“Brice.” His name slips guiltily off my tongue. What would he say if he were summoned into this bathroom at this very moment?
“Yeah, Brice,” Jack says absentmindedly, all too obvious from the tone of his voice that he’s mentioning him only in passing as a way to move onto the real topic he wishes to discuss. “How’s he doing, by the way? I heard he’s started physical therapy.”
Not ready to discuss Brice while in such a compromising position, I say, “He’s recovering slowly, but he’s not about to be ready to film any time soon.” I don’t mention that he’s said that he’s finished with this business, or that we’re not on talking terms at the moment due to an argument two weeks before.
“That’s too bad,” Jack says. The water in his shower switches off. The ruffling of his curtain being folded back bounces across the tile floors as the shower curtain rings clink together. Five steps and he’s standing at the mouth of my shower, pulling the curtain open. I don’t even try to cover up. What would be the point in our line of business? “But even if he’s unavailable, you shouldn’t stop yourself.”
A towel hangs on his left shoulder, but water drips down the rest of his toned body. His cock hangs there, limp for now, but having seen it in action, it’s not hard to remember what it looks like erect. As I consider his words, I unconsciously bite my lips. Though I know exactly what he’s insinuating, I want to hear it from his lips. “Stop myself from what?”
He reaches forward and rubs the back of his hand down my arm. He doesn’t so much as graze any erogenous zones, but a chill runs down my body leaving goose bumps in its wake. “Work with me and I’ll guarantee you make more money than you’ve ever made in your life. Plus, it’s be the easiest acting you’ve ever done.”
“Why’s that?” I ask as he backs away, his tight ass bouncing.
“Because with me, you’ll never have to fake a thing.”
Half an hour later, I’m on my way to the hospital, still rolling over the conversation I just had with Jack. Him being completely nude through half of the conversation certainly isn’t helping the fact that I can’t get him off my mind and Brice back in.
At this point, I haven’t eaten anything since a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I put together between scenes in the break room. My legs tremble with each step up the hospital stairs at the front of the building. Coming here to patch things up with Brice is filling me with more dread the closer I get. If I’m honest with myself, nothing sounds better than turning around, heading back to my apartment, and ordering a pizza to eat while watching a corny movie I’ve already seen a dozen times.
Then I remember that Brice is in this position because of me. I wasn’t the college student driving the car that smashed through Brice’s bones, but he never would have been on that sidewalk if I hadn’t talked him into filming with me. He wouldn’t be in the hospital. His mother wouldn’t be at risk of losing her house. And even though there’s a real part of me that loves him—despite his attempt to forbid me from going back to camming—there’s also a very real part of me that hates him. That’s not exactly right. He’s more like a proxy of hate for myself. In his pain, I can see the ways I’ve hurt him. And through his words, I can hear the same words the quiet voice in the back of my head whispers right before I fall asleep.
His wing of the hospital is just quieting down for the night. The lights are still blaring bright in the halls, but most of the doors are closed and the nurses are looking as though they’re finally catching their breaths. They’re only busy now with drinking coffee behind their large reception desk, checking messages on phones, and discussing weekend plans.
A new nurse I’ve never met before turns as she hears my footsteps. Her body is straightening up, ready to assist.
“How can I help you, honey?” she asks in her sweet, Southern accent.
“I’m here to see the patient in room 527.”
“Sorry, hon, but visiting hours are over for today. Maybe try coming back here in the morning at ten?”
“Sorry….”I say, dragging out the word to indicate I’m waiting for her to fill in the blank with her name.
“Nurse Ross,” she says.
“Nurse Ross. I haven’t been here the past two weeks, but before this I was in and out twice a day. No one seemed to mind when I came and went. So if I promise to be really quiet, can I just stop by for ten minutes? It’s really important that I talk to Brice tonight.”
“I’m sorry, hon. But if you really need to talk to him, I suggest giving him a ring.”
I almost let slip that I’m afraid he wouldn’t answer if I called, but I manage to hold back. Instead I stifle a yawn with the back of my hand. “Fine,” I say and take a step back. “I understand. Rules are rules.”
“Precisely,” Nurse Ross says primly.
“If he asks, please let him know I stopped by.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” the nurse says absentmindedly. “Get some rest. You look like you’ve been burning the candle at both ends yourself.”
With a smile and a nod, I turn back down the hall, but instead of taking the elevator back down to the ground floor, I jog down the stairs and across the floor just below Brice’s. A renewed energy pulses through my veins, because I’m not about to be stopped by a nurse on a power trip. This is a hospital, not a prison, so I’m going to see Brice one way or another.
Once I’m at the other end of the floor, I take the stairs up one floor. This puts me right across from Brice’s room. Nurse Ross would only have to turn her head to see me, but she’s deep in a conversation with the other nurses, their soft voices floating across the tiled floors like whispers of butterflies.
I’m halfway out of the stairwell, pressing against the heavy door as it fights to stay closed. That’s when Brice’s door opens from the inside. At first my stomach drops as I notice long legs stepping out, but then I recognize the faded pink scrubs worn by junior nurses. Even now they check up on him every few hours, so this isn’t out of the ordinary. Though the nurse herself is. She’s new. Younger. Her face isn’t painted with the same haggard expression as the rest. The hospital hours haven’t broken her down yet, so she still has time to curl her perfectly blonde hair and apply her cosmetics with care.
Allowing the stairwell door to close almost all the way, I hide behind it, spying from the crack. I was only planning to wait until the nurse left, so I could dash across the hall and surprise Brice. But a surprise of my own sends a shiver right down my body, freezing me in place.
Brice says something from deeper inside the room. Although I can’t make out the words, I do recognize the tone he uses. It’s his silly voice, higher-pitched and more musical than his regular speech. The nurse bites her lips, looks around, her gaze glancing right past where I’m hiding. Then she smiles back into the room. Not the smile of an attentive nurse caring for her ward. Nor simply the false, flirty grin one might flash a man one is trying to simultaneously appease and escape.
Another glance down the hall. Then, instead of leaving the room, the nurse retreats back inside, closing the door behind her. I wait a whole ten seconds, breath held, my entire being focused on my ears, but the door remains still and quiet. When I slink across the hall, sticking to the wall right beside Brice’s door, I angle my right ear to listen for what might be happening within. But the hospital doors are heavy. This leaves me only one choice.
The door isn’t locked, because it can’t be locked. With gentle fingers, I turn the handle clockwise, pulling the door open at a maddeningly slow pace so that it doesn’t make any noticeable noise. But I don't have to get it open all the way. Just an inch is all I need for a clear view of the bottom half of the bed. From there, I can clearly see the nurse sitting on the edge, her ankles crossed, her hand on Brice’s thigh.
When I pull away, the door closes with a slam. There’s a shuffle of steps inside his room, but before the nurse can reappear, I dash for the stairwell once more. Two minutes later, I’m bent over, panting with labored breaths just outside
the emergency room. Replaying the way the nurse’s legs swayed slightly as she sat on Brice’s bed, leaning over towards his face. I didn’t see the kiss, but my brain has no problem filling in the details.
Horrid flashbacks of all the times I’ve played Brice’s wing woman fly through my mind, flapping about and reminding me that this isn’t the first time I’ve caught him in a compromising position. For the longest time, we celebrated each other’s conquests. There would be months where we hardly met because the other was busy with a new girl or guy. With the inevitable break-up came a weekend of day-drinking, too many movies, and taking solace in our friendship.
Because that’s all it ever was before. A friendship. Completely platonic.
Until that night when Brice found my camming site and Greg tipped us an insane amount of money to sleep together, we had never acted on any feelings, drunk or sober.
I never talked to Brice about it, but I’m sure that he would agree that our love didn’t spring up out of nowhere that night. Instead, it was growing slowly, spreading its roots all those years. So when we finally did come together, it might have been a surprise, but it wasn't spur-of-the-moment. We were always together before, so this wasn’t a new dynamic to our relationship; it was simply the next, inevitable stage.
Which is the reason my heart hangs a few inches lower tonight. Why I choose to walk the three miles home, even though my body is heavy with the pure exhaustion that only comes from physical labor. I need time to think, but no matter how many steps I take, nothing becomes clearer. A self-pitying cloud obscures all other thoughts. It rains down on me, leaking out in the form of tears.
Sure, I fantasized about Jack. Got off to thoughts of him. Showered in the same room as him. But we never did anything. It was all strictly business. I was planning to reject his offer. Filming with him wasn’t even a possibility. Now, though….
When I reach home two hours later, I fall on the couch and am asleep within minutes. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but it can’t be worse than what today has left me with.
Chapter 15
Having stayed awake into the early morning drinking the cheap vodka hiding in the back of my freezer and watching every corny Christmas movie I could find, I finally wake up at 4pm the next afternoon with thirteen missed calls and twice as many texts. All from Brice. The most recent is on my phone the moment I flick it on:
I really need to talk to you. Call me back. Please.
But I don’t call him back. I don’t even read the rest of the messages. I prefer the route that countless people take when faced with a mysterious pain that could either be a benign nothing or a life-threatening condition—I ignore it completely. After burying my phone between the couch cushions, I get up to pee, wash my face, and drink three glasses of water in quick succession. Then I get a bowl of cereal ready only to find that I have no milk. The bread I then pull out of the cupboard is moldy. There’s nothing for me to eat, and I’m feeling shaky from my overexertion and under-eating yesterday.
Briefly I think of running to the supermarket three blocks away, but I dash this idea away. I decide then and there that I will not be leaving the house today. Perhaps for longer, but definitely not today. I need time to myself, without even the barest hint of human interaction. So I flip open my laptop and order a pizza. Normally I would get the cheapest option, but I go wild with cheese crust, cheese bread, and two bottles of soda. I leave a message that I’ll tip ten bucks if they get it here within thirty minutes.
The driver arrives in twenty-five, panting and complaining about the lack of an elevator in my building. After handing him the cash, I plop back down in front of the TV. But before I can even get the first slice out, my phone vibrates from within the couch. I take my first bite and it vibrates again. The sound is incessant, distracting, and incredibly annoying. So in a fit of rage, I dig the phone out, still deciding whether I want to toss it out the window or simply turn it off. That’s when I see the latest message.
It’s not from Brice.
There’s been a fire. Everything is gone.
It’s from Greg. And my eyes are bulging as I read it, the pizza beside me now completely forgotten. I text back, asking what he means. Although I wait a whole minute, the phone shaking in my hand, he doesn’t reply. I can only imagine Greg standing in the parking lot, looking upon the erotic empire he built going up in flames. My pity for the man who brought me into the more professional side of this business dies away when I think of myself.
My videos.
Did they really lose everything? Is it all gone? Everything I’ve been working for the past couple of weeks? Maybe there are back-ups somewhere. I grab my phone, ready to tap out a message asking Greg this exact question, but I stop myself. At least for the time being, he has bigger concerns. I might have lost a few weeks’ worth of filming, but he lost his life’s work.
No matter how I tell myself that there’s nothing I can do—that I might as well relax, enjoy my pizza and movie—I can’t just sit here any longer. When I even chance a look out the window with the bizarre thought that I might be able to see the flames rising in the distance (which, of course, is impossible), I give up on my lazy evening, pull jeans on, and head out.
Another taxi ride that bites into my quickly shrinking budget, and I’m soon able to smell the smoke, even if I can’t quite see it yet. It’s too dark, and the flames have all but been extinguished when I arrive. Firefighters and cops linger, but they aren’t shouting orders or rushing around. The fire has gone, and with it all the frantic energy.
I find Greg sitting on the curb, his face in his hands. I join him without a word. I’m not even sure if he’s noticed my presence until thirty seconds later when he announces, “Jack’s talking to the fire chief about what we might be able to salvage. But he said he can’t allow us in for at least three days. Maybe a week. He said we shouldn’t get our hopes up either. Even if anything survived, it’s going to smell like burnt plastic. I don’t know why, but that’s what he said.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, but I don’t place a comforting hand on his shoulder. Despite my business, I’ve never been the touchy-feely type.
He raises his head and levels his eyes with mine. Although there’s no evidence that he’s been crying, he wears the expression of someone desperately tired. “You don’t need to worry about your videos. I know that’s why you’re here. We back up what we can to the cloud every night. And I take home redundant drives too. Ever since I lost a month of recordings to a stupid intern, I’ve been hyper vigilant about keeping backups of my backups.”
I don’t even try to deny that this is exactly what brought me here. Nor can I hide the sigh that deflates my chest at this announcement. But I do try to turn the attention back on him.
“So what are you going to do now? Can you rebuild it?”
He shrugs. “It all depends on what the insurance company finds. We have to figure out if it was malicious or just faulty wiring or something.”
This isn’t a thought that even passed through my head. Who would want to burn Greg’s building down? I mean, sure, there are probably ex-actors who feel spurned, but enough to commit arson?
“What do you think? Do you think someone did this on purpose?”
Another shrug. “Who knows? Maybe, I guess. But that’s going to mean more work to get this place back. We’ll have to file police reports and go to court and all that jazz. All I want is to get back to work. This probably won’t come as a surprise to you, but I don’t really have a life outside my work.”
He’s right. It doesn’t. Now might be the time to mention how Jack told me about their history. I could talk about how they built this place together. Make him nostalgic so he forgets the sting in his heart each time he looks back at the smoldering carcass of the business they built together. But again, all concern for Greg evaporates after his next words.
“Hopefully it was just someone being stupid. A coffee pot left on or a cigarette someone tossed in the trash. Something like
that.”
A cigarette.
This is where I bite my lips. Turn my focus inwards to my inner eye as I recall my exhausting day yesterday. When I had trouble performing, I took a break. Before I found my way into Jack’s studio, I had a smoke on the roof. Two cigarettes, actually. Did I put them out? Where did I flick the butts? No matter how I think back, I can’t answer these questions.
Is it possible that I caused this fire? It seems impossible because that was last night, but maybe the fire smoldered for hours before really catching. Could I be the reason that we can feel the heat radiating off the building even from forty feet away? If they do determine it was a cigarette butt, what then? Are there security cams they can review? Would the video be stored onsite or off? Is there evidence, even now, that shows me flicking a cigarette carelessly, starting off the flames that have consumed everything Greg has worked so hard to build?
“Pretty shitty situation,” Jack says. He’s suddenly standing over me, smoking a cigarette. He flicks the ashes to his side. For entirely selfish reasons, it relieves a tiny ounce of pressure to see that I’m not the only smoker.
“Yeah,” I reply, not sure what else there is to say in such a situation. I catch myself wanting to ask if they have any idea what caused it. Maybe something has magically come to light in the past five minutes. But I stop myself.
“Luckily, we keep back-ups of everything off site.”
“Greg said the same thing,” I answer.
“And the website is run off a server farm somewhere in New Mexico, I think. So it’s not like we suddenly stop making money. We’ll just have to search for new studio space. That’s all.”
“It's in Nevada,” Greg says like he’s impersonating Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.
“What is?” I ask.
Cammers With Benefits (FWB Series Book 1) Page 11
