Page 76 of In Plain Sight

“Take a deep breath for me, okay? Can you do that?”

He nodded and sucked in a breath.

“Good.” I rubbed his arms. “Now let it out nice and slow.”

He did as I said.

“Good. Now another one. Again,” I coached. “One more.”

When he was done, he seemed marginally more relaxed.

“Can you open your eyes?”

He blinked them open and met my gaze.

“What happened?” I let go of his arms. “Take your time. You’re safe here.”

He let out a little chuckle. “We’ll see if that’s true once I get this out.”

I waited to see if he’d tell me what was going on, not sure what that could mean.

I was confused as fuck, but my only concern at that moment was making sure he was okay.

“So I kind of discovered something today.” He held my gaze, even though I could see how much of a struggle it was for him. “Something that’s so insane I’m still not even one hundred percent sure it’s true.”

I kept quiet. That wasn’t really clearing things up, but at least he was talking.

“And if it’s not true, then I’m about to make thingsreallyawkward, but probably not as awkward as they’ll be if itistrue.” He blew out another breath, likely fortifying himself to finally tell me what was going on. “There are only two people in the world I can talk to about this, and they’re both you.”

“Come again?”

He let out a snort that could have been a laugh. “So I signed up for this app a while ago.”

My chest tightened. Where was he going with this?

“Called Kinksters.”

My heart dropped to my stomach, and the world around us sort of narrowed for a second, then snapped back to normal.

“And I started talking to this guy.” He swallowed hard. “And by talking, I mean sexting.”

My mouth fell open. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to say something, but no sound came out as I gaped at him, probably doing a great impression of a fish.

“Do I need to continue, or am I completely off base here?” he asked, looking almost hopeful at the possibility that he was wrong.

“You don’t need to continue,” I scraped out. “And I don’t think you’re off base.”

Luka was Sinbin.

Luka was the guy I’d been sexting with.

“I’m so sorry for just dropping this on you,” he said in a rush, his tone desperate. “I didn’t want to do it like this, but I had no idea what to do. I mean, how do you tell your friend that you’ve been having phone sex with each other without knowing it? Is there etiquette for something like that? Is that an in-person conversation? Text? Messages on Kinksters? A phone call? Like, how do you tell someone that?”

For some messed up reason, out of everything he’d just said, my stupid brain latched onto him calling us friends.

“I’m sorry?—”

“Shhhh,” I cut him off and gently rested my hands on his broad shoulders. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

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