Destiny (Waiting for Forever) (41 page)

“Kid, you can’t stay here. You need to go.”

I looked up and saw a face I didn’t recognize. He helped me stand, and I had no idea where I was or how I’d gotten there. The man had a cart he’d closed and locked; he was pushing it up onto the sidewalk. The graphic drawing of an ocean wave on the cart had neat letters over it that read “Hurricane.” With a mixture of pity and exasperation, the guy hailed a cab and helped me into it. It took the cab driver and street vendor a few minutes to get my wallet out and see that I wasn’t local. They found my key card for the hotel, which had the name printed on it, and the driver dropped me off safely at my hotel. I’d sobered up just enough that by the time I reached the front door, I remembered what room I was in. I staggered to the elevators and tried not to throw up as it rose to the eighth floor.

At just past one in the morning, I crept into my hotel room feeling depressed and more than a little drunk. When I reached my bed and sat on the edge to take off my shoes, the lamp on Alex’s side of the room burst into light.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asked, his voice sounding rough from sleep. I tossed my shoes onto the floor, stood up, and swayed, trying to get my shirt off. I looked at Alex, who was fully dressed and lying on top of his blankets. His eyes were red and his face a little swollen. Alex’s voice wasn’t rough from sleep; he’d been crying.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” I asked, finally succeeding in getting out of my T-shirt but slumping on my bed in the process. With a low moan, I rolled toward him and sat up, which felt like a huge effort.

“Don’t you ask me that,” he spat. “You’re so upset you make me trade rooms with Brian. You disappear after your shoot and no one can find you. You stay out all night getting shitfaced all alone when anything could have happened to you. Goddamn it, Jamie! You scared the hell out of all of us!”

All of a sudden, I didn’t feel so great. Clamping a hand over my mouth, I moved as fast as I could without planting my face in the carpet and headed for the bathroom. Falling to my knees in front of the toilet, I lifted the lid and deposited the contents of my stomach into the bowl. Dimly, I heard Alex talking, but it sounded as if he was on the phone because his voice was quiet and far away. I heaved again, emptying more of my late dinner. Sweat drenched my forehead and back. The cold air coming from the vent made me shiver violently, and I wiped my mouth on the shirt still in my hand.

“God, you’re a mess,” Alex said as he tried and failed to lift me from the floor. “I need some help here unless you want me to call Mike and Brian to come get you into bed.”

“Screw that,” I said and brushed his hand away, trying not to fall over in the process. It took me a while, but finally, I got the lid down on the toilet and sat on it, resting my cheek on the cool tile of the sink. Alex took one of the washcloths from the rack and wet it before handing it to me to wipe my face. In the light, he looked tired and drawn. My stomach churned again with a mixture of alcohol and guilt.

“Come on; let’s get you into bed. Talking to you is going to be useless tonight anyway.” He sighed and half carried me to my bed. I sprawled on my back and looked down to see Alex taking off my shorts, and my chest ached that it wasn’t Brian. My head swam as he covered me up with a blanket, and all I could smell was vomit and booze. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

Alex kissed me on the forehead, and I must have fallen asleep before he got into bed because I didn’t even notice him turning off the light.

T
HE
wakeup call I’d requested exploded through the room with the force of a jackhammer when I woke up. My head pounded in time with some imaginary drum, my eyes were glued shut, and my mouth tasted like the floor of a cab. It was worse than waking up after a night of coked-out sex.

When I put the phone back into the cradle, I looked over at Alex, who mumbled something and then rolled over and went back to sleep. Good, no conversation meant no awkward questions. I didn’t even shower. I just grabbed my shit, threw it into my bag, and picked up a cab to the airport. Because Nick had booked at the last minute, he could only get one or two seats on different flights. My flight went out first, and while I hadn’t been happy about that when he told me, now I was thrilled to be taxiing down the runway at eight in the morning.

I slept for most of the return flight. I couldn’t say I felt better when we landed, but I felt more human. Even after the plane stopped and the doors opened, I sat in my seat and told myself I needed to stand up. The rest of the passengers were already getting off the plane, so why didn’t my legs work? Oh yes, because my legs would be carrying me to Steven. Finally, when I saw a lull in people coming down the aisle, I stood and stretched. My carry-on seemed to weigh a ton as I pulled it from the overhead compartment. I felt worn out and defeated.

He waited for me just outside the security checkpoint with open arms. As lonely and rejected as I felt, those arms made me feel welcome.

“God, I missed you,” he murmured into my neck as he held me in the middle of the open area. Surrounded by coffee vendors and magazine stands, Steven showed his love for me with tender kisses and giant bear hugs. I had to admit it felt good, and I tried to remember why I had run away from it. With Steven, I had stability, affection, and consistency. Sometimes he treated me like shit, but I usually knew when to expect it. I could avoid it if I just did what I was supposed to do. He’d never break my heart, not like Brian did, because I didn’t have that kind of emotion invested in our relationship.

“Let’s go home,” I whispered. I’d never considered Steven’s place home before that moment. Probably because I’d always had hope that one day I’d find a way out, find a way back to Brian. That hope was gone.

The apartment looked the same, more of the unyielding consistency I needed in my life. I set my bag in the bedroom—our bedroom—and found the chain still wrapped in tissue paper in a side pocket.

“I found this for you in a little shop in the French Quarter,” I said quietly, handing him the delicate silver chain. “I liked the colors in the silver. I thought it would look good on you.” Just the idea that I had missed him, that I had thought about him enough to buy him a gift, made his face light up. Taking a deep breath, I stepped closer to him and put the chain around his neck. Wrapping my arms around him, I clasped it in place and then kissed him. It was rare in our relationship when I initiated sexual contact with him. Usually, I dreaded it, but after Brian’s betrayal, I craved it. I needed to feel loved and wanted because my soul felt empty.

He lifted me easily, wrapping my legs around his waist, and carried me to bed.

M
Y
NEXT
shoot with Hartley Entertainment didn’t take place until the following weekend. I hoped with everything in me that Brian wouldn’t be there. The week with Steven had been one of our best ever. It seemed he really had missed me while I was away, and he looked for a million little ways to show me. Maybe he could tell that I’d been hurt and wanted to make me happy. He bought me an e-book reader and a gift certificate that would buy more books than I could read in six months. The expression on his face when I jumped into his lap and wrapped my arms around him, kissing him in thanks, was sheer joy.

Throughout the week, we had dinner and curled up in front of the television together every night, something we’d never done before. Even though I still felt hollow, something had changed between us, and we both knew it. I’d given Steven the check from my shoot in New Orleans, and he rewarded me with a weeklong high. Losing myself in the sex and the drugs, I didn’t have to think about Brian or wonder who he was sleeping with.

On Saturday, Steven dropped me off at the studio with a sweet kiss and the assurance he would be back in a little while. He needed to pick up some lumber for the building, and the lumberyard wasn’t far. I leaned over the center console in the truck and kissed him good-bye. He smiled as he kissed me back and promised to take me to dinner later. I got out of the truck feeling nice and high and went inside.

I walked through the deserted living room, past an equally empty kitchen, and found a few guys on the back deck in bathing suits. It seemed we’d be shooting by the pool. No one had warned me to bring a suit, so Brandon threw me one of the extras, and I went to the upstairs bathroom to get dressed. I hadn’t seen Brian, Mike, or even Alex yet, and I felt like the dread was eating a hole through the lining of my stomach. It grew with every step I took through the house. I’d been so high and so insulated spending the week hiding with Steven that I hadn’t realized Alex hadn’t called to yell at me for leaving New Orleans without so much as a word to him.

When I came back down, I saw the three of them sitting on the corner of the deck. None of them approached me or even made eye contact, and that was fine with me. I checked the schedule with Nick and learned I’d be shooting first on the north side of the pool. They would also have another scene going on the other side of the pool with Julio’s camera because Nick didn’t want to lose the light and they had a lot of shit to film. I was almost giddy when Nick told me I’d be doing a solo.

“Okay, Dylan, there’s a dildo there and some silicone lube that won’t wash off in the water. Give us a second to get the camera rolling and then you can get started,” Nick said as he talked to Phil. Normally, Phil worked in editing, but Nick had him on camera work. I noticed Nick was giving the models a shot with camera work and editing more and more lately and wondered if that was something I could get into. I’d love to work on the other side of the camera for a change.

But, for the moment, I smiled and began to rub the front of my crotch for the camera.

U
P
IN
the green room, I had just dropped my wet bathing suit onto the towel I had used to dry off when the door banged open. I saw Mike, who was also wet, storm into the room. He had a towel in one hand and his clothes in the other. I didn’t even bother covering up. They saw me naked all the time; it really made no difference.

“Mind if I change in here? No? Great, because I have a few things to say to you,” he spat at me and jerked down his suit, leaving it to drop on the carpet. I couldn’t say I was surprised. Mike’s devotion to Brian showed in everything they did together, so I had half expected a tantrum from him.

“I know you’re not going to leave until you get whatever it is off your chest, so spit it out,” I countered and faced him with my arms folded across my chest. His face flushed and he looked furious. For a moment, I thought he might hit me. Instead, he got right up in my face.

“What the hell is your problem? I have never seen anyone love someone the way Brian loves you. Some of us would kill for that kind of love, but you take every opportunity to punish him for it!” His voice was low and scathing. Close enough to me that I could feel his breath on my damp skin, he didn’t give an inch.

“Really? He loves me? That’s why he was sleeping with you and with Emilio, and probably bending over for anyone else that came along?” I cried, feeling my heart shatter all over again. He pushed me then, losing all measure of control at the accusation that Brian was a slut. We landed on the nearby bed, wrestling, each of us trying to get the upper hand, but we were evenly matched.

“You bastard!” he yelled and finally succeeded in pinning my arms. “The second he saw you that very first day, everything stopped. It tore at him that he’d ever touched us at all, but we were trying to get him to live, you selfish prick.” He panted and adjusted his hold on me. It looked as if he tried and failed to calm himself before he continued. “You told him, in that letter he still carries around with him, that you wanted him to get on with his life. Then, what? You’re going to judge him, crucify him for it? Let me remind you, Mr. Perfect, that you screw other guys too, lots of them!”

“I don’t have any other choice! I’d get my head busted in if I didn’t!” I challenged.

“And that makes it better? He gave up everything for you! He walked away from a full scholarship and got on a bus. He worked his ass off every single day trying to find you. He searched homeless shelters and talked to everyone he could who might be able to help. Those first few months, he was like an empty shell, and it broke my heart to watch. So, yeah, we cared about him, and we took him to bed. San Diego is a big city. He might never have found you, and then what? He should have just gone without love or affection for the rest of his life? He even gave up his dignity to stay in porn just to be close to you, you selfish—” He sucked in a breath and shook his head, the fury beginning to drain from his face. “Never mind… you know what? I’m done with you.” He started to move to his side so he could get off the bed when the door opened.

“What the hell is going on?” Steven’s voice, shocked and angry, filled the room where I was laying naked under another guy with no cameras in sight. Fear such as I had never known consumed every part of me, and I froze. Mike, however, jumped off me and off the bed. It might as well have been on fire. With a useless and foolish bravado, he stood his ground as Steven stomped into the room.

“You little whore! This is what you do when I’m not around?” Steven yelled, and I watched as the rage consumed him. His face flushed, his eyes flashed, and his hands balled into fists. I had no doubt those fists would soon come at me. With the way our relationship had changed in the last week, he must have felt the betrayal cut even deeper.

I felt guilty that Mike would have to face Steven’s wrath because he wanted to defend Brian. No matter how pissed I was at Mike, he didn’t deserve to get the crap beat out of him for sex he didn’t even have. I didn’t dare move or even look at him, because if I did, it would be worse for both of us. Trying to defend Mike would be the very worst thing I could do right then. I curled up into a ball against the headboard as Steven advanced.

Before he had taken more than three steps toward the bed, loud footsteps came charging up the stairs outside the door. It didn’t sound like just one set, either. That sound made me move, and I rolled off the bed onto my feet. Still naked, I backed up against the wall and waited. Alex came through the door first, skirting around Steven to stand directly in front of Mike. If our nudity surprised Alex, he didn’t show it. Behind him were Emilio and Brandon—and Brian, who stood between Mike and me. Steven stopped and looked at the wall of guys now standing between him and his intended target. Brandon handed Mike the clothes he’d dropped during our argument, and Steven picked up my clothes. For several long seconds, as he bent to scoop them off the floor, his eyes never left mine and his face was full of hatred.