by Frankie Love
In her ear, I whisper, “I love you, Jules.” Then I pull back, greeting Sophia and Henry with hugs and introductions to Jules—who they have heard all about already—and then offer Sondra a curt greeting. I don’t have time for her bullshit.
“I’m so surprised to see you here, Callahan,” Sondra says disapprovingly. “Didn’t know they were giving bartenders tickets to this event,” she says. “Or are you working the open bar tonight?” She laughs as if she’s said something funny. Everyone else just looks at her tightly.
Sophia and Henry know who I am, obviously, and so does Jules. So Sondra’s words just sound fraught and shallow.
“I can’t believe our son isn’t here,” Sophia says, dabbing her eyes, a slight slur to her words. She is unsteady in her heels, and I watch Henry steady her with his hand on the small of her back.
“It’s okay, love,” Henry tells her.
“But the night before he died he told us he hated this movie,” she says under her breath. “Why are we even here?”
I turn to them. “I thought you said you hadn’t spoken to him the night before he died?”
Sophie and Henry exchange a quick glance. “Right,” Henry says. “It was in the voice mail he left. You’re right. We didn’t speak to him.”
Sondra shakes her head. “We need to act supportive of one another right now, okay?” She locks her eyes with Sophie. “Remember? We are here for--”
“The tribute?” Jules says. “Right? For Sawyer’s tribute?”
“Exactly,” Sondra says, straightening her back. “The tribute.”
Confused at whatever angle these three are vying for, I lean close to Jules and tell her that I’ll be back. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Do you want me to come with?” Jules asks.
Before I can answer, Danny Bruneau walks toward us with Gretchen and Colette. Speak of the devil.
I need to get Danny alone and ask why he thought to bring Gretchen tonight was a good fucking idea.
But before I can, Danny’s already giving out handshakes and hugs, and Gretchen and Colette are in a stare down with Sondra. Danny works his charm, dismantling tension between Sawyer’s parents and Sondra, getting his models to smile at his old fashioned jokes.
Jules has moved on and is standing with Sophia now, discussing something quietly, but my eyes are still focused on Danny.
“Can we have a word, sir?” I ask him.
“Well, I think they’re gonna call us to our seats in a few minutes, don’t you?” Danny asks.
“It can’t wait,” I say.
Danny looks at me, his eyes narrowing. With pursed lips, he steps back as if using Gretchen and Colette as his armor.
“What is it, Cal. Anything you want to say to me you can say in front of my friends.” Then he grins again, warmly, but it isn’t a sincere smile.
I grew up in show business, I can fucking tell the difference.
“I don’t think this is a conversation for everyone, actually,” I say, my eyes darting between the women before me.
“Aww, come on Cal. Feeling nervous at your first red carpet event?” Danny asks. “Because, son, you have nothing to worry about with a girl like Juliana on your arm.”
At that, Danny turns to Jules and gives her a peck on the cheek, but he seems nervous, and when he moves I can tell his hands are shaking. Something isn’t sitting right—with me or with him.
“Anyone want a drink?” Danny scans the crowd for a cocktail waitress. He flags one down and she delivers everyone glasses of white wine. Danny takes his, drinking it quickly. Too quickly.
“Everything okay?” Colette asks him. Apparently, I’m not the only person clued in on the fact that Danny’s not acting like himself.
“Oh, I’m great. I’m great. Just dandy.”
“Okay, I just...” Colette shakes her head.
The waitress comes back around and Danny grabs another glass of wine, and when the waitress hands it to him, he seems to grip it a little too tightly with his shaking fingers and half of it sloshes over the rim.
The waitress reaches for a napkin to wipe the spill off the gleaming hardwood floor, at the same time Danny leans over to take the rag from her. His phone falls from his pocket as he bends over the floor cleaning the spill, and I reach down to pick it up for him.
The lock screen isn’t on, and a text message lights up the screen.
Maybe it’s tacky for me to read it, but I can’t help myself.
Danny still doesn’t realize he’s lost his phone, and the words on the screen are glaring at me, refusing to let me look away.
The text reads, “Video received. Payment made. Keep up the good work.”
Maybe it’s the word video that strikes a chord with me, I press on his camera icon, wordlessly, and watch as images pull up on his phone. Images that are being delivered through a private feed.
Images of the Fuck Club.
My Fuck Club.
“Hey, hey, you got my phone there, Cal,” Danny says standing and reaching for it.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask.
I don’t even look up, don’t register that Danny is coming toward me and reaching for the phone. When I click on the video tab, the first one is a video of my mother fucking throne room.
And it’s a video of Jules naked, on her knees, before me.
Someone is going to fucking pay for this.
And that person is Danny Bruneau.
5
It all happens in a flash, but it’s also as if time stands still.
I know both of those things can’t be true at once, but right now, they are. I watch as Callahan lunges for Danny. My eyes flash in confusion, not understanding what has caused the man I’ve given my heart to lash out at the man who gave me a chance. The man who saw potential in me and believed in my ability to be a model.
I reach for Cal to pull him back, but he just throws a cell phone in my direction.
I catch it, gripping it tightly in my hands at the same moment Cal’s hands grip tightly around Danny Bruneau’s neck.
Cal squeezes until Danny’s face turns red, and Danny reaches for Cal, clawing at his hands, and that’s when time stalls out for me.
For everyone at this premiere.
Everyone in the room stops moving and looks at the two men in one another’s clutches. Danny’s eyes go wide, and Cal’s go dark—fueled with a fury I’ve never seen in him. I’ve only seen Cal in a fight once, back at the club the first night we met—and he was angry then... but this? This is personal. Deeper.
Cal is out for blood.
I look down at the phone in my hands. A video is on the screen and with trembling hands I press play. But even from the still frame, I know what I am about to watch.
What I never wanted to see.
Something so intimate, so sacred, so pure.
Me, on my knees before the man I love. Giving Cal my body as he gives his to me.
On the throne room floor, I have Cal’s hard cock in my mouth and am sucking hard and fast. I remember how our words of commitment, our I love yous were heavy in the air that day. But this footage doesn’t capture that. This video is of my bare body giving my boyfriend a blow-job.
The video keeps rolling as my head bobs up and down. Cal’s eyes are closed, his hands are in my hair as he pulls my head closer to his groin. You can hear our moans, our grunts, you can hear us as we make love.
My eyes filled with tears as I watch, my mascara running rivers down my face, and I know my cheeks are streaked in black.
I shake my head, gasping as I cover my mouth, holding the phone so tightly in my hand never wanting anyone else to get ahold of this.
No one can see this.
I’m shaking, and I fall to the ground. My eyes lift for a moment, watching Cal’s bicep pull back, and as a punch lands square across Danny’s jaw. Without restraint, Cal pushes Danny toward a wall, people move aside, shrieks and hollers fill the room.
Security rushes in, and Gretchen and Colette fall t
o the floor next to me, trying to understand what’s happening amidst all this chaos.
My hands hold the phone as the video plays, as I...
God, I can’t watch anymore.
Colette and Gretchen watch the video, gasping as they come to realize what I am processing.
As I come to understand what Danny has done to me.
To them.
To Cal.
And with a deep ache in my belly, I register the worst crime of all.
I understand what Danny Bruneau has done to Sawyer Bennett.
How? Why?
No.
The reality hits me, I cry out as the realization floods me, as I watch Callahan yell in Danny’s face.
“What the fuck did you do? You will pay for this, you fucking piece of shit.” Callahan’s words are loud and volatile and the press is here and they take pictures of everything, flashes surround us, a hush falls over the room.
Sawyer’s family witnesses this alongside everyone else, and I wish they could have a moment of privacy. I hate this for them.
I hate this for all of us.
This city is cruel, more calculated than I wanted to believe.
The people you trust are frauds. The people you love can be taken in a moment. And what is left?
When the dust settles? What is there?
All that we have is a moment. The here and the now.
We have to hold tight to them.
After all, they people we love most can be taken in a flash.
Nothing is sacred when people are hungry for fame; it’s like a flame that can’t be quenched.
Everything and everyone has a price tag.
I don’t want to know what Danny thought I was worth.
Danny sputters as Cal is forced away from him by security, his death grip on him had been so tight that Danny is now keeled over, gasping for breath.
Cal’s fists are clenched—his strength and honor, his integrity has been publicized.
He didn’t want to show his face... and I understand that... but his character? That can’t be locked away.
It is his essence. It is who he is at his very core and I love him more in this moment I ever dreamed possible.
Cal will fight for me.
He is fighting for me. For us.
And in this town that wants to destroy, Cal has vowed to lift me up.
I’m far from my daddy and my grandma, but Cal is here, willing to protect me.
Danny, though, he is nothing.
He begs for forgiveness. His voice is ragged and raw, desperate. His voice so very weak.
“I never meant to hurt anyone,” he sobs. I get to my feet, step toward him, needing to understand this man I so trusted. “I was blackmailed. I was forced to do this. I was only trying to pay my wife’s bills. She was dying and I needed the money. I had an opportunity that seemed too good to be true...”
His words are lost through his pleading. Security lifts him to his feet, everyone trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on.
They still haven’t seen the evidence in my hand.
They don’t understand that blackmail or not, Danny is the one behind the scandal.
I click on the phone still in my hand. In Albums, I see a cache of footage from multiple rooms at the club. Other celebrities have been filmed. My heart races as Gretchen and Colette grip my shoulders, steadying me.
We’re in this together and that gives me comfort.
I click on Photos and see so many shots of the last month—all taken at the Fuck Club.
We’re speechless, but we know what we see.
We know what Danny Bruno has done.
He brought us here, Gretchen, Collette, and me. Three women with no prior experience of this industry. He told us we were required to attend events with him, come to the Fuck Club with him. He encouraged us time and time again to join him there.
Never acting like it was a big deal when those articles came out against Colette and Gretchen. Never suggesting that this might be a bad situation for us.
Instead, he brushed off our concerns and told us it was just business. And that any press was good press.
And we were too naïve to understand.
The person who was supposed to guide us was the person leading us into the lion’s den.
He’s a monster and he needs to pay.
Cal has been pulled back by security and is dragged away from the premiere. Danny is taken too; the security guards need to understand what just went down.
And I hold the evidence that is going to put the man I trusted behind bars.
6
I’m dragged down to the police station, in the back of a cop car, where I’m then put in a holding cell until the cops bring me in for questioning.
But I’m not behind bars for long. While I was taken to the station, Jules was meeting with officers and gave them all the information they needed to know along with the phone.
Now, I’m just waiting to see my girl. Needing to see her.
I want her to know that I will do anything within my power to make sure no one else ever sees that footage.
I get out of questioning fast because once they understand my story, once they’ve seen the tape of me and my woman—everyone seems to understand why my blood was boiling so damn fast.
And Danny, he’s not a fool enough to press charges.
That man will never set foot in this town again.
An officer hands me back my belongings, a Rolex and my wallet. Things that mean nothing to me.
The only thing that matters anymore is Jules.
“So, you’re Levi Mallone?” the cop asks, shaking his head as if he can’t believe it. “Damn shame what happened to your parents.” I had to give them my legal name when I was brought in. I was fingerprinted too. I understand the drill and don’t mind that these guys know.
Maybe it was better this way, you know? Having to be honest about who I really am. It might make it easier for me when I tell everyone else.
Or, make it easier when everyone finds out from the tabloids—because I’m guessing once I started throwing punches at Sawyer and Sondra’s premiere, people started putting two and two together.
“My parents were the best. I’m lucky to have had the honor of being their son,” I tell the cop.
Jules’ words—plants need light in order to grow, so does love—flash through my mind once again.
I never talk about my parents publicly. Hell, I never talk publicly at all.
Which is why, now, telling the police officer that my parents were the best, makes me feel like I’ve been doing them a disservice for a hell of a long time.
My parents died, but the memory of them died that night, too because I’ve held all information I have about them back.
I could have done interviews, told the world just how great my parents were. And instead, I hid out of fear.
I was scared that what happened to them might happen to me.
And sure, they wanted me to be protected in ways that they weren’t, but now I’m a grown ass man. Now I don’t have to hide who I am or where I come from.
I’m proud of my past. And when I walk out to the station’s waiting room and see Jules sitting in a plastic chair, waiting for me—I’m proud of my future too.
A life with the woman before me.
“Cal,” she says, wrapping her arms around me, squeezing tightly. Crying softly on my shoulder. “I love you,” she says.
My hands are on the small of her back and I whisper in her ear, “I love you too, baby. I love you too.”
And then I take her hand and we head back to my loft.
It’s been a long time since we’ve made love in a bed, and tonight I need her in my arms.
I won’t let go.
In bed that night, Jules rolls up on top of me, sinking her warm, wet pussy down onto my cock. She grinds against me, her tits bouncing as she moves, her long hair brushing against my chest, her eyes locked on mine.
“What happens next Cal?
” she asks.
“I don’t know yet, baby, we’ll figure it out together,” I tell her.
“Together.” She nods, needing the affirmation from me.
It makes me feel amazing, having this girl’s devotion, having her trust back.
She moves against me, her perfect hips swiveling above me, her pussy filled with everything I can give her.
I’ll do anything in my power to keep her this happy forever.
– –
The next morning, Jules is still naked in my bed and she reaches over into her purse and says her phone is dead. Since I don’t have the same phone as her, she can’t charge it at my place.
“I can call someone and have a charger delivered,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “I should go home anyway, shower and get clean clothes. And honestly, I don’t really know how Colette and Gretchen are doing either. I should check in on them.”
“You’re a good friend,” I say, kissing her neck and pulling her back toward me in the bed. “We could also just stay here all day.”
She lets me roll on top of her, filling her with my morning wood. “How about we just do this one more time and then deal with all the shit we have on our plates,” she says.
I nod in agreement, thrusting inside her, knowing I need to talk to Jordan and confirm where the cameras were planted in the club, knowing the cops are probably already there surveying the crime scene.
We were damn sure last night that the people Danny admitted were blackmailing him were with the mob, but the cops are going to take care of that piece.
I fill Jules up, and her morning smile makes my whole damn day.
“How about two more times?” I ask, rocking into her hard.
She gasps as I do, her arms reaching out for my headboard and holds on tight as I fill her perfect little cunt with my come.
“If you promise to do that move again,” she tells me with a twinkle in her eye. Then she laughs, and her voice fills my heart with promise.