Therefore, his past will have to be dealt with.
“Heyyy,” Adam greets them, still stirring sugar into his coffee.
“Hello, Adam,” Xander says.
Ben just glares.
Off to a great start. “How have you been?” Xander asks Adam politely. But they’re interrupted by the server before they can get into anything; Xander asks for a sparkling water, and Ben a coffee.
“I’ve been great, dude, yeah,” Adam says, once they’re alone again. His eyes are, if anything, pinker than normal. “You know, I got a job.”
“You got a job?” Xander repeats.
Adam tips his head to the side. “No need to sound so surprised, Xan. Not all of us can get rich playing make-believe.”
Ben shifts beside him in the booth, and Xander puts his foot on Ben’s, pressing down lightly.
“I’ve been very lucky,” Xander agrees. “Where are you working?”
Adam, it turns out, is working in one of the legal pot dispensaries downtown. It’s so very Adam that Xander has to stifle a laugh. Ben doesn’t bother, just gives an unpleasant chuckle, although he goes quiet again when Xander presses on his foot.
“What about you?” Adam says, giving Ben a vicious smile. “Staying safe? Not too many overnights in hospital?”
Xander watches Ben’s fists tighten, and thinks about Adam’s teeth. He really can’t stamp any harder on Ben’s foot than he is right now.
Ben lets out a long breath, and Xander recognizes the sound as one of his anger management techniques. Boy is going gangbusters on that, he thinks at the back of his mind. He needs to make sure Ben knows how proud he is of him.
Later, when they’re free of this.
“I’m very well,” Ben says. “Actually, I’ve never been happier. We’ve never been happier.”
After a moment, Adam returns to his blank smiling mask and turns back to Xander. “Why’d you want to meet up, Xan? Something on your mind?”
It’s the way Adam says it that confirms it for Xander: Adam has no idea what’s been going on. There’s no underlying insinuations in his question. Sure, there’s the opportunistic streak the guy has—if there’s something he can take advantage of, he will—but he’s just probing.
Xander takes his foot off Ben’s. They’ll be done here before their drinks even arrive.
“I wanted to apologize,” Xander says, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ben’s head whip towards him.
Adam is surprised, too. His eyebrows shoot up. “Apologize?”
“Yes,” Xander says firmly. “I’m sorry if I hurt you in the past.”
Adam stirs and stirs his coffee, his face placid as his gaze roams over Xander’s face.
“I really do hope you get some help,” he says. “Both of you,” he adds. “That shit ain’t normal.”
Ben slides out of the booth, prompted by Xander’s hip-bump. Xander can see Ben is trying desperately to keep a retort to himself.
“I’m glad you’re doing well, Adam,” Xander says, and he tries to mean it sincerely. “But I’m going to ask you not to contact me again.”
Adam shrugs, and Xander figures it’s as much as he’s ever going to get from the guy.
Ben swears under his breath, and Xander puts a hand on his lower back, ready to shepherd him away, but Ben gestures to the window.
“Paps,” he says briefly. “That same fucking guy.”
Adam looks, too, and grins, then waves at the guy, who is in his customary nondescript dark hatchback Ford, aiming a camera through the window. The photographer takes off as they watch.
“Is it really so interesting watching us have coffee?” Ben complains. “I mean, who’s paying for these boring photos? I never see them come up on TMZ or Just Jared or—”
“Oh, that guy?” Adam says. “That guy’s not a paparazzo.” He takes a sip of his coffee, making Xander and Ben wait.
“Well?” Xander asks, once Adam puts the cup down. “Who is he?”
“How would I know?” Adam asks, making his eyes go wide.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—” Ben snaps, but Xander breaks in over the top of him.
“How do you know he’s not a pap?” Xander asks patiently, and pulls out a hundred dollar bill from his wallet, leaving it half-in and half-out.
Adam looks at it and then shrugs. “He asked me some stuff about you guys. Where you hang out. Where you live. What you’re into…”
There it is, the insinuating tone that Xander remembers so well about Adam. But he also knows the signs of Benjamin’s loss of control by heart, and they’re all present: red face, clenched fists, heavy breathing, trembling…
He pushes Ben further away from Adam. “Benjamin: go,” he murmurs to Ben, and he uses the voice he knows Ben will obey, even though it’s not fair to summon up their dynamic, not right now. But needs must. “Wait for me outside.”
Ben goes, although he seems surprised at himself even as he obeys.
Xander turns back to Adam. “And what did you tell him?”
“Well, since your boy-toy already threatened me a while back, I told him nothing,” Adam says, and at last the mask drops, and his hatred shines through. Xander has always been astonished at the force of it, but also how successfully Adam can cover it up when he wants to. “You really got that boy of yours fooled, don’t you, Xan?”
It’s like a thunderbolt of clarity drops on Xander along with the lightning outside as the storm breaks. Adam has always accused Xander of fooling people, but that’s just his Shadow projecting. In fact, Adam is more Shadow than anything else: it’s Adam who fools people, who pretends, who wears different disguises depending on his needs and his aims.
All those years ago, Adam thought he could get away with playing Xander’s game, live off the Dumb Dom for a while until he got bored. But in the process of their play, Adam discovered something unexpected inside himself, something true, but something that disgusted and terrified him. Something he could not accept about himself.
And that’s the real reason Adam hates him so much: because Xander has seen that part of him too.
The only thing Xander can feel is pity. Genuine pity for this strange man who lives like a parasite while knowing he could be different, could be better, and hating himself for it.
“I really am sorry if I hurt you, Adam,” he says gently. “But if you ever contact me or Ben again, I will take action. Stalking can be tried as a felony in California. Do you understand me?” He puts down the hundred on the table. “To cover the bill,” he says impassively.
Adam’s mask is back in place. “You wanted to see me today, Xan. And I still don’t get why.”
“Closure,” Xander says, and smiles. “Goodbye, Adam.”
He turns on his heel and walks towards the exit, and he can see Benjamin waiting outside for him, looking up at the pouring rain, and then turning to watch Xander coming outside.
“Well?” Ben asks. His pretty mouth is pouting.
“All done,” Xander says, and can’t resist. He slides his arms around Benjamin’s middle, twirls him out from under the eaves, dips him, and kisses him: a great big silver-screen-worthy kiss in the rain that makes passers-by giggle and hoot. “God, I love you,” Xander says, once he’s set Ben back on his feet.
Ben, looking giddy, flushed and pleased, grins at him, and flicks his wet hair out of his eyes. “Same.”
And if Adam should happen to be glaring out the window at them as they walk past, seeing them thrilled with and in and by each other, Xander finds he could not care less, and doesn’t even glance over to see if that part of his past is still there.
As far as Xander is concerned, that past is past.
Chapter Fourteen
Still, with Adam no longer a consideration, Xander is now forced to wonder who exactly is seeding the blind items. Benjamin, being Benjamin, is going into full conspiracy-theory mode, one step away from wheeling in a white board to draw complex diagrams and track the whereabouts of known suspects.
And Ben
is also getting jumpy about his studio overlords finding out about any of their activities. Ramona keeps texting him vague reminders about the morality clause in his studio contract. Xander completely understands Ben’s anxiety, even if he finds the idea of morality clauses anathema. Whose morality, exactly? he always wants to ask Ben, but Xander is also aware of how very unhelpful that would be.
Besides, the whispers bother Xander, too. He’s always sought to be a consummate professional himself, and the tabloid interest irritates him for many reasons, but not the least of which is it makes Xander Romano seem like, well…a tabloid star.
And tabloid stars don’t get cast in serious projects.
Then one day, Ben comes to him, pale and determined, and says: “I think we need to consider the people who are closest to us.” This is exactly where Xander did not want Benjamin to end up: paranoid, second-guessing, suspicious of people who actually love and care about him.
“Come sit with me,” Xander says, pulling Ben down next to him on the sofa, where he’s been reading the latest scripts from second-rate TV shows and a Netflix gay rom-com which might have been okay if he’d been offered the lead instead of the villain. Xander has a feeling Jasper Crane is going to prove a double-edged sword for his continuing career.
But screw his career; Benjamin is more important. “I don’t like seeing you this way,” he says to Ben gently. “It’s not good for you. Going out into the community and connecting with people was supposed to make things easier for you, not harder.”
“I just keep wondering who it is,” Ben confesses, rubbing at his unshaven jaw. “Who hates us so much that they’d do this?”
Xander hesitates; he generally subscribes to Hanlon’s Razor and doesn’t like to ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Or greed, for that matter. “Baby, you can’t walk around thinking like that. It’s insidious. Hey—why don’t you call Jon and hang out with the Gay Subs Club for a while?”
Ben shakes his head slowly, looking troubled. “I—I can’t. Jon is one of my top suspects. He loves gossip, he’s well connected in the scene, and he knows all the old stories about you. He’s also the one who sent me that first link. What if…what if he hates me because I didn’t get him that job on set?”
“What? What job?”
“He wanted me to get him a job on my movie as an FX guy.”
“But…he does have a job on your movie as an FX guy.”
The words start pouring out of Ben, fast and breathless. “Yeah, but he asked me to suggest him, and I didn’t. His Daddy got it for him. What if he’s been harboring up all that resentment, starting to seethe with it, and now—”
“Benjamin,” Xander says firmly, “Jon’s a good guy. Really and truly. He is not some psychotic supervillain plotting our downfall.”
“How do you know that, though? You can’t,” Ben insists.
It’s not something Xander has shared before, the reason why he knows Jon is a good guy. But maybe now it’s time. “Jon…” He begins, stops; he has no idea how Benjamin will take this.
Ben goes very still. “Were you sleeping with him?” he asks. “Back in the day?”
“No. No, baby. I’ve never slept with Jon.”
“But you played with him?” Ben asks, his voice even.
“Only once.”
“Just once? Was he…not what you were looking for?”
“It was just once. It was a long time ago, at a private party that Zee was giving. Jon…” Xander pauses, because the familiar fear is rising up.
But he’s faced it down once with Paul; now he owes it to Ben to tell him this, so Ben will understand and put these tortured thoughts out of his mind.
“Jon was interested in breathplay,” Xander says. “And I’m sorry to say I indulged him.”
Ben goes white. “Jon was the guy you—?”
Xander nods. “We’d just met that night. I asked if he wanted to play, and he did. We went to a back room of the house—not the house Zee lives in now; this was before she was married. And thank God we were there with her. He passed out and I…I ran for Zee. She got him breathing again, while someone else called an ambulance. I don’t know if you want me to go into more detail—”
“No,” Ben says, his mouth trembling.
For a moment, Xander thinks he’s fucked up. That Ben will be angry that he’s only finding out this stuff now; that he’ll be pissed Xander didn’t disclose this about Jon before watching them getting friendly; that—
Ben puts a hand on Xander’s cheek. “That must have been so scary for you.”
Xander finds himself blinking back tears, shocked at how still-present the horror is: at what he’d done, how completely helpless he felt when the living, breathing, struggling body in his arms suddenly went limp. The way Zee pushed him backwards out of the way because he was so useless to her, to Jon, to anyone at that point.
Xander hadn’t prayed for a long, long time, but he prayed a lifetime’s worth in those few seconds before Jon began to show signs of life. He’d promised God he would stop, he would never do this again, he’d stop hurting people, he’d stop all of it if only God would spare Jon’s life.
And God had.
Or at least, Zee had saved it, as she acerbically pointed out to him later, when he was explaining to her why he would no longer be coming to kink nights and private parties.
“It was the most terrifying moment of my whole life,” Xander says now to Ben. “And after it, I made a lot of changes, as you know. I ditched the scene. But I did make sure Jon was okay. And he was so kind to me. He—he blamed himself, or tried to, and he called me a few times, trying to reach out, bring me back into the community. I did go back, eventually, as you know, and that was partly because of Jon, and also Zee. Jon has always been very sweet to me. Very kind, when he could have hated me. Should have, maybe. But that’s how I know it can’t be him, Benjamin: he could have sold me out much earlier than now. I can’t believe it of him. I won’t.”
Ben nods, and Xander is pleased to see he looks relieved. “I didn’t want to think it either,” he admits. “But if not Jon…Who?”
Ben looks like he could have used a few more hours’ sleep today. He’s been getting up very early in the mornings, going for runs or to the gym, and working hard on adapting Blood Bond from a play into a film script.
Xander also suspects Ben is going out so early in the morning to avoid the pap-who’s-not-a-pap that still shows up occasionally to photograph them. Ben has always had a low tolerance for that kind of thing, and it’s always affected his mental state much more than it has Xander’s. Xander has wondered from time to time if Adam just made up his story about the photographer not being a pap, but somehow, he doesn’t think so.
So there is one obvious thing they can do, and Xander suggests it now to Ben.
Chapter Fifteen
Karl is thrilled by the idea of being their secret mole, and throws himself into the role with gusto. It takes a few weeks before all the conditions are met, though: the stalky photographer is outside Karl’s coffeeshop, Xander and Ben are both free, and in the neighborhood.
Xander strolls along the sidewalk, as though he’s about to go into the coffee shop, but at the last second, veers and comes across the road to the photographer’s beat-up car. While his attention has been on Xander, Ben has come around the other corner and bends down to the passenger-side window, knocking.
By this time, Xander has made it to the driver’s side, where the window is down, and the camera is retreating rapidly. “Hey, there,” Xander says in greeting. The photographer, head moving back and forth between Xander and Ben on the other side, gives a grin back.
“Hey, yourself,” he says.
“How about we buy you a coffee?”
Karl lets them use the tiny staff break room for their conversation. Xander feels very nostalgic as he looks around the place, but Ben is obviously focused on the guy they’ve brought with them. It’s time to get it over with, so Xander waves the guy
into a seat, and takes one of his own.
Ben stays standing, as though he’s playing Bad Cop to Xander’s Good Cop.
The guy is as Karl described him: graying, slightly weathered, with deep lines at the sides of his mouth. He’s wearing jeans that are ten years out of style and a sports jacket.
“Xander Romano,” Xander says, offering a hand. “Actor.”
The guy shakes it without hesitation. “Pete Jones. Private investigator.”
“You’re a PI?”
Pete nods. “You know, I’m glad you boys finally got the stones to approach me.”
Xander raises one eyebrow. “It wasn’t a matter of stones,” he says, keeping his ire in check. For now. “We assumed you were a paparazzo. They’re around all the time.”
“Whatever,” the guy says. “Either way, I’m glad we’re talking. I’ve been thinking lately, this guy who hired me, he might not have given me the full story.”
Ben leans onto the table, glaring down at the guy. “I’m guessing as long as he paid you, you weren’t concerned, or you would have approached us before now.”
Pete chuckles as though he’s being interrogated by a particularly growly teddy bear. “I run a legitimate business, bud. Not interested in being part of a stalker campaign.”
“Who hired you?” Ben demands.
Pete leans back in his chair, glancing between them. “Said his name was Jonathan Ashe.”
For a moment, Xander feels the world tip on its axis. He takes out his phone, and brings up Jon’s Facebook. “This guy?” he asks, showing Pete.
Pete shakes his head. “That’s not the guy.”
“Blonde? Stoned a lot?” Ben asks.
Pete shakes his head again. “Dark hair. Young, I guess, but anyone under forty seems young to me these days. Listen, it doesn’t matter anyways, because I already decided I’m gonna quit the job. Usually my line of work is a cheating spouse, and following celebs around can be dicey, legally speaking. But work was slow when he came in, so I figured, why not? He paid well for the photos.”
“What did he say when he hired you?” Xander asks.
Flying Free (Rough Love Book 8) Page 12
