“Well, you could always do me a solid and try to talk Asher and Blue into a part two. I’d film with them again. And again. And again. We’ll even spare you the mental scars, and you can let River take the lead on the whole thing. You know he’s ready for his own project.” River had been around for a couple of years, and he still filmed now and again, but his real love was being behind the camera. Since Lukas’s big retirement from filming, he’d thrown everything into the production end of the business. I didn’t know when and if I’d ever give up performing, but until I did, I was happy to stick by Lukas.
The adult industry could be a predatory place, and though no one knew the whole story, the rumor was that, once upon a time, Lukas had been a minnow surrounded by sharks. He ran his ship a lot differently than other places. Some relied on skeezy tactics to keep models around. Other places thrived off creating tension between their talent. Sometimes people were promised a family, a place to belong. That’s how they lured them in. It wasn’t that they wanted to be in the adult industry. It was often vulnerable young men who didn’t have the best social safety nets, and they felt like they had no other option. When you dangled the promise of an instant family in front of them, sometimes it was too good for them to pass up.
I knew Blue didn’t have a great family, and Lukas had been on his own since he was a teenager. Up until his death, Asher had Leo. River and I were the only ones I could think of off the top of my head who had decent family ties. My mom was long gone, but River was close with his sister. I wasn’t sure if she knew what he did for a living, but my dad had known right from the start. In a lot of ways, my dad was my best friend.
On first glance, Lukas and my dad couldn’t have been more different. Lukas was quieter and far more serious than my dad, but underneath all the little things that set them apart, they were the same underneath. Both of them had big hearts.
“He’ll be okay, you know,” I told Lukas.
“You sound pretty sure of it.”
“You said he was messy. The messy ones are fighters. They have to be. It’s part of the reason they’re messy. Messy people don’t have it easy. If they don’t fight, they don’t survive.”
Lukas’s lips thinned into a flat line. “That’s what worries me.”
I left my spot where I’d been leaning against the railing and pulled a chair over to face Lukas. Dropping down into it, I looked him in the eyes.
“Listen to me. Asher is going to be fine. He’s hurt right now, and I hate to bruise your ego, but I think he’ll be able to get over you before long. I don’t know him well, but I want to. And I already said I wasn’t going to give up on him. He might think he can ghost me, but I won’t let him.”
“I worry about him.” Lukas’s shoulders slumped as he let out a sigh that seemed to deflate him. “Maybe too much.”
“I don’t think it’s too much. I think that you and Ash are probably due for a conversation or four about a lot of things.”
Maybe I was biased, and maybe it was wishful thinking, but I found it hard to believe that someone who kissed me the way Asher did, who looked at me the way he did, who lost himself in me, and in Blue, would stay hung up on Lukas forever. It seemedunfathomable to me. Like trying to slot pieces from two different puzzles together.
It might have been vanity. It could have been delusion. But for some reason, I found myself genuinely believing that there could be something between Asher and me, if only he’d let me in.
But then again, I’d convinced myself the same thing about Blue, and he’d been icing me out for a lot longer than Asher.
I drank the rest of my beer, then set the empty on the deck next to my feet before catching and holding Lukas’s gaze.
“Talk to him, Lukas.”
“He doesn’t want to listen to me.”
“Then find a way to make him.”
He scoffed. “Have you met him? There’s no making Asher do anything.”
“If he doesn’t want to listen, it’s because he doesn’t trust you to be real with him. Stop trying to be Lukas the protector, or Lukas the boss, or Lukas the stand-in big brother, and be Lukas the friend. Lukas the person.”
“Rich of you to think I’m a person.”
His smile was small and wry, and I slugged him in the shoulder for his comment.
“I’m being serious,” I said, trying to scowl, but he was grinning at me.
“So am I.”
Lara suddenly appeared, shoving her body between us.
“I don’t think she likes it when we fight.” I scratched her between the ears.
“She was protecting me.” Lukas grinned wider at me and wrapped his arms around her. “Weren’t you, girl?”
“Yeah, her and her lightning reflexes. She’d be on my side if I hadn’t taken her for a walk.”
At the mention of the world walk, Lara lowered herself down to the deck and sprawled out, closing her eyes. Shutting us out,kind of how Asher had. I flicked my gaze back to Lukas and we didn’t have to speak to understand that we both were thinking of Asher, and we were both still clueless on how to help him.
