Page 12 of Never To Be Mine

“She wasn’t crazy,” I said, not sure why I was defending her. “She was just annoyingly passionate. She honestly believed I was another scam artist.”

Micah raised an eyebrow. “Passionate about calling your product rat piss.”

“In front of like fifty people,” Drew added helpfully.

“I was there, thanks.” I picked at my burger. “I remember.”

“So you posted the video as revenge?” Callum asked.

“Not revenge.” I shifted in my seat. “Simple marketing. I turned it into something positive for the brand. Making lemonade out of lemons, you know? I figured people would get a kick out of it. And maybe try my product.”

“Oh, the people got a kick out of it,” Micah said, scrolling on his phone. “People have reposted it thousands of times.”

I should have been happy about that. The video had driven traffic to my website like nothing else. By all business metrics, it was a massive win. Everyone wanted to try the smoothie that made the woman lose her shit.

So why did I feel guilty about it?

“Have you seen the remixes?” Beau asked, turning his phone toward me. “Someone put it to that Cardi B song.”

“And there’s an AI version where she’s yelling at historical figures,” Beau added. “It’s actually pretty funny.”

I’d looked last night. Someone had edited the video to make it look like she was yelling at a crying baby. Another showed her face photoshopped onto a medieval painting. The comments were worse than I remembered. They were saying things about her they would never say in public. A bunch of keyboard warriors.

“People on the internet are awful,” I said. “Cowards that talk a big game from their moms’ basements.”

“You made the video,” Victoria reminded me.

“She came at me hard and I made a joke out of it. But all this other stuff?” I gestured at the phone. “It’s gotten mean-spirited. That wasn’t my intention. I wanted to refute what she said about my smoothie. I didn’t say shit about the way she looked.”

“You can’t control what the internet does once something goes viral,” Drew said. “You know that. How many times have Mom and Dad warned us about taking certain selfies?”

“No dick pics,” Micah repeated a phrase that had been drilled into us.

“I know.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I just didn’t mean for it to snowball like it has.”

Callum studied me over his beer. “You feeling guilty?”

“Yeah. I am.” I looked around the table at my brothers. “She didn’t deserve this kind of shitstorm.”

“So take the video down,” Kensey suggested.

“Won’t matter,” Micah said immediately. “It’s already been downloaded and reposted. Taking down the original won’t stop anything now.”

“What if I post another video?” I asked. “Something telling people to leave her alone?”

Drew shook his head. “That’ll just draw more attention to it. Make it worse.”

“The Streisand effect,” Beau agreed. “You try to suppress something, it only makes people more interested.”

I slumped in my chair. “So there’s nothing I can do?”

“You could apologize,” Victoria said gently. “To her, I mean.”

“I looked up Young at Heart after the expo,” I said. “I was curious about who had the audacity to trash my product so thoroughly. The company is legit. They partner with smaller wellness brands. Give them resources and distribution. They actually make good stuff too.”

The woman—Juno, I’d learned her name from their website—was Dan Young’s daughter. The Dan Young who’d built Young at Heart. She was listed as Director of Partnerships and Acquisitions. She had credentials too. She was a registered dietitian, licensed and everything.

“So she wasn’t just some random hater,” Callum said.