CHLOE BAKER'S LOST DATE

Chapter Twelve: It's Too Late for That

I wake up the next morning to my phone blowing up.

For a minute, I can't figure out why I have so many notifications and alerts. But then I realize that it's the BookBox Insta account that I'm signed into on my phone. I'd checked it for the last time when Kit and I had finished up last night around midnight, and there hadn't been much traction. But somewhere overnight—more people were on social media in the middle of the night than seemed possible—it had gone semi-viral.

I open the app and check the post. It has over a thousand likes and almost as many comments. I scan through them quickly, my stomach tumbling with nerves.

Oooh, that guy looks like my ex. TROUBLE.

Promote it on triplehot.xxx

I don't get it, is the guy really missing because this isn't funny.

—Chill, girl, chill, it's just some marketing thing.

I'm ordering 10 copies of MOST WANTED if I get this guy with purchase.

—YAAS!

—100%

MOST WANTED, indeed.

—LOL

BookBox getting spicy! I like it.

Couldn't they have used a better photo? This dude is BLURRY.

—That's kind of what makes it hot, tho?

Is that Central Park?

He's HAWT. JFSKDSKSKSK

He'd know what to do with his hands is all i'm saying.

I continue through the comments, now appearing as fast as I can read them. As far as I can tell, no one's actually given any clue to who Jack might be. Instead, they seem to think he's an actor, hired for the marketing campaign, and potentially available for special appearances. Which was so not the point. I'm probably going to have to edit to clarify, but at least it's getting some attention.

I go back to the first comment and click through to the page of the poster who said Fake Jack looks like her ex. She's solo in the first twenty photos, but after searching through her posts, I find the guy she must be referring to. He has brown hair and greenish eyes, but he's also fifty pounds heavier than either of the Jacks and at least five inches shorter. Definitely not him.

I put my phone down and get ready for work. When I get out of the shower, there's a hundred new comments, with one or two people claiming to know him. But when I check the links they put in, neither looks anything like him. One guy is in California and another in Canada. I should've clarified that he lived in Manhattan.

Even after I edit the post (**Looking for a man in Manhattan; ***Man not available to purchase), the potential leads that appear on the thread that morning are useless.

My DMs are no better. The BookBox's, I mean. It's full of people wanting to know what they get if they identify him—a free subscription, I keep writing—and then producing nothing. I quickly realize that my edits are not helping things. The way people will twist anything you say into something sexual is truly amazing. And this from someone who has spent years coming up with porny movie titles!

Once I clarify AGAIN that the contest is to find the specific man in the photo who is NOT missing, just a date that got away, other people feel the need to tell me about the men that ghosted them, a collection of sad stories that makes me wonder why I want to find Fake Jack in the first place.