The more I look at the photos, the more they feel like they’re mine, too.
I almost send them out to Emily to give to the magazine one night ahead of schedule.
But I can’t get myself to pull the trigger.
I finally send them at the last minute, after Emily shoots me an email reminding me that the magazine’s deadline is that day. I don’t let myself glance over them for the millionth time.
The photos belong to the world now, not to me.
They’ll be ready to publish on the internet in two days, and that night, Logan will return to the Bellwood.
Emily’s return email is succinct:
These are exquisite, Chase.
Ready to break the internet?
-E
I used to think “breaking the internet” was just a phrase people used.
With Logan’s photos, I had no idea how true it was about to become.
CHAPTER 25
LOGAN
I know the photoshoot is getting attention before I even see it on the official website.
“Look at that!” my driver says, chuckling afterward from the front of the SUV as we pull through Times Square, looking up at a billboard. It’s a digital news billboard with a giant screen that runs a scrolling ticker at the bottom, with images that flash over the top.
“That is a giant fucking photo of Logan’s cock,” Emily says, gazing out through the windshield.
“A blurred-out cock,” I say, marveling at the image.
The news ticker readsA Whole Lot More Football Player - Logan Stone Bares it All.
The picture is one where I’m doing pull-ups on a bar that Chase had installed on the doorframe of his studio.
“They picked the image where you most look like Damien Vance,” Emily says. “They’re smart. People have wanted full-frontal from your character since episode 1.”
“They’re snapping pictures of it,” the driver says as we’re at a red light, grinning at a few tourists who are holding their cell phones up toward the billboard.
One man is walking by with his son, and as his son looksup at the image for too long, his father pushes his head in the other direction.
“I wonder if Chase has seen that they’re out.”
“The release email went to all of us,” Emily says.
“He’s on his work shift, though,” I tell her. “He’s going to flip.”
It’s around rush hour, and the traffic on the way back to the Bellwood is brutal. It’s at least half an hour until we pull into the back alley. Security is about a hundred times better behind the hotel now when they know I’m coming, and there are already six big, burly personnel guarding the perimeter of the alley.
But the fans are still gathered there.
“I will never understand how they know the exact days I’ll be coming back to New York. I wasn’t even in town all week.”
Emily sighs, looking out at them. “It only takes one leak. Ifoneyoung production assistant in the Catskills tells one friend, it can spread like wildfire online.”
