Nicky PJ: Ryan O’Connell, you fucking moron.
Jude: Shit! That’s Ryan!
Danny M: Tell me Jude’s on a loan and we don’t have to keep him.
Jude: I’m on a fucking five year deal, man! I’m the SHEEP!
Jesse: I think you mean GOAT.
Jesse: Can we just go back to that photo. How the fuck has the ROC pulled her????
[GIF of someone’s head exploding]
Lennox: WTF man. Why didn’t we know about this? It says he’s been seeing her for FIVE MONTHS!!!
Rowan: Would you lot tell you lot if you were doing Ottie P?
Jude: I’d be telling the world, man. I’d have it tattooed across my back. I’d have whatever she wanted tattooed wherever she wanted.
Rowan: Is that because you’re the SHEEP, Jude?
Jude: Yeah, I’m the fucking SHEEP, man.
Rowan: What does SHEEP stand for?
Jude: It doesn’t stand for anything, does it? It just means you’re the greatest of all time.
Rowan: Going to let you read what you’ve just typed.
Jude: Don’t know what the fuck you’re on about.
ROC: Probably for the best.
Nicky P: Whoa! Can’t believe you’ve kept this to yourself.
Nate: I can. Wouldn’t tell you lot something I was trying to keep out of the press.
Nicky P: Fair enough. I’d set up another group without Jude in it.
Jude: I’m gonna complain about you to Genevieve.
I laughed out loud at that point and looked at Rowan, putting my phone down after muting the chat.
“Has Jude ever had a girlfriend?”
Rowan shrugged. “There was a girl he was going out with when they were at school. It fizzled out and since then he’s just slept his way around. You feeling alright about this?” He pointed at his phone. “Because there’s going to be a lot of attention on you and I know you hate that shit.”
“I know. I’m good with it.” I was kind of good with it, or maybe not really. I needed to give Lotte the head’s up that I was going to be in the media, and then talk her down from whatever ledge she put herself on, panicking about adverse publicity for our very under the radar company. I didn’t want to talk to Lotte. I had a feeling there was more to the conversation that she’d started the other night, and I sensed that was going somewhere I wasn’t interested in joining.
Rowan raised his eyebrows. “You’re good with it?”
“Kind of.” That was closer to the truth. “It doesn’t really matter if I am or not, because everyone who reads whatever online gossip shit the photo’s been posted in knows me and Otter have been seeing each other.”
Rowan finished sending a text on his phone. “Sorry, just letting Dee know what you’ve been doing. Or who you’ve been doing. She’s been speculating all sorts for weeks.” He put his phone back down. “Look man, the press’ll be interested in this for about three minutes and then they’ll move on, until the two of you split up.” He stared at me. “If you split up.”
“I haven’t thought much past this weekend.” Truth.
Rowan chuckled. His phone was now blowing up, probably with messages from Dee. “Were you going to end it after this weekend?”
