“Not at all. You have no idea how many times I actually wished I was you during all this. Life would be so much easier. I think all the messaging people and pretending to be you screwed with my head. I lost a real sense of who I was.”
Now Callum’s eyes clouded with sympathy. “I had no idea.”
“You shouldn’t have had him doing that in the first place,” Leanne put in, her voice scolding. “Not after …” she trailed off, and I knew what she’d been about to say. Not after how I’d told her I had feelings for her, and she’d rejected me in favour of Callum.
Callum looked at her, then ran a hand down his face. “Fuck, I’m an idiot.”
“You aren’t. Regardless of the personal struggles I was dealing with, what I did was wholly unprofessional. I completely understand if you fire me. In fact, I insist that you do. I broke your trust in the most abhorrent manner, and Annabelle has screenshots saved of our conversations. Conversations that make it look like you were cheating on Leanne with a fan. If she publishes them online, it’ll cause you no end of bad press.”
“Actually, about that,” Leanne said. “There’s a reason Afric ran off just now. She and I were talking in the bathroom, and we hatched a plan.”
“What sort of plan?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Callum added, eyeing his partner. “What sort of plan?”
Afric
“Okay, are you both absolutely sure you got everything?” I asked through my headset. It was two in the morning, and I was on a video call with TheBigSix and Yellowshoes.
I drank several glasses of water as soon as I got home. I’d needed to sober up enough to explain the situation to them after running out of the nightclub like I’d left a candle burning next to a set of linen curtains. Neil was clearly furious with me, but he could yell at me and hate me later. Right then, I had a plan to put into motion.
After Annabelle had pulled that USB drive from her bag, I knew it could work. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who kept backups of her backups. More than likely, the USB was the only place she’d saved the screenshots other than her computer and phone.
I’d swiftly destroyed the drive before hurrying home and explaining the situation to my friends. It hadn’t taken too much grovelling to convince them to do me this massive (if somewhat illegal) favour.
Okay, so I promised to buy them a bunch of new weapons and ammo in Greenforest, and they’d readily agreed to hack Annabelle’s computer, phone, and cloud files.
“We got everything,” TheBigSix reassured me. “Veritably scrubbed clean. I’m nothing if not thorough.”
“Yeah, hon, relax. We got you,” Yellowshoes added. “Of note, while rooting through this Annabelle person’s files, I noticed a few workout videos where she’s blatantly padded her ass to make it look bigger.”
“Don’t they all do that nowadays?” TheBigSix asked. “I thought it was the norm.”
“I guess it’s no stranger than putting chicken fillets in your bra,” Yellowshoes mused.
“New business idea. We could start manufacturing backside padding. We’d make a fortune in fudge,” TheBigSix joked.
“Oh! That could definitely work,” Yellowshoes agreed.
I couldn’t believe how quickly they’d moved onto other topics. They didn’t even seem phased that they’d just committed a cybercrime, even if it was for the greater good. Clearly, I had excellent taste in friends.
And clearly, they’d both done far shadier things online in the past.
Best not to question it.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but padded underwear is already a thing. You’d be entering a competitive market,” I said.
“What if it wasn’t underwear but an actual synthetic butt that looks real?” Yellowshoes countered.
“That’s a bit weird, love,” TheBigSix commented. “Even for my standards.”
I shook my head in amusement as the two of them continued discussing their hypothetical arse enhancing business, my thoughts wandering to Neil. The look on his face when he realised I’d told Leanne the truth cut me to the quick. I didn’t regret what I’d done, though. In fact, I was relieved that it was finally over. Leanne had reassured me Neil wouldn’t be fired. She actually seemed to blame herself a little since she and Callum getting together had contributed to Neil’s low self-esteem at the time. That, combined with him having to pretend to be Callum as part of his work duties, well, she clearly understood it was a lot to take on.
Now, I just needed to worry about how badly I’d fucked up Neil’s and my tentative … whatever it was. Okay, so I was pretty sure I was in love with him. And now I had to do whatever was in my power to earn his trust back. But what if I couldn’t? What if I’d ruined things forever?
The thought made my heart feel like it had fallen out of my chest and plopped onto the floor where it was about to be sucked up by a diligent Roomba.