My phone vibrates with an alert. There are new pictures. Some are posted by Patchy Bushman, but there are also a few from Lily and two new ones from Sunny. They were all added a few minutes ago. In one, Bushman has his arm around Sunny’s shoulder, his hand perilously close to her boob. It’s a selfie. They’re holding up bottles of beer. Bushman is staring right at her while she looks at the camera. In another, posted by Sunny, she’s in the middle of a Lily-and-Bushman sandwich. They’re, hugging her from either side. He’s not groping her, but it doesn’t seem particularly innocent, either.
At first glance she looks happy, but upon closer inspection her eyes are puffy and her cheeks are blotchy. I can’t tell if it’s the quality of the picture or not. Still, they’re smiling, and I’m not there to stop whatever might happen later in the night. And she hasn’t bothered to call me.
My phone rings. It’s not Sunny; it’s Violet.
I don’t have a chance to say a word before she yells, “Why are your disfigured balls all over the Internet?”
I’m going to drown Randy in the lake when I find him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ALWAYS WITH THE OVERSHARE
I roll off my bunk and limp-run to the porch so I can get some privacy.
I go with the most logical reaction. Denial. “What are you talking about?”
“Your inflated balls are everywhere, clogging up my feeds.”
The next step is deflection. “How would you know it’s my balls, unless you’ve been looking at that naked spread I did a couple of years ago? It’s okay, Vi. You can tell me.” I never did a naked spread. I was asked; my agent thought it best not to go there.
“You’re the most disgusting person in the entire world, Buck. Seriously. I’m going to assume they’re yours because you were tagged. Plus the shrinky-dink seems about the right size for you.”
“My balls are swollen. It makes my dick look way smaller than it is.”
“So it is a picture of your dick!”
“I didn’t say that!” Shit. I hate it when Violet gets up to her trickery.
“Yes, you did!”
“Didn’t.”
“Di—I’m not playing this game with you. It’s your dick. I recognize the shorts. You wore them the last time I saw you, jerkface. What I want to know is how and why it ended up all over social media. You’re supposed to be at a camp, not flashing your balls all over the place. Plus there’s another picture of you in the same damn shorts with a Sunny look-a-like hanging off you. She’s been posting the picture everywhere, which wouldn’t be so bad if the one of your damn balls wasn’t right beside it. You better not be messing around on Sunny. Alex won’t have to kick your ass. I will!”
“Hold on.”
“Don’t tell me to hold on—”
I take the phone away from my ear. I can still hear her giving me shit as I type in a search of my name + dick. The first link is a medical site with the picture Randy took, along with the question. “What kind of spider bite causes this sort of swelling?”
After that is the group photo with me and my unfortunately swollen nuts. My balls are circled in red, and Sunny’s Doppelganger has reposted it, along with the ball pic. And she’s also posted one where she cropped everyone else out but the two of us and made it her damn profile picture. So much for her concern about me. It’s amazing how quickly pictures I don’t want circulating can go viral within the span of a couple hours.
There’s nothing I can do to stop this trainwreck now that it’s happened. I go to my own social media profiles to find I’ve been tagged by an insane number of people. There’s loads of bunny love offering to come take care of my balls for me, and wishing me a speedy recovery.
“It looks bad, doesn’t it?”
“Bad? It looks like you’re messing around on Sunny with someone who looks like Sunny! How am I supposed to help you when things like this keep showing up?”
I scrub a palm over my face. “This relationship is doomed to fail.” I explain what happened with the whole spider bite fiasco.
“Well, I see what you’re saying, but I still think maybe you’re right,” she mutters. “It’s doomed if you keep pulling stunts like this. I don’t even know what to say to you anymore.”