Oz rubbed at his beard. “I feel like I missed something.”
Jax turned to look at him. “You know how people have tells?”
“Yes.”
“I know we haven’t spent much time together, but with the video chat…. I watch you. When there’s something you don’t like, this muscle starts to twitch.” Jax tapped just above Oz’s left ear.
Oz’s hand went to the spot, a rueful smile forming on his lips. “It does, huh?”
“This was incredible.” Jax squeezed Oz’s hand. “But I can tell you’ve got stuff going on, and I’d rather not make that harder on you.”
Oz wanted to deny it, but there was no way that Jax staying here—however much Oz might want it—wouldn’t make things a lot more complicated.
Jax squeezed again and then let go. “And I definitely don’t want to overstay my welcome so that the twitch is because of me.” He pushed to his feet. With less than his usual grace, he tottered a step forward to scoop up his shirt.
Now that Jax had pointed it out, Oz felt the muscle twitch when he clenched his jaw. He forced his teeth apart with his tongue. “I can at least feed you something.”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.” Jax paused at the bedroom door.
“Bathroom’s on the other side of the stairs.” Oz followed him out into the hall.
Jax paused again in front of Ayla’s room. He looked back at Oz. “What are their names?”
“Ayla and Regan. They’re six and four.”
Jax nodded and went into the bathroom.
Oz grabbed a fresh shirt, boxers, and jeans and headed to the downstairs bathroom to wash up, already mentally scanning the fridge shelves. He could scramble a couple eggs, or go for an omelet if he had some ham. The one thing Jax seemed to love almost as much as sex was food, though in person he did more talking about food than eating it.
As Oz started pulling out ingredients, he heard Jax on the stairs.
“Omelet okay?”
“Sounds awesome.” Jax came around the corner, the front of his shirt wrinkled and soaked.
As much as Oz appreciated the view where it clung to Jax’s pecs and hard nipples, it couldn’t be comfortable. “If you want to throw that in the dryer, it’s in the cellar.” He pointed at the door, and Jax thumped down the stairs.
At first Oz thought the metal slam was Jax getting rough with the dryer door. By the time he realized it was a car door in the driveway, Angela was opening the side door just as Jax came out of the cellar. His daughters flew through behind her and came to a screeching halt at the sight of a half-naked guy in the middle of the kitchen.
Chapter 15
JAX FROZE. He folded his arms over his chest, like that could give some cover. He scanned the kitchen searching for anything that might form a poncho, a cape, a shirt.
One of the little girls ran to Oz, and he picked her up. The other ducked around the white pants leg of the woman who’d come in with them.
“Well, hello.” The woman gave him a smile.
“Hi. Ah—” Jax’s cheeks felt hot enough to start smoking. He didn’t want to think about where else a blush might show. “I think I’ll go back and get my—” He backed toward the cellar door. “—uh, my—shirt.”
She laughed. “Not on my account. You look familiar.” Her brow furrowed, and then her eyes widened with surprised recognition.
Great. That was exactly what this needed, someone who knew who he was and why he was here.
As his slow progress moved him near Oz, the little girl in his arms ducked her head into his neck, hiding her face.
“Jax, wait. This is my sister, Angela.”
So not Oz’s ex-wife.
“This is Ayla.” He indicated the girl on his hip who wouldn’t look at Jax.
“And this is Regan.” Angela put a hand on the back of the child clinging to her leg.
“This is Mister….”
Jax thought the situation had really slipped past calling him Mister anything. Oh Christ. He’d never told Oz his last name. Well, Oz would hear it from Jax now, or the sister would do it for him.
“Conlon,” he said. “But Jax is fine. I’ll just be—” He backed through the door and darted down the stairs. The shirt he yanked from the dryer was warm, but as soon as he pulled it on, it went icy damp against his skin. At least he’d used soap and it didn’t smell like sweat and jizz.
He padded back up the stairs, as carefully as if he were avoiding a boom mike picking him up. God, his feet were still bare. Where the hell were his shoes? He listened at the door.
“—and Grams was snoring and I couldn’t hear.” That was one of the little girls.
“I thought you’d wait until I texted,” Oz said.
“I didn’t see a car. How was I supposed to know you were bringing him here? Or that he was white? Or that he was Brian Anderson?”
Shit. Though exactly how did you think you were going to get to tell him alone if you’re hiding in the cellar?
“Who?” Oz said.
The demographic hadn’t exactly skewed toward young male viewers. If it had, Oz would have figured it out before.
“Brian Anderson,” his sister said, like Oz was missing the joke and if she said the punch line slower, he’d catch on.
It was Jax’s cue. Again. But his fingers shrank from the doorknob like it was on fire.
If he’d left sooner, if he’d just said, Oh hey, I was on some sitcom when I was a kid, and I kind of have the same face I did at seventeen when it was over, but I’m not at all out because it would kill what pathetic chance I have of ever having a career again, then he wouldn’t have to go through the door and see how badly he’d fucked this all up. He wouldn’t have to see that twitch over Oz’s ear and know it was because of Jax being stupid.
Face it, Jax. Wasn’t that why you never told him you were a big old closet case in the first place? Why you hoped he was married? Because if he was, then he wouldn’t look at Jax like he was an idiot. Like Dane and Theo and Gideon sometimes did.
“On the TV. At Grams’.” That must be the younger kid. Her words were less distinct. “I’ll show you.”
God, the e-mail from Paul Blanchard. They’d met with the KIDZNet suits in January before Jax went to Vancouver. One of the plans for renewing fan interest was a couple mini marathons, based on fan votes. Jax and Alicia had done an ad spot for it. Paul had e-mailed to say the first marathon was running February 14. Valentine’s Day. Today.
Somewhere beyond the door, a TV whined and fizzed to life. The canned laughter sounded at first, then Jax heard the volume double on Ren’s voice.
Over the TV—actually, under it, close to his ear, Oz said, “Jax?” Knuckles rapped against the cellar door. “Jax? There’s no way you fit through one of those windows, so tell me what’s going on.”
Jax straightened his shoulders.
“C’mon, Jax,” Oz said, more loudly. “Don’t make my ear muscle twitch.”
A laugh forced itself through Jax’s larynx. He opened the door. “Can’t have that.”
Oz stepped back to give Jax room to stand in the kitchen. Leaning against the counter behind him, Oz said, “Brian Anderson?”
Jax heard his teenaged self, voice cracking as he delivered a one-liner. “I played the character Brian Anderson on the show Family Daze from the time I was nine till I was seventeen.”
Oz shifted as if he could see the distant TV and compare their faces. “I’ve heard of it but never saw it.”
“Yeah.” Jax felt his lips flatten as they stretched into something that wasn’t anything like a smile. “Or you’d have known. My face is still mostly the same. At least from the last two seasons.”
“So when you say ‘work’?”
“I’m still an actor. I don’t get much work. But I go on a lot of auditions. That’s what I was doing in Vancouver. They shoot lots of potential TV series up there.”
“An actor.” Oz rubbed his beard and shook his head. “I suppose, given what we just did, I’m glad that my
guess of porn star wasn’t the winner.”
A dizzy wave rode Jax. Nothing between them, Oz’s bare dick inside, his come inside, slick and hot. And then the bottom dropped out of the wave, slamming Jax down.
“Porn? I just—” His voice was cracking, almost an echo of the one coming from a TV somewhere deeper in the house. He swallowed and got control of the pitch. “I told you I hadn’t been with anyone else.”
Oz raised his brows. “You also told me you needed help because you were babysitting for friends.”
“I don’t—” God, it was like a nightmare version of an audition. Could he be more wrong for the part? “I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
Oz’s jaw tightened, and yeah, there was the twitch in the muscle above his ear. “What would you lie about?”
Jax made his voice as low and earnest as he could. “Nothing. If I had a choice.”
The smaller of the two girls came around the corner into the kitchen. She tipped her head to stare up at Jax. “Aunt Angle says you’re him. On the TV.”
Jax went down on one knee so her head didn’t have to tip back so far. “She’s right. When I was a kid like you, I was on that TV show.”
She studied him carefully, then shook her head. “You can’t have been a kid like me.”
“Well, I was a little older than you or your sister.”
“Not her either. You’re a boy. Like Kenneth?” she suggested.
“Yes,” Oz said. “He would have been around your cousin’s age then.”
She looked at Jax again, hard, as if she could see through to the back of his skull, then grabbed his arm and pulled. “Show me.”
Jax glanced at Oz, who shrugged with just his eyebrows.
“High eyes are rude, Daddy.” But she gave a perfect example of the expression when she turned her attention to her father.
“Okay.” Oz let out a noisy breath. “Let’s go see Brian Anderson.”
They went down the hall into the family room. An extra-long couch held Oz’s sister in one corner, and the other girl, Ayla, stood near her aunt’s knees. Ayla’s eyes were fixed on the TV, but she flung her arms from side to side, twisting like she was in a speed yoga class. A worn recliner held a slouching teen boy in a sideways baseball cap and winter coat with his head bent over a Nintendo DS.
Jax was guessing that was Kenneth, though Jax had missed seeing the kid in the French farce of entrances and exits.
As much as Jax had loved being Brian Anderson, loved filming the show and his TV family, loved the fan attention and seeing the show top the ratings, as an adult, he cringed to watch himself. The first two seasons weren’t as bad, though at thirteen he’d been awkward and ugly, but the worst was seeing himself at sixteen, like the episode now, his first date with Alicia—Gwen. God, Jax had thought he knew everything then. He hated the smarmy bastard he saw on the screen.
“You’re him?” Regan asked, climbing up on the couch. “What’s he say next?”
“Uh—” Jax struggled to find some proof.
“It was a long time ago, honey.” Her aunt offered Jax as much cover as she could.
“I saw Frozen a long time ago, but I remember.” Regan started to sing the familiar tune.
“Daddy, don’t let her sing. We’re watching.”
“Regan—” Oz began.
“I was just showing.”
“Off,” her sister said.
Jax stifled a laugh. These kids could have written some of the dialogue on the show. On the forty-inch screen, younger brother Alex tried to get Brian in trouble by playing a recording of him asking out Gwen to another girl.
Oz leaned over the back of the couch where his sister sat. “This is your idea of wholesome fare?”
“If I hear a certain arrangement of notes accompanied by lyrics about H2O below thirty-two degrees one more time, I will let something go all right,” she murmured back.
Jax found his place in the episode. “Next, Brian asks Alex to help find his backpack.”
When the line was delivered, Regan turned to examine Jax again. “You remember now? What’s gonna happen next?”
“Alex says he has to study. But he’s going to stop Gwen on her way in and tell her that I’m—Brian—is planning on taking someone else to the dance.”
“See?” Regan said to her sister.
“So? Maybe he just saw this one before,” Ayla answered.
“So, Jax.” Angela patted the couch next to her. “Give us the 411. Where are the guys from Family Daze now?”
Jax liked Oz’s sister, who was doing her best to smooth over a more awkward situation than anything the scriptwriters had thrown at them. The kids were smart and interesting and less sticky and whiny than he remembered from posing for pictures with people. But it wasn’t them he owed explanations to.
“Maybe another time?”
Oz rested a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Angle, can you give me another five minutes to talk to Jax?”
She gave her brother what Regan had said were high eyes. “As long as it’s nothing but talk.”
Jax’s cheeks sparked with heat. God, if they’d been here any earlier…. He was pretty sure he’d yelled. Both times.
Oz tipped his head in the direction of the kitchen, and Jax followed him down the hall.
He was ready for Oz to tell him to get lost. Those kids meant everything to Oz, and they’d just been treated to a messy display of Dad’s half-naked fuck buddy in their kitchen.
“I’ll grab my shoes from upstairs,” Jax said. “Sorry.”
“For what?” Oz blocked the way to the hall, making Jax stop before their chests bumped together.
Oz’s face, his cheek, his jaw close enough to touch. But he might as well be on that tiny screen, a thousand miles away, with Jax’s palm aching to feel the prickle of beard or the smooth satin of his scalp. Because this wasn’t them locked away in bed together, it was Oz’s home, his family. His kids right down the hall.
“Jax.” Oz’s voice held that familiar edge of humor that always had Jax hoping for a call. “What? Your show wasn’t that bad.”
Jax had to answer the same way. “Gee, thanks.”
“You don’t seem the type to have pulled a child-star-gone-bad spiral in and out of rehab.”
No, watching Ren battle heroin had been more than enough of a lesson.
Oz’s eyes went soft, that velvet depth to the brown Jax got to see when Oz was sliding in, an expression as open as Jax’s body felt in those moments.
“And really? I can’t imagine I could make much selling this story to a tabloid.”
An acid rise of bile in Jax’s throat forced him to grip the counter. He knew, knew, Oz was kidding, but the idea of it, of everything Jax had locked safely away laid bare for every online outlet to pick over, tweet, comment on…. The call from Paul Blanchard weighted with disappointment. Jax swallowed back the burn.
“So that’s it.” Oz nodded.
Yeah, Jax had known the good-bye was coming. Really liking the person you were fucking didn’t mean it wasn’t still just fucking when it came down to it. And Jax wasn’t Theo to go proposing marriage because it was legal now.
Oz put his hand over Jax’s on the counter. Jax let it rest there for a minute, felt the warmth, the way this man’s skin had such a chemical reaction with his own, tingling the nerves under the skin.
Jax pulled his hand away.
Oz looked at where his hand rested alone on the counter. “You know I would never do that. It’s none of my business if you’re out or not.”
Yes, Jax knew that, but he’d never come so close before to the idea of it, that everyone would know. That everything he’d always worked for would slam up against that rainbow ceiling.
He’d seen it happen to men and women with much bigger careers. Yes, there was still work. But the big roles, the heroes, the game changers—those never came again. Hollywood was illusion, the illusion that these beautiful people were available for your fantasy. Somewhere down the line, it had
been decided that being gay meant you were only available as a fantasy for the 10 percent who shared that with you, and reaching 10 percent wasn’t enough.
“I’m not. I mean, I don’t lie or pretend to have girlfriends. But I don’t do much besides promoting whatever I’ve worked on, and I don’t answer questions about my private life.”
Oz’s eyes crinkled with sympathy. “Sounds like people probably do know.”
“It’s different when it’s public knowledge.” Jax shook his head. “It’s hard to explain outside the business.”
Oz’s lips parted, and then his jaw shut before he finally spoke. “Well, like I said, it isn’t any of my business. And you don’t need to worry about Angela either.”
Jax hadn’t waded past the initial waist-high panic to think about how deep shit could be. “Thanks.”
“I won’t say I won’t be headed to YouTube to look into what Jax Conlon’s been up to as soon as I get a chance.” Oz had that inviting smile on his face, the one that made waitresses start acting like he was their long-lost son.
Jax smiled back. At least this wasn’t going to be a bitter, confrontational thing. “Well, some of the things I’ve done for a paycheck make Family Daze look like Shakespeare.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Okay. I better cut Angela loose before I lose my best babysitter.” Oz went down the hall.
Jax started for the stairs, then spotted his shoes near the front door. Just his luck, the laces were too tight to jam them on. He had the first one unlaced when the side door into the kitchen opened and a man came in holding a big bouquet of flowers.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, mis niñas. Mi vida.”
He appeared to be younger than Jax, shorter, but ripped, hard muscle evident even under his nylon workout clothes. The man’s skin was brown, lighter than Oz’s. As the guy turned from shutting the door, his light brown eyes went wide, lips rounding in surprise.
A stream of angry Spanish followed. Jax’s on-set classroom instruction had included the California-mandated two years of language instruction, but in this situation, it was useless. He just knew the words weren’t compliments.
Light steps ran down the hall toward the kitchen, little girl voices echoing. “Papi’s here!”
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