“You and Nathan?!” Riley sputters. “Wow. Did not see that coming. Kinda glad I didn’t know on our first collab. The idea of that would have been so distracting.”
“It was a one-time thing,” I reiterate. I don’t want him thinking I have some kind of latent limerence for Nathan. “And what about you, anyway? You said you had a boyfriend before coming out here.”
“Yeah, he was my first and only.” Riley shakes his head, wiggling his toes to encourage me to continue his foot massage. “We really didn’t have anything in common. It was mostly just a proximity and convenience thing. Not a lot of choices where I’m from.”
“Were you in love?”Jesus, Luke, don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.
“No way,” Riley says quickly. “He was really nice. We had a good time together while it lasted. But neither of us was sad to see it end.”
“Did you guys live together?” Fuck, I guess I’m on a roll then.
“Nah. It was honestly more of a friends with benefits situation; except we weren’t really friends before it started, and we aren’t really friends now that it’s ended.”
I’m a little relieved at that, not gonna lie.
He’s quiet for a minute, brow furrowed in contemplation. “Do you think it will be weird for us to live together?” he asks hesitantly. “Even if it’s just temporary?”
“I’m okay if you are,” I say honestly. “I don’t want to push you into something you’re not comfortable with, but I want you to stay, Ry. I had the best time with you this weekend. I’m not ready for it to end.”
He grins. “Me either.”
My phone buzzes, notifying me our dinner is almost here, and I drop Riley’s foot and jump up so I can be ready and waiting at the door for the delivery. The conversation was a welcome distraction, but now that I’ve got food on my mind again, I’m pretty sure I’m about to die of starvation.
After leaving the delivery driver with a generous tip, we get all of the takeout cartons spread out on the coffee table and pick through a little bit of everything. I crack open a couple of beers for us before we settle back onto the couch to eat. “So, what’s your usual schedule like?” Riley asks me. “Like, when do you usually work?”
That’s a question I’ve never really had to think about before. I take a bite of Kung Pao chicken to buy some time. “Well, I have a collab coming up in a couple of days with Axel Oliver. I usually do a couple of new collabs a month and throw in some solo stuff, too. Schedule photoshoots, network for new scene partners, stuff like that. I just kind of take each day as it comes.”
“Cool.” He nods. “I’ve got one coming up with Beau Brady next week, I think.”
“Oh, I’ve worked with Beau,” I say, sipping at my beer. “He’s a cool dude.”
He blushes then, suddenly fixated on his beef and broccoli. “I know…I might have maybe watched that one a few times.”
“Oh, you liked that one, did you?” I smile. Thinking of him watching my videos all these years always gives me a little self-esteem boost. “That was a while ago, I don’t really remember much from it. But I remember he was a good scene partner. You’ll be in good hands with him.”
Riley bites his bottom lip, contemplative. “Is it weird to talk about this stuff? Like, if we’re in a relationship?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’ve never been in this boat before. But for me, work feels like something different than whatwe have, even though what we have started as work. Does it feel weird to you?”
He purses his lips and lets out a little hum, thinking. “It really doesn’t,” he determines. “Like you said, it feels like what we have is its own thing, and work is just work. I think sex and intimacy can be separate things. Like, I didn’t feel any intimacy at all when I collabed with Benji, but I felt a lot of intimacy just sleeping next to you. And I like it that we have that intimacy when we have sex. I’ve definitely never felt that with anyone else. Not the same, anyway. Maybe intimacy is more like a sliding scale, whereas the actual physical act of sex is like a fixed point.”
I do my best not to smile like an idiot when he says he’s never felt like this with anyone else. “How’d you get so wise?”
He grins at me through a mouthful of noodles and shrugs. His cheeks are puffed out like a chipmunk, and he’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. He washes it all down with a gulp of beer before asking, “So, should we set some ground rules then?”
“Probably not a bad idea,” I agree. “Like what?”
“Well, I think since we’re both okay with talking about work, we should do that,” he reasons. “As often as either of us wants to. I think open communication is key.”
I nod. “Makes sense. I think with that, we should also have veto power if one of us has bad vibes about the other’s scene partner.”
“Definitely,” Riley agrees. “Should we have rules for our own sex versus collabs, too?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, do we still want to do collabs together?” he asks. “Or do we want to keep our sex life private now?”
I mull that one over. There are pros and cons to both, I suppose. Our videos together have been my top sellers, and I think they have been for him, too. But I also don’t mind the ideaof keeping things just between us. “What do you want to do?” I ask finally.
