Chapter 38
Jacob
Two weeks had passed since Jacob had packed a bag and walked out of his house. Since the night Caroline stood in front of him, eyes sharp and unyielding, and asked the question he couldn’t lie his way around.
Caroline no longer wanted him in the house, and he had respected that boundary, even though it hurt to leave it all behind.
He hired someone to pack up his things and take care of the logistics.
His whole life was folded into boxes, carried out by strangers, and delivered to a beautiful rental where everything looked perfect, and nothing felt like home.
Liam had come to the new house nearly every day since, though never overnight.
With the show deep in post-production, their schedule was light—just the occasional callback to the studio, but the urgency had faded.
The heavy lifting was done; now it was mostly waiting.
It gave Liam both the free time and the ready-made excuses to spend his days with Jacob without raising Emma’s suspicions.
It was sometime during that first week that Jacob unceremoniously pressed a key into Liam’s palm. No words, just a simple truth in the gesture: You don’t have to knock, you’re welcome here. After that, Liam never knocked again.
The turn of that key reached him just past noon.
Jacob lay stretched across the couch, a book open in his hand, sunlight cutting sharp lines across the floor.
He heard footsteps in the entryway and the sound of keys dropping into the ceramic bowl by the door—Liam’s ritual now, as if the house already knew him.
That familiarity made it dangerously easy to pretend this wasn’t a fragile secret held together by borrowed hours.
“You’re early,” Jacob said.
“Emma’s appointment wrapped up quicker than expected.” Liam’s voice carried in from the doorway.
Jacob looked at him. He stood there with his jacket half off, sun still clinging to his skin. He looked rumpled from the day, cheeks faintly flushed, hair ruffled as though he’d been running around since morning. He looked like trouble Jacob would never stop choosing.
He closed the book and tossed it on the table. Their eyes met and the pulse between them stirred—the same strong current that never dimmed, not with time, not with reason, not even with the fact that Liam’s wife could go into labor any moment now.
He rose without hesitation. Words didn’t matter anymore. He crossed the distance, took Liam’s jaw in his hand and kissed him. The kiss was deep and greedy, a slow burn that broke almost instantly into heat. Liam’s answering sound rumbled low in his throat, pulling Jacob even closer.
Jacob spun them around before pressing forward, guiding Liam back step by step until his knees hit the edge of the couch. Liam let himself fall back, lips wet and chest rising fast. Jacob followed, crowding into his space, their mouths refusing to part until oxygen forced them to.
Jacob dragged his mouth lower—down Liam’s jaw, across his throat, biting at the place that always made him moan. He tugged his shirt up, baring skin, and kissed his way down the line of his chest. The heat kept building between them as Liam’s hands fumbled helplessly at his shoulders.
By the time Jacob had him stretched out across the couch, Liam was stripped bare—clothes discarded on the floor and skin flushed and trembling beneath Jacob’s hands.
The contrast struck him for a fleeting second: Liam naked and undone, while he still wore every layer.
It made the moment sharper, as though lust had torn them forward too fast to care.
“Jacob—” Liam pleaded, unable to hide the desperation in his voice.
“I know,” Jacob murmured, his mouth brushing across heated skin as he moved lower, deliberately bypassing Liam’s cock without pause. “I know what you need.”
His hands spread Liam wider, thumbs pressing into the tender insides of his thighs.
Then Jacob’s tongue was on him—right against that needy hole.
At the first wet stroke, Liam’s entire body jolted, a strangled cry breaking free as his hips bucked.
He tried to twist away, to escape the intensity, but Jacob only held him firmer, keeping him open and refusing to let him close against the onslaught.
Jacob groaned into him and continued licking, pushing deeper, devouring him like a man starved. He couldn’t get enough of the way Liam clenched and shuddered with every drag of his tongue, and the wild sounds spilling from his throat.
“Jacob—please—” Liam’s voice cracked on the plea, his fingers clawing at the cushions, thighs trembling under the strain of holding still.
Jacob didn’t slow. He ate him shamelessly, tongue driving deeper, lips sealing around him like he needed this as much as air.
He wanted every broken sound Liam had in him, every twitch and tremor.
He needed him wide open, ruined and begging for more.
He loved that no one else got to see him like this—no one else got to know how beautifully he shattered.
By the time Jacob finally pulled back, Liam was wrecked—eyes glassy with need. He looked at Jacob like a man lost to pleasure, too overwhelmed for words, his body quivering from the intensity.
Jacob kissed him hard, swallowing the broken noise that escaped.
He was desperate to taste the mess he’d made.
His own need was a live wire under his skin, impossible to ignore.
He couldn’t wait another second. One hand fumbled at his belt, yanking his pants open just enough to free himself, the ache of it blinding.
He dragged Liam closer, holding him wide, and pressed forward.
The ragged groan that tore from his chest as he sank into Liam was pure hunger, matched only by the raw cry torn from Liam’s throat.
There was no stopping now.
* * *
They could never quite fit on the couch together. Liam lay half on top of him, head pressed to his chest, their legs tangled until Jacob couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Something dug into his back, but he wouldn’t have moved for the world.
Liam’s skin was still hot, damp in places where sweat had cooled. His breath ghosted unevenly across Jacob’s ribs, each exhale a reminder of how undone he’d been only minutes ago. Jacob’s hand rested against his spine, thumb stroking slowly, a quiet reassurance in the contact.
Liam shifted just enough to look up at him, his voice low and warm. “How are you, really?”
Jacob was quiet for a moment, then let out a breath. “Getting by.” He hesitated, eyes tracing the pattern of light on the ceiling. “Mostly I just feel lost… and guilty. For how it ended. For not being there.” His voice faltered. “I miss the kids. I hate what I’ve put them all through.”
“I’m sorry, Jacob,” Liam said quietly.
Jacob swallowed hard. “It hurts that I only see the kids twice a week now. Their lives are already shifting without me. Caroline filed for divorce this morning. I know it’s the next logical step, but it’s still…” He trailed off.
Liam’s eyes widened, sympathy flickering across his face. “She filed? Today?” He reached up, thumb tracing Jacob’s jaw. “That’s a lot. I’m here, okay?”
Jacob nodded, jaw tight. “On top of that, the tabloids are circling like vultures, casting me in the worst possible light. I won’t give them a statement. Let them burn my name. The sympathy should be Caroline’s. She deserves it.”
Liam traced a slow line across Jacob’s chest, grounding him. “I wish I could make it better.”
Jacob finally looked at him, a tired sort of smile ghosting across his lips. “You do. More than you know.”
He didn’t know what to call this anymore. Affair felt too small a word, too cheap. Affairs were reckless, disposable, built on lies and secrecy. This was not careless; it was deliberate, a choice they both kept making even when they knew the cost.
A slight shift against his chest pulled him back.
Liam inhaled sharply, then settled again, his lips brushing Jacob’s skin with each exhale.
This was the fragile quiet that always came after—a moment suspended between what had just happened and whatever would come next.
When the world felt impossibly far and unbearably close all at once.
Jacob didn’t let himself sink into it fully.
Any second now, Liam would push up on an elbow and murmur that he had to go.
He was reluctant to be away from Emma for too long, knowing the baby was due any day now.
So Liam would tuck himself back into his clothes and slip out the door.
Jacob would let him. He always let him go.
Each time, it carved deeper. Each time, it became harder to breathe once the emptiness swallowed the house whole. He never asked for more. Demanding more would turn their betrayal into something even more unforgivable—for Emma and for the baby not yet born.
Jacob’s chest ached with the weight of what he didn’t say. His palm lingered against Liam’s back, memorizing warmth, the rhythm of his breath, and the delicate illusion that this belonged to them. Once the door shut again, quiet would be all he had, and he was starting to hate that feeling.
* * *
It was already dark when the gate buzzed and the intercom crackled. “It’s me, Mason.”
Jacob pressed the button. A few minutes later, Mason stepped inside with a brown paper bag in hand. “I brought food,” he said, already heading for the kitchen. “Real food. Not the protein-bar crap I’m sure you’ve been surviving on.”
He set the bag on the kitchen island and unpacked quietly, containers and beer bottles lined up with a soldier’s neatness.
He didn’t ask if Jacob wanted to eat, just handed him a knife and fork.
For a while they ate in silence, both of them devouring the Thai dishes.
He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food was in front of him.
“So.” Mason broke the silence without ceremony. “You’re not at the house anymore.”
Jacob didn’t look up. “No.”
“You’re not holed up in some hotel either, which means this isn’t temporary. It’s over.”
“Yes.”
Mason nodded once, chewing. “What about the kids? Are they doing okay?”
“They know I’m not living there anymore. They’re confused, of course they are, but they’re… adjusting.” He didn’t add that he missed them. Saying it out loud wouldn’t make it better.
Mason leaned back, beer in hand. “Caroline’s handling the press like a fucking pro. Every damn headline is about the devoted mother abandoned by the emotionally distant husband.”
“She hasn’t said a word to them,” Jacob said quietly. “The press doesn’t need help writing their story.”
Mason’s gaze sharpened. “So you’re just going to let them paint you the villain?”
“I am the villain.”
“That’s the easy line,” Mason said. “Not the complete story.”
Jacob dropped his fork and rubbed a hand over his face. “What do you want me to say?”
“That you’re bleeding too. I want you to stop pretending none of this costs you anything.”
Jacob’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue.
Mason studied him for a beat. “Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?” His tone wasn’t accusatory. “Is this about that line you crossed? The one you never explained?”
Jacob hesitated, then forced out the name. “It’s Liam.”
Mason didn’t react, just folded his arms, gaze steady as he waited for Jacob to go on.
“It started months ago,” Jacob said, eyes fixed on the far wall. “I don’t even know how. There was something there from the start. I tried to ignore it. That didn’t last.” He let out a ragged breath. “Fuck. I wasn’t looking for this. It’s not just sex.”
“I figured,” Mason said.
Jacob’s eyes lifted. “Yeah?”
“You don’t burn down your whole life for a meaningless fling, and you don’t look like this if it’s just lust.”
Jacob let out a slow breath. “He’s still with his wife. Their baby’s coming any moment.”
Mason nodded. “You love him?”
Jacob didn’t answer.
“You don’t have to say it,” Mason added gently. “It’s already written all over you.”
Jacob leaned back, the chair protesting under his weight. “I would never ask him to leave her. I wouldn’t want to be that man.”
Mason nodded once, then reached for another beer. “But you are the man he keeps coming back to.”
Jacob closed his eyes for a second.
“What are you hoping for, Jacob?”
“I don’t know.” The words came raw and honest. “I can’t let him go, but I don’t want to ruin him. Or her. Or that baby.”
Mason sat with it. “That sounds rough,” he said finally.
Jacob rubbed at his eyes. “It is. I wish I could say I regret it, but I don’t. Not really. That’s the worst part.”
Mason tipped the beer toward him. “So. A man?”
Jacob huffed something that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Apparently.”
“That’s new. You ever…?”
“No. Never thought about it.” He paused. “Not until him.”
“And now?”
His chest pulled tight. “Now it’s like I can’t turn it off.”
Mason just absorbed it. “Okay.”
Jacob blinked at him. “That’s it?”
“What else do you want me to say? That it’s weird? That you’re late to the party?” Mason’s expression eased. “You fell for someone. That’s all this is.”
Jacob shook his head. “It doesn’t feel that simple.”
“Of course it isn’t.” Mason’s tone was pragmatic. “You’ve got a family, a name, headlines breathing down your neck. You didn’t get to figure this out in your teens like most people. Now you’re doing it with lawyers and paparazzi.”
Mason pushed his chair back, stretching as he stood. “Let’s watch the game.”
Jacob glanced at him. “Now?”
“Yeah. Why not? You look like you’re circling the drain. Sometimes you need noise in the room, not silence.”
Mason walked into the living room and flicked on the TV, finding the right channel.
They sat shoulder to shoulder on the couch, beers in hand, the glow of the screen washing over them.
Mason threw in a low curse at a missed play, leaning forward with sudden intensity.
Jacob found himself exhaling, the knot in his chest loosening enough to breathe.
Mason didn’t look at him when he spoke: “When this blows up—and it will, one way or another—don’t disappear on me, yeah?”
Jacob’s throat tightened. “I won’t.”
“Good.” Mason took a long drink, eyes on the screen. “If you’re gonna set your life on fire, the least you can do is let someone hold the hose.”