The bathroom hit him too bright, the fluorescents humming above him, and the white tiles sterile as an operating room. He leaned over the sink with both hands braced against the porcelain, dragging air through his lungs like he’d sprinted there.
He couldn’t bring himself to look in the mirror. His mouth still tasted of Liam, lips swollen from too many kisses. Every time he let his mind slip for even a second, he heard it again: the broken sounds Liam had made when Jacob kissed him deeper, the moans tearing out of him like he couldn’t hold them back.
He squeezed his eyes shut, pain slicing behind them. Somewhere between the cameras rolling and Ellen’s quiet “cut,” he lost every thread of control. He hadn’t just lost the scene, but everything they’d agreed to—the script, the carefulchoreography, the boundaries they had sworn to hold—all of it gone. Hurled out the window the second Liam had touched him back. He hadn’t given a damn about the people in the room, even though he wasn’t the type to get off on being seen.
His cock had been hard, painfully so, straining against the confines of his shorts. He remembered Liam trembling beneath him, clutching at his sides, spreading wider under the sheets as if begging Jacob to take more. Jacob had done just that—greedy and relentless—moving against him with a rhythm too good to stop, licking into his mouth in a way that hadn't been safe at all.
He twisted the faucet and splashed water on his face, the cold shock offering nothing, his pulse still pounding against his skull.
He had felt Liam come apart under him, voice breaking, body convulsing against his own. The memory alone was enough to set him on fire. It had dragged him over the edge too, spilling in his pants like some desperate teenager. Pathetic. Fucking pathetic. He was supposed to have his shit together, but all he saw was a weak idiot who couldn’t keep it together when it mattered.
His hands clenched tighter on the sink until his knuckles threatened to split through skin. When he finally forced himself to raise his head, the man in the mirror looked lost, as if the hunger clinging to his skin had stripped away every piece of who he thought he was. Leaving nothing but a stranger wearing his face.
He yanked the robe tighter around himself and forced the door open. The hallway wasn’t empty as he expected. Ellen was waiting for him with her arms folded, her calmness edged with something he couldn’t read.
“The intimacy coordinator wanted me to cut it sooner,” she said without preamble. “I told her no.”
Jacob froze, throat dry.
“I’ve known you too long, Jacob. And Liam is easy to read. I know what it looks like when someone’s uncomfortable, and that wasn’t it. That’s why I let it go on.” Her gaze was steady, unblinking. “What the two of you gave me wasn’t acting anymore. That’s why it worked.”
She exhaled, showing just the faintest crack in her composure. “I know that wasn’t the call I was supposed to make. The coordinator was right. But you were both giving me something I couldn’t script—something raw and real. I took it.”
The words landed heavy, because she wasn’t absolving him—she was joining him in the mess.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “I got the scene. It’s on film now. I can live with my decision. The art will always come first for me, as long as nobody’s hurt. The question is, can you live with how you got there?”
Ellen didn’t wait for an answer. She left him standing in the quiet, carrying the weight of what they’d both allowed to happen.
***
It was barely past six in the morning when Jacob pulled into the back lot of the boxing gym. The building was a concrete box tucked between warehouses, the kind of place no one stumbled on by accident. No sign out front, just a battered blue door and the kind of silence that said the world hadn’t woken up yet. It was exactly the kind of anonymity he needed.
He had texted Mason the night before, asking if he was free to spar. He needed the hit of leather and bone; the give-and-take that burned the tension out of his system. Mason never asked for a reason. He just showed up when he was needed.
Inside, the air was thick with the smell of rubber and old sweat, a fan overhead turning too slow to make any difference. The steady slap of jump rope marked the rhythm of someonealready working out in the corner, and Jacob recognized him as one of the regulars. He gave a curt nod in passing and went straight to the ring, pulling on gloves with mechanical precision.
Mason arrived five minutes later, a gym bag slung over his shoulder, and hair falling into eyes so dark they seemed almost black. He gave Jacob a long look and muttered, “Christ, you look like you haven’t slept or gotten laid in a month.”
Jacob finished tightening his gloves, refusing to bite. “Let’s go.”
Mason tossed him a towel, mouth twitching. “Alright, straight to business then.”
They stepped into the ring, circling each other, Mason loose and steady, Jacob all focus and angles. They squared up, and Jacob threw the first punch.
“So,” Mason said, catching it clean and sending it away with a minimal shift of shoulder. “Are you gonna tell me why you look like someone just pulled the rug out from under you?”
Jacob shut it out and kept moving, muscles burning with the need to strike. Maybe if he hit hard enough, the question would vanish—or at least the answer would.
Mason held his ground. He was tall and broad-shouldered, all efficient muscle honed by hard work. The kind of body that telegraphed nothing and wasted less. He moved with certainty, like someone who knew exactly how to use every inch of his body.
Round one stayed controlled: footwork solid, movements clean, both of them running on muscle memory. Jacob’s jabs were quick, only focusing on the rhythm. Mason moved with him, deflecting each strike and answering with precise counters.
During round two, Mason pressed harder. Jacob blocked and answered with more power, his gloves thudding into Mason’s guard with force. The exchange picked up speed—sharper footwork and heavier blows.
Mason’s gaze tightened, his eyes narrowing as if he were piecing together the reason Jacob kept hitting harder than necessary.
By the third,Jacob came in even fiercer, reckless in the way his fists swung. His combinations landed with too much force. He caught Mason clean in the ribs with a left hook that made him grunt, the sound rough and real in the quiet gym.
