by Sierra Riley
It was weird.
Gabe kind of felt an ache in his chest, if he were being totally honest, but that sounded really stupid. He wasn’t that attached to Briar, surely—he couldn’t afford to be.
“You did launch awfully fast,” Sandra nodded. “When are you off again?”
“There’s supposed to be a party in a week,” Gabe told her. “Until then, whatever Julius calls me up and tells me to do. Probably some more comp cards, and I’m transferring to Noel’s department. He’d be my agent, as one of their top talent.”
He couldn’t resist leaning in over the workbench, his hands pressed to its surface, and kicking up a leg as he said it.
Sandra laughed. “If I ever met someone better-suited than you, I don’t remember it.”
“Thanks very much,” Gabriel winked. “But yeah, it’s kind of… my life. Hot guys dressing well. What’s not to love?”
“The bickering and in-fighting.”
Gabriel blinked.
“And the betrayal. Oh, was that rhetorical?” Sandra pressed the hem and pressed her lips together at the same time.
It occurred to Gabe that he didn’t really know why or how she knew so much about the business, and why she’d been so quick to rent to him. Hell, she’d half-encouraged him to lie on the résumé.
He licked his lips. “Right. You were in the business?”
“A long time ago.” Sandra clicked her tongue. “Just don’t do business with a man who won’t treat you right, that’s all. Or date.”
“Right…” Gabriel hummed.
It was easy to tell she didn’t want to talk more about the subject. Instead, she pointed up at the stairs. “If you’re not working, you can cook supper for me. I think you owe me one, making me save your houseplants.”
Gabriel laughed. “Fuck. I almost forgot about them. I’ve been—”
“On the road, I know. I’ve rescued them and put them in a good sanctuary.”
“Your room?”
“My room.” Sandra offered a smile. “I have a recipe on the counter already.”
“No problem.” Fuck, it had been so many months since he’d last cooked that Gabe almost forgot he could. But he could follow directions pretty well.
And now he could eat—until he booked his next high-fashion runway job. At least in photos, they could touch him up if they wanted. Still, he’d picked up the habit of checking the calories on every package before he cooked, and cooking from fresh ingredients without those guidelines made him nervous.
This was the idea, though… get famous, but keep his roots at home. After all the caviar and champagne, after the schmoozing with rich oil tycoons and annoying little British dipshits with drug habits, it was nice to be around his landlady who didn’t seem at all fazed by who he was.
There was only one other guy who was unfazed by who he was, and he was trying not to think about him.
Gabriel tipped the bartender. “I appreciate your contribution to the, uh… shit-falling-apart fund. Which is my liver.”
The bartender laughed quietly and took the tip, then leaned on the counter. “It’s not fashion week anymore, is it?”
“No. I live here,” Gabriel told him. It was sort of true—he was in the same hotel a designer was hosting this event in—a release party for their newest line—and he was eating his way around local restaurants and bars.
Not too many bars, more restaurants.
“Oh. Then you’re quite smartly-dressed normally,” the bartender smiled. “Kudos on that.”
It was true, sort of. Most of Gabe’s clothes were designer brands now. A few were from grateful designers who’d been pleased to work with him. Some, he’d bought. He didn’t get to take them home from shows, though.
This party was less exciting than it had been pitched… the venue was okay, but there wasn’t anyone bigger than him in the room, and that was what he wanted. And he’d been looking forward to a chance to network for a week. He’d expected a drop in work after fashion month, but not this much.
He was the bigger fish for some other models who kept cruising him, though. Apparently they hadn’t gotten the news that he was bad news yet.
Gabriel ignored them, but he couldn’t ignore the friendly hand settling on his shoulder.
That was definitely not Noel, Julius, Vince…
Austin.
Gabriel almost flinched off his stool, then braced himself by hooking his ankles around the foot bar. “Oh. Hello.”
“Don’t sound too thrilled,” Austin teased gently, but he was smiling. “Hey. So, it’s been, like, a week… I thought I’d say hi.”
Gabriel rubbed his chin. “Right.” He still remembered that offer about as well as he remembered the feeling of Briar gently rubbing his back on the plane.
“The biggest thing is…”
“Let’s head over here and talk.” Austin led him toward the side of the room, carrying his drink with him while Gabe held his, too.
Gabe nodded, then rubbed his lips with his thumb and forefinger before he finished. “The biggest thing is… I can’t abandon the agency that sent me up into the stratosphere.”
“Totally reasonable. I won’t cast any aspersions on them, since I know you must know my connection to them…”
Gabriel stiffly nodded.
“But I also sense you know where I’m coming from now.” Austin jerked his thumb to the dance floor. “Let’s get somewhere more private. Nobody will hear over the music.” When Gabe hesitated, Austin leaned in. “It’s just a dance.”
Gabriel sighed and left his glass behind, then strode to the dance floor, his ears protesting at the higher volume here. He still set himself into a sway. He had a little more energy—no, a lot, now that he was eating again.
Austin leaned in to dance closely, his lips to Gabe’s ear. “See, you don’t owe them anything.”
Right. I don’t owe anyone anything but my work… for the contracted time.
Gabriel had to think mercenarily. He had to support his own career, because Briar wasn’t going to be there to bail him out when he couldn’t even pay a couple hundred bucks in rent.
“I know you have a contract. Duh. We all do,” Austin waved a hand. “But we can take care of that. We’ll get you a freer deal where Julius and Noel aren’t constantly hovering over you.”
Gabriel winced. That much was true. Someone or another from the agency texted a couple times a day even when he wasn’t working.
“And where people aren’t waiting for you to fail so they can fill in the next big sensation name. You know who went before you? Paulo, Jon? You’ll be one, too,” Austin sighed. The way he said it didn’t come off as a threat, but a friendly warning.
“We’re coming up fast now as an agency. It was originally finding models to start a clothing line—”
“By Jordan. I know that part, you don’t have to dance around that,” Gabriel told him. He respected the hell out of Austin for nodding, owning and admitting it.
“Yeah. I’m dating him now. I know… your experiences weren’t great. You two don’t have to ever meet. I just think you’re perfect for us. You’re not so big your career will die from an agency switch—not like an A-list actor, you know? You’re fucking huge, though, not small enough the same thing will happen…”
Gabriel nodded. “And you want my Instagram followers.” He’d been feeding them a steady diet of fashion week behind-the-scenes photos, and he’d picked up tens of thousands of followers by doing that.
Austin laughed under his breath. “Yeah, yours and all the other half-dozen guys I have now. Look. I can get you out of the contract… just give me your language and I’ll find the loopholes. Guarantee there’s break-and-exit clauses we can use.”
“I don’t… want to do anyone any favors. The only reason I might say yes,” Gabriel warned him, “is the opposite. If my career is tanking…”
“Oh, please. How long have you not been working? Fashion month hangover.”
Gabriel didn’t want to say he suspecte
d that wasn’t why he wasn’t working. It didn’t sound good to repeat the headlines about himself—the car crash, the links to drunken parties, the paparazzi photos from throughout the week, the drug speculation.
And what the hell, he was already turning into a mess. He’d read those headlines over and over in bed, in between coming out to smile and enthuse for Sandra.
It was all an act. Fuck, he was almost fooling himself too.
But he couldn’t bring down Exposed after they’d taken such a chance on him.
It wasn’t like he was jumping ship—he was giving them a life raft and sailing the fuck away while the hold filled with water.
And Briar…
He couldn’t look Briar in the eye, now that he knew what Briar really wanted: a pretty cover boy to boost his agency’s profile, and his body at night, secretly, when nobody was looking. Briar hadn’t been in touch for a week and a half now, ever since their flight together.
If he needed another sign that Briar didn’t want more than a good fuck now and then, this was it.
Fuck, he couldn’t go through that again… speaking of Jordan.
“And there’s another thing.” Austin spoke slowly, carefully. “The rumors about me stealing shit from him? None of that was true. Yes, I hurt him, but he shouldn’t have tried to ruin my career over it. He’s petty and… hard to be with. Harder to not be with, if you know what I mean.”
He didn’t trust Austin for a hot second if he could deal with dating the asshole who’d jerked him around, hurt him physically and mentally, and downright stolen shit from him. He knew for sure Jordan wasn’t innocent. But maybe Austin was… more like him than he thought.
And leaving Exposed was the punishment he deserved for the headlines he’d pulled. The only damn thing he’d done right all month was turning down the offer of hard drugs.
Gabriel’s heart squeezed and he looked down, then nodded. “What the hell. I’ll email you the contract tonight.”
Austin reached out to grab his hand, then shook it. “Done. I’ll be in touch tonight and tomorrow morning to get it finalized. Just keep it quiet until it’s all done, okay?”
“Okay.”
Suddenly, without warning, Austin grabbed his cheek and pulled him for a quick, fierce kiss. Then, he breathed out, “Good for you.” And he turned to disappear into the crowd again.
Gabe watched Austin vanish, the filthy feeling creeping up over his whole body.
It felt for all the world like he’d just made a deal with the devil.
But he’d made his mistakes, just as Briar had warned. From the whispers he’d heard when looking up why he hadn’t gotten those jobs, he knew this was just the beginning of the repercussions.
Hayes was refusing to work with him now. He was talking about how shitty his attitude was to the others, so they didn’t want to, either. Editors didn’t want a guy who was going to be trouble. Designers didn’t want to sew clothes onto half-drunk idiots. And nobody wanted to be around a guy who got into drunken car accidents and jerked around everyone close to him.
He didn’t have anyone to go to for advice. Briar, Paulo, Jon… all of them were biased. He couldn’t let the truth on to Sandra about what was going on behind the scenes. She didn’t know how to Google anyone’s name, thank God. She’d just tell him to get his shit together when he knew damn well he should have done that last month.
Gabriel rubbed his face and looked around the darkened room, deciding against another drink after all of that.
He’d made his bed. Now it was time to lie in it.
28
Briar
Friday mornings were supposed to be the best day of the week. That was largely irrelevant for anyone in the entertainment or fashion business like him, but there was the vague hope they wouldn’t go to complete shit before he’d even had his coffee.
Any day Austin’s name showed up on his caller ID was bound to be the shittiest of shitty days. Before 9 a.m.? Yeah, that hadn’t happened in months.
“What is it?” Briar answered, his tone harsh.
“Good morning to you, too.” It was unmistakably his voice.
Briar gritted his teeth, reminded himself to breathe so he didn’t break a tooth, then massaged his jaw one-handed and answered, “What?”
“I have some interesting news to share.”
“I probably don’t care.”
“Even if it involves your precious boy toy?”
Like it or not, that did grab Briar’s attention. “I assume you mean Gabriel.”
“Good job pretending you didn’t put your dick in that. I know you. Pretty young face shows up in casting? No way you won’t be all over that.”
Not with anyone since him. Or most guys before him… Briar knew his silence was complicity, but he wasn’t going to lie, either. If he was recording this conversation, he could twist his words any which way.
“I get it, you still miss me,” Briar answered instead. “What do you want?”
“Well, I just signed a contract with a certain someone from Long Island City… Oh, I’m sorry. I mean Tribeca.”
It took Briar a minute to figure that one out. “What?”
“Oh, oops. How about this: I told you so?”
Briar’s heart was dropping through his stomach, even as he pretended he didn’t know what he meant.
No. Not again.
He’d given Gabriel space, but maybe he’d been secretly asking for the opposite. Maybe he’d just completely fucked that one up.
“I told you: Gabriel will be mine. You owe me—oh wait, you gave me more than fifty bucks. I bet a lot of guys pay a lot more than that for him. I’m about to find out.”
Briar’s breathing was heavy, so he yanked the phone away from his ear and slammed it on the cradle. There was the tiniest moment of satisfaction—a heavy old-fashioned phone had that one thing going for it. He hung up on people every few weeks, when he was trying to force a deal, and there was nothing like it.
Okay, no. This was serious shit he was in right now. If Gabe had just signed a contract…
He had to talk to him, and now.
He’d just been at an event last night, hadn’t he? Briar wracked his brain for a second to recall the hotel name, then shoved his shoes and jacket on. He didn’t even bother locking up his office after himself as he strode down the hallway, his every sense focused on getting to that hotel before Gabe checked out.
Briar would be the first to admit his driving was a little erratic, but he was sober and careful considering the traffic in downtown New York City.
He had to circle the block three times to find some fucking parking, but when he did, he was off like a shot, sprinting into the hotel lobby.
It wasn’t like Gabriel would be invisible once he left the hotel—he still had to get paid, and Briar had his address from his résumé. And the taxi that had dropped him off after they got in from the airport almost a couple weeks ago now, maybe he could find that taxi record.
Briar strode up to the desk and sharply nodded. “I need Gabriel Hunter’s room number.”
“I can’t—”
“I’m Briar Fields, his boss… and boyfriend.” He’d pull out all the stops he had to. “It’s an emergency. You can call his room after I get there to confirm everything’s fine. Just, please—”
This was accompanied by a $50 note.
“—help me out here.”
The desk employee gave him a number and he was off to the elevator, his heart squeezing with the fear that Gabriel wasn’t there or, worse yet, wouldn’t answer the door.
Maybe he was holed up in Austin’s hotel room.
That was an irrational fear, but it was going to press on his mind until he knew for sure.
He knocked hard on the door, his chest squeezing until he heard a shuffle and slide of a lock from the other side.
It was Gabriel, his gaze down, fingers curled hard around the edge of the door, but carefully, keeping to the interior side like he expected to have to slam the door close
d again.
Briar let his gaze soften instead, resisting the urge to get pissed off just yet. “I want to talk. I’m not here to harm you.”
“Is that what you told Austin before you ruined his career?”
Briar sucked in his breath, then put his hand on the door. “No. I warned him. I can talk about that, too, if you want.”
Gabriel hesitated, but he slowly swung open the door and Briar let a breath of relief escape. He stepped inside, staying in the hallway.
Gabriel was just right there, his hands in his pockets and gaze downcast.
Briar didn’t know if he wanted to shake him by the shoulders, fuck him, or hug him with everything he had.
He went for the hug option, crushing Gabriel first, wrapping those scrawny shoulders against his chest and running his hand just to the small of the back.
“What the fuck?” he whispered after a few seconds of this, when Gabriel relaxed into his front and looped his arms around his neck.
Then, Gabriel pulled back, his breathing rough as he swiped at his eyes. “I fucked up. I’m gonna keep fucking up at my own pace.”
“Why not come to me first? If you thought you had to switch agencies because of… something you did…”
“It’s stuff you did, too.”
It was hard not to be defensive, but Briar tried his best. He sucked in a breath through his teeth, then sharply nodded. “How?”
“You ruined Austin’s career. And frankly, that’s fucking terrifying. Did you do the same to me? Did you tell everyone about all the shit I did?”
Now, Briar finally got a better look at Gabriel. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he was fidgeting. He obviously hadn’t slept much last night, and that was a definite breed of fearful paranoia talking.
Was he actually losing it? No, he didn’t think so. It was just the fear talking.
And Briar had had that meeting with Julius and Noel over the weekend—about whether to switch his department after all. If that had all been a quick, hot fizz—whether from the distractible nature of the industry or from his own behavior in the fashion capitals…
