Huh?"

"Cole's downstairs. Says he's waiting for you. He's been down there over half an hour."

That woke me up.

I leaned to the window, and sure enough. Six feet and change of ridiculous-looking boy, planted outside the girls' dorm, impossible to miss.

Half an hour earlier he'd texted me. Said there was a problem he couldn't crack, nobody else explained it right, it had to be me.

I told him to leave. Ask a different tutor. I was the last person he should be asking.

He read it, looked up at my window, and his whole face fell.

My roommate clutched her chest, full theater. "Snow. I had you all wrong. You turned down Cole. You cold, cold woman."

"Thank you."

"But seriously." She leaned in, starving for it. "Weren't you two in high school together? Why do you act like you don't like him even a little?"

Then she'd read me completely wrong.

I'd once buried Cole so deep in my chest that nobody could get a look at him.

I wouldn't even be at this school without him.

His record got him recruited anywhere he wanted. Full ride, no sweat. Me, back then, I was scraping the floor of "good enough." So I put my head down and clawed my way in, just so I could one day stand level with him.

Then, senior year, something happened.

Cole had a competition.

Snowboarding doesn't need a cheer squad, but student government insisted on building one anyway, said it'd boost his morale. The sign-up sheet was wall-to-wall with his fangirls.

Yours truly quietly added her name.

I never thought I'd make it. Any sane person knew they'd cut the seniors first.

Somehow I slipped through the net and stumbled into the captain selection.

It was a vote. Candidate photos went up on a board, student government members cast the ballots.

I happened to walk past that room.

From the back window, I watched the whole massacre play out.

Like I said. I was nothing special. My photo next to the younger girls' looked like a before picture.

Nobody voted for me. A big fat zero, parked right after my name.

Already a little humiliating.

And right then, of all moments, Cole walked up to the board and gave me his vote.

Chapter 8

The room cracked up.

The student-body president said it loud. "Cole, what a pity vote. If I were Snow I'd be sobbing with gratitude."

Cole turned and said something back. Steady. Almost smiling. I didn't catch it.

I didn't want to catch it.

I ran.

Two years of a one-woman show, over in a single second.

Pride is a delicate thing. I'd rather have stayed at zero and lost with my chin up. His pity didn't comfort me. It just gave the loss sharper teeth.

The photos from that competition went up on the school's account later.

Besides the shots of him, there was a group photo of the cheer squad. Dead center, the girl who'd pulled the most votes. The cheer captain. She was gorgeous.

Wrapped around her neck was the scarf I'd given Cole.

Before the squad selection, our class had collected little gifts for him. Encouragement. Strictly voluntary. I'd figured the slopes were always cold, so I'd make him a scarf. Knit it myself, start to finish.

It ended up on somebody else.

That was the day I cut Cole's name out of my life for good. I kept studying just as hard, but not to stand beside anyone anymore. Just for me.

Even now, the sight of him does something to my chest. But I know where the line is. I don't let myself take the step. Agreeing to tutor him was plain classmate decency. That's all.

That night my roommate came barreling in again.

"Snow. You're trending. AGAIN."

I was halfway through a face mask, dead inside. "What now. Cole show up again?"

"No! He posted on the campus app. Named you. Said he's coming for you!"

What.

I scrambled to pull it up.

[Cole here. Setting the record straight: the girl in that photo is Snow, journalism, sophomore. Not my girlfriend. Yet. Working on it.]

The comments were a circus. Top one:

[she looks pretty average ngl. mildly cute at most. and "mild" is carrying that whole sentence]

Cole, in the replies himself:

[You can donate your eyes if you're not using them.]

A row of people lost it underneath.

I had no idea what I felt.

The next day, Cole turned up in my lecture.

Said that starting today, he'd sit in on my classes whenever he had the time.

"Don't joke around," I said, dead serious.

"I'm not joking." He dropped into the seat beside me. "Don't be in such a rush to turn me down. Everyone else gets a shot. I want one too."

"What 'everyone else'?"

"Those guys who added you after your post. Why do they all get to care about you, and I don't?"

"Then your roommate"

"Fake. The 'roommate' was me." He held my eyes. "How else were you ever going to let me see you?"

I had no words