There were three photos of him and Noah sitting on the cozy veranda in Atlanta’s hotel. Everyone else had already gone to their rooms as they were flying early the next morning to Mexico, but Noah and Kaj stayed longer. They’d been talking about music mostly. Then things escalated with stupid innuendos that ended up with both of them getting horny as fuck.
The pictures themselves didn’t depict anything extremely inappropriate—a dirty glance Kaj flashed Noah while biting his bottom lip, his hand possessively splayed on the vocalist’s thigh, and Noah whispering in Kaj’s ear—but they looked… intimate. There was no other word for it.
“Fuck,” Kaj whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs. The room suddenly felt too small; the air too thin.
“Who’s this asshole?” Noah asked.
“A photojournalist who runs this trashy music site where he exposes private moments of public figures and talks about all kinds of scandals… I’ve had several run-ins with him before.” The disgust in Niels’s voice was palpable.
Kaj sank into the nearest chair, legs suddenly unable to support him. His hands were trembling, and he wasn’t sure if it was from anger or the need to have a drink to calm his nerves. “How did we not notice someone following us?”
“He’s good at what he does,” Niels simply stated. “Uses telephoto lenses, keeps his distance. He uploaded these to his blog a week ago—”
“A week?” Noah’s voice rose.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Kaj asked, voice steadier than he expected because, honestly, he was burning with rage on the inside.
“Part of my job is putting out fires you don’t ever hear about. You need to stay focused on what you do, these matters are mine to handle.” Niels sighed, the lines around his eyes deepening. “I had the private investigator we hired for your case track him down. I’ve already had several heated arguments with him and his lawyer, but there’s nothing we can do. He’s not using the images for commercial purposes or infringing on any copyright laws since he took them himself. Freedom of speech protects this kind of shit.”
“What about our privacy?” Kaj snapped.
“You were in a public place,” Niels deadpanned. “No laws were broken in taking the photos.”
“This is bullshit.” Noah frowned, looking angrier than Kaj had seen in a while. Last time was when the drummer purposely pressed his buttons by telling him he’d done everything in his power so he didn’t join the band.
“What do we do now?” Kaj wondered.
Niels shook his head. “This is not why I wanted to talk to you. The biggest issue is that someone has posted about it on a forum. The thread has over eight hundred comments already.”
The weight of this revelation felt like Kaj had been hit with a bag full of bricks.
“Eight hundred comments,” Noah mumbled, blankly looking down at the floor, or his feet, Kaj couldn’t tell. “What are they saying?”
“It’s mixed. Shock, hate, praise… You know how this goes. There’s a hashtag trending in some circles—#Koah.”
Noah made a strangled sound, something between a laugh and a grunt. “They’ve already given us a couple’s name?”
“The internet moves fast,” Niels said grimly.
“Show us,” Kaj demanded. He wasn’t a fan of reading this kind of bullshit, but something in his brain still refused to believe what was being said in this room. He needed to see it for himself.
Niels handed over his phone reluctantly. Kaj scrolled through the forum thread, Noah leaning over his shoulder, their bodies unconsciously mirroring the closeness captured in those damn photos. The comments ranged from supportive to viciously homophobic, with countless speculations about their relationship status.
Kaj's thumb froze mid-scroll. There it was—a comment that made his blood run cold. “I’ve warned you several times, Sørensen. If you play with fire, you can get burned,” he read out loud. The username was obscured by asterisks, marked as flagged by moderators like a few others, but the message remained.
Kaj handed the phone back to Niels as if it were contaminated. His fingers felt numb, his mind a whirlwind of confusion and anger. He glanced at Noah, whose face had drained of blood.
“What concerns me the most,” Niels said, looking at Noah, “is that this is probably what triggered your...admirer.”
Noah’s head snapped up, his eyes widening slightly before narrowing. “What do you mean?”
“The timing of the recent emails you’ve been getting... They started getting more aggressive right after these photos were posted. I should have made the connection sooner.”
“If that’s the case, then this is not some crazy fan’s bullshit harassment or someone wanting to get noticed,” Kaj said. “This is pure fucking cyberstalking.”
“It actually is, yeah.” Niels’s jaw twitched, something the drummer had learned happened when he was holding something in.
“What?” Kaj narrowed his eyes on him.
