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“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 …”
