The Hookup Equation (Loveless Brothers 4)

“You worked with Nathaniel Johnston, right?” Victoria asks.

“Yeah, he was Dr. Castellano’s other research assistant,” I say. “But he got kicked out last week —”

“See, I told you she’d know,” Harper says to Victoria. “Well, do you want to know why?”

“Obviously.”

“Check your email.”

I take a gulp of wine, then lean forward, toward the laptop. I pull up my email, click the link that Harper just sent.

“If this gives me a virus I’ll — uh, what?”

A video pops up of a woman, naked on all fours, on a bed. She looks over at the camera like she’s checking on it, then tosses her hair back.

“Come on,” she says in a weird, breathy voice. “I’m so horny for you.”

“Did you send me porn?!” I ask, pushing the laptop away from me. “Why did you send me porn?”

“Just wait,” Harper says grimly.

I drink the wine and watch. It’s very clearly amateur and looks like it was made by propping a phone up on a dresser or something.

Not that I’m an expert. I’ve watched porn on occasion — hi, I’m human — but overall I find it so chemistry-less and mechanical that I may as well be watching a video of someone putting legos together.

A man climbs onto the bed behind the woman, both their faces blurry and in shadow, his dick fully visible. I take another sip of wine.

I hope Dad doesn’t have some sort of tracker set up on the wifi here, I think.

The man inserts his penis into the woman. She makes a theatrical noise. I make a face.

No, if he had a tracker set up he’d know Bastien was gay. I’m good.

“Oh, daddy, I like that,” the woman says. I am unconvinced by her performance.

“Yeah, you like that?” the man says, pumping harder.

“Wait,” I say, bells going off in my head, leaning closer to the screen.

“Mhm,” says Harper, in her I told you so voice.

“I like it, daddy,” she moans again.

“You like that?” the man says, repetitively, and I gasp.

Not because of the bad dialogue, but because I know that voice.

“No,” I tell Harper and Victoria, scandalized. If I had pearls, I’d clutch them. “No fucking way.”

“Fucking way,” Victoria says.

“The money shot is about thirty seconds in,” Harper says.

“That fast?” I ask, trying not to wrinkle my nose.

“Not that money shot!” she says. “Ew.”

“Harper, you are literally showing me porn!”

Victoria is laughing hysterically in the background.

“I mean the regular kind of non-porn money shot. Ew.”

“You do know the term money shot originated in porn? That’s what money shot means.”

Now we’re both giggling. I can hear Victoria snort-laugh.

“Just pay attention for like ten more seconds, okay? There’s a non-literal money shot.”

I take a long drink of the wine and watch my laptop screen through the glass. Frankly, it improves the experience.

Then, suddenly, something shakes whatever the camera is on, and the camera tilts until nothing’s visible but the ceiling.

“Shit,” the man’s voice says.

“Thalia!” Harper says. “Here. Right here.”

Despite my better judgement and serious reservations, I lean in.

A few seconds later, Nathaniel’s face fills the screen.

I yelp and slam my laptop shut, then just stare at the closed lid in horror. It takes me several seconds, first of slow, controlled breathing, and then of gulping the rest of my wine, to process what I just saw.

And what I just saw was my quiet, polite, and utterly nondescript co-research-assistant nailing some girl on the internet.

“What was that?” I ask, the only question I can get my mouth to say right now.

“Well, Thalia, when a man and a woman love each other very much, they set up a camera —”

“That’s the reason that Nathaniel is no longer a Madison Scholar at the Virginia State University,” Victoria interrupts. “He’s got a whole RedTube channel. Username NastyNatty.”

The wine sloshes in my stomach, and there’s one second where I honest-to-God think it might come back up.

“NastyNatty?” I ask, weakly.

“It’s all been pulled down, of course,” Victoria goes on. “But the internet remembers everything.”

“Who’s the girl?”

“Her name is Allison or something, she’s not a student,” Harper chimes in. “I guess she’s his girlfriend, she’s in most of the videos.”

I narrow my eyes at TV across the living room, staring into its blank space like it can provide me with an explanation.

“Most? How many have you guys watched?”

Victoria’s laughing again, but Harper huffs.

“We fast-forwarded through several of them out of curiosity,” she says. “I’m not sure he lives up to his moniker. It’s all very straightforward.”

“Not nearly nasty enough,” adds Victoria, still laughing.

“Ew,” Harper tells her, but then they both start giggling.

I stand and head into the kitchen, my phone still with me as I open the cabinet and pour myself the rest of the wine. I haven’t drunk at all this week — as far as coping mechanisms go, I prefer long showers, sleeping too much, and binge-watching bad period dramas — but this is it. This is the straw that broke the camel’s back and drove me to drink.