Page 78 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series

From the rather loud fart that echoed out of the bathroom as the door closed, followed by a distressed moan, Christian was betting the man wasn’t quite as quick on his feet as he might have wished.

If it weren’t for the fact that he was privy to what Ethan was up to, Christian would have felt a genuine pang of guilt for what he’d done.

As it was, he could push the nagging emotion out of the way and hurry over to the couch.

Thankful he didn’t have to hunt for the computer and was far enough away from the bathroom, but where Christian’s paranoid ears could hear if the door opened, he plopped down.

Opening the lid, he waited until the screen lit up and displayed one profile to log into.

Grimacing, he pulled out the small thumb drive in his pocket and tapped the spacebar to begin trying to log onto Ethan’s computer.

To his complete surprise, the login screen disappeared, showing a logo and then the home screen.

“Seriously, no password?” Christian muttered to himself.

Then again, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised.

He knew far too many people in his age group and younger who weren’t particularly careful about their security.

That went double for people like Ethan, who lived alone.

Since no roommate could snoop, he probably thought he was safe.

Which was odd since he was not only comfortable with bringing relative strangers into his home but was also currently trying to blackmail someone he was paranoid would find a way to get to him.

“Alrighty then,” Christian said with a shake of his head.

He’d been dreading the moment he’d have to get past a password screen.

Having been spared that, he took the flash drive and pushed it into the computer’s USB port.

It took a moment, but the laptop pinged to signify it recognized it.

He opened the folder containing the files and began digging through the drive.

It took only a minute, but he quickly found the folder he was looking for.

To his even greater annoyance, the folder was labeled David.

Rolling his eyes, he opened it, his brow rising as he found not only a video but a few dozen pictures as well.

Almost before he could catch himself, Christian moved the cursor over one of the pictures, clicked, and then paused.

Grimacing, he moved the cursor away and opened the video folder instead, remembering to hit the mute button at the last second as the video began to play.

His heart leaped as the familiar video started. Ethan had sent the first couple of minutes instead of any specific part. Having confirmed it was the right video, he looked at the timestamp, cocking his head as he realized the full length was over an hour.

“Damn, nice stamina, General,” Christian muttered.

He transferred the full-length file to his thumb drive and promptly deleted all the pictures.

For good measure, remembering the video had been edited, he found the folder for edited videos and deleted the copies there.

After another moment’s thought, he decided to check if Ethan was a liar as well as a blackmailer.

Moving the cursor to the taskbar at the bottom, he smirked as he saw a cloud icon.

As he opened it, he jerked and heard the toilet flush.

He sat there, waiting, his heart in his throat.

The sound of the door never came as he sat there for what felt like an eternity.

Heart still hammering, he returned to the screen and snorted as he found a copy of all the files in the online storage.

“An idiot, but not a complete idiot,” Christian mused as he deleted them.

But also not bright enough to keep his things under lockdown.

Christian chuckled, moving one of Lily’s files on his thumb drive over to the hard drive and activating it.

It was a small gift from Lily, who swore up and down that, given an hour or so, it would scrub everything in the background of Ethan’s computer.

If done right, it would make sure nothing deleted or indexed would be accessible, no matter how good the person was with computer systems. Content to let it run in the background, he put the laptop back on the table.

Pocketing the flash drive, he hummed contentedly. His good mood didn’t stop when he heard the toilet flush again, followed by the sound of running water. Christian pulled his phone out, quickly opening a browser and idly scrolling as he heard the bathroom door open.

Ethan, still green in the face, leaned out from the hallway. “Hey, uh, I’m really sorry about this.”

Christian peered up, eyes wide with concern. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

“I think I ate something...wrong. Sorry, I know that’s not what you wanted to hear,” Ethan muttered, looking away.

Christian shook his head, pocketing his phone. “No, don’t be sorry. It happens to the best of us. Do you need anything?”

“No, but I don’t...I know, nothing will be happening tonight, not with...this. Um, maybe another time?” Ethan offered, hopefully.

Christian smiled softly, nodding. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you probably don’t want company. You just worry about feeling better, alright?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ethan said with another grimace.

Christian walked to the front door opening it. “Text me?”

Ethan put on a pained smile. “As soon as I’m better.”

Christian nodded. “Looking forward to it.”

The look of concern on his face melted as he closed the door behind him. Christian jogged down the stairs leading to the street and onto the sidewalk. As he pulled out his phone to order a ride back to the base, he also pulled out the thumb drive and stared at it with a wide grin.

“Definitely looking forward to it,” he said.