Chapter Forty-Six -- The Pride Of The Cock
Walking through the quad at Sunny Hill, flanked on all sides by friends, felt exciting and reassuring at the same time. Maddox had one arm thrown over his shoulders, casual, yet possessive, while Ray stood by his left and held Hanna by the hand.
"Well, at any moment now, I suppose that everyone's phone is going to blow up," Jonathan said matter-of-factly. He had decided that he needed to be at peace with whatever happened, but nonetheless, that didn't mean he didn't feel nervous at all. Indeed, he didn't consider himself ready to face the sneers and the laughter. But his support group was there, and that meant the world to him.
Rusty was the one who kept on refreshing the Xpress page, with a focused expression on his face. "My dudes," he said, "and Hanna," he added with a deferential look toward Ray's girlfriend, "it looks like Xpress is really slow on the uptake."
"Ah, did we make all those cool t-shirts for nothing?" Ray said in a deflated tone.
"We can still have the big reveal, but I think it will only make people confused," Dex offered. "I mean, not that they're not cool, but you know, the message wouldn't make sense."
"Let's just wait," Kane suggested. "How about we sit right there?" He pointed at the group of benches around the statue in the middle of the quad. "Rusty, just keep refreshing that page. In case nothing happens today, we can expect things to blow up tomorrow. We don't know if Xpress is not just a single person way too much into gossip."
Rusty scratched his head and remained standing, while everyone else took a seat. Other students flocked to them now and then, drawn to the Amazing Four like usual, but no one, absolutely no one seemed to know anything about the existence of a certain compromising video.
Jonathan didn't know what to think. Had it all been just a prank, and the blackmailer was backing down, seeing how their bluff had been called? Part of him hoped it was true, but the rest of his brain told him that they were waiting for the other shoe to drop, and that it would happen any moment now.
"Not long, and we should all be heading to class," Jonathan pointed out. "Maybe the mastermind behind Xpress is sound asleep at this hour. A lot of people must have seen me coming back to campus last night, even if it was late." Something about all of this didn't quite make sense.
Rusty paced back and forth, a focused frown on his face. "You know what, guys? I'm doing it. If this blackmailer is such a big ass coward, maybe it's time to show our hand so that they know that we don't give a fuck about it."
"You really want to show off?" Dex asked.
"I'm me," Rusty said and pointed at himself like Dex should have known better than to ask obvious things. "Sure thing I want to show off."
While they debated whether their whole operation should be called off or not, something snagged Jonathan's attention out of the corner of one eye. He saw Connor coming from the direction of his dorm, his hair a bird's nest, his clothes in disarray, as if he had been woken up and forced to hurry somewhere. It took Jonathan some time to understand that he was hurrying after somebody, and quickly identified the girl in the hoodie he had seen before with Connor.
Only that she wasn't alone. Two girls in identical hoodies hurried after her, as well, and the similarity triggered another memory, one that at first he didn't know where to place. The trio came together with flawless choreography, and all three pulled out their phones. Of course, he remembered them, from that day when he had taken Maddox on their first official date. Jonathan frowned, as he heard Connor shouting something at the girls. He was even breaking into a run, and any moment now, he would be able to catch up with them.
However, it seemed like Connor's plans were bound to be frustrated, as other people flocked into his path, forcing him to put more distance between him and the three girls.
As caught up as he was in watching that scene, he missed the growing murmurs around him. Maddox grabbed his hand, and only then, he tore his eyes away. His breath caught in his chest, as it seemed like the entire population of Sunny Hill was busy with a single thing: to pull out their phones and look at their screens.
"Rusty?" Maddox asked.
Rusty shook his head. "Told you, guys. It's not Xpress." He pointed the screen at them to have them see that the gossip column page was still talking about who broke up with who over winter break, and not a word about Jonathan's compromising video.
"However," Rusty continued, "I just got sent a little video by an unknown number. Would you guys like to bet on what it's all about?"
Dex and Kane pulled out their phones, too. A few scattered laughs could already be heard here and there. That was their cue. Ray and Hanna jumped to their feet and shed their jackets, while the others in the group followed their example.
Jonathan felt his skin growing hot as he looked at his friends, all wearing identical t-shirts, on which a hand holding an emoji eggplant stood above the message: The Pride Of The Cock, something Rusty had come up with. The message under it was even more to the point. Laugh if you want a punch in the face. That had been more like a joint venture between Maddox and Ray, and Jonathan had acquiesced with their desire to have anyone who showed any signs of rudeness at least properly threatened with physical violence.
On the back of the t-shirts, the Xpress logo was encased in a circle cut over by a diagonal line.
Jonathan closed his eyes just as all other eyes began to turn toward him. He could feel them, even if they were behind him, burning holes in him. This was the moment he had feared. And indeed, there were laughs and sneers, and he could hear them. He knew who they were aimed at.
"Hey, do you want me to wipe that grin off your face?" he heard Dex threaten someone.
Suddenly, the laughter died, snuffed out like a candle. Dex hadn't even spoken that loudly, but it looked like reputation was above all else, here, at Sunny Hill.
"What?" Dex murmured at Kane, in response to some unspoken question. "I didn't say that I was going to do it with a punch, as Maddox insisted that we write on the t-shirts."
Jonathan took one deep breath and exhaled when Ray snuck one hand into his. "Are you okay, JJ? You know we're not going to let anyone make fun of you."
The warmth growing in his chest was bigger and more overwhelming than the icepick he had felt driven through his heart at the first signs of laughter.
"Cool t-shirts, guys," one girl said. "The Pride Of The Cock? What's that all about?"
"It's about not making fun of people who do nothing that you don't do when you know no one's watching," Dex said promptly. As the biggest of them all, he had taken upon himself the mission of being their mouthpiece. Jonathan was grateful for that, too.
More people flocked to them, interested in their message. No one seemed to be laughing anymore. Jonathan dared to open his eyes and was taken by surprise by a girl he didn't know who hugged him tightly. "Whoever sent that video is a total scumbag," she said and then looked over him at Dex, probably seeking the guy's approval.
Well, that seemed to be a consequence of hanging with the right crowd, and he had no idea how he would express his gratitude in the most appropriate manner later. More and more people, encouraged by the girl's action, began to follow her example, so soon, Jonathan found himself surrounded and almost assaulted in the friendliest way possible.
He had no idea when he got separated from Maddox, but noticed how his boyfriend was willing to set everyone straight by talking to them in the same friendly, yet firm manner, as Ray, Hanna, and Kane. Dex stood there, his arms crossed over his chest, staring down everyone who dared to do anything else but be supportive, once his mission as first responder, so to speak, was fulfilled.
"We knew that someone was blackmailing Jonathan with this video, threatening to release it to everyone on campus," Maddox explained, as he was now in charge of speaking to the masses. Jonathan looked at him with adoring eyes. If Maddox ever wanted to run for president or change the world, he would be there for him. He definitely had the charisma, and something more. A big heart, to go with everything else that made Maddox Kingsley the best boyfriend in the history of boyfriends.
Eventually, Jonathan thought of searching for Rusty with his eyes. Hopefully, the resident kinkster, as Maddox called him, didn't think it was a good occasion to go full monty just for the sake of it. Not that the gathered crowd wouldn't like to see that, Jonathan was sure.
No, that wasn't what Rusty was doing. Instead, he was waving at Jonathan and beckoning him to come closer. "Yo, Hamilton, get busy."
Jonathan disentangled himself from his new and unwanted cheerleading squad and hurried to Rusty. The guy grabbed his arm and made him follow. "It's not Xpress, right?"
