Chapter 4 #2
The shower was just what he needed, in more ways than one.
He turned on the water, stripped out of the PJs, then jumped under the spray and immediately went to work taming his erection in the best way he knew how.
A little soap and a quick fantasy about being railed by the beefy bartender from the club last night and he would be all set to face a sane day with his best friend.
Except that his fantasy completely switched to him and Nally in bed with Nally pounding away at his prostate while Jude screamed into his pillow.
Jude shuddered into an orgasm before he could scold his imagination and tell it to stay where it belonged.
It wasn’t just a utilitarian orgasm either.
He enjoyed it way more than he should have, then felt awful once it was done.
He had no right to get off to fantasies of his best friend fucking him silly.
He fought back against the tsunami of guilt by washing quickly, then getting out of the shower and drying off, all while trying not to think about it.
He thought about what he was going to post later, about what sort of press Silver Productions wanted Nally to do, and how he could help advance his friend’s career.
He stayed in the bathroom, wrapped in his towel and fussing way more than he needed to with his hair and brushing his teeth until he was certain his errant fantasy wouldn’t rear up and bite him when he least expected it.
“Alright. I’ll see you on Monday then.” Nally was still on the phone when Jude left the bathroom. “Is there anything you need me to bring with me?” He glanced to Jude.
Jude must have been imagining the way Nally’s gaze swept over his naked torso and lingered on his towel just above his groin. The way he caught his breath had to have been because of something Heath Manfred had said.
Jude ignored the look and his own reaction to it by walking over to Nally’s bureau and pulling out clothes to wear. The two of them were the same size and swapped clothes all the time. In fact, when Jude pulled open one of the drawers, he spotted one of his shirts in amongst Nally’s.
He passed his own shirt over and grabbed a nice, soft blue shirt of Nally’s that he’d always liked. He then picked out a pair of Nally’s pants and some jeans to wear, all while acutely aware of Nally still in bed behind him, finishing up his call.
“And thank you, Heath,” he said. “I truly appreciate all of this. Goodbye.”
By the time Jude turned around, his arms full of clothes, Nally had lowered his phone and leaned back against the headboard. “People really do like my soundtrack,” he said, eyes a bit wide. “Heath wants to help me make the most of it by taking me on a brief press tour.”
“Press tour?” Jude asked, anxious about the idea of Nally going away from him. “As in travel?”
“Well, no, not really. Just a bunch of interviews in London and a few in Birmingham and Manchester,” Nally said.
Jude sagged with relief before he could stop himself. “That’s great,” he said, clutching the clothes to his chest. For some reason, he didn’t want to just whip off his towel with Nally reclining in bed watching him, even though he’d done it in the past. It felt like playing with fire.
Nally blinked and stopped staring at Jude, or rather, staring right through him as he was lost in thought. “I need to get up and shower, too. It’s almost noon.” He threw back the duvet and twisted to get out of bed.
Jude wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed not to see any tenting in Nally’s PJs.
No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t any of his business one way or another if his friend had any sort of morning reaction.
“Once you’re out of the shower, I’ll help you put together a better social media presence,” Jude said, taking his armful of clothing to the bed.
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Nally said as he disappeared into the bathroom.
As soon as the door shut, Jude blew out a breath and raced to get dressed.
He’d used Nally’s deodorant in the bathroom and was able to dress in less than a minute.
Once that was done, while the shower ran, he went about making Nally’s bed for him.
He did not breathe deeply to inhale his friend’s scent, or so he told himself.
Because the temptation to stick around the bedroom to see if Nally would walk out of the bathroom after his shower naked was too much of a, well, a temptation, Jude headed out into the main room of the flat while the shower was still running.
He went straight to Nally’s computer on the desk in the corner near the kitchen and turned it on.
Since he knew all of Nally’s passwords, he was online, poking around, in no time.
That meant that by the time Nally joined him, fully dressed with his damp hair combed back, Jude had already created a TikTok and YouTube account for him.
“Wow. That was fast,” Nally said, coming up to the desk and leaning forward a little bit to see what Jude was doing.
“I’m fast because this is not my first time on the Ferris wheel,” he said in his posh persona.
Nally laughed, then stepped to the side to pull one of the chairs from the dining table closer. “So what am I supposed to do with all this anyhow?” he asked, sitting close enough that his knees touched Jude’s leg. “I don’t even know where to start with this kind of social media presence.”
“You’re already doing fine with your Instagram account,” Jude said, typing in a few things to bring up that account in another window.
“Even though you need to post much more. You can start by cross-posting some of your older content to the other sites. But really, we should record some new stuff. And I’ll show you how to do live videos and things like that. ”
“I know this should all be second nature to me and that everyone our age lives more online than in the real world,” Nally said.
“But you’re a Hawthorne, and your entire family lives in the nineteenth century,” Jude finished for him.
Nally laughed, leaning his forehead against Jude’s shoulder for a second. “Yeah, we are all definitely out of place in this century.”
“But that’s what makes you all so brilliant,” Jude said, reaching down and patting Nally’s thigh.
He jerked his hand away when the urge to slip it between Nally’s legs to cop a feel jumped up in him.
“You’ll do brilliantly at this, too,” he went on, clearing the burr in his throat and ignoring the heat that spilled up his neck to his face.
“You’re incredibly photogenic and personable.
Once you get the hang of live videos, or even more carefully produced videos, you’ll fall in love with it. ”
Those words poked uncomfortably at his chest.
“If you say so,” Nally sighed. He tensed a moment later as Jude clicked through the different open windows. “Wait, go back to my Insta,” he said.
Jude brought up that window again, frowning over what might have triggered Nally.
“Holy fuck, are those all DMs?” Nally said, pointing at the screen.
Jude was used to having dozens of unanswered DMs on all of his socials at any time, so the red bubble in the corner of Nally’s page hadn’t meant anything to him. He clicked on the screen to bring up the long list of notifications.
“Shit,” Nally said, eyes going wide. “I’ve never had so many people message me all at once.”
Jude clicked through some of the messages. They were all just congratulations and praise for To Serve Him and Nally’s soundtrack. “See?” he said, grinning at his friend. “You are amazing, and everyone thinks so.”
“It’s a lot,” Nally said, sounding slightly sick.
Jude laughed and patted Nally’s leg again before focusing on the screen.
“Mate, what kind of Gen Z are you if you don’t love social media attention all the time?
” Nally just stared at him, so Jude laughed harder.
“You’ll get used to it. If you’d like, I can get you started by answering some of this for you. ”
“Yes, please,” Nally said, leaning his chin on Jude’s shoulder. “Answer all of it for me. Until I get comfortable with this whole celebrity film composer thing, I don’t think I can handle looking at any of it. I need you as my agent. I need you as a lot of things.”
A spike of…something jolted through Jude, landing in his groin.
He promptly ignored it and went on scrolling through Insta messages.
“It’s ridiculous to do all this on a desktop,” he said, pretending to be gruff to hide the other things he was feeling.
“All of this can and should be done on your phone. Here.” He pulled back from the desk, causing Nally to straighten and inch back as well.
“Give me your phone and I’ll download the best editing app.
We can spend the rest of the morning doing a crash course in being a social media star. ”
Nally laughed. “I should leave that part to you and stick to composing.”
“Whatever you’d like,” Jude said with a shrug. “I’ll do anything for you.”
He said it casually, but Jude had never meant anything more in his life.