I don’t know how many men fucked me.

Read more

This is stupid. You know this is stupid. What exactly are you expecting?

I’m looking at myself in the mirror, my right arm rubbing my left arm over my still-empty stomach.

Liz said to dress cute, so I had put on as close an approximation of cute as I could manage. A cheap grey slip with silver sequins and a neon yellow sports bra underneath. The contrast looks rave-attire enough and, looking at the mirror, objectively, I don’t look like I’m trying too hard.

I have no fucking idea. What does trying too hard even mean?

Which has to be better than not trying hard enough.

I spent three hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling as my phone vibrated next to me.

This was the most attention it had gotten since the first day Camila transferred ownership to me and her contacts didn’t yet realize she had a new number. Where everyone else sees a cellphone shifting to one side, it looked to me like my phone was bouncing out of control with a flurry of activity it couldn’t comprehend.

I checked it once at hour one. Then three more times at hour two. Then, once every ten minutes at hour three. Could I relate to the next cluster of messages in the chat?

I couldn’t. I couldn’t even relate to anyone specific from class, because these girls and their extended friend group didn’t chat about class. They chatted about TV shows I only have peripheral knowledge of, who won what game of which sport, guess who cheated on Becca with Nicky, but Nicky is actually Nicolas, not Nicole, and Becca was a bitch anyway-

I can’t keep up.

Read more

The door opens with a low whine, and I walk in, fingers searching for the switch, my flats abandoned in the tiny vinyl entranceway before the carpet. The backpack slips off my shoulder without ceremony. The kitchen light turns on.

Well, the kitchen light. The key light in my 200-square-foot studio stays off. I should get it changed.

I think I say that every time I notice it.

I don’t really need the light, to be honest. There is nothing here. Seven steps ahead: the tiny kitchenette, fridge, stove, sink, dishwasher. Eight steps to the right there’s the desk disguised as a dining table, the single chair, the stack of books I’ve actually read annotated to the margins in pencil, the notebook with a half-finished paper on Morrison’s “Unspeakable Things Unspoken” that I will show no one. Two steps from the desk is the box spring mattress I call a bed. Two steps from the bed is the tiny hallway that fits me and a pedestal sink across from a shower and toilet.

The sink had a toothbrush; I didn’t use this morning. I hadn’t used it yesterday, either. Nobody was going to get close enough to know.

My life in one, empty, room.

Read more

She disappeared from a rave. One text. Six hours late.

‘hey did u leave early? lol’

She never went home.

Rachel Santos has been invisible her entire life—the middle daughter, the forgotten friend, the girl the world skips over. When two strangers pull her from a crowd and a third feeds her breakfast like she matters, she doesn't fight it. She sinks.

Into their loft. Into their beds. Into a world where she's photographed like a masterpiece, marked like territory, and fed like something precious. Three men, three kinds of hunger, and Rachel—starving, invisible Rachel—finally full.

By the time the worship becomes a cage and her body becomes a spectacle, there's no outside left. Just a girl who was so hungry to be seen that she let them devour her, and a lock she turns herself.

Nobody Came Looking: A Love Story is a darkly seductive, psychologically devastating debut about what happens when being wanted is the most dangerous thing that's ever happened to you.

For readers of: dark romance with actual teeth, literary horror that crawls under your skin, and love stories you'll need to shower after.

Content warning: This novel contains graphic sexual content, sexual assault, drugging, psychological manipulation, coercive control, and themes of self-erasure. It is not a redemption story.

Welcome to Nobody Came Looking, a darkly sedu

ctive descent into the kind of love story that locks the door behind you.

Not a rescue.

Not a redemption.

A girl so invisible she vanished from a rave and got one text about it — six hours late, ending in lol — and the three men who carried her home and made her the center of everything she’d been starving for.

Due to the explicit and psychologically devastating nature of Nobody Came Looking, this will not be a free serialized novel. It will be available to premium subscribers. However, for those premium subscribers, I plan on putting future serializations on Substack first before Kindle or KU — meaning ALL future publications, from Nobody Came Looking to Letters Between Sex and Violence vol. 4, will be accessible to premium subscribers.

Not only that, but check out the following perks!

Coda Dream Team Perks

1. Character References and Behind-the-Scenes Insights: Get an in-depth look at the characters that inhabit my worlds — Rachel, Colt, Alex, Ethan, and the rest of the Santos universe — as well as behind-the-scenes notes and inspirations.

2. Safe for Work & Not-so-Safe (NSFW) Artwork Galore: Treat yourself to a variety of artwork for my stories. Enjoy Safe for Work illustrations that bring the loft to life, or indulge in more mature NSFW pieces to tantalize.

3. Exclusive Access to Novels-in-Progress before Kindle Unlimited: I got my start by serializing my novels and I hope to continue that trend with my new stories. Nobody Came Looking chapters will be released as soon as they are completely written.

Please consider getting a premium subscription. Your support is already greatly appreciated.

Schedule

Episodes of Nobody Came Looking will, tentatively, be released weekly on Wednesday — perfect for #WreckedWednesday. When an episode is released or scheduled, I will announce it on my newsletter. Comments and a chat dedicated to each episode will open for critique on Wednesday as well.

Without further ado…

Three men. One loft. A girl who’d rather drown in warm water than die of thirst in the cold.

Enter the world of Nobody Came Looking.