The Hero and the Hacktivist

by Pippa Grant

  It’s a psychological trick, I’m almost positive.

  “Figure of speech,” he says dryly. “I’m sure a bunch of them have sent dick pics, and since you’re the prime suspect in the dick pic virus, it’s only natural they’d want to hunt you down. If they have to ditch their phones, you know how many contacts they’re probably losing? They’ll have to start their hit list all over. You’ll get bumped straight to the top.”

  Oh, shit.

  I didn’t think about that.

  Half of the city can’t just download all their data off the cloud to a new phone, because then the virus will come with it. And if they log into social media, the dick pics in their private messages will flag the virus to start all over again.

  So apparently I have two problems.

  “What dick pic virus?” I ask. “Are women getting ugly peckers texted to them or something?”

  That’s right. I’m super awesome at playing dumb.

  Also, credit to Ass of Glory.

  His phone’s ringing.

  So apparently he doesn’t send dick pics. Either that, or his dick pic is so pretty my scanner software didn’t realize it was a dick. It’s possible his was too huge and he couldn’t get it all in one screen.

  Not that I’m confessing to anything related to all those phones confessing to sending dick pics. Unless you promise not to tell the cops, because it’s pretty fucking epic, isn’t it?

  He looks at his phone, then points to me. “Stay. And don’t let that thing puke on my furniture.”

  He steps out the door, lifting the phone to his ear while he goes. Apparently whoever’s calling, he doesn’t want an audience. I can appreciate that. I don’t like audiences for what I do either.

  I contemplate checking out the apartment, but as soon as the front door closes, the bathroom door opens, and there’s the bigger badder dude staring at me.

  “You got a name?” I ask him.

  He ignores me.

  No, he ignores my question. He’s staring at me hard enough that I know he’s aware I’m here. He’s probably planning on tying me up and tossing me in that green duffel bag in the corner if I piss him off.

  Which I only suspect because I’m good at pissing people off, and I once found myself in a bar full of military guys accidentally, so I know what they do when they’re mad.

  I didn’t insult them on purpose. Actually, I don’t think I insulted them at all. But I might’ve hit on the wrong one. Or possibly he didn’t like my pick-up line.

  Wanna screw like roosters on porcupines? was apparently code for something that I don’t even know. Like, it’s not even on Urban Dictionary. But don’t look up roosters on Urban Dictionary. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  But back to the silent dude.

  I don’t think he doesn’t talk because he can’t hear, because he very clearly heard the door close. So either he doesn’t talk because he doesn’t want to, or he doesn’t talk because he can’t.

  Princess Sparkle Butt climbs on my lap and purrs.

  I sign What’s your name? and watch as Rhett’s buddy blinks at me in surprise.

  He signs back—no, that can’t be right.

  Pig pen? I ask in sign language.

  Why the fuck do you know how to sign? he replies.

  Came with the new hairdo. You?

  He doesn’t laugh.

  I’m Eloise, and I’m a sexy badass beast, I tell him.

  You’re four pineapples short of a fruitcake.

  Like you can talk. You probably hide pineapples in your beard.

  He still doesn’t laugh, or flinch, or roll his eyes, or show any reaction at all, even though the only way he’s hiding pineapples in his beard is if they’re baby pineapples that are too small to even know they’re pineapples yet, because his sandy brown hair is no more than two inches long anywhere on his head, max, to include the hair on his face.

  What’s your story? I ask.

  Like most men in my life today, he doesn’t answer.

  Instead, he grabs a chicken leg from one of the rotisserie bags and bites into it without taking his eyes off me.

  So I’m under surveillance from a guy who knows sign language and eats questionable rotisserie chicken.

  Is that from Crunchy? I ask. They have the most ethically-sourced chicken. The Ass of Glory’s sister is a VP there.

  He chokes on the chicken when I sign ass of glory.

  Princess Sparkle Butt purrs.

  A phone somewhere in an adjacent apartment announces it sends dick pics, someone screams, and we hear the sound of something hard being banged against a wall or a floor or something. “Fucking cheating bastard!” a woman yells.

  I give myself a mental high five, but try really hard not to smile since even when he’s choking on a chicken leg, Pigpen—dude, who names their kid that?—is still watching me like a prison guard watches for his shift to be over.

  Rhett comes back in the apartment, shoving his phone back in his pocket.

  He gives Pigpen a whack on the back, the taller dude shows me the bird, and then Pigpen disappears back into the bathroom.

  With the chicken leg.

  I do some weird shit, but even I don’t eat in the bathroom. Usually. There was that one time at that restaurant in SoHo, but that was a special case, and I’m not welcome back in that restaurant ever again.

  Rhett reaches into the rotisserie bag and pulls out the rest of the chicken, which is basically the top half, since it’s missing the thighs and legs, and takes a big bite right out of the center of the breast.

  I’m simultaneously horrified and turned on.

  “No one knows you’re here,” he tells me. “Parker thinks I’m out looking for you at your favorite tattoo shop and Knox’s granny’s place and that farmer’s market on East 67th that sells the goat feet.”

  “So we get to have crazy monkey sex for the next three days and no one has to know?”

  “I’d know,” he mutters, but that movement in his crotch suggests that’s not a bad thing.

  I fully agree with his crotch.

  It gives good O.

  Which isn’t actually my highest priority, despite the way my sugar box is getting warmed up, but appearances, you know?

  “So that’s a yes?” I ask.

  “That’s an I don’t sleep with criminals.”

  His thunder noodle is definitely doing its thing, lengthening and thickening behind his zipper. And on either side of his zipper.

  And under his zipper, down into his left pant leg.

  “Quit staring at my dick,” he growls.

  “Is that how it objects? By getting long and hard?”

  Fuck, my nipples are getting long and hard. Except not the long part. Just the hard part.

  “I could dump you out in the streets and see how long you last,” he offers.

  “I could book myself a one-way ticket to Madagascar. I’d pay your way too if you’d dress in tiger skin and eat me out once a day.” I wiggle my eyebrows like a ridiculous hornball so I don’t think about how there’s a legit, government-trained assassin—military dude, SEAL, trained assassin, same thing—standing between me and whatever leg warmer mafia is hunting me down.

  Rhett’s jeans are getting more action than a Berger twin in the hockey championship finals. And those boys can play some hockey.

  That muscle in his jaw is getting some action too. He swipes a hand over his face, and now I’m thinking about his fingers teasing my g-spot, and I might be breaking out in a sweat, because confession: he’s probably the manliest man to ever store his banana in my basket.

  “How many men have you slept with?” he asks, low and growly like he gives a damn.

  If I were wearing panties, they’d be soaked. As it is, I probably need to wash these jeans, and a few other pairs that are getting wet on their own because he can turn on denim even when it’s packed in a bag by the door.

  “Two hundred? Three hundred? I lost track,” I lie.

  He drops the chicken carcass.
“You’re a fucking virgin?”

  “Dude. You had your straw in the juice box, so you know that’s not possible.”

  “You were.”

  I make a buzzer noise like we’re on a game show. Prince Snufflesaurus bursts out of his carrier—he’d been pretending he was asleep—to attack the dead chicken parts on the floor.

  “You were,” he hisses again.

  “Seven, okay? And what’s your number? Sixty-nine?”

  “Why do you pretend to be such a hornball?”

  “Nice to meet you, dildo. I’m a vibrator.”

  He shoves his palms in his eye sockets, but please note that if his schlong gets any thicker or longer, he’s probably going to bust a seam in his Levis. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It’s like the pot-kettle thing, but with—”

  “I know what it means.” He rescues the chicken from Prince Snufflesaurus and starts tossing all the old rotisserie bags in a trash can that he pulls out from under the sink. “But I don’t know why I’m doing this,” he mutters to himself.

  “You’re a sucker for a good cause,” I assure him.

  And I’m actually almost certain that’s the truth.

  Especially when he cuts narrowed eyes at me. “Not so sure you’re a good cause. And I actually do know why I’m doing this.”

  “Really?”

  “Need to know, Spikes. You don’t need to know.”

  “Look, if the problem is in your pants, I can help with that. I normally don’t sleep with guys more than once, but that’s usually just because I don’t want them to get attached.”

  “The problem is you can’t tell the truth about anything, my sister trusts you, and you might’ve just turned billions of dollars worth of phones into bricks.”

  I eyeball his jeans and the Cock of Wonder once more. “Are you sure the problem isn’t actually that you like all that?”

  His arms are bunched so tight, there are veins throbbing in his inked forearms under his pushed-up sleeves. He takes one step toward me, balls his hands into fists, and I get that feeling in my vajayjay like I normally get on my stomach when I play hooky from my day job—which is really just whatever, since I don’t have a day job—and head over to Coney Island for the roller coaster. You know, that awesome dip that’s like a baby orgasm in your gut? Yeah, that dip’s totally going on in the beaver.

  But before he gets three steps closer to me, he turns around. He bangs on the bathroom door. “Don’t let her leave, and don’t bang her,” he calls through the door.

  A minute later, he slams his apartment door shut, and I’m left with an ache in my clit and none of my usual tools to work it out.

  I could use my hand, but Pigpen pokes back out of the bathroom and takes up a stance leaning against the counter, watching me while he finishes his chicken leg, and there’s no way I’m getting myself off while he watches.

  I’ll tell somebody later that I did, because that’s what I do, but I don’t actually want an audience, and I’m not interested in seeing how long Pigpen’s anaconda is.

  And no, I don’t want to talk about why.

  You’re a smart cookie. You’ll figure it out.

  16

  Rhett

  There’s a reason I don’t do relationships.

  Many, many reasons, starting with my unpredictable schedule and ending with the certainty that I’ll get bored with being domesticated sooner or later.

  Probably sooner.

  That’s a normal relationship. Meet, fuck, fuck some more, move in, Netflix and chill, then just Netflix, argue about the dishwasher, chase some kids around, forget you even have a dick.

  Possibly I’m jaded.

  And easily bored.

  But I’m not bored tonight.

  No, I’m obsessed.

  Eloise? She’s so far past normal there’s not even a classification for her.

  It’s pissing me off that she’s so damn flippant about distracting me with the thought of sex when she should be trusting me with whatever’s going on so I can get her wherever the hell she needs to stay safe while I remove the danger.

  It’s also turning me on like a fucking light bulb.

  That pissed off is a feeling that’s triple-reinforced when I get to the third address on the list Willow gave me, a twenty-story complex a few blocks from the first condo, and find the door to Eloise’s unit splintered and hacked open, with disrupted dust outlines on the desk suggesting missing computer equipment, couch cushions shredded, the contents of the fridge and freezer strewn everywhere—side note: I don’t want to know what she’s doing with ten pounds of carrots—and a knife holding a note and a leg warmer to one of the cabinets.

  You’re dead, you fucking thief. DEAD.

  I snap a picture of a few things—like the leg warmer attached to the threat, because what the hell kind of message is that?—and let myself out of the twenty-story building the same way I came in.

  By helicopter pack on my back.

  Oh, come on. You believed me for a minute there.

  I get to the bottom of the back stairwell and head past another dumpster of shame tattling on at least a dozen people for sending dick pics.

  Eloise hasn’t denied that being her fault, and I don’t know if it’s because she likes the idea of being responsible for outing dick pic senders, or if it’s because she actually is responsible, like some sort of digital Robin Hood avenging women’s eyes everywhere, and knows better than to incriminate herself.

  She’s chaos.

  And she’s in trouble up to her spiky hair.

  And I’m hard as a pipe, because chaos in a little package with a smart mouth and a tight pussy is fucking irresistible right now.

  I debate heading to Parker’s place and decide against it. Knox is a librarian, not a PI, though some days, he comes up with crazy shit that makes me wonder. He knows how to work a search bar and could probably help me piece all this together faster than I can on my own.

  But if I ask him to tell me all he knows about Eloise, he’ll tell Parker. And dude knows that even if I take a lighter to his nuts again—he handled that well enough the first time that my brothers and I agreed to let him marry our sister—I won’t actually set his nut hairs on fire, because it’s in all our best interests for Ma to finally get a grandkid.

  Instead, I take the subway to the West Village and hoof it to the building I’m looking for.

  I could climb it, but there’s more security here, and I have to go higher, which will take more time than I want, so I text Willow, and soon I’m in a posh elevator with red velvet carpet and jazz music and an automatic air freshener that goes off every other floor, like it’s trying to rid the building of the stench of the average working man.

  I give the air freshener the bird when I get to the penthouse. The elevator doors slide open to a black marble entryway where the light bulbs in the weird-ass modern art chandelier probably cost more than my monthly rent. Willow steps into the foyer. Her hair’s disheveled, her cheeks are pink, and one of her leg warmers is scrunched down by her ankle.

  Not to mention what’s going on with her shirt.

  No wonder Eloise is always talking sex smack. She really is the only one in her band not getting any.

  Not regularly, at least. That, I’m positive about.

  “Parker said Eloise wasn’t home,” Willow says. I gesture to my shirt and give her a pointed look, and she glances down and yanks her own from where the end is caught in the front of her bra, which I didn’t look at—directly, or with any intention of acknowledging that she has breasts—because I’m a highly trained military operative capable of blocking out a woman’s chest when I need to.

  “Nope, not at home,” I confirm as I follow her into a posh and spacious black-and-silver living room, where Gallagher is lounging on a dark red couch by the slate fireplace and using a guitar to hide his crotch. “What’s she into?”

  Willow winces. “Um, pony play?”

  Gallagher chokes on air.

/>   “Oh. What kind of trouble, you mean,” she says. “Yeah, aside from suspecting she started that phone virus, which I have no proof of whatsoever, and I mean, really, what are the odds that I would actually know someone involved in something like that? Anyway, it’s Eloise. It could be anything. Maybe she pissed off the wrong hot dog vendor by insulting the size of his sausages. Who knows? And I don’t even know if she’s really into pony play or if she just said that to make me blush.”

  Considering she’s fifty shades of nuclear red in the cheeks right now, and considering Eloise would probably proposition a watermelon if she thought it would make the watermelon blush, it could be either one.

  “You think she made the dick pic virus.”

  That nuclear red is turning into psychedelic purple. “I told you, I don’t have any proof, and I’ve never known her to cause viruses before. But my gut said she needed help, and I always thought you were the type to save first and ask questions later.”

  “It’s later.”

  “Not if you haven’t found Eloise.”

  “Want me to toss him, princess?” Gallagher asks.

  She looks at the slender rock god, who could probably hold his own against a high school wrestler or maybe a goat if he had to, but has absolutely no chance of catching me, much less out-muscling me. Then she leans into me with her voice lowered. “If I tell him yes, can you at least pretend he’s making some progress?”

  “I heard that,” he says.

  “Sure,” I agree, “as soon as you tell me what Eloise is into.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You want her safe or not?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then tell me what she’s into.”

  “I don’t know! I just know she has certain…skills…that make it possible for her to do certain…things.”

  “Like launching phone viruses.”

  “That’s not a virus. It’s a public shaming that men totally deserve if they’re sending unwanted pictures of their...stuff. The internet is totally unpoliced, and people get away with being complete dooflesnizzles. People who do bad things deserve to be punished. And don’t tell me you’ve never gone into a foreign country and done things that are illegal. I heard about you tossing that reporter out of an airplane too. There’s no way I’m letting you get away with tricking me into telling you something that you misinterpret so you can get Eloise thrown in jail or something, because she’s not a criminal and she doesn’t belong in jail.”