by Lori L. Otto
“But you have a captive audience,” Pryana says. “Have you checked Twitter today?”
“Hell, no,” I say with a laugh.
“Well. You’re the top trending topic. You even have a hashtag.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Hashtag TreyGoesDown,” she announces anyway. Coley covers her face.
“Well if that isn’t a dickish hashtag… makes you wonder who came up with that? Evan Midland himself?”
“That sooooooo sucks snow cones, Trey!” she says loudly into her hands.
“No, laureate, it sucks ass. Period. There’s nothing cute or sweet about this one.” She drops her arms and looks at me sympathetically.
“I know,” she says, frowning as she puts her arms around me.
“Did you just call her laureate?” Pryana asks. I nod. “Okay, but that’s adorable. Anyway, Trey, as your media mentor, I highly recommend you tweet something.” She knows she’s going beyond her typical mentorship realm.
“You’re not my social media mentor,” I correct her.
“But do you have one of those?”
“No.”
“I did it for The Wit when I was a sophomore. I have some experience here.”
I look down at Coley. “I don’t want people to think we filmed and released that,” she says. “But I only have seventeen-hundred-eighty-three followers.”
“All right,” I concede. “Let me and Coley get something to eat… we’ll work on a statement and I’ll let you review it… probably after my lawyer does.”
“Let me see it first,” she urges me. “I’ll edit it and make sure it’s lawyer-ready.”
“Deal. Thanks, ladies.” I hand them a hundred-dollar bill. “Cab fair, plus your lunch is on me. We really appreciate this.”
Teri snatches the money from me. “Not arguing. Let’s go, Pree.”
“Thanks, Trey.”
“You’re welcome. Thank you.”
Over lunch, I ask her about her mom and dad. “Do you… think they’ll ever like me?”
“Of course they will.”
“Do they understand that will require them talking to me at some point?”
“Be patient. They’re out with your parents right now. They’re going to see how nice they are–which, my God, Trey, they’re both so warm and open. Clearly you communicate with your mom and dad differently than I do with mine, anyway, but… don’t lose hope.”
“It would have been nice if they could have acknowledged that they knew this wasn’t my fault. That’s all. They’re stuck on the one fact that I didn’t close the damn blinds.”
“Do you regret not closing them?” she asks me, hesitant.
“In hindsight, sure, based on what happened. I would much rather not have the world seeing you naked and vulnerable like that. But would it have ever occurred to me to close them? No. I got this apartment because I love the view and because of the fact that there’s no way in hell anyone can see in. Do you know how often I walk around naked in here?” I ask her rhetorically. “Where are those videos?”
“That photographer didn’t care about the absolute perfect specimen of cock that God gave you,” she says. “He just wanted to know where you were putting it.”
“Well, he didn’t quite get to see that. Every time you say cock, though, Coley…”
“I should stop, then. I’m a little nervous about doing things in here, all things considered.”
“Yeah. I think I want to get the first video taken down before we risk another one being made–although I’m confident there are no more cameras. The investigators seemed much more competent than the cops from this morning. Plus, your dad was overseeing the whole thing. I’m pretty sure he has a lot of experience with stuff like this,” I comment.
“True. And he didn’t tell me to leave. There was no ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’ warning,” she jokes. “So I think he feels good about it, too.”
“Your mom and dad are… okay with you being sexually active?” I ask her.
She shrugs her shoulders and nods. “My parents are realists. Dad gave Joel the sex talk; Mom gave it to me. She took me to the doctor to get on birth control when I was sixteen and had my first serious boyfriend. Dad bought condoms for both me and Joel. They were more concerned about us being safe and informed than anything else.
“Yours?”
“You would have thought I was going to be canonized when I told them I was waiting until I was eighteen. I just remember the hell they went through with Liv.”
“Is that why you waited?”
“Oh, no,” I say, laughing. It takes me a second to put together the words. “It seems like I was always able to make decisions with Zaina with my head before my heart. I was always able to be rational with her. While things could get passionate,” I say, not looking directly at her, “I never started the day feeling that way about her. I cared about her deeply, but I didn’t crave her. I never physiologically needed her.
“It was always easy to say no to her, or to stop things before going too far.”
“Wow,” Coley says. “It really sounds like you weren’t very compatible.”
“We looked good on paper. That’s what I would always think to myself. We were two people who should do well together, by all intents and purposes. We both excelled in high school. Her family was wealthy; her parents, still married. At the time, we had similar career goals, although hers have since changed. We had the same friends. The same values. It made sense for us to be together. But something I’ve realized since I’ve met you is that love really doesn’t make much sense. It doesn’t need to.
“But you should care for and crave the person you’re with. Those things shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. If they are, that’s not romantic love. That’s how I see it now, anyway. You have like, love and lust, with varying degrees of each. There’s a delicate balance each person has to find for the way they feel about their significant other–and that idea has to be acceptable to the other party.”
She smiles at me from the other side of the table, but then slides her food across and comes to sit next to me.
“Tell me more about that,” she says, taking my hand.
“All elements must exist for a relationship to last. To some people, maybe sex isn’t as important, so the like and love components are predominant. Or maybe sex is all that matters to other people, so lust takes control and the other two are tossed by the wayside. Neither of those sound like romantic love to me, though. One sounds like a friendship, and the other sounds like, well… strangers who like to fuck.”
“Not everyone would agree with you.”
“No,” I say, “I know that. I only need one person to agree with me. Your idea of romantic love needs to fit in with mine if we want this to be a lasting thing.”
“You’ve told me what it isn’t. Tell me what it is,” she encourages.
“It’s when all three components are of equally high importance. It’s when I go to bed at night and sleep better simply knowing you’re thirty feet away from me. It’s when my stomach flips when I see that you’re online when I boot up my computer. It’s when I can’t take my eyes off you, even on the very first day I met you. It’s when I have a panic attack thinking someone may have laid a finger on the girl who–without trying–became the most precious person in my life seemingly overnight. It’s when we work, side-by-side, and you humor me and let me argue with you about word choices until we’ve exhausted all the synonyms in the thesaurus, finally settling on the first word you’d written anyway. It’s when you’re the only person I think about on Valentine’s Day, and I do the most platonically romantic thing I can possibly do for you without letting on that I’m completely in love with you. It’s when I kiss you and I don’t care if I never take another breath. It’s when I make love to you, and realize how excruciatingly wonderful it is to be coupled with and one with someone at the same time. I’m with you and I’m a part of you, and that is sexy as hell.
“What I fee
l for you is visceral, Coley. It’s so deep-rooted in me that I feel like I was born to love you. To befriend you. To… someday have children with you.” I swallow, in disbelief that I actually said it out loud. In disbelief that I actually feel that way. “Do you want kids? I mean, we’re young. Not soon, obviously.”
“I do,” she says.
“I never thought I wanted them,” I admit. “I was there for the delivery of Edie, Livvy’s first daughter. I was pretty sure I was scarred for life. But being with you last night, Coley, something happened. I think it was something… instinctive; primitive, even. It wasn’t a thought. It was a feeling. Like, I have to have children with this woman.”
“Okay, when my parents do start speaking to you, hold off on giving them that news.”
“No shit,” I agree. “Are you okay with me telling you that?”
“Anytime you want to insinuate a future with me, I’m cool with that,” she says. I squeeze her hand and lean in to kiss her. She breaks away after a couple of seconds. “I like your ideas of romantic love. I think we’re on the same page.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t have–” Her lips are back on mine before I can finish the sentence. The next words were going to be “stopped kissing me.” Now my smug grin is making it difficult to do what I want to do. She puts her hands on my cheeks and stands up, purposefully not breaking away as she steps over me with one leg and straddles me, settling in my lap.
That makes everything easier.
Raking my hands against her scalp, she voices her pleasure in sweet whimpers that reverberate on my lips. Her arms are wrapped around my neck, holding her body as close to mine as possible. Ever so slightly, her hips swivel, causing friction between us. I tug at her hair playfully as I moan, letting her know both how much I like it and how much it’s frustrating me since I know we’re not going to have sex at this moment. It doesn’t stop her, nor do I want it to.
My phone ringing thirty seconds later does, though. I shift her slightly to grab it and see who’s calling. “It’s Danny.” She returns to her chair and watches me intently as she continues eating her lunch. I put my lawyer on speaker.
“Trey, there was no one unexpected entering your apartment this week.”
“How could you possibly go through it that fast?”
“Their software can just go to the parts where motion was detected. If it was the photographer, he gained access from outside.”
“That’s not possible.”
“A drone?”
“It was superglued with precision. You saw it. I don’t think a drone could be that exact. Can they go further back?”
“Trey, they need a timeline. Do you have any other suspects?”
I shrug my shoulders and glance at Coley. “Asher Knoxland, I guess. Or a fraternity brother… but that would have happened this week, too, since the publication of my story, so… I don’t know.”
“When did you have the incident at Dig Inn?” Coley asks.
“Monday after formal. It was the sixteenth. Maybe go back to then?”
“Okay,” Danny says. “Shouldn’t take us long.”
“Thanks. Any luck getting the video removed?”
“We’ve issued about three hundred cease and desist orders.”
“Three hundred?” Coley and I ask at the same time.
“Guys, we’re just getting started. But we’ve released a statement that’s hit the news sites, so we’re hoping word gets around and they’ll start disappearing on their own. We’re going after anyone hosting the video with a fifty-thousand-dollar fine.”
“What happens with that money?” Coley quickly asks.
“After the legal fees are paid, whatever you two decide.”
She looks at me expectantly. “New York City National Organization for Women. They have a Rape and Sexual Assault chapter that provides shelter, counseling and legal resources. They work with hospitals and private medical centers. I talked with them when I was working on the articles. They’re always looking for more funding.”
“I’m honestly hoping we don’t make money off of this,” I tell her. “I’ll donate money to that, regardless, but we want the cease and desist orders to convince them to take the videos down.”
“Of course, but you know they won’t all do it.”
“I also know it will be difficult to get anyone to pay. These sites may not be in the States; they’re not governed by the same laws we are.”
Her face falls. “So… the video may stay up, and we just… lose?”
“Coley,” Danny says, “we will pursue these people relentlessly. The Hollands have unlimited resources–and they’re family. It’s personal to me, too.”
She looks at me curiously. “He’s my aunt’s brother.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“We’ll do everything we can. You have my word.”
“Thank you, Danny,” I say to him. Coley echoes my gratitude. “We’re going to work on a few tweets. Apparently, I’m a trending topic on Twitter,” I warn him.
“The top one, Finn tells me.” His son has had my back since I was a little boy, and he was one of Livvy’s closest friends in school. “Just send me what you type up first.”
“Okay. Let me know if you find anything.”
“This literally may ruin my career,” she says somberly when I hang up.
“Coley, laureate, what do you love to do?” I ask her.
“Write.”
“Write what?”
“Poetry.”
“What kind of poetry?”
“Love poems. I can’t make money doing that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I can’t survive trying.”
“Says who?”
“When I silence the dreamer in me and let reality set in, I say.”
“What if I’m reality.”
She shakes her head. “I love the idea of it–says the dreamer–but we did just start dating.”
“What if I believed in your art so much that I became a Coley Fitzsimmons benefactor? Behind the scenes, no strings attached… you’d never owe me a cent nor a second of your time, but I could give you enough to give you… ten years to write and query agents and publishing houses and travel and become inspired and live your life and write some more.”
“I never liked you for your money,” she tells me.
“I never said you did. It doesn’t hide the fact that I have it–or will, when I’m twenty-one.”
“So you can’t make rash decisions at this moment?”
“No.”
“Not while you’re swept up in this hyper-romantic spell that I’ve cast on you?”
“I cannot.”
“Then I’ll tell you on your twenty-first birthday if I agree to that.”
“That’s fine. While we’re waiting, are there any more spells… you can cast?” I run my finger up her leg.
“How about one that spurs you into action to write a one-hundred-forty-character message denouncing that video?”
Groaning, I turn toward the table and grab my phone. After twenty minutes of typing and deleting, we come up with four messages:
The video of my girlfriend and me was recorded and released online without our knowledge or consent. This was a crime. (1 of 4)
Sites found hosting the video face fines up to $50,000 per instance. Proceeds will be donated to combat sex crimes in NYC. (2 of 4)
Cease and desist orders are going out now. We will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. (3 of 4) #YoureGoingDown
If you shared the video, I hope you find a shred of decency someday. If you have children, may they never be victims of a similar crime. (4 of 4)
After they’re approved by Pryana and Danny, I release them all and watch as my closest friends retweet them to spread the word. Even my dad, who never gets on Twitter, does his part. Shortly after I notice this, he and my mother and Coley’s parents return to my apartment. Beth is carrying a shopping bag and hands it to Coley. She takes out f
ive long-sleeved hooded t-shirts. “Trey, do you know how to use your washer?” her mother asks me.
I grin and look at my parents. “Yes, ma’am. I do. I’ll put those in right now.” Coley hands over the clothes and I walk into the laundry room and remove the tags, separating the shirts into lights and darks.
“Thank you. It is crazy downstairs,” she says loud enough for me to hear. My parents agree.
“It’s worse than anything I’ve seen, Trey!” Mom says. “It was nothing like this with Livvy and Jon… not even when Callen was missing and they were chasing you and Max around the city.”
“Really?” I ask her, returning to the living area.
“It’s bad,” she says.
“Bodyguard bad,” Coley’s dad says.
“I’ve never needed a bodyguard,” I argue.
“It’s not for you, son.” I don’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling when he calls me son.
“I can walk her to classes. I can take care of her.”
“You can’t be with her all the time. Until this dies down, we’re hiring someone to stay with her,” Dad says.
“Stay with me? Like, live with me?” she asks, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. I don’t like it any more than she does. There’s no way in hell I’m letting another guy stay with us here, even if he is someone hired to protect her.
“No, Nic,” her dad says. My ears perk up. I had no idea anyone called her anything but Coley. “Just to accompany you places in public. I trust you’ll be with your roommate or… with this guy other times.”
“It’s Trey,” I tell him, unfazed, in case he was unsure of my name. Coley snickers, unable to hide her amusement, and I don’t bother waiting for his response. I look at her instead, carrying on. “Are you okay with this?”
“I haven’t even seen what they’re talking about. It does seem unnecessary…”
“I encourage you both to go to the lobby,” my mother says. “Just hold the elevator and be ready to come right back up.”
“Don’t let her out of your sight,” Martin says.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I don’t even blink when I tell him this, even though his stare is meant to intimidate me. As soon as we’re out in the hallway, I make a comment. “I know your dad’s trying to psych me out, but it’s not going to work. He doesn’t scare me.”