The Valentine's Date, page 30
THE VALENTINE’S DATE
H. M. LYNN
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Thank you!
More from H. M. Lynn
About the Author
Also by H. M. Lynn
The Murder List
About Boldwood Books
PROLOGUE
This wasn’t a game. This wasn’t some prank one of his mates had played, or a video he was going to post in the hopes of going viral. Blood pooled in his mouth. The copper taste thick and cloying. His wrists were bound, and beside him, the body was growing colder. Any second now, his would be joining it. Unless he could find a way out of this. Unless he could find a way to become a killer, too.
1
‘Hey, all, it’s Kolby Kay here. Today is the fourteenth of February, and if you don’t know what that means, what the hell is wrong with you?! It’s Valentine’s Day, and it’s going to be even more special than usual because tonight, I am taking one of you, my amazing followers, on the most incredible date ever. That’s right! Remember, if you want to nominate yourself, you’ve got just two more hours. Then that’s it. I’ll be sliding into the lucky winner’s DMs to let them know. And if it’s not you, don’t worry – I’ll be sending updates through the entire night. See you soon!’
Kolby turned the camera a fraction more, so that it hit his best angle square on, gave one of his trademark grins and winks, then clicked off the video camera. As he dropped his phone onto the sofa, he let out a long sigh.
‘You know you’re insane for doing this, right?’ On the other side of the room, Kolby’s younger sister, Valerie, was watching him with a raised eyebrow. ‘As your voice of common sense, I need to reiterate how crazy the idea of meeting one of your followers for a date is. I mean, you had four hundred messages from that last live. It was less than a minute long. And some of these people are weirdos. Actually, I think most of them are weirdos.’
With a light chuckle, Kolby moved across to his sister and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
‘You need to stop worrying so much. This is my job. I know what I’m doing. Honestly, it’s fine. I’ve already narrowed it down to the top ten.’
Val’s scowl deepened. ‘I thought you said you weren’t going to decide for another two hours.’
‘Come on, Val, it’s social media. What I say and what I’m actually going to do have nothing to do with each other. You should know that. So come on, have a look at these ten with me. You can vet them and make sure they’re not crazies.’
Being a social media star had never been Kolby’s plan A. Or B. Or C, for that matter. His career aspirations focused solely on getting out of the tiny village he’d grown up in and seeing something of the world. When a friend offered him a sofa to sleep on in central London, it was the beginning of everything. He’d started the account to document his life, moving from South Cornwall to the big city – but mostly so he could prove to all the naysayers who never left those tiny villages just how well he was doing.
Of course, during those early years, a lot of it had been highlight reels that didn’t actually show what his life was like at all. He didn’t mention the backache from two months of sofa surfing or scraping together every tip he could for a deposit on a house share. Instead, he posted short clips of him at the gym, strolling around Southbank, meeting friends and posing with drinks in their hands. As his followers grew, he realised he might be onto something, so he started tailoring the content a little more. He used shots of him sitting in fancy restaurants with the menu open, extravagant prices on display, and captions like Choices, choices written beneath them, or in the dressing room at a clothes shop trying on outfits he wasn’t going to buy. Back then, he was still working his bar job, and 75 per cent of the time, he left the restaurants after taking the photos, given that he couldn’t actually afford to eat at half the places. But the more he mixed with people in the influencer scene, the more he realised it could be a real career plan. A career with good money and great perks.
Of course, first he needed to build his following. Back then, he was doing any trends he could to try to get that magic viral video that he knew could be the start of everything. Only some of which he enjoyed. He must have done about a dozen dance videos before he admitted to himself that he was not a dancer. The milk crate challenge left him with a broken arm, and the blackout challenge was not something he’d rush to do again in a hurry. Or ever, actually. No, the blackout challenge had been the one that nearly made him quit social media. As naïve as it may have sounded, he hadn’t realised the power of it until then. As the memories rose, Kolby tried to push the thoughts of those children from his mind.
He didn’t mind the silly videos, like being tied up in duct tape and left for two hours while his mates when to the pub, or eating a spoonful of cinnamon. That was gross, but bearable. Thankfully though, it was one of his fitness trend videos that finally soared past the million viewers mark. The human flag.
The video of him pulling himself up into a perfectly horizontal position while holding on to a pole in the local gym was a perfect shot. Abs on show, muscles glistening, and he set it to a popular song too, which helped the numbers soar. Now that particular video had over 8 million views while his follower count was sitting at 1.2 million. He had brands paying him through the nose for a fifteen-second clip. Lifetime memberships to some of London’s most exclusive gyms and only the week before, one had gifted him a brand-new motorcycle. But the constant quest to create new hooks and ideas was always there. However, now he was single and Valentine’s Day had been clogging up his feed for weeks already. It was a no-brainer.
‘I could just get one of my friends to go with you, and you can pretend you’re going with a follower,’ Valerie had suggested when he’d first posted about the date idea. ‘I think half of them are your followers anyway,’ she’d added.
But he’d shaken his head.
‘I need to be authentic. People know if I’m not. Trust me, it’s going to be brilliant. I’ve already got restaurants lined up, so it’s not like it’s going to cost me anything.’
Just like being a social media star, having his little sister living with him hadn’t been Kolby’s plan either. In fact, had someone asked him eighteen months ago what it would have been like to live with her, he would have said it was his worst nightmare – and he wouldn’t have been joking. Val had grown up thinking the world was against her. Of course, it had been different for her when their dad died. She was younger and didn’t have the same memories that Kolby had. Sometimes she admitted she didn’t even know if she had any real memories of him at all. He could only imagine how tough that would be. After all, he struggled to hold on to the scant few he had.
Deep down, they all knew it was their dad’s death that had caused her to act out so much, which was probably why their mother allowed her to get away with it for so long. Still, as a teenager, she drove him insane. It wasn’t just her actions that frustrated Kolby, but her attitude, too. In Val’s teenage mind, everything had been out to get her. When she’d flunked her exams at school, it was because the teachers wanted to see her fail and deliberately didn’t teach her properly. When she’d lost her first job, it was because her boss didn’t like her. Apparently, neither did the second or third boss, by which point no one locally wanted to employ her, even for a job that didn’t require any qualifications.
And so his mother had rung Kolby, practically begging him to help. To find something for her in London. Couldn’t he give her a job? She’d asked repeatedly. Just for a couple of months, so she had something to put on her CV and could get some skills for another job.
Eventually, he had relented and told his twenty-one-year-old sister that he needed some help managing all his social media platforms. He had been very clear that it was to be a three-month position only. After that, he’d decided, he was going to tell her he couldn’t afford her any more or that employing someone made doing his taxes too difficult. He wasn’t exactly sure what excuse he was going to use, but he was going to figure it out.
But then the unthinkable had happened.
She had been good at her job.
Val didn’t bat an eyelid when contacting the type of big endorsements that would make him baulk, or asking for numbers that even he thought were astronomical. Of course, when she landed him three big contracts in the first two months, almost doubling his previous year’s salary, he knew his excuse about not being able to afford her was out the window. But he didn’t care. They were a team.
What’s more, for the first time since before their teens, they had become closer as siblings again. The knowledge that she was doing well gave Val a confidence she’d never had before, and with it, it was like all the tension that had kept her body wrapped tightly together gave way. She finally allowed herself to enjoy life without thinking everyone was out to get her and for the last nine months had been in a steady relationship with a guy that Kolby didn’t really like but who seemed to make her happy, and t
‘You get so many creepy messages as it is,’ she’d said repeatedly. ‘I don’t know why you’d deliberately put yourself in a situation where you could end up with one of those people.’
‘Well, obviously I’m not going to choose someone who’s already sent me a dodgy message,’ he’d said. ‘Or any message, for that matter. I’m going to pick someone nice and normal. I promise you. Look, I’ll worry about the date. You just see what money you can get us for it, okay? Suits, flowers, go the whole hog.’
Eventually, she had given up trying to persuade him and shifted her focus to creating a marketing campaign that was going to attract as much attention as possible.
The only rule for applying was that his date needed to be female and live in London. They had to send a ten-word caption as to why he should choose them.
The winner would be announced only three hours before the scheduled date time, which left little room for people outside the city. That hadn’t stopped them from sending requests, though. He’d received messages from South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. He suspected that less than ten per cent of the people who messaged were actually from London, as requested, and only ten per cent of those had stuck to the rule of a clean message. Not that he didn’t enjoy the dirty ones, but he needed to be able to share what was said with his followers.
As his phone continued to ping, Kolby flipped it to silent, opened his computer, and twisted the screen around to face his sister. His mother thought it was ridiculous that he had his socials up on both his laptop and phone, not to mention Val’s, but that was the way life worked now. You needed to be connected on every device. Available for the people who helped you pay your bills.
‘So, what do you think?’
‘Fine, let’s look at these potential stalkers,’ Val said with a grimace. ‘But let’s do it fast. Jordan’s coming around in a minute.’
2
‘Oh my God. This woman has sent you over three hundred messages this week,’ Val said, staring at the computer. ‘How did I not know this? You should call the police. This is stalker territory.’
Kolby scoffed.
‘She’s fine. Just lonely,’ he said. He didn’t need to look at the computer to know who Val was talking about. He had a couple of followers like that – both male and female – who thought nothing of firing off dozens of emails in one night, filling him in on every detail of their lives.
These weren’t explicit emails – though he got plenty of those. These were people sharing the most mundane highlights of their day with him because they had no one else to share them with. Some had been doing it for years.
‘And she’s not on my shortlist, anyway. Trust me, she’s not a problem.’
It wasn’t that Kolby didn’t take the potential stalker line seriously. He had met people in his circle who’d had followers become obsessed with them – male and female alike. And he’d had a couple of pretty close calls himself, which was why he had so many rules for his media account.
Where possible, he posted videos from outdoor, public spaces, and usually a couple of days after the events had actually taken place. When they needed to be done from his home, like the live streams earlier that day, he would use a white wall as a backdrop. There were no windows or reflections of any kind for people to figure out his location.
Still, it wasn’t like what he was doing was any different from normal online dating. After all, some sources said that nearly thirty per cent of people met their spouses online now. Not that he was planning on meeting his future spouse tonight – just someone he could have a fun night with.
He may have said that any age could apply, but realistically, the only people on Kolby’s shortlist were between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-eight. At twenty-six himself, he thought that showed a fair range.
As he probably could’ve expected, Valerie crinkled up her nose at his choice.
‘This one has put the wrong “you’re” in her message,’ she said, letting out a sigh. ‘She wrote, “You’re going to have a great time together,” but spelt it y-o-u-r. I don’t know how she made your shortlist.’
‘Does she have a photo of her looking hot in a swimsuit near the top of the page?’ Kolby asked, knowing full well his sister was going to roll her eyes in response.
‘I’m joking,’ he added quickly. ‘It won’t just be that. She’s probably got a picture of her doing yoga, or got cool tats or something.’
‘Well, she’s out,’ Valerie said. ‘Let me go through the rest.’
As his sister continued to peruse the options, Kolby made himself a cup of coffee. The fact was, he didn’t care that much about it. He’d have fun, and if he didn’t, it was just one night. Sure, there was a part of him – the sentimental romantic – that couldn’t help but imagine how much his followers were going to love it if he actually found the real deal, a proper love match. But he wasn’t holding out much hope for that.
Since his breakup with Sylvie eight months ago, he’d been making the most of his freedom. First dates only – that had been his game plan to get over her. No commitments, no attachments. But he was reaching the stage where it was all getting a bit boring. Late nights, the same get-to-know-you question (assuming it was the type of date where they actually spoke to each other and didn’t just skip the formalities and go straight back to her place). And they always went to her place. Never his. The last thing he needed was some jilted girl turning up at his flat because he didn’t want a second date. As the coffee began to filter through from the machine, the doorbell rang.
‘That’ll be Jordan,’ Val called. ‘Can you let him in, please?’
Abandoning the drinks, Kolby ambled over to the front door to let in Val’s boyfriend.
‘Hey, buddy,’ Jordan said as the door opened. ‘Ready for the big night?’ he said with a wink.
Jordan was the type of guy who always sounded awkward when he said things like ‘buddy,’ and the wink was just cringeworthy. He was quiet and geeky, but not in a fashionable way. Yet, for whatever reason, he made Val happy, so Kolby had learned to get along with the guy.
‘She’s just in there,’ Kolby said, only for Val to call out.
‘Amanda’s ringing you, Kolby. Again.’ As the men walked into the living room, Val lifted up Kolby’s phone and waved it at him. ‘You know, she probably assumes you’re going to pick her. Maybe you should. I dread to think what she’ll do to your date if you don’t. Hey, baby,’ she added to Jordan.
‘I don’t know why you don’t just tell her you’re not interested in her,’ Jordan said as he bent down and kissed Val.
‘She knows I’m not interested in her like that. She’s just a friend.’
‘She’s your ex’s best friend,’ Val replied. ‘And the fact that she’s still trying to ring you to meet up for drinks after what you did to Sylvie is a hundred per cent wrong. And I bet Sylvie doesn’t know.’
‘She wants to get into influencing, that’s all,’ Kolby replied, although he knew it wasn’t true. Amanda had been less than subtle with her flirting and more than once had seriously crossed the boundaries of friends, from placing her hand high on his leg during a coffee to pressing up against him in a bar. If it had been anyone else, he would have blocked her, but she was his one link to Sylvie. The one friend who hadn’t immediately ditched him after finding out about him cheating. So what if it was because she wanted to get him into bed? He needed her to find out how Sylvie was doing. He needed to make sure she was all right. If she was still missing him, the way he was missing her.
