Page 43 of Not Your Golden Boy

That was enough to push Harry over the edge. He came all over his hand with a satisfying burst of pleasure, then laughed at himself as the video and his orgasm ended.

“Unbelievable,” he snorted as he reached for several tissues from the box on the table beside the sofa to clean himself up.

Once that was done, he did what he should have done from the start and deleted the video. Something like that was far too dangerous to keep around.

The rest of the day passed in a happy haze of productivity. Harry checked in on Nikky and was happy to hear that he was doing well, his manager was actually sticking up for him, and that he had plans with his friends for dinner. He didn’t begrudge Drew Oberlin the time he would get to spend with Nikky at all.

Well, not much.

Even that made Harry laugh, which wasn’t like him at all. What had happened to the bitter one-hit wonder with a chip on his shoulder who thought the world owed him something? Not that it would be any great tragedy if that arsehole took a backseat for a while.

Since Nikky was busy with his friends, Harry had supper with Maggie and Laura. They teased him mercilessly about cradle-robbing, which Harry defended by insisting he wasn’t that old and Nikky wasn’t that young.

“He’s young enough,” Laura said. “We’ve met him, remember.”

“He’s certainly pretty,” Maggie said with a teasing smile. “Go on, show us all the photos you’ve taken of him, the more salacious the better.”

“I haven’t taken that many pictures,” Harry argued, heat infusing his face as he reached into his pocket for his phone…which was still warmer than it should be. “I certainly haven’t taken any NSFW pics.”

He had, but he’d wisely deleted those from his phone as well.

As he tapped to open his phone, he was surprised to find that the battery was down to fifteen percent. “What the—” he muttered, then tapped into the systems app to see what had gone wrong. He knew he’d plugged the phone in. He’d watched the video with the cord draped over his thigh. The phone wasn’t that old. It shouldn’t have been losing its charge so fast.

“Something wrong?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know,” Harry said, putting his phone down, unease spreading inside him. “I think my phone is acting up.”

“That’s not good,” Laura said, concerned as much as she could be for someone who didn’t have time for technology.

“I need to go,” he said, pushing his chair back, grabbing his phone again, and standing. “I need to charge this thing and see if I can figure out what’s wrong with it.”

“If you must,” Laura said.

“Do you need any help or advice with your young beau?” Maggie asked, grinning.

Harry rubbed his stubbly chin, not in a grinning mood. “I’m not sure,” he said. “If I do, I’ll let you know.”

He said goodbye and headed across the hall to his flat. As soon as he was inside, he put his phone down on the kitchen counter and stared at it like it might explode. It could be a simple technical malfunction. Phones were just machines, after all. They ran out of charge sometimes. It could have some sort of fault.

Or he could have picked up a virus that left the whole thing wide open.

Thank fuck he’d deleted the video.

Whether something was wrong with his phone or not, he needed to change all his passwords immediately. Living off the royalties of a single commercial hit that was now used to hawk train tickets might have been embarrassing, but it was his primary source of income. Having his bank accounts drained would be a nightmare. Having his social media hacked would be even worse.

Unknown eyes looking at his photo and video library would be catastrophic.

He was halfway through the process of changing everything when there was a frantic knock at his door. The intensity of the knock matched the tight feeling in his gut, so he got up quickly and rushed to answer the door.

He was surprised—no, alarmed—to find a panicked-looking Nikky on the other side.

“Hey,” he said, joy and worry slamming into his own concerns at the sight of his young lover. “What are you doing here? I thought you were out with your friends.”

Nikky sucked in an uneasy breath and launched himself into the flat. Not just the flat, he threw his arms around Harry and hugged him so tightly that Harry forgot every one of his own worries.

He shut the door and reached over to lock it with one hand, then embraced Nikky fully.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, hugging Nikky and rubbing his back.