Catfishing teaser

Chapter 1
Grace

I came into the apartment with my feet hurting and my head pounding. The club music rang through my ears for eight hours had gotten to me. Shay sat on the sofa with her feet propped up on the coffee table. She still had toe separators on each foot, coupled with the bright purple bonnet and the yoga pants. It was obvious she had spent the Friday night in.

​“I thought you said you guys were going out tonight,” I said as I came to join her. 

“Men are trifling,” she said, without looking up from her phone. She was scrolling through a dating app. “I don’t even know why I bother anymore.”


I tugged my hair down from the ponytail I had it in. It helped ease the tension in my head. I rubbed my fingers through the light waves, trying to smooth the tangles out. I combed my fingers through my hair, humming an agreement. “So you’re scrolling through men?” I asked her.

“If it was like ordering DoorDash, it would make life a lot easier,” she said, giving me a slight grin. She had bright yellow patches under each eye. “They could come over, give me what I wanted, then go home.”

​“They could call it hoe dash,” I suggested with a snort.

“Oh! We should write that down,” she said, leaning closer so I could see the profile she had stopped on. “Do you know anything about making apps?”

“Yeah, dudes totally teach me coding between serving them beers,” I said, shaking my head. “As great as that app sounds, I have been bitten and will never be on another one of those things ever again.”

Sympathy crossed her face because she knew. It didn’t diminish the glow to her brown skin. She had been taking the night to vegetate, a spa night at home. That sounded heavenly. “I get it. Dee had no business being a part of that. All of them are assholes. If you wanted to beat their asses, I’d be down for it,” she said. Then she shrugged a shoulder, “But I gotta be honest. It’s been years. They have moved out. You have moved out. You’re a big girl. You got buttons you need to be pushed. You aren’t grounded anymore.”

“The disappointed stares from my mom were enough to stick with you,” I grumbled. “I know. She still looks at me and thinks about that moment.” I sighed, “there’s nothing like having your parents find your nudes.”

“I don’t want to imagine that or the conversation afterward,” she said as she offered me her phone. “Scroll for me. You see somebody fine, swipe right for me. I’ll look when I get done. I gotta wash my face.”

I wouldn’t object. It was Shay’s profile and not my own. There shouldn’t be any problem with me just looking. There were a lot of men that liked to put questionable pictures of themselves, shirtless pictures. Sunglasses with baseball caps that covered most their faces. The obligatory picture with a fish. The younger they appeared to be, the more suggestive the pictures became.
Fit bodies with abs on display. Biceps curled up to appear bigger for the camera. Some with shorts riding down to expose the delectable cut of muscles.

It made my gut twist. The reason I had an adverse reaction was poor choices I had made as a minor. Something that landed me in trouble for way too long. Until I was eighteen, I was stuck under the watchful eyes of both my parents. I couldn’t go out and I had to suffer through having my phone searched every night. 

It was the worst.

They had just reasoning for everything they did. But it didn’t take away the sore feeling of missing out on everything. All because I enjoyed being told I was beautiful by strangers. I didn’t see the problem with the pictures I’d sent. It took a good few lectures from law enforcement, because of course my mother roped in a cop to talk to me, for me to know why it was wrong.
I held a grudge. I spent a lot of the last few years angry. But it was something that kept me from doing things like this. I couldn’t even date any of my classmates. I didn’t doubt that Kyle and his stupid friends had told everyone that they had found me on Tinder and it left a stigma I couldn’t shake.

Fortunately, Shay was a similar type of wild child as I was. She spent a good amount of her time in high school in trouble, so we bonded. And as soon as we could get out from under our parents’ thumbs, we did.

It was so freeing not having to answer to anyone.

I paused mid scroll on a familiar face. I was so caught up in my thoughts, I almost completely missed him. I knew that man. I thumbed into his profile and went straight to the pictures, just to make sure. Just in case I was seeing things.

Cameron Strum grinned broadly from Shay’s screen back at me. His shaggy blond hair was in varying states of disarray in each photo. He had one where it was slicked back. He wore a light blue button down and slacks. An attempt at looking professional, but I could never associate him with that word. And, of course, there was the picture of him holding a fish out by a body of water.

I laughed out loud. It was hilarious to think that one of the people that had orchestrated what doomed high school for me hadn’t learned the same lesson I had. But then again, why would he have? 

That sobered me real quick.

“I thought I heard you laugh,” Shay said as she came out of the bathroom, patting face with a hand towel. “But now you just look sad.” She sat beside me. “Is it an ugly man making stupid demands? Because they do like they got room to talk.” She took her phone from me and looked at it, “that asshole.” She hummed, “Should I swipe right so I can tell him just what he doesn’t got?”

I considered it, then tapped a finger against my lips. What would be the best thing that I could do? I felt my lips pull up. “I think we can do one better.” I pulled my phone out, “I think I’ll see if I can find him and I can match him.”

Shay’s eyebrows went up, “And what are you going to do?”

“Have you ever disliked someone so much that all you wanted to do was make them suffer?” I asked. 


She looked back at her phone, “Why stop at Strum? Why not include everyone?” She leaned forward. “You get my brother into this, and I’ll take care of yours.”