High Heels and Pink Glitter (18+) COMPLETE, FREE TO READ CHICK LIT

Going Viral Has its Drawbacks

"...so that's why it's not always a good idea to post pictures of yourself like that on line."

His conclusion was lame – sod that, his whole argument had lacked conviction. As Nate outlined why Erin should not post up half-naked pictures of herself on the likes of Instagram (God only knew what she was doing on Snapchat where there was the added incentive of photos that were supposed to automatically disappear after a few seconds), he knew he had lost his daughter.

Her eyes glazed over, and she started to fiddle with her nails – false ones that had been a birthday present from Jennifer's mother. Against his wishes, but then he hadn't been consulted about it.

Jennifer had phoned him three days ago.

"Nate – have you seen Erin's Instagram account lately?" Jennifer never bothered with pleasantries.

Nate said he hadn't. He was on Instagram – you had to be if you were a personal trainer where visuals were part of your marketing efforts– but he'd deliberately not followed the twins' accounts thinking it an invasion of their privacy.

There was a loud sigh at her end, and she muttered something about his lack of paternal responsibility.

"Erin's been posting up some stuff – pictures of herself. She's no' wearing very much in them."

Nate swore. He asked for Erin's Instagram account details and said he'd check out her account and ring her back.

It was worse than he feared. Erin had posted a lot of selfies. In them, she was wearing underwear – plunge bras and skimpy knickers – and she was heavily made up. The results were grotesquely Lolita-like. The pictures had attracted plenty of likes, but the comments underneath were worrying. They ranged from "Hey, sexy laydee", to suggestions of what the commenter would like to do to her, and then plain old trolling where various people told her she was an ugly dog, or a fat slag.

Jennifer had only just seen the pictures too. He suggested a united approach when he rang her back – they wait until the next day when he picked the twins up for the weekend and they tackle her then. Perhaps they could go into why it was wrong to post those kinds of pictures, or they could mention the downsides of social media and how it must feel to receive fat slag type comments.

The hand on his left arm dangling by his side had curled into a fist. First, he wanted to remove all the pictures of Erin and ban her from ever going near social media again. Then, he wanted to punch those commenters calling his daughter an ugly dog into the middle of next week.

Again, Jennifer made noises about his lack of responsibility. To her, the joint approach was a cop out on his part.

"Okay then, do you want me to say something to her the next time I have them?" He did his best not to let resentment seep into his tone.

No, she didn't like that suggestion either. In the end, she told him not to say anything to Erin and that she would tackle her daughter alone. He tried to protest – the nasty comments had bothered him particularly – but Jennifer insisted the issue was better dealt with by a teenage girl's mother.

She rang him a day later in tears. The discussion hadn't gone well. Erin had accused her of spying on her, and of invading her privacy. She had stormed out of the kitchen and she refused to discuss the issue any further. She hadn't spoken to her mother since and as far as Nate could see, she was still posting revealing selfies, the camera phone held high above her head and her lips pushed out in a pout, aping the thousands of other images young women posted of themselves online.

What could he do about it?

Jennifer eventually agreed that he should try to have a word with Erin. The twins were due at his house this evening. When should he raise it – at the beginning of their stay and risk spoiling the whole visit, or at the end so she could return to her mother and take her bad mood out on her? The latter option was tempting.