Page 68 of Big Girl Panties

I looked around at my half-finished muffins, my flour-covered workspace, and my normal life that had just gotten turned upside down by one very public kiss.

"Welcome to dating a celebrity," I muttered, grabbing my purse.

"Hey," Davina linked her arm through mine, "at least he's a hot celebrity."

Despite everything, I couldn't help but smile. She had a point.

Chapter 28

From Viral Kiss to Viral Mess…

I knew I shouldn't, but after an hour of pacing my living room like a caged tiger, three very serious arguments with Karen, and one heated debate with my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I'd officially lost my fight with self-control.

I'd been staring at my laptop for three hours, scrolling through comment after comment until the words blurred together into one endless stream of poison.

Too fat for him… What does he even see in her… She's lucky he's slumming it... He could do so much better...

Karen chose that exact moment to hop onto my coffee table and fix me with her most withering stare. Her green eyes seemed to say, "Really, Brooke?"

"Don't look at me like that," I muttered, not taking my eyes off the screen. "You don't understand people drama."

She flicked her tail dismissively and knocked my water glass over with one perfectly manicured paw, as if to say, "I understand stupidity when I see it."

Our wrestling arena kiss had gone viral overnight, and honestly, I was about as prepared for internet fame as a goldfish is for a marathon. I'd seen the video on social media. It was actually pretty cute. We looked happy, caught up in the moment.

But the comments section? That was like stepping into the seventh circle of internet hell.

Hundreds of them, each one a tiny digital dagger finding its mark with surgical precision. I'd made the catastrophic mistake of reading them all, every single brutal assessment of my body, my face, my apparent worth as a human being. By the time I'd reached the bottom, I felt like someone had performed emotional surgery on me with a rusty spoon.

Karen positioned herself directly between me and my computer, her body creating a furry barrier. I tried to reach around her, and she batted at my hand with her paw, claws retracted, but the message was clear.

"Move, Karen. I need to read these."

She responded by sitting down more firmly and beginning to groom herself with exaggerated nonchalance, as if my emotional breakdown was merely an inconvenience to her grooming schedule.

Matt had been texting me all day. Good morning, beautiful. Then later, Everything okay? You're being awfully quiet. And finally, an hour ago, Brooke, please talk to me. I knew he'd seen them. There was no way to avoid them.

I'd started to type responses a dozen times, but what could I say? That I'd discovered exactly what his fans thought of me? That maybe, they were right? That I was tired of being the punchline to some cosmic joke where the gorgeous, successful wrestler somehow ended up with the chubby café owner?

My phone buzzed again, another text from Matt. I didn't look at it. Karen, however, seemed to have developed a sudden interest in the device, pawing at it curiously.

"Even you think I should answer him, don't you?"

She gave me a look that clearly said, "Obviously, you dramatic fool," before turning her back to me in the universal cat gesture of disdain.

Instead, I pulled my laptop closer and did the thing I'd been avoiding all day: I Googled myself. Karen immediately relocated to sit on the keyboard, her torso covering half the screen.

"Karen, move!"

She opened one eye and gave me a look that said, "Make me." I tried to gently lift her, but she went completely limp, all twelve pounds of dead cat weight.

"You're not helping," I told her, managing to navigate around her to see the search results. They were worse than the comments on Instagram and TikTok. Fan forums dissecting every photo from last night, Reddit threads debating whether I was 'using him for his money' or if he was 'going through some kind of phase.' Someone had even made a side-by-side comparison of me and some blonde on his arm at an event, a model who looked like she'd been carved from marble by angels.

Karen started purring loudly and rubbing against my face, smearing her fur across my tear-stained cheeks. My breathing slowed as I scratched behind her ears.

"You're still not forgiven for knocking over my water," I mumbled, but she just purred louder.

I buried my face in my hands. The rational part of my brain knew I should call him and explain what was happening. But the rational part had been steadily losing ground to the voice that whispered maybe everyone was right. Maybe I was fooling myself. Maybe this whole thing had an expiration date, and I was just too pathetic to see it.