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“Bingo,” Henn says. “To be clear, the whole idea wouldn’t have worked if the song hadn’t been fire. All I did was give it a big push out of the gate. But my push wouldn’t have led to anything, if the song didn’t have legs to take it from there.”
“‘Shaynee’?” By now, the whole world knows that’s the massively popular song that introduced the band to the world.
“That’s the one.”
“What do you mean you gamed some algorithms?”
Henn says a bunch of stuff I don’t understand. In a nutshell, I think he’s telling me he somehow infiltrated YouTube’s backend and made the system tabulate views that didn’t actually occur.
“You’re saying you hacked YouTube?” I ask, feeling utterly astonished.
“I am.”
I stare at him with my mouth hanging open. I’m shocked, but perhaps I shouldn’t be. After my first dinner with Henn, I googled “cybersecurity” and found out experts in Henn’s field keep the bad guys out of online spaces by staying one step ahead of them. In other words, cybersecurity experts know how to protect online systems because they can predict how the bad guys will try to hack them. Is it really a surprise that Henn would occasionally veer off-course from his day job to perform an illicit hack to help his best friend in a do-or-die situation? That’s what Henn did for Sarah in Vegas, too, although Henn did characterize that job as a “one-off.” But maybe he wasn’t being literal about that. Perhaps, Henn meant he does stuff like that only very rarely—when he believes wholeheartedly in the cause, and he’s doing it as a favor for a very close friend. Frankly, if that’s the case, it’s something I could easily get behind.
I close my hanging mouth. “That’s amazing, Henn. You’re an incredible friend.”
Henn looks nervous. “You’re not freaked out about what I did?”
I shake my head. “You gave a harmless push to a song for one day, in order to help your best friend launch his record label and the band he’d gambled everything on.” I flash him side-eye. “It was harmless, right? You didn’t hurt anyone?”
“Not a soul. What I did was technically illegal, though. Online trespassing. I went somewhere I didn’t have authority to go.”
“Did you steal data or money?”
“Of course, not. I’d never do that. I was in and out and nobody was ever the wiser, to this day.”
“And you’ve never done another favor like that for Reed? You haven’t commandeered the entire music industry since then, have you?”
“Pfft. Absolutely not. If Reed wanted to hire me to game the system for him, I’d say no. But see, Reed would never ask me to do that. He’s actually really pissed at me for helping him out that one time without his consent. He’s grateful, too. But mostly pissed.”
“Not so pissed that he won’t help your girlfriend get an apartment and a job in LA.”
“He’d do that, regardless. But, yeah, he feels indebted to me. He shouldn’t. I’m sure ‘Shaynee’ would have been a huge hit, regardless.”
“Maybe not. I guess he’ll never know.”
“Hence, the reason he’s pissed at me. Understandably. I sometimes think I know best, and then, it turns out I’m actually an idiot. A well-meaning one, though.”
I touch his cheek. “I think maybe we’ve discovered your imperfection.”
“Does it scare you away?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Henn sighs with relief. “That’s great news.” He closes his eyes and murmurs, “God, I have to pee.”
“What?”
His eyes are still closed.
“You have to pee? Henny.” I nudge his shoulder, and he opens his eyes. “You have to pee?”
“So much.”
“Well, come on.” I pull him up by his two lead arms and guide him into my bathroom and straight to the toilet. When I’ve got him positioned, he does nothing, so I unzip his pants, hand him his flaccid dick, and point to the spot where he should aim. He wobbles slightly in place for a moment, before sighing deeply and peeing for approximately ten years, like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own.
“Wow,” I murmur. “That’s got to be a world record.”
When Henn’s bladder is finally empty, I help him out of his clothes and take off mine, and then guide him into the shower with me. After rinsing the night’s sweat, grime, and spilled drinks off both of us, I dry us off and lead him, naked, back to my bed, where I tuck him in next to me under the covers.
“Wait!” Henn shouts, abruptly sitting up. “I rented a Sybian for you tonight as a surprise. No pressure, of course, but if you’re down, then we have to go to the place to pick it up before closing time!”
I pull him back down. “It’s way past closing time, love. Plus, we’re way too drunk. Thank you for the thought, but it’s not gonna happen tonight.”
“If it were here now, would you try riding it?”
