Chapter 13

“Oh my, did you just read my mind?” David asked as Crystal handed him a bottle of water.

“I did, and what you thought about my ass in these pants is very inappropriate.”

She saw David close his eyes for a moment to keep a straight face. Rush was almost over, and she guessed he’d had his picture taken more in the past three hours than he usually did on a photo shoot. The poor photographer had bailed after two hours. David’s brother Phil had stepped up and used Taylor’s phone to take them for the last hour.

“Were there any girls you liked?” Crystal asked.

David pulled out his phone and sent her a list he’d been compiling all night.

“Do you want me to send you my list of the absolutely nots, or do you plan to ignore it like you did last time?”

“Wren would never have been asked to join if I’d listened to you.”

“My point exactly,” David said.

Crystal ignored his comment as Taylor came bounding up.

“Now the real work begins, sorting through all those girls,” Taylor said.

“David just sent me a list. I’ll forward it to you,” Crystal said.

Taylor looked at her phone and blinked a few times. Crystal decided she should see what had fried her friend’s mind, because she was never without a comment on every and all topics. What she saw made her smile.

There was only one name on the list: Tori Rankin. Crystal remembered that name on her ‘absolutely not’ list. The orange-haired girl looked like a roller-derby queen with her spiked pixie cut, multiple piercings, and robust frame. Her whole vibe screamed, ‘I hate sororities.’

“You might have to walk me through this one,” Crystal said.

“She’s in my acting class. Tori was dressed like that because she was auditioning for a play and came straight here so she wouldn’t miss your rush,” David said. He showed them a picture of her without her makeup.

Crystal and Taylor had to look hard before they saw it. That put-together blonde couldn’t possibly be the orange-haired abomination ... could she?

“Is that a cashmere sweater from Harrods?! Ahhh!! Look at her Jimmy Choo loafers! They’re incredible!! And a Louis Vuitton clutch ... Gucci ... Burberry ... Hermes ... a Rolex?!” Taylor asked.

David looked pleased with himself.

“Take her and dump the rest. She’ll be running your house by summer,” David predicted, adding, “I gave Crystal a list of girls you should pass on.”

“Send it,” Taylor demanded.

Taylor scrolled through the list and pointed at one.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s a jock bunny who just went home with my brother,” David said.

Taylor looked confused, so Crystal whispered in her ear what a ‘jock bunny’ was.

“Oh. That could be problematic.”

“It might attract more football players to the house,” Crystal suggested, her tongue firmly in cheek.

“She couldn’t be worse than Wren,” Taylor admitted.

Crystal didn’t need to look at David to know he loved that comment. She’d been on his ‘don’t let them join’ list in the fall.

Speaking of whom, Wren walked up.

“We have a problem,” Wren said.

Crystal was confused when Wren handed David her phone, and his face flushed.

“Send that to me,” David demanded.

As he walked out, David got on his phone to talk to someone. His entire demeanor had changed to one of grave concern.

“What was that?” Taylor asked.

Wren showed them.

“F-me!” Crystal said.

This was bad.

It was at times like this that social media was a nightmare. Frank and his team did what they could to take down the pictures. There were photos of David with the girls who’d come through rush, and everyone was nude.

David wasn’t impressed when Frank asked if it was another Dubai-type event. His PR guy claimed he wanted to confirm before he made an ass of himself with the various platforms the pictures were popping up on.

David, for his part, was a celebrity, so he expected some nerd in a basement somewhere to use AI software and create deepfakes showing him nude. You hadn’t really made it until that happened.

He tolerated most of those, but he drew the line when they showed him having sex with various men and women. It was one thing to show off his body; it was another if it hurt his image. Attending a party where everyone was naked didn’t scream ‘boy next door.’ Frank and his team worked aggressively to remove those types of pictures from the Internet.

Two things pissed him off about this group of photos. First, the girls had never signed up to be objectified like this. They were excited about meeting him and posted their pictures on his DavidOnly fan site, never suspecting someone would take that picture and turn it into this.

The second thing was that this was a personal attack on David. With each picture was a snide comment like, ‘I thought he was supposed to be hung,’ or ‘David has let himself go.’

These AI-created nudes showed him with the start of love handles, a beer gut, and a tiny package. He looked as though he was hung like a ten-year-old boy.

When he first saw the pudgy part, David thought of Greg before Joey had gotten hold of him. His brother had packed on a few pounds when he went to college. That was when his dad had his heart issues, and David hired Joey to get Rob into shape. Greg saw the warning signs in the way he was living his life and joined Rob for his workouts. Joey turned them both into ‘hot dads,’ as Cassidy called them. While they weren’t ripped, they were fit now and said they felt much better.