Chapter 4
FOUR
JAX
At different times in my life, I’d been accused of having no filter.
Of saying the first dumb-as-shit thing that came into my head.
Whereas some would see this as a hindrance, I saw it as a skill that I’d honed over the years.
Humor could ease a lot of situations, and Ash still looked like he’d been destroyed.
His crush on Lukas wasn’t exactly a secret, but maybe the depth of it had been because Ash had clearly been crying, something I was thankful I missed.
If Ash had cried all over me, I might have been compelled to go beat the shit out of Lukas.
Even though he was well within his rights to reject Ash’s advances.
Even though rejecting him was the only thing that made sense.
But I still kind of wanted to slam Lukas against a wall.
In this moment, though, Ash was a delightful distraction.
He wasn’t as comfortable talking about sex as Blue and I were, but that came with age and experience.
And it wasn’t like I had a virgin fetish, but the less experience Ash said he had, the more I wanted to do that scene with him.
I wanted to be the one to show him how fucking good he could feel.
And I wanted Blue there too. If he’d stop being a fucking idiot and trying to talk Asher out of this, that would be great.
Every time he suggested that Ash could back out if he wanted, that he didn’t have to do it, Ash got this kicked-puppy expression.
He’d already been rejected once today, and Blue was over there doing it again.
We weren’t filming today, so Ash would still have plenty of time to drop out if he wanted.
Hell, he could drop out the day of the shoot.
Lukas was good like that, looking after his guys the best he could.
Always making sure we were safe. He’d let more than one model couch surf when their living situations took a turn, and he never asked anything of people that they weren’t willing to give.
There was no need for Blue to be an ass, and if he told Asher one more time that he could drop out if he wanted, I was going to claim Asher for myself and uninvite Blue from the scene.
Asher was cute. I’d always thought so. But lately, cute didn’t really describe him. He was still cute, but also sexy. Alluring. He was so focused on Lukas and trying to get his attention that he never bothered to look up to see who might be trying to get his attention. But I had his attention now.
“Have you ever had your ass eaten?” I repeated, smiling at him. I loved watching him try to pass himself off as being totally at ease with this obviously very awkward-for-him conversation.
“Are—are you offering?” Asher asked.
“Oh, I’m definitely—”
“Not eating ass in my living room,” Blue interjected, ruining all the fun.
“Relax, Blue. I’m just seeing what Ashy here has and hasn’t done. I want to be the best possible scene partner for him, and that means being aware of any boundaries he might have.”
Blue rolled his eyes. “Is that what you call it? Because it looked like flirting to me.”
“Well, yeah. Of course I’m flirting with him. You’ve seen him, right?”
“He is right here,” Asher said, sounding slightly annoyed.
“And no, I’ve never had my ass eaten. I’ve had blow jobs and hand jobs.
I did the whole teenage dry hump and come in your pants thing, and I’ve bottomed but never topped.
I don’t know if I have any kinks, but I also don’t know if I have any triggers, if that’s what you’re worried about. ”
When Asher was done with his little outburst, he looked like it had taken the last of his energy.
“Okay, Ashy. That’s fine. Do you have anything you want to experience or don’t want to experience with us?” I asked while Blue cuddled him and combed his fingers through Asher’s hair. Honestly, Ash looked like he could use a nap.
“I don’t know. I just—can’t the two of you just take the lead? You’re the ones with all the experience. Why do you want me to decide everything?”
Asher’s words had a sharp edge to them, and I realized that maybe this whole day had been overwhelming for him. That maybe my lack of filter had spun the situation into something he couldn’t handle. Asher wasn’t looking for control; he was looking for comfort.
“Okay. Blue and I will make the decisions, and we’ll go over those before the scene. But I think for now we should watch a movie. Blue happens to have every streaming service known to man and I, for one, plan to take full advantage of that today.”
“What do you want to watch?” Blue asked Asher, who tried—and failed—to hide his grimace.
“I think Asher will watch paint dry if you keep petting him like that. How about Blue chooses because it’s his house?”
“How about Jax chooses because he clearly has something he wants to watch and doesn’t have the subscription it’s being streamed on?”
“Am I that transparent?”
“You’re practically see-through.”
“Well, in that case, I’ve been dying to watch this limited series. It’s six episodes.”
Blue let out a groan but didn’t otherwise object. “Should we move things around and set up the pull-out couch? It makes for better movie watching because everyone can stretch out.”
“You just want to snuggle Ashy all night.” The nickname was maybe a touch too much, but I liked the way it sounded and the way it felt to say it.
“And?” Blue held my gaze. “Jealous?”
“Hell yeah, I’m jealous. He’s going to lay in the middle so we can share him.”
“That’s up to him.” Blue tucked his face closer to Ash. “What do you want?”
“I want popcorn and a blanket, but first, I want a bathroom.”
Blue released his hold. “It’s down the hall. You can’t miss it.”
When Asher was gone and the bathroom door clicked shut, I looked at Blue and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Stop trying to tell him he can back out. Every time you tell him that, he looks like his dog died.”
Blue narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. “He’s vulnerable and he needs to know he has options.”
“He knows he has options. He needs to feel like he’s not being rejected every ten seconds. If he wants to call it off later, let him, but stop trying to tell him he can quit.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
The toilet flushed and Blue stood up. “I’ll clear up the food if you want to move the coffee table and then get the pull-out set up.”
“Calling it a pull-out sounds dirty, you know.” I smirked at Blue, who merely rolled his eyes, but there was a hint of a smile there too.
Blue cleared the food away while I got the couch set up. Asher returned from the bathroom and stood off to the side with his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Can I help?”
“We’ve got it under control,” Blue said, brushing past him, stopping to plant a kiss on his cheek. “But give me one second.”
Blue darted into his room and came out again not long after wearing a pair of light purple pajama pants. He handed a similar pair in a baby blue color to Asher. “You can’t watch a movie in those awful jeans.”
“Where’s mine?” I asked.
Blue looked at me and shrugged. “I don’t have any that will fit you. Besides, you have shorts on. You’ll be comfortable.”
“Are these women’s?” Asher asked holding the pajama bottoms up.
“No, they’re mine. I bought them in the women’s section because they give all the nicest, softest fabrics to the women and men get scratchy fabric and slightly less scratchy fabric.
Go put them on, trust me. I’m going to get blankets and pillows.
There’s popcorn in the cupboard if you want to throw some in the microwave,” Blue said to me, but it sounded less like a suggestion and more like it was expected of me.
Asher padded off to change, and I paused as I slid past Blue. Looking him up and down to let him know I was very fucking interested in what I saw, I said, “You know, usually I only take orders in the bedroom, but I’ll make an exception for you.”
Blue rolled his eyes. Again. “You would.”
A few minutes later, I started the show. Asher was sandwiched in the middle between us. We had blankets and popcorn, and I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d watched TV with someone with the intention being to actually watch the TV and not end up fucking. It was… nice. And weird.
To prevent Blue from hogging Asher all to himself, I wriggled a little closer and draped my arm around him. Asher turned to look at me, and I offered him a smile. “Get comfy,” I said. “I know Blue is prettier than me, but I think I make a better body pillow.”
“You’re pretty too,” Asher said, then he whipped his head forward and focused on the TV like it might disappear if he looked away again.
Blue rolled onto his side and snuggled against Asher, practically laying his head on Asher’s chest. It all seemed so natural that it took me aback.
I had friends. But everyone around me had sort of moved on to different phases in their lives.
Friends I had from high school had gotten married and had kids or went to college.
Or both. Friends I’d made in the industry came and went.
For a lot of us, porn was a bridge we used to get us from one part of our lives to another.
I’d used the money from my career to fund my education, but even with my degree and my freelance gig as a web developer and SEO specialist, I still made content because I liked it.
Not everyone kept going, though. Some people did it for a year, some for less than that.
It was easy to make friends but hard to keep them around. People were always moving on.
Then there were people like Lukas. He was still in the industry because I think he saw a lot of us as his family, and part of me wondered if he knew how to do anything else.
He’d been doing this since he was legal age and he’d only recently retired from filming, stopping around the same time that Leo died.
Next to me, Asher let out a soft snore, and it dragged me back to the present.
I understood Blue’s urge to stroke his hair and pet him.
To hold him close and keep him there. Asher had been through a lot in the past couple of years.
He’d taken Leo’s death hard, and though we all tried to be there for him, because Leo had kept him away from the life, we’d all been strangers.
We were still strangers in a lot of ways.
Blue, most of all. Asher was an open book compared to him.
I caught Blue looking at him, then he caught me looking at him.
“He had a rough day,” Blue whispered, raising his hand to sweep some hair off Asher’s face.
“He’ll be okay. He’s got us. Right, Blue?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He snuggled back down, using Asher as a pillow again. “Right,” he said.