by Daryl Banner
Ashlee meets my eyes with her pretty, bright green ones, and there’s excitement in them. “Really?” she questions, her eyes going between either of us. “You don’t know?”
“Obviously not,” I retort, perhaps a little more snippily than I intend. “What is it?”
A tiny chuckle escapes her lips, then she covers her mouth quickly. “I really shouldn’t laugh,” she mumbles through her fingers, then leans into us to add, “It’s our boss. A photo of him is going viral. A compromising photo.”
All the blood escapes my brain. I’m rendered numb as a crash test dummy, staring blankly at her eyes.
“So, yes,” she finishes. “It’s something very juicy. And now, we are being tasked with the very important job of minimizing it.”
Elijah finally speaks. “What exactly is this photo of? Did some pervert get a camera into our boss’s bathroom or something?”
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Ashlee looks past our shoulders, then behind her own, and finally comes kissably close to us, excitement bursting in her bright green eyes. “The boss has a little boy toy on the side, a boy toy he must’ve taken to Mexico this weekend. The two of them were photographed on the beach, naked … and doing the nasty.”
I fall back against a table, desperately thankful for it being there to catch me, as I feel my insides hollow out with terror.
Someone photographed us. In my most intimate moment.
There might be video out there in addition to the photo. Some pervert—some total mysterious pervert—has documented the night that Benjamin Gage took my virginity.
And it’s all over the internet.
All over the office.
I feel so fucking violated.
Wait. Ashlee’s telling this to us—to me—without showing any sign of judgment on her face. If I’m in the photo, then …
“Who is this boy toy?” I ask innocently, lifting my eyes back to hers and interrupting whatever it is she’s saying to Elijah.
She shrugs. “No idea. The boy’s face is covered and indistinct. Benjamin Gage’s, however …” She quirks an eyebrow and stifles a little laugh, then quickly adds, “Really, I need to be mature about this. This is a big deal. I think. Or at least an embarrassing one. Whatever. It’s going to keep us busy all day, that’s for sure.”
A look of deep, pensive thought crosses Elijah’s face as Ashlee continues to talk to him like an excited schoolgirl who just got hit with the week’s hottest gossip, spilling every tasty detail. But I watch my friend’s face carefully, and it is not lost on me that Elijah is trying to put two and two together.
And I desperately, desperately don’t want him to.
That chance, however, is completely robbed from me when all of us are called for a meeting by Rebekah. She explains a good deal about sensitivity, discretion, and professionalism before allowing us to view the several articles that have surfaced with the photo in question.
The photo of Benjamin caressing me on the blankets, barely lit by the flames of the braziers. My face is turned away. Benjamin is in full view, twisted so that his gorgeous ass is on display, but covered up with a hilariously tiny censor box.
But there’s nothing hilarious about the way Elijah’s eyes flash when he sees the image—Elijah, who can recognize me from my ankles, who can recognize me from a misplaced strand of hair, who is certainly recognizing me from that blurry, horrible photo.
And when he slowly turns to meet my gaze, there is a whole new level of questions and betrayal in his eyes. I am certain that if my morning’s half-truth wasn’t enough to completely end our friendship, this is.
40
Benjamin’s ass is on the line.
And also online.
“I am sorry, Benji Boy. It cannot be done.”
I stare at Jazz’s face—or rather, the completely veiled shadow with just two mysterious eyes showing—as she speaks to me through the screen of my protected tablet.
“Are you sure?” I ask her. “I mean, you’re basically capable of everything.”
“I am only a human. Not a god.”
“But you’re a god of computers. You’re a computer whisperer. You have to think of a way to whisper into the network, find out who released the photo, track it or something, hijack their system and see if there’s any more photos … maybe videos …”
“I am sorry. I said I am sorry, hundred times,” she drones in her German dialect. “If it takes me saying it one hundred and one times, I shall, but I cannot. Ugh, why are you being so … nervig?”
I cover my face with my hands, giving it a wholehearted rub. I’m out of options. There is no way I can possibly minimize what is happening.
“Even if we somehow were to find the source of the content,” she goes on tiredly, “there is no … guarantee … that their content is simply sitting on a computer somewhere waiting for me to hack into it. It is likely on a separate camera. Multiple cameras, even.”
“Fuck.”
“There is just no easy way, Benji Boy.”
Rubbing my eyes, I realize the one and only thing I have anything to be thankful for is that this is happening solely to me and not to Trevor. No one can possibly identify him from the quality of that picture. Plus, his face is mercifully turned away.
My only fear, which I’ve expressed to Jazz, is that there may be more pics where this one came from, and if so, one of those other pics could show us in drastically more detail—up to and including Trevor’s face.
And that’s one pretty face I don’t want blasted across every blog headline from here to Google.
“I just don’t understand it,” I continue, picking up with all the whining I did when I first contacted Jazz about this whole thing. “Why just this one blurry pic on the beach? Was it a total fluke? Some dumb kid with a camera capturing something hilarious he was seeing? And then someone got that camera from him, saw who I was, and sold the pic? Or was someone tracking me while I was in Mexico? And if so …” I sigh, my stomach somersaulting all over by it again. “If so, they would have seen us holding hands all over the resort. They would have seen us at dinner. More than once. They would have seen us kissing by the pool …”
“Is this the pretty boy you have been sending the sexties to?”
I drop my hands and squint at Jazz’s eyes. “What? Sexties?”
“From your phone to his. The sex texts. Is that what you call them? The sexties?”
I roll my eyes. “They’re called sexts. And are you meaning to tell me you’ve hacked into my phone?”
“Never mind it. It is for your own protection. I installed guard software, just like the kind the boy-dummy had on his phone. The one whose chocolate syrup videos I could not delete. You are safe now from hackers.”
“Hackers other than you?”
Her eyes go stern as needles. “I am not a hacker. You seem to have strong feelings for this pretty boy.”
I fight a flush chasing its way up my cheeks. “Of course I do. I don’t just take anyone to Mexico for the weekend.”
“One day, I will visit America. Then I will be a ‘not-anyone’ you can take to Mexico, too.”
I chuckle, then fall back into my couch with a heavy sigh. “I don’t even know if I can go into the office today. How can I face my employees when they’ve all seen my ass?”
“Unless your ass has a permanent black box covering Grand Canyon, they have not seen your ass.”
I snort and stare at her. “Grand Canyon? You think my butt crack looks like the Grand Canyon?”
“And you are the Benjamin Gage, my friend. Your employees expect the unexpected from you. They will take care of you.”
I tilt my head. “Aww. You used the ‘friend’ word again. Is it too soon to invite you over for tea and chitchat about our dogs?”
“Chitchat. You Americans and your strange words.” After a second, her eyes soften and she looks away momentarily. When she returns her gaze to mine, her voice is also gentler. “As for your pretty boy, he makes you happy, and it has been a long t
ime you haven’t been happy. I see it in your eyes, Benji Boy.”
“You see nothing in my eyes,” I fire back defiantly.
“I also see fear. Yes, maybe fear most of all.” She tsk-tsk-tsks at me. “That means you care for this pretty boy. He is special, this ‘T’ in your phone.”
My face reddens even worse. I know I can trust Jazz with any secret I can fathom. Still, I’m not quite ready for anyone in the world to know about him.
I feel instantly protective, just like when I first saw the image in the article. My first reaction wasn’t thinking about who’s going to see my splendid spread of cheeks; it was whether anyone would recognize Trevor and if he was in any danger. That much, I would not be able to stomach.
And then I realize, with a start, that Jazz is my only friend. Other than Trevor himself, there is no one on this whole planet I could possibly confide the complete truth to.
“His name’s Trevor,” I hear myself volunteer.
“Trevor Woodard. I know. He is quite a cutie,” she murmurs thoughtfully, “even if he is only twenty-one since yesterday.”
I gape at her. “Is there anything you don’t know, Miss Hacks-Into-Anything-And-Knows-Everything-Already??”
Jazz looks me very seriously in the eye through the screen. “I do not know what this thing called love is. It puzzles me, the crazy fucked-up shit you boys do for it.”
“Someday, you’ll find someone for yourself,” I promise her.
She rolls her eyes at first, then a flicker of hope passes over her face—or at least her eyes, the only part of her face that isn’t completely shrouded in shadow. “I will monitor the activities of the blogs and restrict what I can. Please do your part, my friend, in not putting your Schwanz into any more pretty boys on beaches.”
After a wink, Jazz vanishes from the screen, the connection terminated. I close my tablet and slip it back into its bag, then sink deeper into the couch, lost in a whirlwind of worries and thoughts that have only been half alleviated by Jazz and her wizardry.
The worst part is that Trevor is among the chaos in the office and is being forced to help minimize and cover up something that no one will know he’s directly involved in. I can’t imagine what he’s feeling right now, and I hate that I am—even indirectly—responsible for any suffering he’s enduring.
He is the innocent party in this, and I have a duty to protect him. I don’t want anyone to hurt Trevor—least of all me.
Really, who the hell cares who I diddle on a beach in Mexico, anyway? Apparently everyone does. The big almighty celebrity-whisperer Benjamin Gage is caught with his pants off and his ding-dong up a young guy’s tooter. If you’re curious how many squats he does a week, just check out this photo showcasing the uncensored side of his ass.
I can’t just hide here at home like a turtle in his safe, hard shell. I need to be in the office working alongside my employees, leading them by example.
Hopefully that doesn’t end up with an orgy of interns on a beach.
“Be good, Lance,” I tell my dog an hour later, giving him a rub behind his ears as he looks up at me tiredly, before grabbing my briefcase and heading out, determined.
41
Trevor is sorta crapping himself.
I guess I’ve felt this amount of loneliness before.
It feels like back in high school gym class when we played Dodgeball and I would stand in the back picking at my fingers pondering the day’s choice of cafeteria lunch and whether the chili con carne really was made of mystery meat.
Here I am in front of a computer staring at the photograph.
And the mystery meat in it.
“Who do you think it is?” asks Ashlee, appearing at my side.
I jump, not having heard her approaching. I have, needless to say, been jumpy all morning. “I’m … not sure.”
“I think it’s a ten-dollar-an-hour Mexican prostitute,” Ashlee decides. “And that is one very, very lucky prostitute. I’m picturing a sort of Pretty Woman scenario where they fall in love, he leaves the money, the prostitute doesn’t take it, comes to America and tries to update his wardrobe … ‘Big mistake. Huge.’ I could picture it.” She giggles after that, then stares off, picturing it.
I find my skin turning to ice at once. “That’s our boss you’re talking out.”
Ashlee turns back to me, her eyes glazed over. “Oh. I … I didn’t mean to—”
“And we need to handle this situation very seriously,” I go on, apparently deciding to take the righteous high road, like I have any right to be on it. “For Mr. Gage’s sake, and the company’s.”
Ashlee gives me one sad nod, then glances back at the screen, her eyes all over the picture. “You’re right,” she finally concedes. “I shouldn’t perpetuate all the stupid jokes everyone’s making in the office. We’re above that, you and I. We can see the seriousness in situations like this.”
I feel bad instantly. “I’m sorry for snapping, Ashlee. I just—”
“No, no. You didn’t snap.” She gives me a wink and nudges me. “You’re not like the others, Trevor. I can see why Elijah thinks so highly of you.”
Dear God, is today Make Trevor Feel Like A Guilty Piece Of Shit Day?
“Speaking of whom,” she goes on, leaning in closer to me and bringing down her voice, “is Elijah okay? He’s been really off all morning.”
“He’s just got some … personal things … he’s dealing with.”
“Hmm. Okay. I can handle that.” She smiles at me. “Do you think he’s into me? Like, even just a little bit?” Before I can even respond, she sputters on. “I mean, like, I’m not trying to be that girl, the one who zeroes in on the office cutie and starts blushing, acting flustered, and stops wearing any underwear. I’m wearing underwear, by the way,” she adds in a whisper.
“Office cutie?” I lift an eyebrow at her. “Of all the guys here, you think Elijah’s the office cutie?”
“Oh, by far. He’s real. And he’s sweet … funny … charming in a totally dorky way.” Quite suddenly, she’s blushing and flustered. “Anyway. Please don’t tell him I said all of this. He’s also a totally cocky bastard. Hey, maybe we should all go out for drinks at the end of the week. Elijah’s birthday is in a couple days, right?”
I drum my fingers along the edge of the desk, then face her. “Maybe just the two of you should go.”
Her eyes flash. “J-Just the two of us? … What do you mean? Why? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying maybe he likes you, too.”
Ashlee squints suspiciously at me, then prepares to respond, but is quickly interrupted by another intern rushing up to her to ask a question, and then the two of them are off. Ashlee looks over her shoulder to throw me a smile, then disappears around the corner. I return my attention to the image in front of me and the article whose comment section I’ve been tasked to babysit.
There is nothing more meta than helping minimize a scandal you’re right in the middle of among a team of people who don’t realize they’ve been staring at your naked ass all day.
The picture could not be more focused on Benjamin if my whole body was blotted out by a Photoshop eraser. The lighting from the fire is pretty bad, making shadows look like shapes, and licks of white and red look like faces that aren’t really there. I’m a skinny blur of fleshy vagueness with my head turned away, and Benjamin is completely in view, covering me like a protective animal. It’s almost telling, the way he’s shielding me from the cold air I remember so vividly from that beautiful night.
All that beauty is wiped away in an instant when twice more I pass Elijah in the office, and twice more he ignores me. Did Elijah really recognize me from the pic, or was that glare he gave me just about his ire from before? I’d like to say I’m flattered he can point me out so well in a crowd. I mean, it isn’t often one can say they have a best friend capable of recognizing them by their elbows.
But that “best friend” of mine doesn’t seem much invested in being my best friend at all today. He
’s more invested in staples and whatever’s on that computer screen across the room.
My lunch break is cut in half by an urgent summoning of all the employees in the office to the floor. I’m standing in the back of the crowd when Rebekah and the three department heads—Julian, Samantha, and Quentin—address the room.
“Our favorite pop star client Hawk—the Jersey boy—will be coming through town tomorrow,” announces Julian loftily, “and plans to drop by the office. He is scheduled to meet with Mr. Gage at four in the afternoon.”
“That being said,” picks up Samantha, her voice unexpectedly deep and grainy, “Mr. Gage will expect that we are all on our best behavior and appearance tomorrow.”
Quentin nods at her and faces the room. “This is a really big deal, especially considering our situation involving Mr. Gage’s trip to Mexico. We must look on top of it, unworried, and diligent.”
“I’m going to be assigning some of you interns on cleaning duty, since we need this office to look sharp,” finishes Rebekah. “As he is meeting with some important people today, Mr. Gage will not be coming in—”
“Mr. Gage will be coming in,” interrupts a voice.
The room shifts, all the bodies turning to the man who cuts through the crowd—Benjamin himself. His face is flushed slightly, looking as if he just ran the whole distance here, but he offers an apologetic smile to the room as he stands in the middle of the semicircle of employees and faces us.
My heart melts just seeing him. I didn’t realize until now how badly I’ve needed to lay my eyes on my beautiful man.
My beautiful man.
“I have a few things to say,” Benjamin starts out, lifting his eyebrows and appearing dashing as ever in his fitted blue blazer, sexy slacks, and shiny shoes. “Firstly, I’m sorry for the tizzy that my apparent extracurricular activities have caused. Rebekah has been keeping me informed, and you are all doing an incredible job doing exactly what we’re paid to do for all our clients: minimizing, spinning, and rewriting the narrative. You are superstars, all of you, and thanks to your work, this unfortunate bad angle shot of my ass will be buried by tomorrow.”