“So you’re still with him?” I’d expected him to sound playful, cheeky even, but he didn’t sound like his usual self. He sounded…concerned.
“Yeah. Why? Has there been an emergency? I haven’t seen any other calls from you.”
“Could you define emergency?” His voice got so high at the end of his sentence, it was like he was singing a Mariah Carey song.
“The fuck is going on, Carter? Spit it out.”
He hesitated a moment.
“Is this about Hacksmore? The shoot yesterday? Is TMZ saying one of my clients is birthing an alien baby? What is it?”
The quieter he became, the more my concern intensified.
“I think you might want to see it. I’m sending a link.”
My phone buzzed nearly immediately, as if he’d already had it ready to go, and I clicked it, my browser popping up. I waited for the website to load. Not TMZ, but just as bad: Glitz & Glam, a major trash site that enjoyed leaking the latest and most notorious gossip about celebrities. I went through my dossier in my head, trying to imagine who this was going to be about.
“I swear, if Toby Jackson went on another bender again, I’m going to lose my shit,” I muttered, reflecting on one of my less savory baseball-player clients.
Several images loaded.
I couldn’t even read the headline…because all I could see was me and Jace in the pond, lips locked, my back facing the camera, though fortunately not displaying my ass, as it so easily could have. The blood drained from my face. “Holy fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“What’s wrong?” Jace asked.
I couldn’t even get words out. All I could do was spew a series of curse words as I read the headline: Hottie Firefighter Caught with Former Child Star.
“Dax?” Carter’s voice came from the receiver. “Dax, you still there?”
This isn’t happening. It can’t be happening!
I was going to wake up in Jace’s bed and realize it was all some awful nightmare.
“Dax, please tell me what’s going on,” Jace insisted.
“Gimme…one minute,” I said through my teeth as I clicked on the link.
The original image of Jace with the Shar-Pei was on the screen, the caption talking about his rise to stardom as the video presented a slideshow of photos from his Facebook page and a clip from his video about his endorsement deal.
“Dax, what are you watching?”
“New pictures reveal Jace Kruse and former child star Donnie Gibson,” the caption read as the slideshow revealed a pic of us from the day before.
“Dammit!” I shouted, gripping my phone. I wanted to thrash about, to launch into a tirade, but as I glanced around the diner, I noticed I’d already attracted too much attention. Putting the phone to my ear, I said, “Carter, I’ll have to call you back.”
“Okay, talk to you soon,” he said, in that way he did when he could tell I didn’t need to be fucked with.
Served me right for having a fucking good time.
“What is it?” Jace asked, clearly dumbfounded.
He deserved an explanation. He deserved answers.
But I needed to throw up.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, hardly able to speak the words as I dashed off to the restroom.
I locked myself in a stall and leaned over the toilet, taking my time as I relieved myself of what little of my parfait I’d managed to get down.
My nerves were shot. One moment I was filled with hot rage and the next trembling as my thoughts were forced back to my past.
I slammed my body up against the stall door and bashed my fist against it. “Fuuuuuccckkk!!!” I called out in a long curse that left me out of breath as I dropped to my knees.
Outside the stall, the restroom door creaked open, and the sound of footsteps silenced me. Then I heard a knock at the stall door.
In that moment, I wasn’t a twenty-nine-year-old man anymore, with years of professional experience, having championed all the bullshit of my childhood and become a self-made man with an entire life that had nothing to do with my past.
I was just Donnie…fucking…Gibson.
22
Jace
“Um…you okay, man?” I asked as I rapped on the stall door again.
As I waited for a reply, another guy entered the restroom and eyed me curiously before approaching the urinal farthest away from the stall Dax had confined himself to.
Dax muttered to himself on the other side of the stall. His words were incoherent, but even the guy at the urinal turned, seemingly disturbed by how Dax was Golluming his way through sentences. The guy gave up on his mission, and without so much as washing his hands, headed out.
Probably for the best.
What the hell had happened?
We’d had an incredible time the day before, and an even better night. And then breakfast seemed nice and pleasant enough. What sort of work crisis could have made all that vanish in a moment, leaving him totally incapacitated?
I continued waiting, figuring Dax had to come out at some point. After a few moments, the stall door opened, and Dax leaned against the side, looking miserable as fuck, his face white as a ghost’s.
“We need to talk,” he said.
We headed out to his rental, which we’d taken to the diner. He sat in the driver’s seat, and I sat in the passenger seat. He finally pulled out his cell, looking at it before saying, “There are pictures of us from yesterday, in the woods.”
“Nudes?” I asked, suddenly realizing why he was so mortified.
I could just imagine Nance, Keegan, and my buddies seeing naked photos of me spread all over the Internet. God, that would be embarrassing.
“No. They’re not quite as bad as they could have been in that department.”
He handed me his phone, and I glanced over the ones featured on his screen. We were stripped down at the drop-off, kissing, playing. The most anyone could see was a hint of Dax’s ass crack, which looked sexy as hell.
I wondered about everyone knowing I was messing around with a guy. I didn’t figure any of them would give many shits. We all had plenty of gay and bi friends.
“Well, guess I’m out now,” I acknowledged.
“I’m so fucking sorry.” I could hear the worry in the timbre of Dax’s voice. “At least with me, I’m out as fuck in my life, but you…you had a right to do this at your own pace.”
“I’m fine with people knowing. Hell, it’s kind of nice that I don’t have to run around town telling everyone that I like guys too.”
“That was a shitty thing they did. No one should out anyone who isn’t ready.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t shitty. Just no skin off my back.”
He stared at me, jaw dropped, eyes fixed on me like he couldn’t make sense of what I was saying. Although, I could tell it was only because he had so much to process.
“So that’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it?”
Based on how offended he sounded, I realized I shouldn’t have acted so dismissive with something he clearly had strong feelings about.
“No, Jace, that’s not it. This isn’t how I live my life. I wasn’t kidding when I told you I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I don’t want the focus on me. And I feel like a fucking moron, because I should have known better. I thought we could have a little fun…a tiny bit of fun before you blew up and became everything I know you’re going to become. I knew it would just be for a minute, because as soon as the lights got too hot, I would be off in LA and you would be running around the country and no one would know the fucking difference. But goddammit.” He bashed his hands against the steering wheel.
“Jesus, Dax, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not you, Jace. You haven’t done anything wrong. In fact, there are too many things right with you. That’s the problem. If you weren’t so amazing, they wouldn’t be interested.”
“You think I’m amazing?” Talk about an ego boost.
“Yes. Otherwise, they wouldn
’t want to leech everything good and decent right out of you. But you are, and that’s why they’re all looking at you, and apparently looking even more than I realized if someone sent a fucking pap out to get shots of us in the woods.”
His face was bright red, the rage this had all stirred clearly bringing up way more than I could have possibly known. But one thing came to mind.
“Is this about…your mom? Your feelings about all this because of what happened with her?”
He scoffed. “Jace, check out the article with those pictures. It’ll tell you what you need to know.”
I scrolled to the top of the page and just had to skim the caption before my jaw dropped. “Holy fucking hell.”
Seeing the name at the top of the screen took me totally by surprise. Suddenly, I discovered that I had known Dax even before I’d seen him at the station, but not as Dax Munro. “You’re Lil’ Donnie Gibson?”
He cringed at the name, but I couldn’t figure out why he would have such a dramatic reaction to this. Lil’ Donnie Gibson was a beloved character in a prime-time series that was on when I was younger, in the early 2000s. He played the adorable and always quirky adopted kid in the family sitcom The Gibsons. Hell, the guy was as much of a household name as Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. I’d never known what had happened to him after the show. Crazy to think he grew up to be the first man I fucked.
“No. I’m not Lil’ Donnie Gibson,” Dax spit out. “Lil’ Donnie Gibson was a character on a canceled series from God knows how many years ago, a series that ruined my childhood and plagued me into my teens. I’m lucky I grew out of those chubby cheeks. Between that and the facial hair, I don’t get recognized much. Never would have had a reason to either, but now my face is being plastered all over the Net in association with one of the hottest up-and-coming Instagram celebrities to date. So I’m kind of having a shitty morning.” He sighed and relaxed back against his seat, his expression somber.
Clearly there was a lot more to Dax Munro than I’d realized, particularly what complicated his relationship with his job. Although it did put a lot of things we’d discussed into perspective, especially his feelings about fame and what it could do to a person. Between his mom and his own celebrity status, I could only imagine what he’d gone through, considering it had taken him from being such a fun-loving guy to being this train wreck sitting beside me.
His phone vibrated in my hand, and he noticed immediately.
“Who?” he asked.
“Hacksmore,” I said, reading the name.
He took his phone back. “Ah, fuck.” He set it down between his legs. “I’m calling him back. I just need a minute to think this through.”
“What’s there to think through?”
“Well, considering PR is my forte, I can tell you right now, no one wants to follow the one-night stands of Hottie Firefighter. You were perfect when you were this eligible bachelor who could have been with a guy or a girl.”
“Technically these things are still true. And we are more than a one-night stand at this point.”
“Not what I meant with either of those things. It’s all about the public’s perception of you. And God knows how much Lil’ fucking Donnie Gibson has tainted this cool reputation you have. I can promise you, you’re not going to look like a stud when you’re running around with some former celebrity. Hacksmore is going to rip me a new one over this. Shit, shit, shit. I wanted this fucking account so bad, and then I had to be the one to fuck it up.”
“I understand you’re trying to process a lot of things right now, Dax, but I think it’s probably best if we head back to the house. We can mentally regroup, and then you can figure out the best course of action.”
He grew quiet, pressing his hand against his face and dragging it down, pressing down on his nose—and having learned the truth about his former celebrity status, I now had the vivid image of Lil’ Donnie Gibson doing the same thing.
“You’re probably right about that,” he said with a sigh.
“Maybe I should drive, though,” I suggested, seeing as Dax didn’t look like he was in the right mental state for it.
He surrendered the driver’s seat, and I drove us back to my place.
On the way there, his phone vibrated again, and he answered it, putting it on speaker. “Hey, Elliott. I assume you’re calling because of the leak from Glitz & Glam, and yes, I’ve seen. I’m going to call Hacksmore. Have you talked to him already?”
“No. Carter got ahold of me first, so I let it ring. I’m sorry this happened, man. What do you think Hacksmore is going to say?”
“I don’t know, but I think I fucked up this whole deal.”
“You know I have your back. And based on these photos, it looks like Hottie Firefighter has your back too, but—”
“Elliott, you’re on speaker, and Jace is in the car with me.”
“Oh…sorry about that.”
“It’s all good,” I chimed in.
“I’m waiting until we get back to Jace’s place,” he continued, “and then I’m calling Hacksmore from there.”
“Just keep me in the loop,” Elliott added.
Dax hung up, and we didn’t chat the rest of the way back to my place. I tried to give him enough space to think.
As soon as we got out of the car and started up the drive, he took a long, deep breath and said, “I guess I’m going to bite the bullet and try to mitigate this as best I can.”
“You want me to back you up? We can put him on speaker. I mean, based on these pictures, not like they’ll be surprised if we’re together.”
Dax bit down on his bottom lip. He was so tense, so stressed, and I wanted to give him the kind of ease I’d offered him the night before.
“Might as well,” he said. “If he wants to find a way to pull out over this negative press, better we figure out now what the hell he thinks about it all, and we deal with it.”
We headed inside and settled in the living area, Dax sitting on the couch as he dialed Hacksmore’s number. Setting the call on speaker, he placed the phone on the coffee table. Mac walked over to him and hopped up on the couch, resting his head on Dax’s lap, and Dax petted his neck, like he needed the companionship.
I took a seat on the adjoining love seat, readying myself for whatever the fuck was about to go down. I just hoped that Hacksmore was a little calmer than Dax.
Whatever the outcome, I would be fine. Worst case, we lost this deal. It would suck to have to face Fever Fight without having the money I’d committed to offering them, but if Hacksmore wanted to walk away over some stupid photos of playing around with a guy, that was on him, not me or Dax.
“Dax, where the hell have you been?” Hacksmore’s voice boomed when he answered.
“It’s Dax and Jace,” he announced. “We…uh…just slept in, I guess.”
“I take it you’ve seen the Glitz & Glam post.”
“Just finished looking at it.”
“What the fuck kind of angle is this?” His words were severe, almost threatening. “Did you two pose for these? Is this some marketing scheme I’ve been left out of? I don’t want you guys running some campaign where I don’t have any say in—”
“Jerrick, I promise you, there’s no campaign behind these photos. I’m not even sure who took the pictures, but I have an idea of who leaked them.”
“So wait. You and Jace are a real thing?”
“We’re not…a thing.”
“We’re kind of a thing,” I interjected.
“Well, are you guys a thing or aren’t you? You’d better tell me you are because this is the best goddamn publicity we could have hoped for.”
Dax’s brows tugged together. “Best publicity?”
“Of course. Haven’t you seen all the reblogs and reposts on this? You know how excited everyone is that he’s gay?”
“Bi,” Dax clarified.
“Bi, gay, whatever he is, they’re loving it. And that he’s with Lil’ Donnie Gibson, which by the way, I can’t believe never
came up in our initial meetings. There’s a card you need to always pull out at cocktail parties.”
“Not a name I’ve used in a very long time...and typically shy away from even when people recognize me.”
“Damn, I used to love that show,” Hacksmore went on. “And what was that catchphrase you’d say?”
“‘What’s eatin’ your Tootsie Pops?’” I said without even meaning to. It was just so embedded in my brain from watching that show, that it slipped out, and I knew it was a mistake to utter it the moment Dax turned a glare on me.
“Sorry,” I mouthed, raising my hands like he was holding me up at gunpoint.
“Yes, that’s the catchphrase from the show,” Dax practically spit out through his teeth.
“God, that was a cute series,” Hacksmore said. “I can’t believe you look so different now. Oh, you were an adorable little fella.”
He said that in about as condescending a tone as possible, the sort that made me vividly aware of why Dax had spent so much time distancing himself from his child-star image.
Dax buried his face in his hands. “Yeah, fortunately I don’t look enough like that kid version of myself to get recognized much outside of my circle of friends or those who happen to be in the know.”
This conversation was definitely not making him feel any better, but from the way Hacksmore was talking, it didn’t sound like the deal was off, which I figured would at least offer Dax some relief.
Hacksmore went on, “So you guys were out in some secluded area in the woods, taking a dip and…some other stuff by the looks of it, and someone snapped these pictures?”
“That’s what happened,” Dax admitted.
“Damn, this campaign is skyrocketing our brand straight to the top. He already has his own paps chasing him around, and we haven’t even launched a single part of our campaign. With this new angle, the publicity we’re getting from this secret is already blowing him up to another level. We’re going to have the biggest launch anyone’s ever seen. But, Dax, obviously you have to be part of the deal too.”
#BURN (Fever Falls Book 2) Page 14
