Through sheer force of will I manage to recover enough to nod but can’t do not much else.
“She’s not doing great right now, but she’ll recover,” he says. “Eventually. I guess. But she might be offline for a while.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say. “What happened?”
“As for you thinking I did something to her, I didn’t,” he says, completely ignoring my question as he turns his phone so I can see the screen. “I’ve known her all my life. She’s the daughter of a good friend of my father’s. This was taken about ten years ago.”
He means the photo he’s showing me on his phone and which I finally take a better look at. I recognize Chance right away. He has the same hair and the same ready smile on his lips that I saw the first day we met. His arms are around the shoulders of a dark-haired boy on one side and a girl that is unmistakably teenage Harper, with her pretty face and long straight dark brown hair on the other. She’s holding a guitar in front of her, and they’re all smiling widely and excitedly.
“This was taken right after her first recital at school. It was the first time she performed for an actual audience, and it went well,” he says. “She’s like a sister to me and one of the last people in the world I would ever hurt. I hope that answers your question. You caught me at a bad time yesterday.”
No doubt, but what does he mean,oneof the last people in the world he’d ever hurt?
“Who’s the other kid in the photo? Your brother?” I ask, since I think I saw him at the festival talking to Harper too, and the last thing I want is to ask the question that’s really on my mind.
He takes the phone back and lays it screen-down on the desk.
“That’s Hunter and yes,” he says in voice that reminds me of rocks crumbling. “So, what do you want me to do here today? Take out more trash?”
He’s being sarcastic, but I only realize that after having already looked around the room reflexively to see if maybe there was some trash he could take out. My eyes catch on the workstation I set up for him by the window to the side of my desk yesterday.
“I thought you could help me go over some footage for my next video,” I say, even though I already did all that last night.
“Sure,” he says and leans forward in his seat, groaning, wincing then looking annoyed for a second. “But I don’t know much about making documentaries, just so you know.”
He doesn’t have to because that’s not the real reason I want him to watch them. I want him to see the victims of sex-trafficking and hear their stories firsthand. But I suddenly feel very duplicitous and ashamed for it. Maybe it’s the photo he showed me, he looked so innocent and happy in it. But that’s not the man he turned out to be.
“There’s not much to it,” I say and stand up. “You can watch a few of the videos I’ve done over the years to get a feel for it.”
He stands up too and I move over to his workstation and fire up the computer. “After that, I just want you to watch a couple of interviews and sift through them to find ones that are the most complete and well rounded. The ones that aren’t I edit into longer documentaries, but the complete ones I use on their own on my YouTube channel.”
I’m explaining all this while opening files at random to find the ones I think he should watch first.
He’s standing so close behind my back I’m getting slightly lightheaded from inhaling his fresh summertime scent. Or maybe it’s from the anxiety over realizing that he can smell me too, and my scent is nowhere near as deliciously intoxicating. More like, it’s just toxic.
I stand aside and tell him to sit.
“This is my YouTube channel,” I say, opening the browser and clicking through to the list of videos in chronological order.
“Wow, you have over 500K subscribers,” he says, whistling appreciatively as he sits slowly and gingerly in the chair I pulled out for him. “You’re like internet famous.”
“My goal for this year is to grow my following to a million,” I say. “But I might not hit it.”
“I can help you with that,” he says. “I helped Harper when she was starting out. I’m better at that than making videos.”
“Sure, yeah, thanks,” I say, kind of wishing very much that I could just take him up on that offer, that he was just a friendly guy who could grow my social media following and not what he actually is—a criminal responsible for ruining the lives of little girls that become women I’m trying to help and empower.
I think I now finally know why my blood’s always up around him. It’s because the reality of what he is and the fantasy of what I’d like him to be are so far apart. Maybe. Or maybe it’s just his good looks and fresh scent that won’t quit messing with my mind.
“And after you watch a few of the videos, get started on watching the ones is the folder named, New Stuff,” I tell him and walk away from him. “I’m just going up to my apartment to shower and change.”
“OK, good,” he says and I feel my cheeks heat up to what feels like boiling, even though he didn’t actually comment on my B.O.
But when I look at him, he’s grinning at me, so maybe he did.
So I just grab my purse and stalk out of the office, wishing I could instantly forget about this latest embarrassment of myself in his eyes, which just keep piling up.
Why do I even care?