Chapter 4
FOUR
It was the strangest night of Jude’s life.
Not because of the things he and Nally did.
Attending a film premiere with full press and several mega-famous stars felt completely natural to him.
Skipping out on a posh party to go to a club was relatively ordinary for him and Nally as well.
They were regulars in London’s club scene.
Driving home to Hawthorne House on his Joymax in the dead of night, taking back roads because it couldn’t keep up on the highways, and having to scramble to find someplace where they could get petrol that was open at two a.m. almost felt par for the course as well.
It was the way Jude’s insides seemed to jump around every time someone praised Nally and the pride he felt in seeing his best friend achieve so much that felt somehow new and raw.
Maybe that had something to do with the obsessive fan who had shown up twice in the evening to pester Nally.
It was probably just a coincidence. Anyone would feel a touch of possessiveness if their friend was receiving that sort of unwanted attention.
Something else was nagging at him, but it was the very last thing Jude wanted to dwell on.
He took a deep breath and rolled over as he woke up, throwing an arm over Nally’s torso, and snuggled closer to him.
He didn’t know why, but sleeping in Nally’s bed always meant he slept like a rock.
Even though Nally’s mattress definitely needed replacing and his own back home was one of the most expensive on the market.
Nally was still asleep, so Jude kept his eyes shut and spooned his friend from behind, trying not to think about why the previous evening had felt so… different.
He should have posted more on social media. His followers had probably clogged up his DMs asking how the night had gone. The last time he’d checked, while they were still at the afterparty, he’d had over a hundred comments on his selfie with Nally in the theater. He needed to follow up on that.
Needed to, but he didn’t actually feel like doing anything but lying where he was, snuggled up under the duvet with Nally.
They both wore pajamas, so it wasn’t like anything inappropriate was going on, but his morning wood hadn’t received that message.
It didn’t really matter. Morning wood just happened.
It wasn’t like he’d spent the night with a hot date from the club or anything, just with Nally.
Just with Nally. Jude grinned at the thought.
Everything always felt better when he was just with Nally.
Hawthorne House felt like home to him. It was one of his guilty secrets that the reason he hadn’t sought a flat of his own yet was because taking that step might mean he spent fewer nights sleeping at Hawthorne House.
Nally’s body was as familiar to him as his own.
It wasn’t the first night they’d crashed out together.
Not by a long shot. They’d been spending the night in each other’s beds since they started having sleepovers when they were ten.
Morning erections had definitely not happened when he was ten, though. Jude’s grin turned into a sly smirk, and he decided to mess with Nally by rubbing his erection against the mounds of Nally’s arse. He had perfect leverage to really dig in and make his friend feel it.
Which also meant it felt way too good way too fast for him.
Nally made a sound that had Jude getting even stiffer. For a second, Jude’s imagination went wild with a completely inappropriate fantasy of the two of them frotting for real until they both came and made a colossal mess.
That image had him heating with a mix of lust and shame, like fantasizing about Nally was akin to incest, but it didn’t stop him from rutting to the point of making a wet spot on the front of his borrowed pajamas.
Nally sucked in a sudden breath as he snapped to full wakefulness. Instead of jerking away or twisting around to slap Jude silly, he teased him right back by moaning, “Yeah, baby. Give it to me good. Stick it in there.”
For a sizzling split-second, Jude thought he was serious.
For a slightly longer second, he considered going through with it.
A blink after that, he burst into laughter and slapped Nally’s shoulder, pulling away from him and flopping to his back. “I got you good there, didn’t I,” he chuckled, face beet red and cock rigid with indignation that he wasn’t going to give it what it wanted.
“Wanker,” Nally said, shifting to his back and turning his head toward Jude. His face was flushed as well and his dark eyes were dilated.
“It’s not wanking when you have someone to get off with,” Jude teased him, his giggling just a touch manic.
“Oh, are you saying we should have a morning wank together?” Nally asked, eyebrows lifting in challenge.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Jude said, wiggling his eyebrows.
It definitely wouldn’t have been. Their history of jacking off together while watching porn went back to when they were around fifteen and both figuring out what it meant to be gay.
They’d reached over and helped each other out with their activities a time or two as well, but they’d never taken things further than that.
As he lay there grinning at Nally while Nally smirked back across the pillow, Jude wondered why.
No, he knew why. Nally was his best friend in the entire world.
He had been for more than a decade. And he knew damn well how catching feelings for a friend and fucking around with them ended.
Timothy was still a deep, black scar on his soul.
There was no way he was going to walk down that path again.
Nally was a hundred times more important to him than Timothy had ever been.
He would never go there.
His cock disagreed.
He ignored it.
“That was some event last night,” he said instead, rubbing a hand over his face to wipe away the last of his sleep and to convince himself everything was normal and they were just two friends who had crashed at one of their places for the night and who just happened to have thick morning wood, as one did.
“It was terrifying,” Nally said, relaxing and slinging one arm behind his head. “You know I hate being the center of that much attention.”
“Oh, come on,” Jude laughed. “You love appreciation.”
“Appreciation, yes,” Nally said. “I very much appreciate the write-ups about my music and the likes and shares on streaming platforms. What I don’t like is lights and cameras in my face and impertinent questions being thrown my way.”
Jude somehow knew the impertinent questions Nally was referring to was whether the two of them were dating.
“You handled it all brilliantly,” he said, squirming a little to get more comfortable and praying his erection would go down faster. “And since your music really is as outstanding as everyone says it is, you’re going to need to get used to more attention.”
Nally humphed and made a grumpy face. “Composers aren’t supposed to be celebrities.”
“Tell that to Ludovico Einaudi.”
They both laughed. Jude reached his hand out under the duvet until he found Nally’s free hand.
“Seriously, though,” Jude began again. “You have a rare talent. The whole world is going to see it now with To Serve Him. You’re going to need to up your game in the social media realm to meet all that.”
“And you would know about the social media realm,” Nally said, pretending sarcasm. Jude could see the glint of serious vulnerability in his eyes, though.
That glint did nothing to help his morning wood go down.
“I’ve got an Insta account,” Nally said with an uncomfortable shrug, shifting to lie facing Jude, though he pulled his lower body away a bit as he did. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Not by a longshot,” Jude laughed. “You only use it to look at other people’s content. You need to start making your own. What you really need is TikTok for quick, spur of the moment things and a YouTube channel for videos of you playing some of your compositions.”
Nally hummed and stared at the top of Jude’s bare shoulder for a moment. “I’m just worried that if people actually see my face, they’ll downgrade my music in their heads because I’m so young.”
Jude flipped quickly to his side. “Do not, and I repeat, do not pull that impostor syndrome shit on me. You’re an amazing composer, Nally. You deserve everything in the world. Far more than I do.”
Nally burst into a laugh. “Who’s the one with impostor syndrome now?” he asked, then shoved Jude’s shoulder.
Jude shoved him back and Nally retaliated. They were about two seconds from wrestling while wearing only pajama bottoms, and Jude’s erection just wouldn’t quit. Maybe now actually was the time to see how far they could—
Nally’s phone ringing on the bedside table averted what could have been a disaster…or a dream.
Nally growled, extracted himself from Jude, and rolled over to grab it. “Oh!” he said, sounding surprised and answering the call. “Heath. I didn’t expect to hear from you today.”
Heath Manfred, one of To Serve Him’s producers. Jude’s heart beat with excitement. By the expression Nally wore as he listened to whatever Heath was saying, it was good news.
“Yeah, of course I’d be available for more press,” Nally said, twisting to look at Jude with a look of excited surprise.
“I’m just going to go shower,” Jude whispered, scooting to the side of the bed so he could get up.
“I was incredibly surprised about the soundtrack’s reception,” Nally continued with his conversation, nodding to Jude.
Jude had to get out of bed carefully. His pajamas, which were actually a spare pair of Nally’s, were badly tented. He kept himself pointed away from Nally as he hurried into the en suite.