Page 100 of The Rules of Dating a Younger Man
The following Tuesday night, I was over at Owen’s brownstone back in the City. He and Devyn had invited me to have dinner and catch up. This was probably only the third time I’d been over to his new place. The aroma of seafood and onions cooking on the stove swirled around me in the living room as Owen and his fiancée worked in the kitchen to prepare the meal.
Devyn’s teenage brother, Heath, sat on the couch opposite me. His sister Hannah was in her room doing homework. Devyn’s siblings technically lived with their mother, but my understanding was that they were at Owen and Devyn’s the majority of the time. They each had their own room here, too.
Heath stood and moved closer to show me something on his phone. “Hey, remember this?” He faced the screen toward me, revealing the video he’d taken of me and Alex kissing against the building the time she’d visited Manhattan. My chest tightened. It was painful to watch—especially after this past weekend. But damn. That was some memory. I’d been so into her that day.
Devyn’s brother was known for posting shit on the Internet, and several of his videos had gone viral. Owen had warned me that Heath had this footage, but Heath had never mentioned it to me before now.
“I do remember that day, yeah,” I finally said once I’d managed to pry my eyes away. “And I’d prefer you erase it from your phone.”
“Why would I do that?” He smiled. “It’s too much fun being able to threaten you with it.”
“There are much more interesting things than two people kissing on the street. People aren’t going to care about that.”
“You don’t think this would go viral?”
“I would hope not.”
He shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
“Please don’t.”
“If I add some interesting music or a funny caption to it, it might do well. Plus, chicks love sappy kissing stuff like this.”
I gritted my teeth. “Can you please…not?”
Heath crossed his arms. “How much you gonna give me if I don’t post it?”
“If you don’t post it, I won’t tell your sister you’re trying to extort me. Pretty sure she wouldn’t be too happy if she knew.”
“She already knows how I operate. Heck, I’ve threatened her. She still loves me.” He laughed. “The other day she was singing in the shower, and I recorded it from behind the door. Her voice could kill the birds outside. Saving that one for collateral.”
Begging wasn’t going to stop this kid. I had to try a different route. “I know you’re pretty young, but have you ever had your heart broken, Heath?”
He looked away, seeming to ponder. “Yeah. Once.”
“When?”
“When I was in middle school. There was this girl, Ava. She’s my friend’s sister. She sort of made me think she liked me, and then did a total one-eighty. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Oh, you don’t want to talk about it? Because it sucked, right? So why relive it?”
“Right.”
“Okay, well, imagine if on top of everything else, I had some video of you kissing Ava. And I threatened to plaster it all over the Internet—not only for you to see, but everyone else, too. Then every time you saw it, you’d have to think about how things had turned out between you and her. How would that make you feel?”
His smirk faded, and he exhaled. “That woman in the video broke your heart?”
“It’s a long story, but we’re not together anymore. And that thing going viral—or even a hundred people looking at it—would really suck. It’s not that I don’t want you to have your fun or grow your following. And I can normally take one for the team and laugh at my own expense. But that video? I don’t want to see that ever again, let alone a million times.”
Heath hung his head. “Damn. Now I feel bad.”
I arched a brow. “Bad enough to delete it?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know.”
I reached for my wallet. “How about bad enough to delete it with twenty bucks?”
He scratched his chin. “Fifty makes me feel particularly bad for you.”