Cutesy Winnie Baker in all her dimpled, virtuous glory wouldn’t have been a problem. Some other equally anodyne actress wouldn’t have been a problem. But no, it had to be Bianca von Honey, with all that dark silky hair and all those velvet curves. The kind of curves that begged for fingertips and teeth...
Luckily, my phone chimed on the table, distracting me from that completely unhelpful line of thought, and I picked it up to see a text reminder for Mom’s upcoming psychiatric appointment. Barb was proving herself an angel again and driving Mom there, since Maddie had school. I forwarded the info on to Mom and Barb, then shot off another quickI love you, call if you need anythingtext to Mom, even though we’d spoken on the phone again and I knew she was doing fine for the moment.
It was all going to be okay, even though I wasn’t there. I had to believe that. Between Barb, Maddie, and Kallum stopping by in the evenings, it would be okay.
I just had to do my part here in Christmas Notch and make sure everything would be okay in the future too.
Before going to bed, I stopped by the costume department, needing to find the designer, whose name I’d learned was Luca. (“Luca what?” “Just Luca. Like Jesus. Or Kesha.”)
I’d found a waistcoat and jacket that would work with the breeches, but the jacket needed to be taken in at the waist. And given that the Duke of Frostmere was making his grand declarationtomorrow, I needed the alterations done in the hastiest of posthastes.
Except when I found Luca, he seemed even less inclined to help me than he had earlier today. He was sitting at a table with a sewing machine, his high-top sneakers propped up on the table while he carefully picked open the stitches of a corset. A podcast about Tonya Harding played from his phone while he worked.
“Hey,” I said, approaching the table. “I was wondering if you could take in a jacket for me? I need it by tomorrow. The shoulders and sleeves are good, it’s just the waist, really—”
Luca gave his corset a long blink and then slowly slid his eyes over to me. “I’m busy,” he said finally. “With another costume. It will take me all night.”
“I—okay.” I couldn’t shove someone else’s costume needs to the side, obviously, but this was a problem.
“So,” Luca said.
But he never added on to theso; he merely turned his attention back to the corset—after turning up the volume on his podcast.
Six-years-ago Nolan would have had arealbad attitude about this, but present-day Nolan literally couldn’t afford to have any attitude other thanwhatever it takes. “Okay, so can I borrow your sewing machine, then?” I asked over the narrator describing Jeff Gillooly’s childhood.
Luca heaved a giant sigh over the corset.
I squinted at him. “Do you not like me or something?”
He pressed his fingertips to his forehead, like I was giving him a splitting headache. “Let me ask you this, Nolan Shaw: Does everything have to be all aboutyouall the time? Do you ever stop to think that other people have lives and careers that need to survive your floppy-haired chaos?”
I was floored by his little rant. Like, yes, the floppy-haired chaos had been real, but it was alsosix years ago. I’d been an upstanding bisexual citizen since then! I went on very normal, disappointing dates! I had health insurance, and I hadn’t been in a single other circus-train orgy!
How long did someone have to be quiet and boring before all their floppy-haired sins were forgiven?
“Iguess,” Luca said, with an air of intense martyrdom, “you can hang out here and use my sewing machine when I’m not actively using it. But I’mnotchanging the podcast.”
He reached over and slid a pincushion shaped like a character fromYuri!!! On Iceacross the sewing table. And then he added a spool of thread, setting it down like a bartender setting down a shot glass.
“There,” he said, waving a hand at the pincushion and the thread. His tone was—marginally—more inviting. “So you can get started.”
Whatever it takes, Nolan, I reminded myself. And to the sounds of Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly’s burgeoning courtship, I sat down and started working.
I woke up just after dawn, my eyes gritty from too little sleep and my fingers sore with needle pricks from altering the Duke of Frostmere’s jacket. I also had an outrageous erection, which refused to abate while I fumbled my way into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, and then throbbed angrily in the tepid spray of the shower. I’d been trying not to jerk off since I met Bee, because it didn’t feel right. And also because I thought maybe I could train my erection Monks of New Skete style with lots of tough love and discipline.
But it had been less than a day, and already I couldn’t take it anymore. If I didn’t relieve the pressure, the Duke of Frostmere was going to be more blue-balled than blue-blooded, and I didn’t think I could risk that on set. Not after yesterday’s incident with the breeches alerted me to how little they concealed.
So with the help of some lotion courtesy of the Edelweiss Inn guest basket—thematically scented like gingerbread, no less—I gave myself a rough, quick release. I even did my level best not to think of Bianca von Honey as I did... although I eventually failed at that particular endeavor. (It was the memory of her nipples poking through a swimsuit on a ClosedDoors post that sent me plunging over the edge.)
After I finished, I pressed my forehead to the tiled shower wall and dragged in a miserable, gingerbread-scented breath. I barely felt any better. In fact, my erection was already valiantly trying to rebound, probably hoping for a lengthier jam session. Preferably with my phone in my left hand and the ClosedDoors app open to Bianca’s latest post, which featured some very see-through lingerie and a bright pink vibrator.
Clearly, I was going to have to figure out how to cope with this during the shoot. Starving my cock for attention had already proven a bust—literally—and because of Steph’s edicts, seeking out pleasure with a non-costar person wouldn’t fly either.AndI wouldn’t do that anyway because I already knew it wouldn’t truly scratch the itch. It would be like eating store-brand cookies instead of Oreos or watchingEnterpriseinstead ofDiscovery. It would only make me crave the real thing even more.
But I didn’t have time to figure it out now. My gingerbread-scented dick and I were supposed to be in the toy shop in twenty minutes for hair and makeup and then in a van to fake Frostmere Manor after that. I was going to have to make a Bee Strategy while I was being coiffed and scolded for trying to eat a croissant at the same time.
I turned off the shower and finished getting ready, making sure to grab my newly tailored jacket on the way out. I was hoping my patient podcast listening had endeared me to Luca last night, so maybe he’d help me more with costumes, although I kind of doubted it.
Maybe he’d been a One Direction fan back in the day.
