Page 4 of The Comedown

Please don’t be dead, I mentally beg on repeat as I feel around, searching out a pulse, any pulse, even a faint one.

Slade pounds down the steps loudly—slowly, but loudly—to stand over us with as much concern as someone would give a pile of dirty laundry sitting in the corner of a room.

A tiny flicker of a pulse flutters against my middle fingertip, and I exhale shakily. He’s alive. Barely.

“He’s fine. He just passed out. He hasn’t slept in three days.”

Fine? Someone that hasn’t slept in three days isn’t fucking fine.

“I need to get him back on board before somebody gets a shot of this.” Over his shoulder, he barks an order, and not a moment later a bulky guy comes lumbering outside to scoop Julez’s body off the grass.

My hand’s still on his neck and the bald man gives me a look that says let the hell go, so I do, rubbing my middle finger under his jawline one last time just to make sure he’s still got a pulse.

I watch them disappear back on to the bus, wishing I could…I don’t know. Help Julez somehow. Does he need help?

Of course he does. He just passed out cold after staying up for three days straight.

But I didn’t sign up for that kind of help. Image. I’m here to make Julez look better, not necessarily be better.

“You’re gonna need to rein in your reactions going forward,” Slade says, reminding me of his presence. Why is he still here? Shouldn’t he be taking care of his client?

“Reactions to what? A man almost dying in front of me? Is that going to be a regular occurrence?”

“Look, everyone here’s aware he goes hard and knows to act accordingly. You were warned.”

I was warned ahead of time what this tour might look like, but that doesn’t mean I was prepared for what I just saw. It’s not even that I thought Julez died, it’s that nobody else seemed to notice. Nobody seemed to care. And that I wasn’t expecting at all, or how the revelation would make me feel.

“I like your outfit.”

What?

I slide my eyes over to Slade in time to see him taking in my exposed thighs. Never have I wished for sweatpants more than I do right now. Unfortunately, I’m in a skirt the size of a washcloth.

Do not show weakness, not even in a miniskirt.

Especially not in a miniskirt.

I lift my head higher, popping my hip out to the side as I regard him coolly.

“Not as much as the red bikini you wore in Barbados though.”

Red bikini. Barbados. The post from three years ago that “Julez” commented on.

So it wasn’t Julez after all. It was his slimeball agent.

Warning bells ring through my head, ricocheting off old memories I like to keep hidden far, far out of sight.

I wait until he’s gone to pull my phone out, dialing my assistant with shaky fingers.

“Irelynn, get my lawyers.”

Julian

I blink my eyes open, my fingers already awake and scratching the side of my neck, so I let my hand fall down my chest, then my abs and…

What in the filthy fucklord is this?

On my stomach there’s some sort of…goo? Is this fucking goo?