by Rosie Danan
Jill lowered her menu. “Ooh, I want to see this mystery man.”
Clara handed the device across the table, thankful that Josh at least had all his clothes on in the shot.
“Wait a second.” Her aunt brought the phone closer to her face. “Clara”—her eyes went dangerously wide—“this is Josh Darling.”
After taking the phone back, she racked her brain for any recognition of that moniker. She couldn’t remember Josh mentioning his surname. But Darling? Come on. “That can’t be his real name.”
The expression on Jill’s face would make the blooper reel of Clara’s life. “It’s not his real name . . .” She paused meaningfully as the waiter arrived to take their order. Only after they’d decided to split a margherita pizza and he’d trotted back to the kitchen did Jill resume her revelation. “It’s his porn name.”
Slumping down in her seat, Clara darted her gaze to the surrounding tables. Thankfully, no one appeared interested enough in their conversation to eavesdrop. “Please tell me that means anything other than what I think it means.”
Jill leaned forward. “You’ve never heard of Josh Darling? I’m surprised. I would think you fell squarely into his demographic. Cosmo described him as ‘catnip for millennial women.’” Her words bumped into one another as she rushed to get them out. “He looks like a nineties heartthrob. Like Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell, minus the asshole personality.”
Closing her eyes, Clara took a long breath and let it out very slowly through her mouth. Her entire life she’d chosen safety over excitement. She hadn’t done drugs. She rarely drank because she knew she couldn’t hold her liquor. She had exactly one pair of sexy panties, and she never wore them because they rode up her butt.
How in the world had she accidentally moved in with a porn star? And not any run-of-the-mill porn star, but one mainstream enough to receive a profile in a magazine she regularly browsed in the lobby of her dermatologist’s office.
“I don’t watch porn,” Clara said, barely opening her mouth. She didn’t have a problem with people taking care of business by themselves, but any time Clara saw porn, usually at the request of a soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, it featured women getting degraded. She couldn’t help it if she didn’t find women on their knees with semen dripping down their faces sexy.
The idea that goofy, messy, bedheaded Josh made those kinds of videos didn’t make sense to her. How could the same guy who’d brought her coffee tell some girl to “take it all, bitch”? Her stomach turned over and she pushed away the basket of breadsticks.
“It doesn’t surprise me that you’re not into porn, but word around town is Josh Darling is quite the talent,” Jill said.
Clara curled her hands around her middle and wished for an antacid. “If this is a joke, it’s not funny.”
No one could find out about this. The guys from high school would love the idea that Clara “The Prude” Wheaton was sharing a shower with a man who had a penis more famous than his face. Not to mention the reaction from her mother. She strangled her linen napkin.
Jill smiled helplessly. “Looks like you might get that taste of adventure after all.”
chapter four
MOST PEOPLE WOULD have a problem with their ex-girlfriend going through their phone, but when Josh stepped off set to find Naomi holding his cell between her thumb and forefinger, he simply grabbed the device without bothering to call out the blatant violation of his privacy. They’d always shared a blurry definition of boundaries.
“Clara says she can pick up toilet paper on the way home.” Naomi’s eyes ran down his naked body with thinly veiled possession.
Josh let her look. For the sake of his career, he needed to get back together with her eventually, so who cared if she never truly butted out of his business? Their relationship was as inevitable as aging.
“What are you doing here? You’re not shooting today.” He’d checked the schedule. Ever since word got out about their breakup, producers had tiptoed around casting them together.
“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop off your fan mail.” She shook a hefty garbage bag in front of him.
“Oh. Right. Thanks. I’ll go online and start getting it forwarded.”
Cool air chilled the sweat drying on his skin, reminding him of his nakedness. Grabbing two towels from a production assistant, he wrapped one around his waist and the other across his shoulders and headed for the showers.
Naomi kept pace with him. The slinky dress she wore accentuated her natural strut. “I didn’t realize you’d be shacking up again so soon.”
Ignoring her, Josh turned the shower on extra hot and waited for the water to heat. These old warehouses always came with shitty plumbing.
“Your little text message chain sounded positively domestic.” Naomi perched on the room’s tiny vanity, swinging her long legs.
If their on-screen chemistry didn’t sell so well, he would have seriously considered telling his agent, Bennie, to put a Naomi Grant exclusion clause in his next contract. Her tenacity made her an excellent businesswoman, but it also made her a colossal pain in the ass.
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.” He didn’t buy that for a second. Their relationship, both romantic and professional, rested on two key pillars: always wear a condom, and stay in your own lane. They weren’t the type of people who fell for love’s long con.
He and Naomi understood each other. Had extended a successful business relationship into a partnership for almost two years based on mutual respect and the exchange of countless orgasms. Usually, that evened out to enough. On the rare occasion when loneliness lapped at his heels, well, he could always turn on the TV and watch Meg Ryan, falling in love by proxy.
“I’m pretty sure I could get you back if the mood ever struck.” She fussed with her dyed red hair.
Josh rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Stu.” He used the nickname she claimed to hate, a riff on her real name, Hannah Sturm. She forbade the use of anything but her stage name on set, but he often forgot when they found themselves alone. Like so much else about her, she’d never told him the reason she hated her given name. Even though they had first met as co-stars almost two years ago, he could count on one hand the number of things he knew about her childhood.
“I can assure you, sharing household goods with Clara is platonic. I had to find somewhere to live when you kicked me to the curb.” Josh stuck his hand under the stream of water in the shower to check the temperature again and jerked it back when the icy stream pelted his palm.
“Oh please. You practically ran out of my house.” She tapped a finger against her lips. “Platonic Clara.” Naomi lingered over the syllables, tasting the name on her tongue. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s some loaded East Coast princess.”
Naomi grinned like a cat ready to devour a hapless mouse.
He tried and failed to make his frown disapproving. They shared the same sense of humor, after all.
“Don’t even think about it.” Josh pointed a finger in warning as he told Naomi the same thing he’d told himself ever since Clara had shown up in his living room two days before. His ex was bisexual and loved novelty in the bedroom almost as much as he did. “I’ve never met someone wound this tight. You should see this girl. I doubt she’s ever kissed a guy without knowing his full name.” He didn’t mention that the challenge Clara presented raced straight to his dick.
“Sounds like the opening of a porno.” Naomi plucked an imaginary pen out of thin air and mimed writing. “Sweet, unsullied small-town girl moves to the big bad city and discovers big bad cock.”
Josh shook his head and grinned despite her bluntness. The idea of defiling his new roommate was definitely tempting, but even he knew how that story ended.
The room at Everett’s place already felt more like his than Naomi’s ever had. All of the seventies wallpaper reminded him of his grand
parents’ condo. Besides, something about Clara reminded him of a baby deer stumbling around on new legs.
“She’s a good person. I can tell.” He’d already made a pact with himself to keep his distance.
“So are you,” Naomi said, her voice sharp enough that he knew he’d managed to raise her hackles. “And you just met her. She could wind up more wicked than both of us.”
“Impossible.” Josh pulled his comic book out from under her butt and gently swatted her with it. “Besides, I don’t have to mount every beautiful woman I meet.”
Naomi scoffed.
“Well, there’s an exception to every rule.”
“So, she’s beautiful, huh?” Naomi uncrossed her legs and recrossed them in the opposite direction.
“Would you stop pretending to be concerned? I’m telling you, she blushed, actually blushed, at the mention of sharing a bathroom with me. Can you imagine the color she’d turn if she knew all the places my dick’s been?”
Naomi looked down at her crotch and gasped in mock horror. “What’s she gonna do when she finds out?”
“She’s not gonna find out. Trust me. There’s no way that girl watches porn.”
“Haven’t you heard? We’re mainstream now. Elle, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed. Everyone and their mother is talking about our last video. Even nice girls know how to use the Internet, Josh.”
“Speaking of that video,” he said. “I’ve got a meeting with Bennie tonight. He wants to discuss my contract. I’m hoping he’s got an extension for me to sign.”
Naomi wrinkled her nose at the mention of his agent. He could admit that Bennie fit the profile of a smarmy bastard, but he’d picked up Josh like a stray cat back when he was an aimless college dropout living on dollar tacos and breath mints.
“Don’t give me that look. I’ve spent two years shackled to a shitty stock agreement. I’m sick of wearing a leash. I want to work with other studios. Hell, I’d like to cut a profit on my own films. Mainstream coverage means big money, right? We gotta double down on our fifteen minutes. It’s now or never.”
No matter what happened in their personal lives, their professional success tangled together until sometimes he didn’t know where Naomi Grant’s career stopped and Josh Darling’s began. If she wouldn’t capitalize on their chance at real stardom, he’d have to grab her hand and drag her along.
That woman had ten times more brains than anyone in this business gave her credit for, which was exactly the way she liked it. She dealt in secrets like currency, and they bought her half the industry wrapped around her little finger. The whole business would turn upside down if she ever got inspired to make a fuss.
When Naomi hopped off the countertop and headed for the door, she had her professional mask back on. “Good luck,” she told him, striding past in a wave of spicy perfume. “Bennie is almost as cheap as he is repugnant. Trusting him is gonna get you screwed one of these days, and not in the way you like.”
chapter five
THE FIRST TIME Josh met Bennie, his future agent declared him the biggest knucklehead he’d encountered in almost three decades in the porn business.
Since that day, over two years before, they’d met for burgers countless times.
Bennie’s favorite burger came from a landmark diner in Glendale founded sometime in the 1950s. To this day, the interior of the establishment evoked images of sock hops and waitresses on roller skates. They probably filmed sitcoms here during off-peak hours.
Josh spotted his agent’s shiny bald head at a table in the back. Bennie didn’t look up from his phone when Josh scooted into the sticky vinyl booth across from him, but he did grunt in his general direction. Josh accepted this ritual greeting. He’d spent enough time with Bennie to know that the man issued few words and most of them were expletives anyway.
Bennie smoked unfiltered cigarettes and spat on the sidewalk, but he knew everyone who mattered and never took a vacation, which made Josh’s life significantly easier.
“How’s it going, Ben?”
The portly man raised his eyes to take in Josh sitting across from him and grinned. “How do you fucking do, Darling?”
Josh pointed to a discarded plate of soggy fries and a sad sliver of bun. “I see you’ve started without me.”
“Ah, I’m sorry. You know me, always starving.” Bennie swiveled the plate in offering so the remaining fries faced Josh.
Ugh. He squirmed and shoved the plate away blindly.
“Oh fuck.” Bennie threw a napkin over the plate. “I forgot about your ketchup thing again. Forgive me.”
“It’s fine,” Josh said, willing his stomach to settle.
“Is it because it looks like blood?” Bennie waved his hand to bring over their server.
People always asked that. Josh shook his head, not trusting himself to open his mouth at the moment.
A sunshiny waitress approached the table in no particular hurry. She looked down her nose at Bennie but brightened considerably when her eyes found Josh. “What can I do for you two?”
Josh’s ears perked up at the attention. He couldn’t help it. He specialized in waitresses. They worked similar hours to him and always brought home free food. Naomi gave him flak for his indiscrimination when it came to women, but he didn’t mind. He could always find something to like. Hell, even Clara, who had Don’t even think about it stamped across her forehead, got his motor running.
“Do ya wanna hear the specials?” Fried onions sizzled on the grill behind her.
“He’ll have the burger. Medium. Fries. Extra crispy,” Bennie said, eyes back on his phone.
She scribbled the order on her pad and pouted at the stolen opportunity to linger.
“Extra pickles,” Josh added, giving her his smile at eighty watts. The way she chewed on her pen as she walked away gave him the sneaking suspicion that unleashing the full force of his grin would be writing checks he wasn’t prepared to cash.
Putting his palm over Bennie’s phone, he tipped his head toward the waitress stand. “Hey, you don’t remember by any chance if . . .”
“Yeah, you fucked her the last time we were here.”
Josh frowned. He didn’t remember the sex, the hallmark of a lackluster performance. He tried to recall the last time he’d had sex with only one girl without cameras. Sometime last year, when he and Naomi could hardly stand each other, they’d opened their relationship to external partners beyond work. At first, he’d enjoyed feasting at L.A.’s buffet of babes, but like anything else too readily available, even pussy got boring.
Bennie shuffled the stack of papers in front of him, reminding Josh of the purpose of their meeting.
“So?” Josh leaned in and tapped the table with both palms. “What have you got for me?”
Bennie handed over the documents.
Two years ago, a few days into shooting his first adult film, Josh had “taken a meeting” with a man from Black Hat Studios. The smooth-as-glass executive had plied him with Johnnie Walker Blue and extended an exclusive contract within thirty minutes of meeting him. Josh, still flush from the fact that someone, anyone, wanted to pay him to fuck, had quickly signed on the dotted line.
The contract meant three years of steady paychecks. It also meant he couldn’t work independently or for any other studios, sell his own merchandise, or make any public appearances without Black Hat Studios’ explicit approval.
That one night had cost Josh thousands in missed royalties alone. He’d asked Bennie last week to meet with the studio on his behalf, try to grease the wheels a little, and see if maybe the higher-ups would renegotiate a year early.
Josh raked a hand through his hair. “A five-thousand-dollar bonus?” He knew the kind of numbers he brought in through merch and appearances alone. “Is this a joke?”
“I know we wanted more, but I had to fight dirty for that much.” Bennie reached across the t
able to pick up the papers in a white-knuckled grip.
“But why? I’m the closest thing they’ve got to a household name . . . and they come back with this?”
Before the older man could answer, the waitress returned with Josh’s burger, bending from the waist to put down the plate. When Josh didn’t spare her an extra glance beyond a cursory “Thank you,” she huffed and stomped away.
Bennie folded his arms across his ample stomach. “Look, you’re hot right now, but the bigwigs at Black Hat say these new ladies you brought in with the last video won’t stick around. They say your self-proclaimed ‘Darlings’ don’t pay for porn, and definitely don’t fork over for subscriptions. They’ll watch that one video until they get bored and then go back to their cold beds and their colder husbands.
“Besides, you’ve got all kinds of rules about who you’ll work with and what kind of stuff you’ll make. You’re like some monk with your self-imposed code of conduct. Black Hat likes people they can bully.” His agent took a long drink of his soda. “As long as they’ve still got you hooked on the stock agreement, they don’t have a lot of incentive to crack open the old checkbook.”
“I know I’m not a genius, but I’ve seen the numbers I bring in, and they’ve grown steadily for the past year. I’ve got bags of rabid fan mail spilling out of my closet and the back of my car. I’m worth at least three times this much. Even Black Hat negotiates. What aren’t you telling me?”
Bennie mopped his brow with a paper napkin. “Ever since you and Naomi broke up, your stock’s taken a major hit. The domestic fantasy of the two of you together made you more palatable to mainstream audiences, but the powers that be aren’t convinced that a man alone, even a good-looking kid like you, can pull numbers like that as a headliner.”