Rides on the Wild Side

Don't Mix Your Cocktails with Instagram DMs

What the hell is even the point of having a job? They just make you miserable and wanna give up entirely. My boss made me work a couple of hours late. When I agreed to stay, I didn't realize how only two extra hours of work could absolutely wreck me. To add on to the whole disaster, my boss is also one of those cliche boss mans from those cheesy romcom movies where they act extremely inappropriately towards their employees.
When I got home to my empty apartment, still littered with moving boxes, I did the only thing that would calm me down: getting tipsy and scrolling Instagram reels. In order to save money, I've been drinking Jack Daniels and Coke. When I was back at college, I would order the most extremely girly drinks that my local bar had to offer, little did I know how quickly $20 drinks stack up.
My favorite content creator at the moment is archangel.riderr. He seems so nice and funny and it doesn't hurt that about half of his videos are of him shirtless.
I'm sipping on my drink when I come across a new video of his. In it, he's with his friends and a group of kids come up to them and ask them if they can rev their motorcycles.
Even though motorcycles are known to be pretty dangerous, they also have a lustrous aura to them that draws in everybody and everyone. Personally, I've never ridden a motorcycle before, but like most girls, I think it would be really fun, especially if I'm backpacking for some cute guy.
I take a sip of my makeshift cocktail and zoom in on Gabriel's face. I pause the video and trace my finger along the sharp line of his line.
I click on the profile picture which takes me to his account. He's gained a couple hundred followers since I last stalked him, but I take pride on being a follower of his for a year now.
I hazily tap on the message option on his page and type in some very bold words.

Hey! I know you don't know me and probably never will, but if you ever find yourself in Chicago, I would love to go for a ride on one of your bikes. I could make the trip from Cleveland worth it and maybe shown you around town. Let me know because I really enjoy your videos.

|Nine hours later|

My alarm wakes me up and I instantly slap my phone to turn the damn thing off. I pick my phone up and turn to lay on my back with my arms holding my phone so it's parallel to my face. I'm scrolling through my notifications on my lockscreen when I see a message from Instagram. Nobody ever messages me on Instagram. I click on it and see a giant blue square on the right side of the chat that I have no memory of creating. To the left is an equally sized gray square from none other than my somewhat celebrity crush.

Thanks for reaching out! This is kinda weird, but after looking at your page, I think you're really pretty. Sorry if that makes me look shallow. I've actually been meaning to visit Chicago one of these days. I'm not sure how it's gonna work out, but I'll let you know.

What the actual fuck have I just done?