Chapter Three #3
Atticus and his fucking cat pictures. He sent them daily, often in bursts of a dozen or more at a time. But Sammie knew that if she ignored him, he would just keep sending more.
Unlocking her phone, Sammie realized she still had her thread with Ivy open to ball cap guy’s profile. She was about to close out the app entirely when something in one of his photos caught her eye. Sammie clicked on it, squinting to focus.
It was another picture of him, shirtless again, hat still firmly in place shadowing his identity.
But that wasn’t what had caught her eye.
No, it was the faint trace of a scar she could see along his upper arm.
She tried to ignore thoughts of what that arm was doing just out of frame, instead zooming in on his bicep.
Sammie recognized that scar.
Its crescent moon shape. The placement, right beneath his left shoulder. It was smaller than she remembered, but he’d grown since the last time she’d seen it.
Flashes of a memory tore through her mind. A ball spiked hard on a run down sandy court. A dive that had saved the day.
Kieran jumping up from the sand, blood running down his arm, a wide smile on his face as he high-fived every player on their makeshift team. He hadn’t cared that a rock had just gouged out a chunk of his skin. Not when his save had won them the game.
Sammie’s blood ran cold as sobriety washed over her.
Fuck. Shit. That was Kieran in the picture.
Sammie took a quick screenshot, firing off a rapid series of texts to her brother before dropping her phone onto her chest. Her mind continued to race, to circle around what exactly she had just potentially discovered.
Sammie: Attie omg
Sammie: Attachment
Sammie: The scar on his arm
Sammie: That’s Kieran
Sammie: Tell me I’m wrong
It wasn’t long before a response vibrated through her.
Atticus: Okay, first of all, did you just send me porn?
Atticus: Second of all
Atticus: That is 100% kieran
Atticus: Sammie, how the fuck did you stumble on this goldmine
Sammie: It’s the account Ivy sent me, but I don’t think she knows
Sammie: That it’s him
Atticus: I don’t know if i’m more horrified or turned on to be completely honest
Atticus: He looks fucking good
Atticus: He’s also my captain and bestie, ew fuck
Sammie: What do I do???
Atticus: I know what i would do if i were you but i don’t want you to fucking tell me about it
Atticus: Hang on, kai wants in on this
Sammie: DON’T TELL KAI
Kai: Too late.
Kai: Just subscribed to his page.
Atticus: WHAT THE FUCK KAI
Atticus: I’M SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU BITCH
Kai: ˉ\_(ツ)_/ˉ
Kai: He’s hot.
Sammie: I hate you both
Sammie: … but like, details pls
Her phone went silent, a quiet that dragged out too long.
Sammie clicked it off, picking up the heavy book resting on her stomach, scanning the page to find where she’d left off.
Her eyes took in the words, but she wasn’t comprehending them, not when her mind couldn’t stop flashing with the images she’d just seen.
Her phone pinged again as she reached her bed, falling into it as she pulled up a video Kai had sent.
Oh fuck. It was Kieran again, and this time she knew for sure. The room was dark, but she could make out the corner of a jersey hanging on the wall. No name was visible, nor was the number, but even in the dim lighting Sammie recognized that atrocious shade of yellow.
Atticus: THE JERSEY
Sammie: I KNOW
Kai: Am I the only one that actually paid attention to the video?
Sammie restarted it, this time focusing on the show Kieran was putting on.
And what a show it was. Heat burned Sammie’s cheeks as she watched him reach into his pants.
The harsh sounds of his breathing had warmth pooling between her legs, and she nearly dropped her phone on her face when he let out a ragged moan.
That was it. It was explicit, sure, but she hadn’t seen anything more than the motions of what he was so clearly doing. And he’d ended the clip before things had, well, ended. But the sounds he had made were already replaying in Sammie’s mind on a loop.
She was a simple girl, and she was still high. It took every effort not to slide her hand into her own underwear.
Sammie: We have to tell him
Kai: HA I don’t have to tell anyone anything, I’m just an innocent bystander.
Atticus: I’m not saying jack shit sis!
Sammie: Goddammit
Sammie: Don’t you feel guilty?? We aren’t supposed to know about this
Atticus: Not really
Kai: Nope.
Sammie dropped her phone back onto her chest. Her brother and his wonderful boyfriend were absolutely useless. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, letting out a groan that was half horny and half anguished.
What the actual fuck was she supposed to do with this information? Sure, the intended purpose of Kieran’s content was for other people to enjoy it. But Sammie wasn’t going to let herself get off to to his video, that felt so wrong. An invasion of privacy that she didn’t know how to unpack.
Kieran looked good in the video. Really good.
The timestamp showed it had been posted tonight.
Had he really done that after she’d seen him?
Sammie couldn’t manage to marry the two images warring in her head.
One of the sweet guy she’d been crushing on for ages, the other of a man pleasuring himself for an audience.
Sammie had questions. About a million of them. But her thoughts were still coming slowly, and she didn’t know which one to start with.
But then one thought snagged, waving like a banner in her mind.
Did Kieran make money doing this sort of thing? As far as she knew, he didn’t have another job outside of playing for the Cats. And Atticus made a decent salary, but nothing to write home about. He still had to bartend on the side occasionally.
Before she could think better of it, Sammie pulled up a thread that had thus far been mostly used to schedule grain deliveries. Maybe Atticus was too chicken shit to say anything, but Sammie was high and her inhibitions were mostly nonexistent at this point.
Sammie: Hey. I need to tell you something
Sammie: I’m just gonna say it because idk what else to do
Sammie: I saw your videos. The… spicy ones?
Sammie: Fuck omg I hate this
Sammie: That sounds too negative, I didn’t mean it like that. Sex work is awesome!
Sammie: I want to crawl in a hole and die actually. What you’re doing is great, please ignore me. Except maybe don’t ignore me, because I want to ask you some questions, if you’re okay with that. Can we get food or something after the game?
Sammie chucked her phone onto the other side of the bed and groaned. Shit. Fuck. What had she just done? Why had she rambled on like that? There was no way Kieran would take it as a normal reaction to what she had seen.
Her skin burned, her limbs going tingly as it all began to sink in.
The Sammie of tomorrow was going to be murderous, but the Sammie of tonight couldn’t undo any of it, so she yanked the covers up to her chin, cycled through a few breathing exercises, and tried not to think about things like repercussions and regret as she closed her eyes and waited for sleep to take her.