"Really? And what would those be?" he says. I pull him back into my body. He responds in kind by resting his back up against my bare chest. Fuck, if only this could last…
"That's not up to me to figure out. That's on you, baby boy."
"I'll bet you say that to all of your baby boys," he says. He looks up at me, his eyes snap together slightly. "Or whoever that chick was you were talking on the phone with, Not that it's any of my business."
Shit, Merissa. I almost forgot that she was coming. I sit up abruptly and check the time... it's 10:45. I should have another hour before she arrives. "You're my first baby boy, Jax."
His cheeks flush red. "Am I allowed to use your bathroom?" he says.
I grin and help him up to his feet. "Just don't steal any of my free samples of shampoo and soap, got it?"
The red on his cheeks amplifies, partly from embarrassment, and partly because he really seems to dig our little banter. Either way, I feel shitty and realize I need to stop bringing that up. Yeah, he fucked up by trying to rob me, but I need to let it go. He's not a bad kid, that's pretty fucking obvious at this point. Hell, I guess I knew that from the moment I saw him, the moment I looked deeply into his eyes. "That was a dick thing to say. I won't do that anymore, deal?"
"No, it's fine. A little reminder can't hurt me, right? Besides, I was legtit thinking about taking a bunch of your hotel soaps, so you're not as far out of line as you thought. I might even grab a towel if it looks fluffy enough for my needs," he teases.
"You're an asshole. Pretty fucking brash considering who you're talking to," I joke. His lips form a small, sexy smile as he bites down on his lower lips, causing my dick to twitch all over again. I grab him and pull him into me, our chests pressing up against each other. I can feel his balls against mine, and I want nothing more than to make him come all over again. I'm ready, but the circumstances are not.
Suddenly, there's a knock on my hotel door. "Did you order room service without me knowing?" I joke with him.
He shakes his head and smiles. "Do you count me ordering extra shampoos to steal room service?
I gently pull his lip down with my thumb and bury my tongue in his mouth. As much as I don't want to, I break away from our kiss and say, "I'll get the door. You go to the bathroom."
"You actors really know how to plan shit out, that's for sure," he teases.
I pretend to shoot him an evil eye before heading towards the door as Jax makes his way towards the bathroom. I open the door and my stomach feels like it just dropped to my feet. "Merissa, what are you doing here?"
She sets her bags down on the hallways floor, right in front of the door. She smoothes out the front of her red dress. "I thought I'd surprise you by grabbing an earlier flight. Guess that plan backfired," she says.
I find myself blocking the door as I continue to stall. "I thought you were coming in a little after twelve... you caught me off guard, that's all." That's an understatement.
Both Merissa and I turn towards the bathroom a loud rush of water comes out through the faucet. "Did I interrupt something?" she says.
I put on my best nonchalant face. "Of course not, it's just a friend. I'm glad you made it," I lie, reaching out for her bags.
She reaches down and grabs my arm. "Can I get a hug before you unpack all of my stuff?" she says, forcing a smile.
I set the bags back down. "Of course, I'm pretty distracted. Getting ready for this new movie as my head all messed up, you know the deal." I move in for a hug, but Merissa moves in for more. She presses her freshly painted lips into mine before I can stop her. And why wouldn't she? We've been dating for 3 1/2 years. Sure, we haven't had sex in the last three, at least, and her and I both know the real deal with this setup. But she's not giving up yet...
I immediately pull my lips away from hers. "Easy, Merissa. That's not part of our plan," I remind her.
Her eyes fill with disappointment, again. "I think you need to revisit our so called plan, Tyler."
"No, but you need-" I stop mid-sentence and turn as the bathroom door opens, and Jax comes out. He looks at Merissa and swallows hard. I reach for my mouth, wiping as much of her lipstick off that I can with a few quick swipes. Jax glances down at my hand, red lipstick smeared all over it. "Jax, this is Merissa. Merissa, this is a friend of mine, Jax…"
Jax walks towards her and reaches his hand out to shake hers. I hate that he has to experience this awkwardness right now. Not that it's fair to Merissa either, but she should've told me she was coming early. She does that often, tries to catch me off guard knowing it's sometimes the only way she'll get to see me more.
"It's such a pleasure..." her Voice trails off as she struggles to remember his name just three seconds after I introduced him.
"Jax Cameron," he says warmly, even though I can read his face. He seems uncomfortable, and I don't blame him.
I don't blame any of us. But I can't have this little fling blow up right now, that much I know. "Merissa and I have been together for a little over three years," I say to him, my gut wrenching the moment I say the words.
"Or as some would say, a little less than four years. Three years and ten months, but who's counting?" she adds.
I force a laugh.
"Yeah, I've seen you two together quite a lot," Jax says.
Why do I feel like somebody just smashed me in the stomach with a metal bat?
Doesn't matter. I know what I need to do.
"How did you two meet," she says, glancing over at Jax.
"Good question. I had my hands full with quite a few shopping bags earlier and Jax was kind enough to help me with them," I lie.
She looks over at him, and he shrugs his shoulders. "Yeah, something like that," he says, His eyes once again glance down at the lipstick on my hand.
"How nice. Do you live in town?" she says to him.
He goes to open his mouth but I cut him off immediately. "He does. Jax was actually just about to leave when you came. Since he helped me out of the goodness of his heart, I told him I'd give them a quick tour of my hotel room."
Ugh, I feel like such a dick. If only I had a choice…
He slides his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, I should go. Thanks for the tour, Mr. Cannon," he says.
"Of course, thanks for your help earlier," I say, reaching out to give him a firm shake. He returns the shake, but I can't help from noticing how quickly he pulls his hand away.
And then it hits me... I realize it's probably the last time I'm ever going to feel his skin again.
We exchange a few more awkward goodbyes, and before I know it, Jax is gone. I want to throw up in my own throat, even though I know I'm doing the right thing. My life is complicated enough, I can't have some boy toy complicate things even more. Besides, what the hell am I going to do, take him with me? Take him back to New York City and keep him in my closet while I'm off making movies and the rest of the world thinks Merissa are madly in love?
"Jesus, that was awkward. What the hell was that all about?" she says.
"I told you. He helped me, so I helped him."
Merissa grabs her bags. "You brought a total stranger back to your hotel room?" she says, clearly not willing to let this go.
"What's your problem? I don't do interrogations, you know that."
She sets her bags down in front of the bathroom and then steps out of her red dress. "You don't do a lot of things anymore, like me for starters," she says, leaning up against the doorframe in her lingerie.
"Already with this stuff?"
"We made a deal. And now I'm not so sure you're willing to hold up your end of the bargain," she says.
"Sure, we made a deal. And I'm doing the fucking best that I can. You know my situation," I say.
She shakes her head. Her body is tight and by any straight guy’s standards, Merissa is drop dead fucking gorgeous. From a publicity standpoint, she’s always looked perfect hanging on my arm.
But from every other standpoint, our “deal” is pretty fucked up.
/>
“Your situation? What about my situation? What about our situation?”
My chest feels heavy. Jax is gone. And now this. “I’m sorry Merissa. I can’t do this right now.. You can have my bed, I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Funny, a hotel room that costs fifteen thousand dollars per night, and I’m sleeping on the couch.
Merissa’s eyes start to well up. “You can’t keep avoiding this forever. You promised me marriage. And I stuck around, putting my life on hold because I believed in that promise.”
I take off my shirt and throw it towards the laundry bag by the door. “The promise was to keep things looking right on the outside, it was never really about us. You know that Merissa. I’m exhausted. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”
She shakes her head, her mascara bleeding into the top of her rosy cheek. “That’s what you said in Dallas. And Montreal. And three or four other cities.”
She’s right.
But I can’t deal with this yet. I can’t marry Merissa. I care about her, but not in that way. And she fucking knows that.
Problem is, I can’t not marry her either.
If I come out as a gay man, I’m finished in this business. I will never get these acting roles again, as messed up as that is.
“I’m not trying to drag you through this. You signed up for this, knowing the risks. Knowing the truth,” I say, my words coming out harsher than I intended them to.
“Yeah, I know the truth alright. Get yourself some rest. Goodnight, Tyler.”
What a mess.
Jax
I feel like shit. Got about three hours of sleep. I sent Ty a text last night, right after I left all awkward and embarrassed. He should’ve been the one texting me, not the other way around.
I actually had to force myself to turn my phone off somewhere around 3:00 a.m. just so I could stop checking it every four seconds or obsessively waiting for it to ding.
I pick my clothes up from the floor, the ones that I had on yesterday. I breathe in the leftover scent of him, my senses titillated.
Smoking. Hot.
As I bring my shirt up to my nose once again, I take in the smell of sex that lingered that somehow seeped into the fabric.
My stomach aches in places it never has before.
I turn my phone back on. Nothing from Ty.
No shit.
Desperate, I go right to his twitter feed. Jeez, his account is completely lit up and it’s not even noon yet.
My heart sinks as I zoom in on a picture of Ty posing with that Merissa chick in front of thousands of fans down at Long Tower Plaza.
Then I start to scroll through some of the hundred or so thousands of posts that came in this morning alone.
I feel like I can’t breathe as I rub my eyes, praying that maybe I just misread the first few dozen posts on Ty’s account, all of them about him getting outed as being gay.
Then I click on one of the links that’s plastered all over Google news.
Fucking. Christ.
There are pictures of me and Ty out in Boston together from when he took me to his car. Then there’s a link to video footage of him saving my ass at the club.
Shit.
My phones dings with a new text, from Ty: “Boston Commons parking garage. 1:00.”
My palms start to sweat. I shoot him a text back: “For what?”
I wait, no response.
Does he think I have something to do with this leak?
I shower, throw on my favorite jeans and a simple V-neck white tee, and leave my apartment in time to do as he says, even though it's the last thing I should be doing.
When I get to the garage, I see a brand new red Porsche SUV with the lights on and a tall, muscular figure in the driver’s seat. He waves me over, my gut tightening immediately.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he snaps.
His knuckles are white from gripping the wheel so tightly.
“Seriously? You make me look like a fool last night, like whatever happened between us never actually happened, and now you just assume I had something to do with that leak?”
He scoffs. “Come on, man, give me a break. I know how much people like you get paid for that kind of tell-all information.”
“People like me?” I say, facing him head on.
My pulse soars, and as messed up as this is, I want to reach out and touch him.
Not that I would, or that he’d let me.
“That’s not what I meant,” he says defensively.
“Sure, Ty. Big fucking movie star. Thinks he can fuck around with whoever he wants and then not give a shit about anyone’s feelings an hour later.”
He turns his whole upper body to face me, his muscular shoulders pressing through his black button-down shirt. “We had an agreement. You signed a contract.”
“Let me guess, you’re going to sue me now?”
Ty sneers. “You really don’t get it. This could ruin my career.”
I look away from him. “Of course that’s the only thing you can focus on.” I reach for the handle on his car door. “Do what you want to me. But I didn’t leak shit about us.”
“Trust me, I’d love to believe you, Jax.”
I get out of his car and then look back at him one last time. “Why should I trust you about anything?”
He scoffs and starts his car. “Guess we’re in the same boat, baby boy. My lawyers will be in touch.”
“Whatever. Thanks for the meeting, I really enjoyed this,” I say just before slamming his car door shut and leaving the parking garage as fast as I can without looking back.
As I round the corner onto Arlington Street, I feel like I’m going to pass out.
If only that was the worst of it…
The last week or so has been a living hell.
Crushed by loneliness, knowing that nobody knows the truth, apart from me and Ty.
Ty’s PR team not only did a seamless job covering up the leak, showing him back in New York with just about every good looking vagina they could find him.
My friends and family hounded me for the first few days until I eventually started avoiding all of them like the plague.
Then I got the proverbial, and final, kick to my gut… it was announced on E! that Ty and Merissa got engaged. Although it didn't feel proverbial, the pain in my body felt extremely real.
What’s the matter with me for obsessing over a man who I knew all along wanted nothing more from me than a cheap fuck? I guess he was right, I really do need to change my life's course of action... and that's exactly what I plan to do.
I grab an Uber to head downtown so I can interview for a job at the Boys and Girls Club. If I took anything away from the shit that went down with Ty Cannon, it’s that I’m ready to grow up and do what I love, even if it won’t bring me a Porsche SUV’s and E! interviews.
I adjust the knot in my tie and walk towards the front desk of the Boston Boys and Girls Club.
A middle aged African American woman with long, intricate blue braids and all Nike attire comes over to greet me. “I take it you’re here for the interview?” she says warmly, her smile calming me down a bit
“I am,” I say, reaching out to shake her hand.
She flashes another wide smile as her brows furrow. “I’m Sandra, the director here at the club. I know you, don’t I?” she says.
Please, not now. “Not that I'm aware of,” I say, hiding my hands in my front pockets.
She squints her eyes and shakes her head. “My office is out back. Follow me,” she says.
Of course she knows me. Ty Cannon and Boston go together like peanut butter and jelly. Everyone with a pulse has caught some glimpse of that leak, and my face was plastered all over TV and the internet for the last week.
What she doesn’t know is the truth…
That Ty and I had the kind of physical connection that words can never come close to describing. That he stole my breath every time he kissed me. That he made my heart flutter with every touch.
I follow her back through a long, winding hallway, into an office that has just enough room to fit an old wooden desk, a warped file cabinet, and a single blue, wooden chair for visitors.
“Please, sit,” he says. We lock eyes. “First rule of thumb, we teach all of our kids here to be themselves. And that means not hiding who we really are, and what we really feel. I get the feeling you understand me, am I right?”
I swallow hard. “I understand. I want to make a difference, that’s why I’m here.”
She nods. “Good. And you know that difference starts with you, don’t you? We need to be able to walk the same walk that we’re asking our kids to do. That means we need to be strong, set an example with our strength. Sound like something you can do?”
I hesitate as her words percolate in my brain. “Yes, absolutely,” I finally say.
She smiles. “I know you can, Jax. I felt that from you right away. I've been doing this long enough to know those who have the gift of working with these kids. I just needed to hear you say it out loud. Sometimes, that’s the first step towards greatness.”
My cheeks flush red. This is the first time anybody has ever mentioned the word greatness and me in the same sentence. “I’ve always wanted to work with kids who pretty much have nobody else in their lives to turn to,” I say.
She stands. “I can see that. Can you start tomorrow?”
“I got the job?” I ask.
“Are you surprised?
I lie and shake my head no. “Thank you, Sandra.
“Welcome, Jax, to the first established Boys and Girls Club in the country. Congratulations.”
We exchange a few more pleasantries before I go to leave. “You know,” she says as I’m about to leave, “Ty Cannon was a mess before he came to our club.”
My neck starts to burn as I turn to face her. “You knew him?”
She laughs. “I was his mentor. At the time that I had met him, he was being raised by his older brother, a big time dealer in Dorchester. Little Ty never stood a chance. Pretty much everyone in his immediate world wrote him off, and now look at him.”
Daddy's Rules (Boston Daddies, Book 2) Page 5