13. Logan #3
I cock my head to one side. “Trust me, watching videos doesn’t mean you know me.”
“There are a metric fuckton of interviews of you up on YouTube, though,” Chase says as he starts to pace his studio, propping his phone up on some sort of ledge as he strides around, cleaning up paints and brushes.
“I saw the interviews you did when you first got famous, all of the ones where they made you talk about Yard Line.”
“I did a lot of promo, yes.”
“I also saw the ones you did when you got cast as the lead in this upcoming movie,” he says, glancing at the phone. “I didn’t realize the movie you’re filming here in New York is with Andrew Lim.”
“Yes.”
“Wow,” he says softly. “He’s an incredible director.”
“I got really lucky getting the part.”
“Anyway, you’re afraid to even say ‘fuck’ in the interviews. You’re always in those collared shirts, and you sit with perfect posture, and you’re all aww shucks when people say you’re a sex symbol.”
I shift on my chair. “I’m not used to the attention, that’s all.”
“Even after a year?”
“There are some types of attention I’ll never get used to.”
He stares at the screen. “And now you’re telling me you’re going to do a nude shoot?”
“Contemplating it. Never said I was doing it.”
“For someone who’s about to be the lead in a gangster film, you’re fuckin’ adorable, Logan.”
He walks off screen for a moment and I hear the sound of him clattering around various tools and supplies. I forgot that Chase never really sits still, and I like watching him move in and out of the frame.
“Well, you should do it,” he calls out from off screen.
He walks back into view carrying a box full of paints. His hair is a shiny black mess at the top of his head, and I think I see a smear of pink paint at the end of one lock.
“Chase,” I say.
“Don’t do a nude shoot if it’s going to, like, ruin your career or something,” he says. “But it would be hot.”
“It might honestly be good for my career. I don’t know at this point.”
He glances up at the screen.
For the first time in the entire call, he’s standing still.
Contemplating something.
He pauses for at least thirty seconds before he finally speaks.
“I’m a photographer. Just FYI.”
He stares at me through the camera. Two penetrating eyes, laser focused on me.
I shift on the deck chair, which feels too rigid all of a sudden.
He’s a photographer. Of course he is. His paintings are the main focus of his profile, but he seems to be interested in every type of art known to mankind, and he has a few shockingly tasteful photographed portraits of his friends on the page.
My mind starts to picture him standing over me with a camera, with all of the authority he had over me last year, snapping pictures of me completely naked.
He would order me around, undoubtedly.
He’d be bossy as hell.
And then the whole world would see pictures of me that he took.
“I’m too sleep deprived for this conversation,” I tell him.
“I don’t think I can have this conversation without being turned on by it. And I shouldn’t admit that, either.”
I feel my cock perk up just at the way he says it.
“Right.”
He gazes out at me. “Does that mean it has the same effect on you?”
“Who says you can ask me questions like that?” I protest gently. “Depends what you mean by effect.”
He tilts the camera down toward his groin. At first it just looks like black denim, until he angles the camera differently in the light.
I can see the entire outline of his dick through the tight denim of his jeans.
He gives it a squeeze through the fabric and then pans the camera back up to his face.
“That’s what I mean. I’m not going to show you more, because I think you’d probably hang up on me if I did. You wanted honesty, though, so… there it is.”
“Is this how you show off during all of your video calls?” I murmur.
He leans over to look up close in the camera now, and I get a long glimpse of his green eyes. “Most guys don’t get me hard like you.”
I turn back toward the house.
The top floor is still empty inside even though I expect that seven billion camera flashes are suddenly going to erupt from behind me.
My cock keeps getting harder, causing my mouth to run itself. “To answer your question from earlier, yes, I like your self-portrait.”
“I can draw one of you if you want. It would look fucking amazing,” he says with a cocky lilt in his voice that I like. “Proud of you, by the way. You seem so much more relaxed than you were last year.”
I puff out a short laugh, shaking my head. “I’m faking it, Chase.”
I’m completely faking it.
And you make me feel like my body is touching a live wire.
“Mm. Guess that’s why they tossed you the Emmys,” he says, leaning back from the camera again. “Good at acting.”
“Yo. Buddy,” I hear from behind me and I turn to see Charlie walking out onto the balcony with a drink in hand. “You coming downstairs so I can whoop your ass in a round of pool?”
Suddenly I’m Logan Stone, the actor, again.
“I’ve got to go,” I tell Chase, looking back at the phone. “Sorry.”
“All good,” he says softly. He makes a kissy face with his lips and flashes me a peace sign, hanging up before I do.