He looked back at me, his brows pinched together for a second, but then his expression smoothed again and he smiled at me. “I really would’ve stuck around, but I have deadlines.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I have a bunch of things I need to get done. Errands and stuff.”
Jax nodded and shifted in place for a second, then motioned for the door. “I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah.”
Jax waited for another moment, then let himself out. When the door clicked shut behind him, I let the air whoosh out of my lungs. It had been a lie. I didn’t have errands to run or things to do, but now that they were gone, my apartment seemed emptier than it had before. Colder. So I went and changed my clothes andtouched up my hair and left my suddenly too-quiet-for-comfort apartment.
Once upon a time, Lukas had told me that isolating myself wasn’t the cure to my problem. That I needed to find people I was comfortable opening up to. I knew he was right when he said it, and I still knew he was right, but that didn’t mean I was going to do it. Even if I wanted to. And sometimes I wanted to, but I was too scared to think about what that meant. Now, for whatever reason, I found myself at River’s door.
River was another model and, other than Lukas, he was the only one who I knew I could go to when I was struggling. River and I had never filmed together. He was aesthetically pleasing, but he felt too much like family to me. River also knew of my attachment issues, and even if he never brought them up to me, he’d always made me feel supported. Feel seen.
The door swung open, and River answered with a soft smile. “You’re far from home.” He stepped aside and let me in. “Go get comfy and I’ll be right in.”
I stepped out of my shoes and made a beeline for River’s bedroom. I stripped down to my briefs, then crawled into bed. A few minutes later, he joined me, but instead of lying down with me, he sat up next to me and patted his lap until I shifted over and pillowed my head on his legs.
“You haven’t done this in a while,” River said as he started to comb his fingers through my hair to soothe me. “Everything okay?”
I let out a deep sigh. “I’ll let you know.”
SIX
ASHER
“How many ofthose are you going to drink?” Bentley asked me as he gave me a top-up.
“As many as I need to. I don’t want to go home.”
“So go to Lukas’s. You basically live there anyway.”
When I didn’t respond to that, understanding swept across Bentley’s face. “Ash, what happened?”
As my only non-porn-making friend, Bentley had the special honor of being the friend I told all my troubles to. Because he didn’t know any of the guys, he was a safe space for me to vent my frustrations, most of which had been centered around Lukas and how in love with him I was. So now that I’d put myself out there and had been soundly and swiftly rejected, I’d have to tell Bentley how it went.
“I think you know.” I couldn’t meet his eyes so I stared into my coffee instead. Bentley pulled the late shift at Bennett’s diner. It wasn’t an all-night place, but Bentley offered to take the last shift after one of the girls had a creepy encounter with aguy lurking in the parking lot. Thank God they served decaf, or I was never going to sleep again with how many cups of coffee I’d consumed.
Bentley put the coffee pot back and returned with a slice of apple pie and two forks. He kept one fork for himself and took a forkful of pie. “Spill.”
Taking the other fork, I looked up at him. “You know, a good friend would have served ice cream.”
“A good friend isn’t charging you for the pie. Now tell me what happened.”
“What do you think?” I couldn’t say the words. The sting of rejection clutched at my throat, squeezing it whenever I tried to talk about what happened.
“Ash.” Bentley let out a sigh, and I knew what he was thinking. We’d argued about this a few times over the past year. Bentley was convinced that I loved Lukas, but not in the way I thought I loved him. It was his opinion that I loved Lukas like a brother. Like family. Like, when I’d lost Leo, and Lukas had been there for me making sure I was okay, that my brain and my heart had gotten very confused about all the different things I was feeling, and I’d somehow convinced myself that I was in love with him.
And it was my opinion that Bentley was an idiot who didn’t know what he was talking about.
“I kissed him.” I kissed him and it was underwhelming and awful. It was like kissing my hand. It should have been magical. It should have been different. Better. In my head, it was better. In my head, it was magical and life-changing. But in a good way. Not like this. I could never go back to Lukas’s. There was no way I could face him knowing that I’d handed him my heart and he’d shoved it back at me.
Bentley let out a sigh and took another bite of pie. “And it didn’t go well.” Not a question.
“He—” I couldn’t make myself tell the story. Humiliation made my skin hot and itchy. I wanted to hide from everyone so that’s what I’d been doing ever since I left Blue’s apartment. “It didn’t go well.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“You can say I told you so. Because you did.”
