“THIS BETTER NOT be another sex tape,” I mutter, feeling the buzz of my phone in my jeans pocket. Sitting behind the desk in my gym’s office, I glare up at Cross. “Why you sending me a text when we’re in the same damn place?”
“Sent it when I was in Marge’s Café picking up our order.” He sets a black coffee on the desk. “Look,” he orders, a shit-eating grin on his face. Hell, he can hardly keep a straight face.
“Look at what? Snapshot of your dick? No thanks.” Sliding my phone out, I swipe a thumb across the screen and pull up the text message.
He walks across the office to his desk, rests his back at the head and crosses his boots. “Just look already, Lenic. You’re gonna be … yeah, just look. And it’s not a picture, mate. YouCube video. My sister just forwarded it to me.” He still has that bastard grin on his face. He tries to look serious, but his mouth keeps twitching behind the fist in his mouth.
I smoothe out a crease along my jeans, meeting his gaze. “If this is a sex tape, I’ll cut your dick off so you can’t make your own,” I grumble, remembering the last video he sent me. “Sending me a sex tape while I was talking with Father Williams — in church — was a dick move.” I forgot to switch my phone on silent. I learnt that day, in a hard way, how great the acoustics are in a church.
“Was trying to help a mate out. It was church for Christ’s sakes. You’re twenty-nine, not ninety-nine. Thought you could do with some entertainment. Now watch it already. The suspense is killing me.”
I click on the link and wait for the browser to connect to the site. Setting my phone down, I reach for my hot coffee and glug half of it down the pipe. Peering over my cup, a flicker of recognition shoots through me as my eyes land on the channel name ‘JUICED’. I’m pretty sure that’s Felicity’s. She makes her money from uploading videos to the web or something. How the hell is that a career now?
Low and behold, her face appears and I immediately grab at my phone. Felicity Saint James. Dark eyes and olive skin, she has it all. Full lips, apple cheekbones, hot bod. A little off her rocker. Yeah, no doubt it’s her.
Her mouth yammers on continually, but her words fall on deaf ears. I click the button on the side of my phone, switching silent mode off. “YMCA, am I right, girlfriends?” she hollers in the video, performing a swift YMCA dance with her arms. I crack a quick smile.
Cute.
Suddenly, her pretty face fades to black as another video clip starts to play. I grimace, finding myself staring at a man’s naked arse. In the shower. My head shoots up when I hear Cross snigger.
“You wanna confess something, Cross?” I ask him. “This your way of telling me you’re gay? Mate, I’ll still love you no matter what.” I grimace again, taking another swig of coffee. “But I’ll have to stop the showering at the gym.” I stab a finger his way. “Or there’ll be a soap ban.”
Cross nearly chokes on his coffee, but not from laughter. His jaw hangs open in shock, and something flashes through his eyes. I ignore him, done with this juvenile shit. “What arsehole gets off on posting a video online of himself shit naked? What a tosser.” I slam my mobile phone down on the desk, glaring across the room at my friend. “And you’re a bigger tosser for showing it to me.”
“What the hell, man? You need glasses or what? Don’t tell me you don’t recognise Mr Hotty In The Shower?”
“Why the hell would I recognise a guy just from his bare arse?”
Cross smacks his palm on top of his desk. A ballpoint pen rolls off and he accidently kicks it on the floor as he skids across the room, laughing his goddamn head off. “This just gets better and better — shit. Lenic, keep watching.” He makes his way to my side of the desk and shoves my phone back in my hand. “Jesus, this is too much. Trust me, you can’t ignore this one.”
I shake my head. “I’m not watching gay porn.” He leans over my shoulder and I smack him on the side of his head.
He cries like the big baby he is, rubbing his head, but my hit isn’t enough to end his goddamn irritating laughter. “No porn, mate. Sorry, can’t count as porn if you’re watching yourself.”
I glance down at my phone. “The hell you talking—”
What the hell?
The camera’s moved upwards to the back of Tosser’s head. The video quality isn’t great. A little pixelated, like it’d been filmed on zoom. I lean in closer, squinting my eyes.
No.
Fucking.
Way.
I’m Tosser.
That’s my arse on YouCube.
That’s my arse being washed in the shower on YouCube.
That’s my arse being watched by five million two hundred and thirty-three thousand four hundred and twenty-nine — what the hell? — people.
That’s my arse — oh, shit — bending over to pick up the soap I dropped … on YouCube. Jesus Christ, that’s not an angle you wanna see yourself doing in public.
Goddamn humiliating.
Shit!
I slam my drink down and try and shake the burning sensation on my hand. I didn’t notice how hard I was gripping the damn cup. “She told me she did make-up tutorials and shit,” I hiss under my breath.
At this point, my best mate is in stitches and it’s enough to shake me out of my stupor. I shoot out of my chair so fast it tumbles backwards and clatters to the floor, my coffee spilling over next month’s roster. My mind is in a haze of anger and disbelief as I shove Cross hard against the wall with a loud thud, the framed picture of a Royal Navy warship rattling beside him.
“You know, there was once a time, mate,” Cross says, giving me a pointed look, “when you would’ve found this hilarious.” The thought is enough to hit pause, but only for a second.
This is bullshit.
Shaking my head, I storm over to the far side of the office and yank the door open so hard, I almost rip it off of the hinges.
“Where’re you going?” Cross calls out, laughing his shit-eating face off.
“Across the other side of the street. This man’s getting his banana back.”