There was nothing he could say to that; no defense or excuse.
She held his eyes a beat longer, then turned and walked away. The door shut behind her with a soft, final click. The silence that followed felt louder than the buzzing of his phone. He sat there frozen until the vibration rattled against the tile for a third time. Carson.
He dragged the call open. His voice came out raw. “Hello.”
“You saw it?” Carson’s tone was tight.
“Yeah.”
“Fuck.” A beat. “It’s a clusterfuck. TikTok’s in heat. Reddit’s analyzing your pupils. YouTube—don’t even open YouTube.”
Liam closed his eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to leak.”
“I know. Studio’s losing their minds. They think it was someone rogue on crew. They’ve launched an investigation, but that doesn’t help us now.”
Liam pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “So what do we do?”
“We’ll do damage control, interviews if we have to. Listen Liam, this isn’t going away anytime soon.”
“It was a scene,” Liam snapped. “It was acting.”
Carson snorted. “Acting doesn’t usually have audio that sounds like you’re about to come.”
Liam flinched. “Jesus.”
“I’m not saying it’s fair,” Carson added quickly. “But you’re under the microscope. You’re America’s golden boy—the perfect husband with a baby on the way. That’s the brand, Liam. Right now they’re feasting on this. Playing gay on screen? No problem. People thinking youaregay? That’s different. That’s when it might hurt your image. Unfortunately the world isn’t as progressive as it pretends to be.”
Liam forced the lump down his throat. “And Jacob?”
“Jacob’s Jacob. Untouchable. People worship him. He can take the hit. His team’s stonewalling, staying above it. It’ll work for him.”
Liam said nothing.
“You okay?” Carson asked at last, voice softened.
He didn’t respond. They both knew the answer.
“I’ll send you talking points. Your publicist will call. We’ll hold the line.”
The call ended and the silence came crashing back. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until sparks litbehind them, until the ache in his chest matched the one in his skull.
He wanted to smash the phone. Or himself. Instead, he dragged his gaze back to the screen. Missed call after missed call—his publicist, Cassie, his sisters, even his dad. Just noise, all of it. Except for one message that refused to blur into the rest.
Unknown:Are you okay? Jacob
Liam stared. They’d never texted before. Those three words sat on his screen like a weight in his hand. His thumb hovered, useless, because what the hell could he say?Nothing would change the fact that half the internet thought he was in love with Jacob Wolfe.
Chapter 14
Jacob
Jacob stared at his phone, frustration tightening his chest. A hot flush of anger tangled with something he refused to name.
He shouldn’t have sent the text. Shouldn’t have let the impulse win. Liam’s number had been in his phone since the first production meeting, added by an assistant for “logistics.” He had never used it, though his hand had hovered over the delete button more than once. Deleting it would’ve meant admitting something he wasn’t ready to face; keeping it had been a quieter kind of denial. Now that denial sat in front of him in the form of three words he should never have typed.
Restraint had always been his protection, but right now everything felt unstable, and Liam was at the center of it all.
Sweet, reckless, unguarded Liam. Jacob wanted him like an addiction, a need lodged so deep inside him it made every denial feel like a lie. It didn’t matter anymore that Liam was a man. That detail was irrelevant; it had never changed anything. Liam was all heart and emotion; everything Jacob had spent his life avoiding. Soft where Jacob was sharp. Loud where Jacob was silent. Chaos in the space Jacob had carved out for control.
