Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“Thanks.” I run upstairs to grab a hoodie and a jacket when I pause and think about what Mason’s mom said.
That Blake would be lucky to have me.
She has it all wrong. I would be lucky to have him. To actually be able to hold on to him.
But that will never happen.
I go to the side of my bed where my phone is and power it up.
More missed calls from Ben.
Messages from Jojo checking in on me while sending through selfies of her in my apartment eating Cheetos on my white couch when I don’t reply to her in a timely manner.
I quickly send off a text telling her I will end her if she gets orange stains on my couch and then remind her I’m cell phone-free here. Rules of the boy band gods.
There’s a voice message from my agent telling me not to panic and don’t look at the news. With the mood I’m in, self-preservation kicks in, and I follow his advice.
Then I click on a message from my friend Ash, asking if I’m okay, and I realize I’m not.
I can’t pinpoint why exactly either. I should be upset over Ben, but I’m not. At least, I don’t think I am. Unless I’m transferring all my hurt over our breakup at Blake because Blake’s the one in my bed.
Though, he’s technically not at the same time.
I hit Ash’s number and click the FaceTime button and then make myself comfortable in bed. There’s a chance he won’t answer because they’re a couple of hours ahead and he’d be at work, but I need to try anyway.
Surprisingly, he answers. He’s in his tattoo shop, out at the front counter by the looks of it. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Are you working?”
“I am, but I’m sure my next client won’t care if I’m talking to you.” He turns his camera toward his husband. “He’s letting me use him as practice for this wicked-cool design I want to try.”
“He must love you so much.”
“See, this is why you and I never worked out. You never let me ink your skin.”
And I still won’t. But that’s because tattoos are a pain in the ass to work with. It was drilled into me when I was a model. You can lose jobs because of the wrong kind of ink or if your employer sees it and decides you aren’t worth the cost of editing them out. Same thing goes for acting, really.
“You know ink isn’t the reason we broke up.”
Ash is a strict top, so sexually, we did not come together at all—pun intended. Like I told Blake, I don’t mind bottoming, but it needs to be a give-and-take situation. I’d rather not have anal at all than bottom one hundred percent of the time. That’s just me. And Ash is just him. There’s nothing wrong with having preferences, but our preferences didn’t align.
We love each other deeply, but we realized quickly it was more a platonic kind of love.
“Are you okay?” Ash asks.
“Are you asking because you’ve seen something in the media or—”
“Because you look like someone drowned a unicorn in front of you.”
“Someone did, and I’m so, so sad.”
“What’s going on?”
I bite my lip. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Where do I start?” Max yells from the background.
Once upon a time, he was kissing and grinding against me on his couch. He never did like me much, though. But again, I had an opportunity, and I took it. And then felt awful afterward because I’d always low-key known Max and Ash were in love with each other.
“Ignore him,” Ash says. “What do you mean what’s wrong with you?”
“Why do I always get involved with the straight ones?”
Ash’s green eyes soften in sympathy. “Oh, Jord. Is the breakup with you and Ben really that bad?”
I huff. “I’m not even talking about Ben. I should be, but I’m not.”
“Then who?”
“Blake.”
“Blake Monroe?” he screeches.
“Shhh.”
“It’s okay, no one is in here but me and Max.”
“Nothing has happened,” I say. “Well, not really. We’ve been trying this whole Method acting thing, so he’s kissing me and giving me affection, and …”
“And you like it,” Ash says.
“Yep. And then we made this stupid bet, and I’m regretting it now because I really want to win, but if I do, then I’m repeating past mistakes, and—”
“What bet?”
“That we’ll have slept together for real by the time we leave Montana—oh shit, no one knows where we are. Don’t repeat that to anyone.”
“I’m calling all the tabloids now,” Max yells.
I grunt. “Can you tell your husband to go away, please?”
Ash shoves Max off camera and then comes back to me with sympathy in his eyes. “You know what you have to do, don’t you?”
“What’s that?”
He says the one thing I don’t want him to, but I know it’s the right answer. “Lose the bet. Remember all those times you’d call home heartbroken over the new baby bi who just left you? Nothing is worth going through that again.”