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 time 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.