Nally exhaled and glanced to Jude with a smile as they walked on. “That sounds amazing.”
They were close enough to Mayfair and there were enough restaurants on Oxford Street that within fifteen minutes, they’d walked from the BBC studios, grabbed horrific fast food, and made it into the Georgian splendor of the Cranleigh family townhome. They set up shop in Jude’s bedroom suite, and as he sat at his computer desk to eat and check on all his many socialmedia accounts, Nally sank to sit against the wall beside the desk, pulling his cheap burger and chips out of their sack.
All was right with the world, and the vibe between Jude and Nally was as far from any sexy danger zones as could be.
“When all is said and done, I think I did alright,” Nally said before biting into the burger.
“Alright?” Jude glanced down at him incredulously. “Mate, you were stellar.”
“Hardly,” Nally laughed as he chewed. He swallowed, then said, “I would have come off as a complete wanker if you hadn’t been there to hold my hand.”
“I did not hold your hand,” Jude said, ignoring the soft feeling that came over him at the adoring look in Nally’s eyes. “More like I punched you in the arm then threw you into the lion’s den.”
Nally laughed, nearly sputtering the drink of soda he’d just taken. “I don’t know why I was freaking out so much,” he said, continuing with his meal a thousand times more relaxed than he’d been earlier. “I do that, you know? I hate that I do that, but I can’t help it for some reason.”
“Do what?” Jude said, clicking into one account and scrolling through the dozens of unread messages. It was impossible to keep up with the volume of responses he got to his posts, and he’d put up a particularly fun one that morning, before meeting Nally for the interview, with his commentary onTo Serve Himand why everyone should go see it.
“I panic in advance about things that turn out to be no big deal,” Nally said, thought about it, then chomped on a chip. “I should just loosen up and learn to be more like you.”
“More like me?” Jude grinned at the idea, tearing his eyes away from the screen to look at Nally again.
In a way, Nally still looked like the kid he’d been when they’d met ages ago. He would always look younger than he was, andhe still had a carelessness in the way he carried himself. Jude found himself thinking that he would have to give his friend lessons in deportment, how to stand, and how to angle himself for a camera, if his career kept skyrocketing, which, of course, it would.
In other ways, Nally was totally different than he’d been throughout their childhood. He was definitely an adult now. His body had long since toned up and filled out. He had the barest scruff of a beard forming, which hinted to Jude he had forgotten to shave that morning. Nally definitely had an artistic temperament when it came to forgetting key things like shaving or wearing matching socks. Things like that didn’t matter when you were a creative genius.
What Nally really needed was someone to be there for him every day, to make certain he put on clean underwear and made it to his appointments on time. The Hawthorne family wasn’t exactly famous for keeping it all pulled together that way. Maybe he could take the job. Maybe he could be the one to wake up with Nally every morning, cuddle for a bit, then get him up and at ’em so he could become the big star he was meant to be.
“What?” Nally asked suddenly, jerking Jude out of his thoughts. “Do I have ketchup on my mouth or something?” He wiped his mouth.
Another burst of warmth shot through Jude. He remembered what those lips tasted like. He could still feel the imprint on his own lips. He shouldn’t have tried to tongue kiss Nally the way he had. Or else he should have pushed through and really made out with him.
Fuck, it was going to be Timothy all over again.
Jude blinked and shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, turning back to the computer screen and frantically clicking to another window to distract himself. “I was just thinking about—”Nothing. He had absolutely fuck-all to follow that statement up with.
Nally was quiet, which made Jude turn to check on him. Fortunately, his silence was because he’d taken a big bite of burger and had his mouth full.
“We should make a video of you practicing piano or composing or something for your social media today,” he said, ignoring the awkwardness between them and forcing himself to focus. “I took a few pics of you being interviewed, but it’s video content that really gets the algorithms going.”
“You took pictures of me being interviewed?” Nally asked, perking up.
“Yeah, you wanna see?”
Without stopping to consider whether it was a good idea, Jude slipped out of his chair and sat against the wall, his side pressed up tightly against Nally’s. He pulled his phone out and scrolled through the pics he’d taken that morning.
“Those aren’t half bad,” Nally said with a smile. He put down his soda and took Jude’s phone. “Some of these are really good.”
Rule number one. Never hand your phone to someone to show them a picture. They always kept scrolling to other pics you may or may not want them to see. Nally did just that, flicking through a dozen borderline tawdry pics Jude had taken of himself for different social media moods. Some of them would get his account closed if he actually posted them.
But those weren’t the pics that made Jude’s heart thump or that had heat radiating from Nally. Beyond the selfies was a section of pics Jude had taken the night of the premiere, and the morning after. He hadn’t taken anything particularly salacious, although he should have grabbed his phone and snapped one of him and Nally in bed before he’d come up with his humping joke.
There were others, though—Nally looking at the computer in shock when he saw what was going on with his early social media efforts, the two of them goofing around at breakfast, and the two of them sitting on the couch together later, when they were just watching the telly. They were simple, everyday pictures, but they had Nally staring even more than the ones of Jude half naked.
“Is this the kind of thing I should be posting on social media?” Nally asked, handing the phone back to Jude.
“Sure, if you’d like,” Jude said. He had to clear his throat, then reached up onto his desk to get his soda. “Anything that engages people and makes them see you as human and not some untouchable star.”
“The last thing I want is to be an untouchable star,” Nally said, grabbing what was left of his burger. “I like to be touched, thank you very much.”
