“Oh, so the men in there might be straight? What about you?”
“They might be for all I know, but I pitch my tent firmly in the gay camp.” He flinched. “I regret the way I chose to phrase that.”
She laughed again. “Sorry again for bombarding you with questions. Ever since my divorce, I’ve been looking for a hobby. Right on cue, I met Colette at a party, and she suggested renting my house out. Before I knew it, here I was.” She hesitated, pressing her lips together. It seemed like there was more she wanted to say but didn’t know how to say it. He waited patiently while she gathered herself.
Eventually, she asked, “You said you’ve been doing this for a year?”
“Just about.”
“Reflecting back on it, if someone came to you and asked if they should get into the porn industry—maybe just to try it out—what would you say? Would you tell them to go for it?”
He did her the courtesy of considering it before answering. “I like my job. It’s not what I plan to do forever, and the work itself can be challenging, but there’s never a dull moment.” Taking one last drag on his cig, he crushed it out in the ashtray. “I suppose I should check to see if it’s my turn yet.”
“I’ll check for you.” Joyce stood up. “I need more wine anyway. Have another cigarette. I have plenty more questions.”
Before Pete could protest, she disappeared inside. He wrapped his arms around himself and tried not to shiver. Good company or not, he wasn’t certain how much longer he’d last out here. And he certainly didn’t want to be frozen through when his turn rolled around.
Joyce had offered a welcome distraction, but now that he was alone, preperformance butterflies swarmed in his abdomen. He still didn’t know if the audition was going to involve sex or not. Despite his exhaustive session earlier, he found himself hoping it did. He usually had to psych himself up for a scene, but in this case, he was ready to go. He wondered how much of his attraction to Kyle had to do with his ex, and if it was fucked up for him to be turned on anyway.
Despite the cold, he didn’t want to go inside only to be ignored by the potentials. He couldn’t just sit here, though. He climbed to his feet and paced the length of the small deck, hoping to get his blood flowing.
He’d walked the perimeter twice before the sliding glass door opened.
“That was fast.” He spun around, smiling. “Is it my turn?”
His smile evaporated from his face. Oh God yes.
Kyle was standing at the other end of the patio, his head tilted to the side as he regarded Pete. The outside lights cast deep shadows beneath his chin and cheekbones. He was still shirtless—and pants-less, for that matter—but he’d tied the coat shut around his waist. Pete couldn’t decide if he was happy about that or not. It certainly did wonders for his cognizance.
Because, fuck, Kyle was even better looking up close.
Instead of speaking, he gave Pete a thorough and unabashed once-over. Pete was suddenly much, much warmer.
“Hey,” Kyle finally said. He took a step closer, grinning. Or was it smirking? “Sorry if I startled you. I meant to announce my presence, but . . .” he bit his lip, and when he met Pete’s gaze, he was definitely smirking, “I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get a good look at you.”
Pete’s brain promptly crashed. He heard the screech of an old dial-up connection in his head. He attempted to reboot, but the whole system started spitting off angry red sparks. He probably seemed like he was having some kind of fit. Smooth.
He managed to clear his throat. “It’s Kyle, right? I’m Jaden.”
“I know. I asked Colette. You can call me Darko if you want. Everyone does.”
“I’ll stick with Kyle if that’s all right. I’m not manly enough to call people by their last names.”
Kyle chuckled, and the sound brushed against Pete’s skin. “You’re cute. I like that.”
Pete wasn’t certain how to respond to that. Saying thank you didn’t seem quite right, so he went with, “What are you doing out here?”
“Looking for you.”
Pete started to ask why but stopped himself. Duh. Colette had sent him to say it was his turn. “Right. Sorry you had to come get me. Are you cold?”
Kyle tilted his head to the other side in a distinctly feline way. “No. I was just fooling around with those guys. Sharing body heat and all that. I’m actually still sweaty. See?” He pulled his collar aside and angled his torso toward the light. A few beads of sweat were running down his chest. His extremely well-formed, beautiful chest.
Pete had to swallow several times before he could speak. “Ah, I see. I guess round one went well?” His stomach sank.
“Not really.” Kyle propped a hip against the railing a few feet down from Pete. His coat fell open. Twin cuts of muscle peeked out the top of his underwear. He had that beautiful V-shape going on. Pete salivated.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Kyle continued, “they both performed well, and I know from past experience that Chaz has the stamina of a stallion, but they’re not quite what I’m looking for.”
Pete wanted to focus on what Kyle was saying, but he was too busy staring. He scrutinized Kyle’s face in what he hoped was a subtle way. The more he studied him, the less he saw the resemblance between him and his ex. There was something else about him that caught Pete’s attention and squeezed. Something that made his blood sizzle. But what? Kyle was handsome, no question about it, but wouldn’t stand out in a room full of male models, and Pete had just vacated one.
“R-right,” he stammered, realizing he was taking too long to respond. “What are you looking for, if you don’t mind my asking?” He told himself he just wanted inside information. Anything that might give him a better shot at landing the gig. The lie sounded weak even in his own head.
Kyle’s grin was wicked. He stepped closer, leaving just a few inches between them. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Though when you walked in, I felt like I had a much better idea.”
Pete forgot how to breathe. He knew what Kyle was doing, of course. Flirting with him. Building a rapport. Getting him all hot and bothered so he’d be ready to go when their session started. It was exactly what a good porn star did, what Pete had wanted Antoine to do earlier that day.
And God, was it ever working. It was enthralling . . . and a bit unsettling. He’d never felt anything like this, and he didn’t know quite what to make of it.
Kyle reached out and fingered one of the drawstrings on Pete’s hoodie. Christ, even his fingers were sexy: long and thick. Pete didn’t dare think about the implications.
“I like that you didn’t dress up for this,” Kyle murmured. Pete had to lean forward to hear him, and the second he did, he wondered if Kyle had meant for him to. Now their faces were close. “All the other guys in there might have just walked off a runway. It’s so . . . calculated.” He wrapped his hand around the drawstring and pulled on it lightly. Then he met Pete’s gaze. “You look like you just tumbled out of bed and are dying for someone to drag you back. Would you like that?”
Christ. If this guy is straight, then I’m Cher.
Pete scrambled for an answer. Something suave and sexy. What he ended up saying, however, was the truth. “I don’t know.”
He was turned on in a big way, yeah, but when he prodded at his feelings, he found hesitation buried under all the lust. He’d wanted to be flirted with, even considered it part of the job. A professional courtesy. But this . . . this was setting off alarm bells in his head. Maybe he just couldn’t get past the resemblance thing. Or maybe it was how genuine Kyle’s flirting seemed, as if he were actually into Pete.
That was the problem, he decided. There weren’t any cameras on them out here. Kyle didn’t need to put on airs, and the false intimacy of it was jarring. They were porn stars. If they ended up having sex, it would be because someone paid them to. There was no reason to make this feel so . . . right.
Kyle rolled with it. “I can help you make up your mind, if you lik
e.” He put his free hand on the railing at Pete’s side. “I love a challenge.”
Fuck. Kyle was good.
He should return the favor, Pete thought. Flirt back. Whether Kyle meant what he was saying or not, Pete still wanted this role, and it needed to seem like attraction between them was mutual. It wasn’t just on Kyle to make this work.
Unfortunately, Pete couldn’t seem to do more than stand upright and sputter. He couldn’t tell if he was hot or freezing, and his thoughts were muddled with a mixture of arousal and bewilderment. Despite what he’d just thought, Kyle’s flirting still seemed real, and his body thought it was real too.
“You’re shaking,” Kyle said.
Pete willed himself to hold still but couldn’t control the tremble working through him. “Sorry.” He couldn’t think of what else to say.
“Is it from the cold?” Kyle asked, his voice deepening. “Or something else?”
Pete couldn’t begin to answer that question, but Kyle didn’t seem to want him to. He lifted a hand slowly, almost lazily, and brushed his fingers over Pete’s cheek.
“You’re plenty warm,” he whispered. “Must be something else, then. Am I coming on too strong? I can back off.”
“No,” Pete answered immediately.
“Then what is it?” The dare in his tone was unmistakable.
If either one of them leaned forward, it would bring their faces together. And for one magnetic moment, it seemed Kyle was going to do precisely that. His eyes floated from Pete’s eyes to his mouth. Then, with enough deliberation to make Pete ache, he licked his lips.
Please kiss me, Pete thought dizzily. Please, please kiss me.
And just like that, it was over.
Kyle stepped away.
Pete almost followed him. He stared uncomprehendingly at Kyle’s back as he headed toward the door. “Um, wait. Where are you going?”
“Back in,” Kyle said without turning around. “It’s freezing out here. You should head home before you catch a cold.”
“But, I— Um. What about—” Pete raised a hand only to drop it again. “What about my audition?”
Kyle stopped just as he reached the door. “That was your audition.”
Without another word, he disappeared inside.
No matter how many times Pete replayed his conversation with Kyle in his head, he still had no idea what to make of it. Or him, for that matter. In the three days since his “audition,” Kyle had kept Pete up at night in more ways than one. He just couldn’t figure him out. Not that he was a master at reading people, but he’d been in porn long enough to tell when someone was genuinely attracted to him and when they were just doing their job. But Kyle . . . Kyle showed elements of both, and it left Pete confused, uncertain, and really, really horny.
At this point, he would settle for knowing if he’d blown the audition or not. Kyle’s early dismissal of him didn’t bode well to say the least. So much for Pete’s concerns that they’d be having sex that night. Kyle hadn’t even deigned to do a lighting test with him. Pete seriously doubted he’d landed the gig without even getting in front of a camera.
He hadn’t heard anything from Colette yet—which was par for the course, considering how much she had going on at any given time—and could only imagine what she thought about it. She’d seemed willing to let Kyle pick his costar, but would she really cast Pete without seeing for herself how they worked together? Maybe if Kyle sang his praises, but after his cold dismissal, Pete doubted he’d received a glowing review.
That was the one thing that puzzled him the most. Why had Kyle walked away from him like that? Maybe he’d sensed Pete’s eagerness and been totally creeped out. There was a thin line between flirting with your coworkers and slobbering all over them, and Pete had gotten drool on it.
His face burned with embarrassment. God, what was he, an amateur? Getting all worked up over a kiss like that. He routinely had sex on camera. In front of an audience. For the whole world to see. A kiss should have been the equivalent of brushing hands with a stranger on the bus. And it wasn’t even an actual kiss. It was an almost-kiss. A nearly-kiss. A hypothetical kiss that couldn’t become a theoretical one until more data was gathered.
Shit. He was becoming more and more convinced he’d blown it. And to think he’d really believed he had a shot. Colette had seemed so certain that Kyle and he would hit it off, and if the other potentials were any indication, he was the right physical type. Of all the things he’d imagined could go wrong with his audition—and his brain had conjured up a lurid cornucopia of possibilities—he’d never imagined being too attracted to his costar would be one of them.
Maybe this was for the best. Kyle engendered all sorts of uncomfortable emotions in Pete, and if one encounter with him had thrown Pete this far off his game, there was no telling what weeks of filming would do. Even as Pete thought that, disappointment rattled in his lungs.
Somehow, this was all his ex’s fault.
Pete heaved a sigh that made his mattress groan beneath him. He’d spent the better part of the past hour staring constellations into the popcorn on his ceiling. Not five minutes had gone by without his thoughts turning to Kyle.
“This is pathetic,” he grumbled. “I’m pathetic.”
He pushed himself up into a sitting position, intent on doing something with his day besides moping. Between work, school, and his other work, he rarely had a morning to himself.
His socked feet made soft sounds on the hardwood floor as he padded to the door. He passed plain, pine furniture, stacks of books, and old band posters on the way. His Programming Logic textbook was open on his desk next to empty coffee mugs and a well-worn copy of Slaughterhouse-Five. His room might have belonged to any college kid in the city, if it weren’t for the manila envelope on his dresser containing a stack of bloodwork. His job didn’t require him to get tested, but he did once a month anyway. Better safe than sorry.
He poked his head into the hallway and listened. The town house was silent except for the occasional muffled noise from their next-door neighbors. No one was home. He trundled down the stairs and into the microscopic kitchen, heading straight for the fridge. It was barren, as per usual, sporting only ketchup packets, milk, a Chinese take-out container, and a jar of wilted pickles in miasmic juice.
He grabbed the take-out container and opened it. Damn. White rice. He poked it with a finger. Nope, more like tiny white rocks. He tossed it into the trash, stomach gurgling. He really needed to learn how to cook.
As if on cue, the front door opened. His mom stumbled in, laden with grocery bags.
“Mom,” Pete cheered. He rushed to help her. “You brought food!”
“Hello to you too.” Mom dumped plastic bags onto the dining room table. The sunlight streaming through the windows underscored the laugh lines fanning out around her warm brown eyes. “Help me put these away, and I’ll make you something. I swear, you get skinnier every time I look at you.”
Pete sidestepped that last comment and hauled the bags into the kitchen. Their groceries primarily consisted of frozen and boxed dinners—Mom was about as skilled in the kitchen as he was—but she’d also bought eggs and bagged salad, which he stashed in the fridge. Unpacking took less than ten minutes.
When he’d finished, Mom ran a hand through hair the same shade of honey brown as Pete’s, with some gray peppered in. “What would you like?”
“Don’t go to any trouble.” Pete shifted from foot to foot. “I’m sure you’re ready for bed. I can make food myself.” He glanced at the clock above the stove. It was nine in the morning, which meant Mom had gotten off the night shift at the hospital two hours ago. She’d probably gone straight to the store after. She must have known somehow that he’d be too busy sulking to do it. Guilt washed through him, icy and bracing.
“Nonsense,” Mom reprimanded, shooing him out of the kitchen. “Even I can operate a microwave. What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t shove nuclear garbage down my son’s throat?”
; Pete laughed. “I’ll take that over the organic kale and acai crap Aunt Caren is always pushing on us.” He took a seat on a barstool next to the counter and watched Mom wrestle a TV dinner out of its box. She was blinking too much, light eyelashes sweeping over her eyes.
“Are you tired?” He wanted to slap himself as soon as the words left his mouth. “Of course you are. Can’t someone else take the night shift for once?”
“Eh, I don’t mind. The differential pay makes it worth it. Gotta put my boy through college.” She reached over and ruffled his hair.
“Mooom,” Pete whined, attempting to flatten his unruly waves. “Is that necessary?”
“I’m your mother. Annoying you is my job, and I take it very seriously.” She leaned against the counter while the microwave buzzed behind her. “Do you have class today?”
Pete shook his head.
“Work?”
“Not until tomorrow. They put me on the late shift.”
“Well, now we have something in common.”
“You mean besides our astonishing good looks?”
Mom snorted. “Much as I hate to say it, you got your looks from your father. Except for my luscious locks, of course. How is Dad, by the way? Have you heard from him recently?”
Pete shook his head. “The next time I can expect a call is in February, when my birthday rolls around. And I guarantee it won’t be on the right day.”
“Hmm. Well, at least he gave you those beautiful blue eyes. All he ever gave me was a headache.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” Pete hesitated and then dropped his gaze to the counter. “I actually did hear from him recently. He had news.”
“Oh?”
He fidgeted on his stool and peeked up for her reaction. “Melissa is pregnant.”
Mom was peering at the counter, fingering one of the colorful tiles embedded in it, but at that her head whipped up. “What?”
The microwave dinged, and she jumped away like it had shocked her. She opened and closed her mouth before turning around and pressing the door button. She gingerly lifted the steaming container and plopped it in front of Pete along with a plastic fork she dug out of the drawer next to the sink.
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