Chapter 1
Meet me.The words said as they flashed across her phone.
Layla sat in her bed with the comforters tucked in around her as she gently drifted off.
The buzzing from the phone had startled her, and she quickly grabbed it with excitement, impatient to see his message.
Butterflies filled her stomach as she read those two words.
They had been messaging for months back and forth, calling each other every day that they could.
It was a love through words; stories.
They had never met, she had never seen the man she was falling for, but she knew the sound of his voice.
She knew the deep rumble that came from him when he laughed, the one that sent goosebumps down her spine.
For months she had been online, talking to men and going on awful dates.
Each time, she came home to her apartment alone and rinsed off the memory of the few hours prior that she had wasted sitting in a restaurant or at the movies.
It was a tedious effort, and once she wasn't sure was worth it.
That was until she foundhim.He was sweet and kind, unlike the other visitors to her profile.
When others went to her page, they left her vile messages that made her cringe and question whether she should cancel her account altogether.
For long spans of time, she even stopped checking her inbox.
She knew what disturbing pictures and almost violent descriptions of sexual acts waited for her there.
It was months of politely declining requests, and in turn getting threatened, before she stopped responding all together.
No matter how she worded it, there was no way nice enough to say no. Even on messages where she didn't respond, she would receive an angry follow-up message a few days later.
Each time it contradicted the first message, and Layla could not help but laugh as the messages would go from telling her exactly what the sender wanted to do to her to inform her of just how repulsive she was and suggesting ways for her to kill herself.
Rejection was hard, but the reactions she received in response were extreme.
Sitting down after work one day, she logged into her account.
She was fed up with all of the threats after one young gentleman decided to take it a step too far.
He had threatened to find her and kill her himself.
She scrolled through the messages, and one by one reported each person for their foul words and images before she blocked each one of them.
There were dozens that she had never even read from the intermittent periods of avoiding the site.
Most of which she reported with the rest, but there were a few that were short and simple hellos, and she scrolled past them with the intention to go back and look at those later.
It was several pages back that she saw his message.
He stared with hello, but his message was long and sweet as he talked about reading through the biography that she had written on her profile.
He talked about how he related to her based on the information she put down and how they shared the same interests.
The only time he mentioned her appearance from the profile pictures that she had posted was a sweet message at the end.
He had said that she was beautiful and loved reading about the girl on her page.
He wanted to know more about her.
She didn't have to look at his pictures to know that she wanted to message him back, but as anyone would, she looked anyway.
He was a handsome man, far more attractive than she thought would show interest in her.
He was tall, with dark brown hair that stood out against the white kitchen cabinets behind him.
The sun lit up his beautiful hazel eyes and enhanced the green that swirled within them as it reflected in through the sliding glass door leading from his kitchen to his backyard.
The gentle kiss of freckles that ran over his tan nose would not have been noticeable if it weren't for the bright light that illuminated him.
Short stubble ran over his jawline the same color as the hair on his head, and Layla briefly wondered what it would feel like to run her lips across it.
It excited her to know that not only did he like to do the same things as her, but he was also taller than her.
She stared at his picture with a smile as she thought about the message she had just read.
She did not think it would be possible for a man like that to exist in the world of online dating, but there he sat.
She read through his profile carefully and learned about his likes and dislikes.
She went back to his message and responded.
Later that day, he messaged her again and a beautiful love started to grow.
Meet me,the message had said, and Layla was filled with butterflies as she stared at her phone.
It was late and she had already been in bed for the night, just waiting for the darkness to consume her.
All traces of sleep left her body as her thumbs danced along the screen as she typed and then deleted.
It had been a long time coming, and she was excited to finally meet him, Leonardo.
His profile only said Leo.
After they had spoken for a few days, he had let her know that he preferred to be called Leonardo.
He had only put a shortened version of his name online so his work would not be able to find his account.
Talking to him had become a part of her normal routine.
They would text throughout the day while working and call to talk most nights.
She had tried to hide her fear of meeting the man who had her smitten, but her body still tensed at the thought of seeing him for the first time.
They had tried to meet several times before, but it had always been bad timing.
He frequently traveled for work, and her days off never lined up with his.
The anticipation was killing them both, and the longer it drug out, the more scared Layla had become.
At this point, he was nothing but a fantasy.
She typed different answers.
Some accepted the invitation with over-excitement, and some declined his request with the fear of facing reality.
She deleted each one to settle on the simplest reply of all.
Where?
She messaged back.
She could see that he was typing and sat up in her bed.
The blanket pooled around her hips where it fell.
A smile stretched across her face, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
Glancing at the time, it was 9:37 pm.
There would be a handful of public places open that they could go to on a Saturday night at that time.
The three dots disappeared from her screen for a moment, and she waited anxiously for him to continue his message.
She was tired of waiting to meet him it had been over three months since they first started talking.
He was the perfect man in text, and she needed to know how much of that was real.
Meet me at the Flame Tavern. 10:30.The moment it came across her screen she let out a squeal of excitement and pressed her fingertips to her bottom lip as she released it from between her teeth.
She jumped up from her bed and ran to her bathroom.
Her long, dark auburn hair was still lightly curled from the day.
She pinned the top layer behind her head, leaving the rest to hang down her back.
Her phone vibrated against the counter, and she eagerly grabbed it.
I can't wait to see you.She knew that nerves were to be expected, but the butterflies in her stomach turned to elephants as she read those six words.
I can't wait to see you too.
I'll be there. 10:30.She sent back before placing her phone down to apply a light layer of eye shadow and mascara.
She didn't like wearing a lot of makeup, it always made her face feel heavy and dirty, but she wanted to look her best tonight.
She ran through her apartment in a hurry with the knowledge that it would take at least twenty minutes to get to the bar.
She slipped out of her pajama shorts and a tank top on her way to her closet, and threw them into the corner of her room, adding to the mountain of laundry she needed to do.
She had avoided going through the stereotypical bar hopping phase of the early twenties and wasn't sure what to wear.
She grabbed a black skirt that sat tightly against her legs down to the middle of her thighs and a blue V-neck shirt.
Looking at her outfit in the mirror, she wasn't sure if it would make her look too promiscuous to wear heals with such a skintight outfit, so she grabbed a pair of flats and slipped them on instead.