Purposefully Accidental

Chapter Fifty-eight

[The Content Warning chapter has been updated—please check it out if you need but caution for spoilers!]

I turn to Jonah, then back to Freddie, who rolls his eyes at me.

"The mystery girl is you, dummy. He didn't cheat."

Jonah looks offended, and I rush to say, "That thought didn't even cross my mind!"

Freddie holds up both hands. "Alright, alright. Just wanna make sure everything's clear."

Jonah's on his phone now, a deep crease on his forehead as he taps and scrolls. "He's... right. I'm trending. Again. Huh."

I take a peek at his screen. He's picked one of the popular tweets—sorry, posts—where someone shared a blurred picture of Jonah and me, walking out of a fucking Trader Joe's of all places. It wastaken a few days ago, I know. I remember grabbing that particular carton of eggs that I'm holding in the photo, while Jonah was carrying the rest of our groceries.

Thankfully, I'm wearing a mask in the picture—I never really go out without it, and it turned out to be a really wise choice. I was also wearing a pretty thick jacket and a beanie that hid my tied-up hair. Jonah's face is bare and openly smiling down at me, and you can't mistake the look on his face for anything other than adoration. I know this is the wrong time to blush, but I can't help it.

"You kinda look like a model here," I say to Jonah.

Freddie groans. "You're unbelievable."

"What? I'm all covered up, right? Nobody knows that this is Fred Archer's wife—sorry, soon to be former-wife. It all should be fine, right?"

"For now. But this relationship is on the radar now. You gotta be more careful going out. What if there's another photo out there, with you unmasked? I don't want your name to be on the radar, especially when people might still make a connection between you and me."

Freddie sounds genuinely distressed and I'm starting to feel a bad about it. Somehow, I've fucked up by simply going out to get groceries with Jonah. I can't believe there are people who care about such mundane things—enough to make it trend on social media. "I'm sorry. We did try to be careful. I didn't—I didn't think anybody would care."

He sighs, deflating. "Sorry. Didn't mean to blow up. Just... we're so close, you guys. A couple more months, tops, and we won't have to worry."

Jonah's been silent next to me, which I don't like. He's still scrolling through the trending tweets. "There's a different photo."

It's us from the Eras Tour show that we attended, all the way from August. I grimace as I read what the post says: Didn't want to share this because I was trying to respect his privacy, but, oh well, it's out there anyway! And then, in the replies: I wonder who she is!!! Anybody else saw them at the show?? Another user quoted the tweet with: OMG. HE'S SO HOT BTW WHO IS SHE AND CAN SHE FIGHT??? There's currently five thousand retweets on it, and it's still going up. Lordy.

I'm still masked, and also wearing a stupid wig, which really saved the day. "You can't tell it's Jo Archer at all from that pic. I swear. You can't, right?"

"It's... I don't know," Jonah says quietly. "How many more pictures are out there? I'm trying to remember all the times we hung out together. Especially when we were in LA last summer. You weren't always wearing a mask 'cause it was too hot."

Shit. He's right. Still, I say desperately, "Well, I'm sure I'm not recognizable as Jo Archer. Without all the dresses and the heavy make-up. Right?"

Freddie sits down in front of me with a heavy sigh. "Hannah. My publicist called me up to tell me that Jonah Gibbs is trending. I never asked him to flag his name on the internet. I asked him to flag menews about you. He called me because he recognized you from the Trader Joe's photo and wanted to make sure that you... weren't cheating on me."