Page 103 of Without You

“My friends Chad and Johnny. You met Johnny today before you offered my girlfriend a job that would take her away from me for months on end.”

“What?” Chad and Johnny ask at the same time.

“Let’s just say a lot has happened in one day,” I tell them.

“In my defense, I didn’t know she was your girlfriend when I offered her the job. It wasn’t until about thirty minutes ago when I was even made aware of the situation by my public relations team.”

“Yeah, but you knew she was someone’s,” Brody says. “But that’s beside the point. I want to know what you’re going to do to fix this.”

“We’re sending out notices now. I’m making a statement that Katie and I were never together, that whatever pictures that went out were taken out of context, we’re demanding the video be taken down, which I know doesn’t fix everything because people are sick fucks and will keep that shit if they want. My team is working to figure out who leaked the sex tape just a few minutes ago but right now we’re only coming up with the initials HMM.”

“Hannah Marie Mitchell. That whore!” I shout again. “I TOLD y’all she’s a whore who is a giant asshole.”

“Someone you know?” Chase guesses.

“My ex,” Brody admits.

“I stood up in her wedding,” I admit next. “Like two months ago.”

He chuckles on the other end and we raise our eyebrows. “Oh, wow, she sounds like a nice person then. Doing this to a friend? You break her heart or something, Brody?”

I feel like Chase isn’t taking this nearly as seriously as he should be and apparently Brody’s in agreement because he growls, “Are you for real right now? This is serious, Chase! There’s a video out there of Katie and me having sex less than an hour ago! That means whoever it is that took that video was following her around today. Just like someone followed you around to the salon when you got a massage.”

“I’m used to being followed,” Chase reminds us. “Part of the job.”

“A job you wanted to bring Katie into? Do you know what kind of shit this brought upon her?”

“Hey. This wasn’t on me.”

“That might be true, but you’re the one who’s going to have to help us fix this so take it serious.”

I take a deep breath and lean over Brody’s phone. “Chase. We need more information here.”

“And as soon as I know more information, I’ll tell you. I’m sorry this happened to you but I think you need to shift your blame. This is on that HMM person and whoever’s helping him or her.”

“That first picture,” Chad starts, “how did they get Katie’s name?”

He blows out a breath. “That’s a little trickier. Looks like someone at the café recognized me, took a picture of us, and sold it. That wasn’t a big deal because they didn’t know your name. Then someone saw the picture and leaked Katie’s name. Sounds almost coincidental but too much so, you know?”

“I’ll say,” Chad mutters. “You know what happened,” he accuses Brody. “We know it, too. Now what are we going to do about it?”

“Someone want to clue me in?” Chase asks.

“My mother had a hand in this hoping for money.”

“Shit. What kind of people you run with in Benton?”

“The best kind, aside from those two.”

I hear a car pull up and stand up to look out the window. I don’t recognize the vehicle but Johnny’s right behind me, looking as well. “Brody’s dad,” he mutters.

When I turn around, I see Brody has the phone to his ear now instead of on speaker. He marches toward the door, opens it, mumbles a hello to his dad, and goes outside.

“Take it by the fact that my son is yelling at someone into the phone to fix this yesterday that y’all already know.”

Johnny and Chad nod and I fidget. Please God, today has been sucktastic and I don’t need more suck to add to it. Please tell me that Brody’s dad didn’t see a video of me having sex with his son. And if you’re answering prayers anyway, make this go away?

“Yes. We know.”

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