Tangled Web (3 page)

I rushed over, pulled back my nice leather chair, sat down, and positioned myself in front of the computer screen. I carefully placed my food and water down on the desk, clicked on the Facebook logo, and waited for my chat list to come up. My heart dropped.
Imsebastiangray
wasn’t showing online yet.
Oh well, I’ll relax a minute and eat. Hopefully, he’ll show up soon.

I had barely gotten the first bite in my mouth when a
ding
alerted me to a new chat message. It was Celeste, or
Seb4life
as she liked to call herself.

Seb4life: Hey Ashley!

Groaning to myself, I knew I had to respond. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Celeste—I did—but she had a habit of always popping up when I didn’t have time to talk to her. I took another bite of my Chinese food as I typed,
Hey there Celeste.

Seb4life: I just wanted to make sure you knew they were running a repeat of
Can’t Take It With You
, you know, Seb’s first movie. It’s on tonight on Showtime.

Ashley: Yeah, I know. I recorded it last week when it was on, but if you want to post the information on the fan page, go ahead.

Seb4life: Cool! I’ll do that.

I glanced over and saw that
Imsebastiangray
had just signed on. My heart literally stopped for a second, and my stomach lurched as I quickly swallowed my food.

Ashley: Celeste, I need to go. Thanks for posting that for me.
I quickly wrote.

Seb4life: No prob… talk to you soon.

Oh, I’m sure I will… daily
, I thought as I clicked out of her chat window.

I think I held my breath until I saw a new chat window pop open, letting me know that Sebastian wanted to chat with me.

Imsebastiangray: Hey, Ashley, you busy?

Never too busy for you, you gorgeous sexy man
, I thought as I fumbled around trying to get comfortable. Typing quickly, I wrote,
No, not at all. How’s it going?

Imsebastiangray: It’s good. I have those photos I was going to share with you, if you think you can use them.

Ashley: Of course! I’ll post them tonight on the fan page. Actually, I’m pretty excited to be able to say that you sent them to us. That’s okay to say, right?

Imsebastiangray: Sure! I’m e-mailing them to your Gmail account as I talk to you, okay?

Reading those words made my heart soar. For years I had wanted to chat with Sebastian, and it was hard to believe it was actually happening right at this very minute. I forced myself to remain cool and collected and chatted to him as if I were chatting to Patricia or any of my friends.

Ashley: Okay. So, how was your day today? Anything exciting happen?

Imsebastiangray: Not much other than I had an audition for a new movie.

My eyes and ears perked up. I typed really quickly.

Ashley: A new movie? That sounds great! What’s it about?

Imsebastiangray: I can’t talk about it yet, but I’ll tell you about it as soon as something’s official, okay?

Ashley: Oh sure, I totally get that.

Imsebastiangray: How was your day?

Telling myself to just treat him like anyone else, I responded,
It was good. I work in an emergency room, and yesterday we had a shooting victim, a little girl, come into the ER, and I went to visit her today. She’s going to be fine, so yeah… it was a good day. Sometimes we’re not that lucky.

Imsebastiangray: Wow… that’s great that she’s going to be okay.

Ashley: Yeah, I was worried about her for a while because the bullet was lodged in her stomach. But fortunately, we have a great team of surgeons who were able to get the bullet out and fix her up.

Imsebastiangray: How did the little girl get shot?

Ashley: Her mother and father are divorcing, and he found out where they were—a freakin’ McDonalds of all places—and he took a gun. From what I heard on the news, he was trying to make the mother let him have the little girl, but when he pulled the gun, another patron stepped in and tackled him. He fell, and the gun went off, shooting the little girl.

Imsebastiangray: Damn! People can be crazy. But I’m glad she’s going to be okay. Sounds like you have a really interesting job.

Ashley: It has its good and bad days. That’s why I like working on the sites for you, it’s something fun, and it’s a great stress relief for me.

Imsebastiangray: I’ve never been that into social media. I’m not one to talk a lot about myself.

Ashley: Oh I know.

Imsebastiangray: What do you mean?

Oops, there I go again, inserting my foot into my mouth
. Trying to explain my last statement, I typed,
I just meant that I knew you weren’t into social media, which is why I started trying to help you by promoting you this way.

Imsebastiangray: Oh yeah, it’s pretty cool that you do this. Do you work on sites for other people or just mine?

Ashley: Just yours. ☺

Imsebastiangray: Well I’m honored. Thank you.

Okay, I was not going to lie. My heart soared at those last words. If the man never contacted me again, I had those words out there—on the Internet—saved forever. Changing the subject, I continued typing.

Ashley: Can I just say I’m very excited you might be in a new movie?

Imsebastiangray: Yeah, I kind of got off on the television track, but my manager thinks now is a good time to get back into making movies.

Ashley: Well, I for one will be front row and center on opening night.

Imsebastiangray: LOL! I think we should probably wait to see if I get the role.

Ashley: Oh you will. I have complete confidence in your talent.

Imsebastiangray: Thanks, Ashley. I appreciate that. I’ll let you know as soon as I know.

My heart skipped a beat. It was as if all my dreams were coming true.

Ashley: Sebastian, it’s true. I do think you are very talented. And the fact that you trust me to officially work on your sites means a lot to me.

Imsebastiangray: You know… it’s strange. I know we only just met, but I feel like we’ll work well together. To be honest, I was slightly worried about stepping out into the world of social media.

Ashley: Why?

Imsebastiangray: Let’s just say I’m a private person, and it’s difficult for me to put myself out there.

Ashley: Well you never have to worry about personal information on my sites. I don’t allow it, and besides, I think that’s for the best. A bit of mystery is always a good thing.

Imsebastiangray: LOL! Yes, I think you are right. Ashley, I’m sorry, but I have to leave now. I’m meeting someone for dinner.

All my joyful feelings dropped like a brick.
Really, Sebastian? Didn’t I just say a bit of mystery is good?
Geez, he could have typed all night and not ruined it by telling me that he had a date. Before I could stop myself, I typed,
Oh, you have a date?

As soon as I typed the words, I realized I might have crossed some sort of imaginary boundary. Quickly I added,
I’m sorry, Sebastian. That is absolutely none of my business. I just couldn’t stop my fingers from typing….

Imsebastiangray: No, it’s okay. Yeah, it is a date, but nothing special. But of course, that’s just for you to know.

Ashley: Oh definitely! ☺ I would never share anything you say to me.

Imsebastiangray: So, now that I’ve told a secret… what about you? Are you dating anyone? A boyfriend maybe?

Okay, he was obviously asking if I had a boyfriend because he thought I was a girl. How did my life get so complicated so fast? I knew now was the time to come clean, but dammit, I had just gotten him to open up a tiny bit. Why ruin it? I’ll tell him later. Who’s it going to hurt anyway?

Ashley: No… no boyfriend.

I prided myself on telling the truth even if it was misleading.

Imsebastiangray: Okay, I didn’t mean to pry either. Well, I guess I’d better go. But I’ll talk to you again soon, okay?

It was all I could do not to beg him to stay. But keeping my self-respect intact, I simply wrote,
Okay, good night Sebastian. Oh and thank you for the photos! I’ll post them right after we sign off.

Imsebastiangray: No, thank you, Ashley, and have a great night. Hugs to you.

My jaw hit the floor as I read the word “hug” over and over. Sebastian Gray sent me a hug! I was practically giddy as I closed out of the Facebook chat. After signing into my e-mail account, I found all the photos Sebastian had sent. As I loaded them onto his fan page, I wondered how in the hell I had let my lie go this far. The next time we spoke, I had to tell him I was a man and let the chips fall where they may.

Two months later—July 4th

IN MY
quaint southern town of Savannah, Georgia, the Fourth of July meant the River Street Celebration, which included fireworks, music, and all kinds of food. Every year I could be found lounging on a blanket right at the riverfront so I wouldn’t miss the fireworks spectacular. But this year, I had other plans. For the past two months, my days consisted of working at the hospital and rushing home after work to meet Sebastian online. And tonight would be no different, so no fireworks for me. We usually spent our nights laughing and having a blast as we found we had a lot in common. Over a month ago, he had gotten the movie role, and even though filming was taking place in Germany, he had still managed to find me online at night. The time difference of six hours was troublesome, so we had worked out the system that I would come online the minute I got home from work, and we chatted until time for him to get some sleep. We had funny chats, and we had a few serious chats. There was even one time that we both were drunk-instant messaging each other. I guess you could say that our relationship, for lack of a better word, had crossed from fan/celebrity to perhaps a bit more like friends. My life would be nearly perfect except for one tiny problem. I still hadn’t found a way to tell Sebastian that I wasn’t a girl. Every time I would start to ease down that path of self-respecting full-on honesty, I would stop myself out of fear of being rejected by him. But the longer I waited, the larger the issue became. Now my fear was that he would stop talking to me because I had waited so long to tell him the truth. I just knew he would never forgive me.

It was during one of our chats that I learned Sebastian didn’t have a lot of close friends. He told me he wasn’t dating anyone special, and he liked it that way. One night he made the comment that if I lived near him, we might just have to go on a date. Of course my heart erupted with happiness, only to plummet, knowing that if he knew I was a guy, he would’ve never said such a thing. The longer I continued with my lie, the more it felt like the hole I had created for myself was becoming larger and, in the end, more devastating.

I heard a
ding
from Facebook and looked down at the computer screen where Sebastian and I had been chatting for over an hour.

Imsebastiangray: Hey, Ash, I’ve wanted to ask you something for a while.

Ashley: Oh, and what might that be?

Imsebastiangray: Why don’t you have any photos online? I mean, you obviously know what I look like, but what about you? It seems stupid that I’ve been talking to you for so long yet I have no idea what you look like.

I froze. Shit! What do I say now? This was my chance to explain why there weren’t any photos and to tell him the truth. But was now a good time to spill all? The chat had been going so well. After contemplating it for a minute, I knew I wasn’t ready to end what we had going on… whatever that was.
Play it off
, I thought.

Ashley: Well if you insist, I must confess. I’m actually a seventy-year-old woman with a goatee so long I can’t show my face in public.

Imsebastiangray: Haha! Seriously, what do you look like? I would like to know who I’m talking to.

In a nervous twitch, I started pulling at my hair and twisting it in my fingers. How did I get myself into these situations? As my heart pounded in anxiety, an idea came to me. I could tell him exactly what I looked like but leave out one minor detail—oh you know the one—about having a penis.

Imsebastiangray: Ashley, are you still there?

Ashley: I’m here. Okay, the reason I don’t have any photos online is because of what happened when I originally created your groups.

Imsebastiangray: And what was that?

Ashley: People, your fans, started chatting with me about non-Sebastian things, and I began to feel uncomfortable.

This was actually true. I had been asked out quite a few times by some of the fans, and even if I had been interested, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go out with someone that I met behind a computer screen. I still had the romantic notion of seeing someone across the room and the moment our eyes meet, sparks would begin to fly.
Unless that person was Sebastian, then I would totally be into an online hookup
, I thought as I looked down to see what he was typing.

Imsebastiangray: Ah… I see. You must be very pretty.

Looking at my reflection in the mirror in front of me, I studied my shaggy blond hair that was badly in need of a dye job, down to the freckles still splattered across my nose, which was unusual for a man my age.
Pretty? Uh… not so much. Maybe interesting-looking?
Quickly I responded.

Ashley: Okay, truth. Average height, average weight, and I have shaggy blond hair and hazel eyes. Oh and if you’re hot for freckles, then you may fall in love with me.