“Are you high?” I asked him, smiling in spite of myself. I knew coming to Dad for any kind of advice would mean dealingwith dad jokes. The predictability of it made me smile, and some of my tension eased. “No one is dead or pregnant.”
“Well, that’s a relief. You look terrible in orange.” Dad gave me another half smile. “Sorry, I’ll be serious now. Tell me all about the boy who has you tangled up.”
I let out a sigh. “Remember that guy who died a couple years ago. That friend of mine, Leo?” Thankfully, Dad kept his lips zipped and didn’t make any weird dad jokes, though I could see him practically bursting. “His younger brother is twenty now, almost twenty-one, and he’s going to be filming with me.”
It was times like this that I was grateful to have the kind of dad who didn’t care that I filmed porn for a living. He was shocked at first, but then he’d seen the sense of it. It wasn’t easy money, but it was accessible money. It put me in control of my body and my future. There was no way Dad could have afforded to send me to college. In fact, I’d been able to help him get into his condo. After all he’d done for me, it felt good to be able to help him.
“Is it his age? Because you’re not quite thirty, so twenty-one doesn’t seem like it would be too young.”
“It’s not his age. Anymore. I’ll admit that I only started to see him as someone other than Leo’s brother pretty recently.”
“So you’re going to film with someone you like? Is that a problem?”
“That’s not my issue. He’s hung up on Lukas in a pretty bad way, and I don’t know how to help him through that.” And then there was Blue, and the way he’d lived rent free in my head for the past few years. But I wasn’t about to tell Dad that the dick was so good I was still thinking about it three years later.
“Love is a bitch, Jax.” Dad took a sip of his coffee and was silent for a minute. “Oh, you thought there was more? Sorry. That’s all I got. Love is a bitch. You can’t make someone stop feeling something. You can’t unfeel things for them. This kid isgoing to be hung up on Lukas until he stops being hung up on him, and there’s nothing you can do about that.”
“So just… be his friend.”
Dad nodded. “Only if you want to be his friend for the sake of being his friend, and not because you think once he’s over Lukas, he’ll look at you next. He might; he might not. But it would be a pretty shitty feeling if you thought someone was only your friend because they wanted to get into your pants one day.”
“Dad, we’re going to shoot a scene together. I’ll be getting into his pants regardless, but I get what you’re saying, and you know you raised me better than that.”
“I know, but I wouldn’t be a good dad if I didn’t remind you of right and wrong. Is the shoot part of the problem? Because you could always back out.”
“It’s not that,” I told him. The scene wasn’t the issue. The whole problem I was having was that I didn’t know why Asher would ever look at me again after he got to be with Blue. First he was in love with Lukas and soon he was going to be with Blue, and I didn’t feel like I could compete with either of those things.
Logically, I knew that the friend zone was something dudes made up when they got pissy someone wouldn’t fuck them. I already thought of Asher as my friend, and I had done so before now, but that day of the screen test really solidified his place in my mind as a friend. A friend I could want more with. If he wasn’t hung up on Lukas. And if he had any sense in his head, he’d fall for Blue next. He looked good with Blue.
Which I couldn’t think about while sitting at a table with my father. Nope. That was awkward boner territory.
“You know, kid, this would be easier if you had an actual problem for me to solve. You’re hung up on someone who’s hung up on someone. It’ll happen, or it won’t. And as for his unrequited feelings or whatever for Lukas, there’s nothing you can really do about that. Be his friend. Expect nothing and begrateful for whatever relationship evolves between you. Even if it’s just friends.”
I let out a sigh. He was right, of course. But it didn’t stop me from feeling like I was always second best. Overlooked. Maybe it was a leftover complex from being a too-skinny, kind of weird son of a single father who had always been picked last for everything until magically over the summer between grades eight and nine, I’d hit a growth spurt.
Asher wasn’t going to pick me. I could already see the connection between him and Blue every time I watched that footage. I realized, with a little horror, that I was jealous of them and the way they’d looked together. Jealousy wasn’t something I was used to feeling, and it could be a bad quality to have in this industry. Jealousy could cause a lot of problems if people let it.
But jealous wasn’t the only thing I felt when I thought about Asher and Blue. There was curiosity too. I wondered what they’d be like during the shoot. If they’d remember I was there, or if they’d get lost in each other the way they’d done at the screen test.
It wasn’t Asher’s feelings I needed to worry about. It was mine.
EIGHT
BLUE
“I hopeyou haven’t been avoiding me,” Asher said as he dropped down next to me. We were gathered in what we called the green room at Lukas’s place for the shoot. Truthfully, I hadn’t been avoiding him. Work had been insane and to be perfectly honest… okay, maybe I’d been avoiding him a little.
“Work has been a nightmare. One of the girls quit with no notice so everyone’s been trying to fill in the gaps, and by everyone, I mean everyone has been making me take on as much of her responsibility as they can.”
Asher ducked his head. “What do you do again?” he asked, biting back a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I know you went back to school, but I can’t remember what for. I should know these things”
“Relax, Ashy. It’s fine. I’m a vet tech.” I swear saying that made Asher look at me with hearts in his eyes. “It’s not the most glamorous job, but I’ve always wanted to work with animals.”
As if on cue, Lara moseyed into the room and sat down next to me, letting out a groan as she did like it was so much effort for her.
“She’s so dramatic,” Asher said, reaching down to pet her. “Is Jax here yet?”
“Not yet. He’ll be here soon though.”
