Falling for My Ex Again

My ex flew across the country to win me back.

He's been in my city a month, and he still hasn't found me.

Because the girl he's hunting only exists with a filter on.

I'd know. I'm her. I catfished my way into the whole relationship. Angles, lighting, a prayer.

And tonight he stood two feet away, held up his phone, and asked if I'd seen the gorgeous girl on the screen.

She was me. Give or take twenty pounds, twenty-five grand of surgery, and the best filter money can buy.

Chapter 1

Someone had been yelling Chub at my back for half a block.

Slippers. Bed-head. One bag of trash and zero patience.

"Chub."

"Hey. The chub up front."

I dropped the bag, put my hands on my hips, and turned around to end a man's entire life.

"Who are you calling chub? Were you raised in a barn?"

"What, is my weight coming out of your paycheck? Call me chub one more time and I'll call you every name I've got."

Stumpy. Baldy. Greasy old man.

I had the list loaded, eyes narrowed, ready to fire.

Six-two. Built clean. Nothing to work with.

The hair, then. Thick, dark, aggressively full. Nothing to work with.

I stepped in for a better look at the face.

Black hoodie. Fresh buzzcut. Skin like he'd never had a bad day in his life.

A face someone had clearly spent too long perfecting.

My stomach dropped straight through the pavement.

Callum. My ex. The one from behind the screen.

He was better looking than his photos.

No. Focus. The actual question was how the hell he was standing in my parking lot.

While I stood there doing a full-body reboot, a round little boy came huffing up between us and grabbed my sleeve.

"Sis, my brother's the one calling. That's me. I'm the chub."

He pointed at his own chest, deeply proud of it.

My face went a blotchy red. Mouth open. Nothing came out.

Callum tipped his chin up, thoroughly entertained.

"Why'd you stop? Go on. What were you going to call me?"

The fight drained out of me.

"...Gorgeous. Obviously."

"Mm. Good taste."

He said it like I'd finally gotten one thing right, then held the phone out to me.

"You seen this girl?"

And there she was. My photo. The good one.

Delicate little nose. Thin arms. Swan neck. Big eyes with the sparkle turned all the way up.

About twenty pounds and twenty-five grand of surgery away from whoever was currently sweating into her slippers.

I took too long. He gave the phone a lazy shake.

"Hello. Anyone home?"

I swallowed and shook my head, calm as a lake.

"Never seen her."

"Weird." He pocketed the phone, then studied my face for two full seconds. "You sound just like her, though. And the face..."

He let it hang there.

"...a little. Yeah."

Every organ I owned climbed into my throat.

"Sorry, my dad's about to go into labor. I have to run."

Chapter 2

I sprinted home hugging a full bag of garbage and deadbolted the door like he might come through it.

Sat on the couch a long time. Heart still knocking like a fist on a table.

I never once thought Callum would actually show up.

Because when I ended things, he was arctic.

Our breakup, in full:

Me: [We're breaking up.]

Him: [lol]

Me: [I'm serious.]

Him: [k.]

Like the man who'd spent the whole night before purring good girl into my ear was a completely different person.

So I blocked him, deleted the thread, and felt like a joke for every hour I'd spent turning it over.

It was an online thing. He never took it seriously.

That's what I told myself, at least.

Turns out he's the type to go quiet and then do something enormous. Like cross the country and camp outside my building.

I sat with it a while. Then quietly took him off the block list.

The second I did, my phone buzzed.

Him: [Miss you, good girl.]

He clearly hadn't expected it to send. He unsent it inside a hundredth of a second.

Him: [Ha. So I was worth unblocking.]

Then a dropped pin. A coffee shop, ten minutes out.

Him: [Come see me.]

Me: [No.]

Him: [Breakups get said in person.]

Me: [No. Go home.]

Him: [One meeting. I don't think you can say the word to my face.]

I actually stopped to think about it.

Annoyingly, I wasn't sure I could.

The sheer nerve on this man.

"Shameless," I informed my empty living room.

Me: [Then definitely not. Go home. I have a new boyfriend now. Stop bothering me.]

Him: [?]

The typing bubble sat there, thinking very hard, for a long time.

Him: [I could be the side piece.]

Me: [I'm serious. Leave me alone.]

I blocked him the instant it sent, before he could say one more thing and talk me clean out of my own spine.

Him: [I'm serious too.]

That one just sat there on the far side of the block, alone with a little red exclamation mark, undelivered.

I threw the phone down the couch and fished a compact mirror out from between the cushions.

Stared at my own face.

Ordinary. Not spectacularly ugly. Not the kind that stops a room either.

I sighed, tossed the mirror, and poked the soft part of my stomach instead.

Five-three. A buck thirty on a kind scale.

Some people call it a little chubby. Some people just say fat.

Not thin. That's the honest one.

An ordinary face, an imperfect body, and one genuinely supernatural gift for editing a photo.

Without it, Callum and I would never have crossed paths in this lifetime. Nobody knows that better than me.

Girls will tell you they believe in a beautiful heart.

Guys never do.

Better to stay behind this door than go watch his face do the math in person.

Chapter 3

After my little pep-talk, I holed up for two days, betting he'd given up and gone. No sane man pines that hard over a three-month online fling.

He did not give up and go.

He parked himself outside my building. Rain or shine.

He even infiltrated the beating heart of neighborhood intel: the moms who power-walk the complex loop every evening.

And my mother was, of course, a card-carrying member.

I came home with groceries at dusk and nearly dropped them on the sidewalk.

There he was. Him and the round little boy, flanking my mom on a bench, the three of them working through a bag of chips like lifelong friends.

What in the actual hell.

How did he get all the way to my MOTHER.

I was still calculating how to extract her when Callum lit up his phone and asked, dead serious, "Ma'am. Do you happen to know this girl?"

The little boy pointed at the screen too. "Ma'am, that's my mommy. She's missing. I miss her so much."

The question mark over my head could've blotted out the sun.

Instant motherhood. No labor required.

"I know every face in this complex," Mom said, fanning herself, eyes narrowing at the screen. "Let me get a good look."

The floor tilted under me.

Strangers, fine. But my own mother was going to make me in one second flat.

I closed the distance in two steps and clamped a hand over her mouth from behind.

"Mom. What are you even saying."

"Sorry about her," I told them. "You know how moms are, everyone's a beauty queen to them. There's no way I'd be"

I stopped.

"...wait. What did you just say?"

Mom smacked my hand off. "I said the girl's very pretty. What's your problem?"

I choked on air.

So this was the final form of photo editing.

Retouched clean past the recognition of the woman who gave birth to me.

"Nothing. Nothing. She's great."

I hooked my arm through Mom's and started hauling her off the bench. "Mom, did you forget? Dad's about to go into labor. We need to get home."

She was still buffering when I dragged her half a block away.

"What has gotten into you today," she said. "Go get yourself a job."

I could not let my mother get within talking range of Callum again, or I was finished.

I deliberated for all of one second, then made the executive decision to lie.

Sorry, Callum.

I leaned in and murmured, "Mom, that guy's been creeping around our complex for days. Drags a kid everywhere, won't leave. Clearly bad news. I just don't want you tangled up with sketchy people."

"Really?" She looked unconvinced. "A boy that good-looking? No chance he's bad."

"I heard he's broke. Prowls nice complexes hunting for a rich woman to be his kid's new stepmom."

Relief washed over her. "Oh, well then we're safe. We haven't got any money."

"Sure we do. Don't you and Dad have your pensions?"

"How would you know that?"

I answered on autopilot before it registered.

That was a man's voice.

I turned around like my neck had rusted over. Callum, wearing the smirk of the century.

"Her mother told me, obviously."

He held out the fan she'd left on the bench. "Ma'am. You forgot this."

"Oh, what a sweet boy." Mom took it, breezing right past the SOS in my eyes. "I'm off. You two young people talk."

I shot Callum a look and bolted after her. "Mom. Wait up."

His hand shot out and caught the hood of my jacket.

"Get back here."

"..."

Chapter 4

I turned around with all the enthusiasm of a woman walking to the gallows. "What."

"I'm sketchy? I'm broke?"

I fixed my eyes on a point past his shoulder and mumbled, "Well, aren't you? You loiter around our complex all day and you don't even live here."

"Who said I don't live here."

He rolled his eyes, pulled out his phone, and flashed a group chat at me. "See this? I'm a distinguished resident, thank you."

Oh. So that was why he was in the building chat.

"Also." He raised a brow and dipped his head closer. "Who told you I was broke?"

He did. He told me himself.

Back when we were online, he'd said he was a broke student working odd jobs. Brand deals on the side. Construction shifts when he could get them.

He'd vanish for hours and come back with these pitiful little voice notes.

"Baby, I just got off a shift hauling bricks. I'm so tired."

"I don't have much money, good girl. Would you dump me for it?"

He had to be messing with me.

Until he sent a video of himself, shirtless, on a job site. Sweat sliding down a set of tan abs. He glanced at the camera, turned, lifted an arm, and there it was: the shoulders, the cut forearm, the waist that had no business being that narrow.

That video is still in my saved posts. I physically cannot delete it.

Dump him? I only resented not being rich enough to keep him.

If I'd had the money I'd have put him on retainer, kept a sack of bricks in the living room, and had him haul them for me daily. For morale.

Long fingers snapped an inch from my nose.

"Why are you red. What are you thinking about."

I looked away fast. "Ahem. It's hot out."

"Sure." He didn't buy a word of it, but he let it go. "So. Who told you I was broke?"

"I figured it out myself."

"?"

He glanced down and gave his own outfit a once-over. "Figured it out from what?"

I looked too.

Damn it. Head to toe, all designer.

"Oh. Armani." I set my jaw and refused to give an inch. "I figured it was a dupe."

Callum stared at me like I'd short-circuited.

That was when the pudgy little boy came barreling over and latched onto his leg. "Daddy. Daddy."

Callum's whole face went soft. His voice dropped into something gentle. "What's up, Sonny."

I blinked. "His name's Sonny?"

Callum used to bring up Sonny constantly online.

Gotta take Sonny for a walk. Gotta feed Sonny.

I had spent months assuming Sonny was his dog.

This was his kid?

The boy hugged Callum's arm and peered up at me. "Yeah. What's up, sis."

"Nothing. Nothing." I waved a hand. "I'm gonna head out, I"

"I know. Your dad's going into labor." Callum scooped him up. "Fine. Go."

"...Right."

He was looking at me like I was a deadbeat ducking child support, and somehow that landed. I left without looking back.

Chapter 5

Callum vanished for a few days.

I'd just about convinced myself the whole saga was winding down when a second gorgeous man showed up at my door.

Ordinary afternoon. I was elbow-deep in dishwater when my mom burst into the kitchen, vibrating with excitement. "Your friend's here for you. Go, go."

Hands full of suds, I frowned. "Which friend? Nadia? Tell her two minutes, let me finish these."

"Not Nadia. Go see for yourself." She took the plate out of my hand and started shoving me toward the door with the other. "I've got it. Go. A boy finally came looking for you after all these years. Your love has arrived."

"My love."

I barely got to wipe my hands before she launched me out of the kitchen.

Momentum sent me stumbling straight into a soft, expensive-smelling chest.

I looked up into a pair of very pretty eyes.

Five-ten or so. White shirt, black slacks, skin so flawless it made me, an actual woman, feel like I'd been slacking.

"Careful." The voice kept its distance. The pretty eyes narrowed, minus any warmth.

I got my feet under me. "And you are?"

He stepped back as I straightened. Said nothing. Just smoothed the crease I'd put in his shirt, unhurried, then let his gaze travel down me and back up, one slow appraisal, and finished with a quiet little tsk.

The body language was loud enough to subtitle.

This? This is what he lost his head over?

Me: "???"

Something wrong with you, buddy?

He curved a smile and offered a pale hand. "Hi. I'm Ellery. Callum's good friend."

The bottom fell out of me.

Here to defend his boy's honor, then.

"I don't know any Callum." I left his hand hanging. "What do you want?"

Ellery folded his arms, smiling faintly. "I wanted a look at the kind of woman who made Cal lose his head."

"Meaning what."

He tilted down toward my ear. "Drop it. I know you're the girl he was seeing online."

I played dumb. "No idea what you're talking about."

His smile went soft, almost kind. "That's fair. If I looked like you, I wouldn't admit it either."

I sat in that one a while.

"Cool."

We were deadlocked when Mom drifted back out.

"Josie, honey, what's the matter with you? You didn't even pour your friend any tea." She pulled a jacket off the hook and headed for the door. "You two young people talk. I'm going for a stroll."

She shot me one last look before it clicked shut.

Make it count.

I dragged in a breath and pinched the bridge of my nose.

My poor, clueless mother.

Out there beaming, sure my great romance had finally walked through the door.

Surprise. It was my competition.

Because a second ago, when Ellery leaned in, his phone had lit up between us.

Lock screen: Callum in a basketball jersey, face damp with sweat. The line of his throat. The hem pushed up just enough to show the abs.

Nobody sets a photo like that of their bro.

I ran my eyes over Ellery again and logged the details. Expensive. Exact. Not one thing about him left to chance, down to the part in his hair.

He wasn't here to avenge a friend.

He was here to size up the competition.

Me.

Chapter 6

The second my mother was gone, Ellery stopped performing.

He leaned back, arms crossed, one leg hooked over the other, every line of him arrogant.

Afternoon light came through the window and laid a small shadow under his lashes.

Good face, honestly.

Just not one I could look at right then without wanting to throw something.

He caught me staring and gave a small laugh. "Cal really does have terrible taste, picking someone like you."

I smiled right back. "Funny his taste is so bad and he still passed on you."

His chin came up. "Callum likes me. He just hasn't figured it out yet."

"..."

I went from furious to blank in one second flat. "So he's into guys and hasn't noticed?"

He gave me a look. "None of your business."

"Okay. Then let's talk about me. How'd you know it was me?"

"Don't worry about how I know. Point is, if I can find out, so can Callum."

"And what, you came to tell me to hide better?"

"I'm not that charitable. I just want you to have some self-awareness." He studied me. "I know Cal. He's soft, and he's proud, and any day now he's going to tell you he doesn't care what you look like. You and I both know that's not true."

He smiled. "Looks matter. And you know that better than I do."

For the record, I am not that ugly.

Average. Regular-person face.

Callum is just so far past the line that standing next to him turns anyone into gas-station sushi.

When I didn't answer, Ellery kept going. "Do yourself a favor and keep your distance. Even if he comes looking. Even if he says all the right things."

"Sure." I agreed easily, and held out my hand. "Go ahead."

Ellery paused. "What?"

I curled my fingers. "The money. Isn't this the part where you slide a million across the table to make me disappear? You've been talking a while. We're overdue. Where is it?"

He laughed like I'd genuinely stunned him. "A million dollars. Dream on. I'm handing you a reality check, for free. Ignore it if you want. Just don't cry about it later when he drops you."

Right up until then I'd been on my best behavior. That did it.

"No money, no reason to listen to you. And so what if he dumps me? Callum is that hot. One day with him and I already came out ahead."

"It's fine, though." I smiled at him. "Those abs you're never getting your hands on? I'll cop a feel for the both of us."

The conversation did not end on friendly terms.

Ellery left me with one long, meaningful look and a parting line. "Just don't come crying later."

That night, a message landed in my DMs from an account with no face and no name.

Them: [Hey sis. So why'd you and Callum break up? Because you look nothing like your pics? Fat and ugly in real life?]

My finger stopped on the last three words.

Chapter 7

Callum and I met on social media.

Both of us had a few tens of thousands of followers off our selfies. Nothing major. Micro-influencer on a good day.

That's how we found each other. Likes, then late-night talks, then somewhere in there, all of it, fast and out of nowhere.

But it was online, so I never made it public. Callum respected that. He never posted my name or my face. He just told people he was off the market.

So who could possibly know we'd dated?

I typed a single question mark back to the faceless account.

No reply.

I put it out of my head anyway, because I was starting a job.

I'd been getting by fine at home on brand deals and the odd commissioned illustration. My mother, however, could not stand watching me exist indoors, so she pulled some strings and landed me a gig as a CEO's assistant.

Figured I'd lose a little weight in heels. I took it.

Monday. Early. I clicked into the office building on shoes I hadn't worn in a year.

I hadn't even found my desk before a small round missile launched at my legs and clamped on.

"Mommy. Mommy."

I assumed some kid had lost his mom, crouched down, and patted his head.

A pudgy little face looked up at me, devastated. "Mommy."

"Sonny?"

I nearly went over. "How are you here? I'm not your mom, buddy. You've got the wrong person."

Sonny cried harder.

"No I don't. I looked at the picture for a whole day and a whole night. It's you. You're my mommy."

"..."

The kid had an eye for talent, I'll give him that.

While I fumbled to calm him down, the whispering started up behind me.

"Isn't that the boss's kid? Why's he calling her Mommy?"

"Is that the boss's wife?"

"Huh. Not what I pictured."

"Married young. He looks, what, early twenties? How's the kid already that big?"

"So that's why the new hire walked straight into an assistant job. It's a couple thing."

"Are we part of the bit too?"

My face went flat.

Wonderful. Hadn't even gotten my name out and the office already had us married with children.

"Sonny. Come here."

The voice hit me from behind and every muscle in my back locked up.

Of course. Of course. I looked up, and there was Callum's face.

Gone was the easy hoodie-and-buzzcut version. Today it was a black suit cut to the millimeter, cold enough to frost the window.

Sonny burrowed into my neck. "No. I'm staying with Mommy."

Callum's eyes cut to me. "Then you come too."

Me: "..."

Two minutes later I walked into the CEO's office with a small human fused to my chest.

Callum glanced at Sonny, then dropped his eyes back to his screen.

"Your job, going forward, is taking care of him."

He didn't look up. He pointed. "That's your desk."

I followed his finger to a single sad desk shoved into the far corner.

Since when does a CEO share an office with the help.

When I didn't move, he stopped typing and looked at me.

"What. Not up to standard?"

I looked back at the man who'd flown across the country hunting for a girl he couldn't find.

Not a flicker of recognition on his face.

Which left exactly two options.

Either he had no idea the girl he'd been chasing was standing three feet away in year-old heels.

Or he knew precisely who I was, and he was going to make me be the one to say it out loud.

Chapter