Chapter 5: Mick

Chapter Five

MICK

S ilence hangs in the air between us like a giant black cloud weighing down the lines until it hits the ground with a thud. Or maybe that’s my stomach dropping between my knees. Either way, I feel like I could puke.

“What happened?” she finally says.

I explain the situation with the new account and then how my dumbass attempted to defend her honor like she’s a helpless maiden and I’m on a white horse charging to her rescue because as great as that image is in my head, it didn’t play out that way.

“Whyyyyyyyyy?”

“Can we move past the ‘Mick’s a bumbling idiot’ to ‘This is how we solve the problem’? Do you know who he is? Like maybe he donated to you and you have his credit card number. You give me his ID and I go wreck him.”

“I can’t do that. There are privacy laws and stuff like that.”

“Not to be that guy, but your safety is at issue here. Do those laws really matter?”

“If I don’t want my one source of income taken away, yes.”

It’s terrible when reasonable answers torpedo my great ideas.

“All right. We can go back to ‘Mick’s a bumbling idiot’ then. What kind of trouble is this going to cause?”

“Can we back all the way up to why didn’t you just message me from your original account?”

There is no good way to explain to her my messed-up thinking about how I was going to cyberstalk her like a tool so that I could assuage my loneliness.

“Josie, Josie, Josie, didn’t we establish long ago that I am the brawn in this relationship? I bring my fists and my pretty face to the party. You bring the brains.” And the hot body and the gorgeous face, but I’m supposed to pretend I don’t see her as a girl so as to continue the fiction that we’re besties. “What are your brains telling you we should do?”

“Not try to hack into the credit card services and obtain private information.”

“Okay, so how about I continue DMing this guy, get his private information, and then go whack him?”

“And then he reports you for assault, you get arrested and then prison time because you already have a record, and your whole dream of becoming a professional boxer is flushed down the toilet.”

“Can you use your brains for scenarios that don’t include me getting arrested?”

“I think we might be at an impasse here.”

The silence we started the call with creeps back in. I hate it. “What are you doing right now?”

“I’m sitting in my robe eating ramen. Thrilling, right?”

Actually, very. I shiver lightly. She probably has nothing on under that robe. My cock starts to rise at the thought. Nearly naked Josie. What a dream. “Do you have your webcam around? Want to video chat? I can show you my fancy place.”

There’s a half a beat of hesitation before Josie says, “Sure. Why not.”

“Don’t sound too enthused. I may get nervous.”

“When have you ever been nervous? You were born with nerves of steel.” Her voice sounds far away. “Do you have a webcam?”

“I don’t know. I think there’s one in the monitor. It’s an all-in-one thing.” I check the box. “It says there’s a 1080p camera.”

“I’m hooked up,” she says, slightly out of breath. My cock goes from half-mast to full bore at the sound of her labored breathing. Like if she was under me and I was driving into her, that’s what she’d sound like—choppy breath, words short. Fuccccck me.

I’m fully hard. I move my face from side to side. Would she be able to tell I’m turned on? I look down at my lap. “Get yourself under control,” I mutter.

“What did you say? I don’t think the input on your mic is high enough.”

“I said, ‘I’m getting it under control.’”

“Oh, okay, whenever you’re ready. I’m going to send you a link. Do you want me to send it to your old account or your new fake one that you’re using to terrorize people in my Discord server?”

“Old one, please.”

The link pops up in my inbox, and a few seconds later, Josie’s face appears on my 27” screen. I’m speechless. She’s so beautiful. Her face is oval shaped with a slightly pointy chin. Her nose is small, like a button on a stuffed animal. Her eyes look blue on my screen, but I know in person they shift from blue to green depending on what she wears. Her robe is an old velour one that hung on the back of her bedroom door. It smells like apples and pears, which she once told me was her shower soap. I should buy that. It would make my place smell better.

“I think your internet is glitching. Your image is frozen. You might want to restart,” Josie says.

“It’s back on now,” I lie.

“You have a nasty bruise above your eye.” She grimaces. “How bad are they beating you up there?”

I’d forgotten about that. Harry hit me there a couple of days ago, and I don’t even feel it anymore. It’s my ribs that are aching today. “Pretty bad. You should come here and take care of me.”

She raises both eyebrows. “I’m sure you have plenty of girls who can wipe the sweat off your brow.”

“Not a single one. Pedro, my trainer, doesn’t believe in girls or parties. He says if either one exist in my life, I’m not serious enough about training.” Pedro has trained four world title holders. I’m not about to piss him off.

“Hmmmm.” She doesn’t seem to believe me. “Where are you staying?”

“Some prison complex that was converted into apartments.” I swing the monitor around so she can see the space. “Besides the boring living room, there’s a bathroom and a bedroom. I’m sitting in the kitchen.”

“That place is tiny. Does Lauren know where you’re staying?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Isn’t her husband loaded? Why are you living like you’re sentenced to solitary confinement?”

“Because that’s how I’m going to win.” And be rich on my own and then make you believe you can’t live without me. “Now, back to you. How are we fixing my mistake?”