Falling For The Playboy

EVA

arthur

That was Axel’s handle on Instagram. Just the single name. His page had been suggested to me, as were a bunch of other Ivacy High students, but his, and a few others, were the ones that actually piqued my interest. I made several screenshots of the pages in order not to forget to check them out later.

He took exceptionally nice pictures and his photographer, if he had one, -although I highly doubted that he did- wouldn’t swap his/her occupation for the world. Not with the amount of smiles he threw at the camera every chance he got, it seemed.

He had a lot of female fans. I knew that because I was stalking the hell out of his page. Clicking on every photo, reading every comment and clicking on the female profiles to see if he followed them. It was pathetic. Really. But I couldn’t be helped.

He had quite a large number of following -all thanks to his good looking self. As I scrolled even lower, to posts about five months ago, I stumbled upon a picture of him wearing running shorts and a tank top. He was at a stadium, the rows of seated people gave that away, and he was doubled over with his hands on his knees, and an exhausted expression on his face.

I clicked on the picture to see it clearer and found out that there were actually three pictures in the post. I swiped. The next picture was of him facing the seated people with his hands on his waist, that tired expression still on his face and in the last, he appeared not to know his picture was being taken.

He had taken his top off, his glorious six-pack bared as he ran his hand through his hair. Sweat glistened on his chest and abdomen, making it impossible for me to focus on anywhere else. He was so incredibly hot and just so damn fine that I couldn’t look away.

I stared at the picture for a complete five minutes before looking away, and that was only because a notification popped in that I had a new follower. My first follower. Excited and  not a little bit curious, I checked.

It was Axel!

Oh my God he followed me. How did he even come across my account? I had only created it today, merely two hours ago. With some coercing from my foster mom, and a subtle encouragement from Abi, I had finally summoned up the courage and opened my own Instagram account.

So how had Axel found my account so quickly?

I went back to the home page and that was when I saw how he’d found my account. I had accidentally liked his picture. The one with him shirtless and sweaty. Oh, God. Now he was going to know that I had been stalking his page, secretly for that matter and I had taken it so far that I had accidentally liked a picture of over five months ago.

Panic seeped into my bones and my palms started to sweat. What did I do? Did I follow him back and play it cool like I hadn’t gone all stalker mode on him? Did I come out clean? Or did I just plain ignore that he had followed me?

The ping of a notification came in again and to make matters worse, he texted me. It came in as more of a message request since I wasn’t following him back yet, but I had already clicked on it. He sent a hey with a smiley face. Not the emoji, the emoticon.

The good thing about message requests was that even when you clicked on it, it didn’t show the sender that the message had been read until I accepted the message request. So I didn’t. I hurriedly placed the phone down on my dresser so as not to do anything stupid, but it slipped out of my sweaty palms and I struggled to catch it before it hit the floor.

I blew out a relieved breath when I caught it, clutching it to my chest and saying a quick prayer to the heavens that nothing had happened to my still brand new phone.

My mouth dropped when I turned the phone around. I was video calling him! I quickly ended the video call and cringed hard when I thought about his reaction to the call. And not only had I accidentally video called him, I had also sent him a slew of utter rubbish.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my head falling back with a thud on my bed rest.

What have I done?

I turned my WiFi off altogether, making sure to exit the app itself, before keeping my phone. I tried not to think about the mess I had put myself in. Axel would probably figure out that the messages and call had been a mistake. Surely, he would. But that would only make it so much more worse because I hadn’t followed him back.

First day using the app and I had gotten myself in more mess than I did in a week in real life. Did I need any other indication that the social media life wasn’t for me?

Apparently, I did, because when I turned my WiFi back on -I couldn’t not check-, I saw a message from Axel and as I was reading it, another one popped in.

Video calling me after liking my six months old picture?

Do I have a stalker on my hands, Miss Otasowie?

I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. He couldn’t have acted like he hadn’t seen it, could he?

I thought about the best way to reply. I couldn’t ignore him anymore since it was quite obvious I was seeing his messages, so I went with;

I accidentally liked your picture. The video call was a mistake too.

It showed seen almost immediately, like he had been waiting for me to text back and I briefly wondered if I should turn my WiFi off again now that I had acknowledged him, but he had already started typing and some part of me -okay, a huge part of me- wanted to see what he had to say, so I waited.

So you were stalking me.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Just let it go, you annoying human!

I wasn’t. A lot of people from school were being suggested to me. You were too.

I didn’t peg you as the social media type.

I felt oddly insulted by his statement. What did he mean?

I created an account today.