Page 121 of Broken Brothers

I decided that she was just asking in an innocent manner, as if she wanted to see me dance. I took a goofy selfie in which I held my thumb up, sent it to her, and turned back to the TV.

It only took less than a minute for her to write back.

“Silly, that is showing me excitement. But I want to see something like this…”

I gulped as I nervously waited for what was to come. I had no idea what was coming, but if someone had hacked Sarah’s account…

What showed up next most certainly got me excited.

It was a modeling photo of Sarah Hill on the beach, clothes off, back to me, her hair brushing in the wind, her eyes peering over her shoulder. It looked like something out of Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot, and it had me so stiff I could have blown right there in my pants.

“!!!!” was all I could reply with, and it was exactly how I felt in that moment. It was about the extent of my speaking capabilities at that moment too—I was so caught dumbfounded by the attractiveness that I saw that I almost began stroking myself off to the photo.

“Like what you see, don’t you?” she said. “This will be all yours in two weeks. Just give me something to think about too.”

Even with the erotic lust rushing through my body, though, I still didn’t feel keen on sending her something so inappropriate. But, then again, she hadn’t sent me anything that would, say, get banned on social media. It was risque, for sure, but it wasn’t sexually inappropriate for anyone over the age of, say, 10.

So… I compromised. I took my shirt off, lowered my pants to just half an inch above my dick, and took a photo that showed off my barrel chest and washboard abs. It looked like I was naked in the photo, but there was nothing that anyone could see that would make them think I was technically naked. No dick, no groin hair, nothing.

I had it uploaded on Facebook and felt a tinge of nervousness. Just coming off of the spying of Edwin, I worried that if my Facebook ever got hacked, this might get used against me somehow.

… but the more I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to “in what way?” A shirtless photo wasn’t against the law, and one without sexual content certainly wasn’t. Sure, I didn’t exactly look like I was smiling for a family beach photo, but the only scandalous thing that would happen if this photo got leaked was the number of women who would be trying to find me.

I sent it. For a few minutes, nothing happened. I told myself that Sarah was probably just waking up in New Zealand and was going about cooking her food, so as unfazed as I could, I turned my attention back to SportsCenter.

Still, when she hadn’t responded after fifteen minutes… I wouldn’t call it insecurity in if she liked it or not, but more like insecurity on if it had remained private between us. It was an odd thing to say, given that anything Sarah could say wouldn’t confirm the privacy of our conversation, but still, hearing from her would be—

“Oh, my,” she wrote with the heart emoji.

I just laughed. I decided to leave the conversation at that—Sarah could always follow up later or I could always follow up later.

It made me think about the Sarah Hill I had known—she had let me go further than I ever had at twelve years old, but she had never struck me as the model-nude-on-the-beach type. Then again, how could anyone have predicted that?

Maybe being in a stuffy family as she was had led her to pursue more sexually liberal opportunities. I imagined that if she had a photo like the one that she had sent me, she would have many more risque ones I could save for myself. The thought was titillating to say the least.

Still, it was also a little bit weird to classify “middle school crush” and “sex-crazed model” in the same sentence. It was like a part of my childhood had grown up, which wasn’t to say it was ruined, but the image of good-girl Sarah was gone now.

Perhaps, though, it never existed.

I didn’t have that much time to think about it, though, because a few minutes later, Morgan finally walked back in.

“How’s it going?” I said.

Morgan looked at me confused, tugged at his shirt, and shrugged.

“Messaging with Sarah,” I said. “How are things?”

“Well,” Morgan said. “We should talk.”

50

Of all the things I wanted to hear, “we should talk,” was pretty close to the top for the worst three words anyone could hear.

I was used to hearing them in the context of a relationship with a girl, but hearing them in business was just as troubling. I don’t think anyone in history had ever heard good news from those words—and if they had, it had come in a joking manner, as if setting the stage for something serious, only for it to get humorous and good-natured quickly.

But Morgan didn’t play this game. When he was funny, he was funny. When he was serious, he was serious. He didn’t hide his emotions well, and he didn’t like to jut from one extreme to the other. This was not going to be a fun conversation.

“I take it you heard what happened with my father,” Morgan said.