Chapter 34
NOAH
As badly as I wanted to tell Minho to stay with me for the night, I was way too paranoid that Ace would catch us. Then he suggested I come to his room. It was torture to say no, but knowing what I knew about Z’s relationship with Tess, I didn’t trust he’d be gone the whole night.
Besides, I had my Hot Falcon photo shoot with Xavier in the morning, so I probably shouldn’t roll in after seventeen orgasms and half an hour’s sleep—-a decision I thanked myself for the next morning when I had to deal with Xavier trying to prove he wasn’t my little bitch.
“Just get on the damn bike, Little Dude,” Xavier snapped with exasperation, holding the helmet out to me. “We live together. It’d fucking stupid to take two vehicles and you can’t drive, so just take a chill pill and get on the bike.”
I gritted my teeth, because he had valid points and I resented it. “Why can’t we take Ace’s car then? Last time I rode your bike I nearly died.”
“Because you were too stubborn to admit you were a zombie. But you’re sleeping just fine now, aren’t you?” He shot me a smug look, as though he had something to do with my newly improved sleep patterns. “Just get on. We’re going to be late for wardrobe, and I actually care about my sponsor deal.”
Fuck, he was right. Seething anger, I snatched the helmet and shoved it onto my head, waiting impatiently as he fixed the strap under my chin, then climbing onto the back of his bike.
I made sure to leave a decent gap between us, holding on to the underside of the seat rather than Xavier’s waist as he kicked the engine to life.
I thought he was going to allow it, but he reached back with both hands and grabbed my thighs, hauling me close until I was plastered against his leather--clad back.
“Fucking hell, ’Zilla,” I snapped, grabbing his waist for balance as he shot out of the driveway fast enough that I would have fallen otherwise.
“Now who’s submissive, Xavi’s baby girl?” He meant it as a joke. As a joke! But my brain short--circuited so hard I bit my tongue.
Thankfully, the bike was loud enough and the helmets muffled enough that there wasn’t any easy chitchat on the way to our photo shoot location.
It gave me plenty of time to get all up in my head about what other videos Rich had sent to Xavier and whether there were any parts of my body he hadn’t seen in intimate detail besides my eyes.
Then, because it wasn’t a short drive, I got the super--fun experience of wondering what he and Rich talked about for a hundred bucks per message and how he’d react when he eventually found out he’d been sexting with Richard--sleazebag--Dixon instead of Peaches.
Eventually we arrived at the location for the shoot and were greeted by multiple staff from Hot Falcon.
It was a luxury mansion in Bel Air, and the female PR exec we’d met during our last meeting, Elise, ran through the various concepts they wanted to shoot in order to get a range of options for the campaign.
It was all fairly unexciting and a bit cheesy, with the peach--colored accents in some of the shoot areas, but it wasn’t until she led us out to the sparkling blue infinity--edge pool that I started to tense up.
When Elise started talking about the “wet look” they wanted to capture and her wardrobe assistant started holding up two pairs of board shorts, I panicked.
“Sorry, Elise, do you mind if I ask a couple questions?” Xavier interjected while I tried not to show just how badly I was crashing out inside. “This wet look, you wanted both of us to do this?”
Oh, great. He knew perfectly fucking well how terrified I was of water, and now he was going to use it against me. I should have known that his shift of temperament lately had been a ruse to lull me into complacency.
“Yes, of course!” Elise replied enthusiastically, completely missing how pale I must have turned.
Xavier hummed thoughtfully. “I see. And the wardrobe…?”
“Yes, we have them for both of you in contrasting colors. Green for Noah, because it’ll match his eyes, and peach for you, Xavier.” She gestured for the wardrobe assistant to show both pairs of shorts proudly, and still I couldn’t get a single damn sound out.
This was a disaster. Maybe I should have asked Jared to be here after all. At least then he could find some diplomatic excuse as to why I absolutely would not be putting on a pair of board shorts and getting in a fucking pool.
“Uh--huh,” Xavier continued, shooting me a sidelong look before offering Elise a smile. My stomach sank. “And are there T--shirts or…?”
Elise laughed like he’d told a joke. “T--shirts? On Team Olympus? You’re too funny, Xavier.
” The way she touched his arm while she laughed made me mad, and I was too panicked to work out why.
Xavier was literally in the process of hanging me out to dry, and I wanted to protect him from a potentially predatory PR exec? Maybe I was softening toward him.
Xavier didn’t need my help, though, shrugging off Elise’s touch with a subtle step backward.
“Okay, well, unfortunately Noah won’t be participating in this part of the shoot with the current concept.
We can either make wardrobe amendments and get him a shirt, as well as keeping him out of the water, or we can scrap this entirely. Up to you, Elise.”
Wait, what? I blinked up at him in confusion, much like Elise and the wardrobe assistant were doing, before the realization sank in that Xavier was standing up for me. What the hell was going on? This was some next--level Twilight Zone shit.
“But…” Elise sounded bewildered. That made two of us. “Noah is Team Olympus, and…”
“And he recently had a near--death experience by drowning in our pool, Elise. Noah spent ten days in a coma after drowning. How would you like to jump back in a pool after that, Elise?” The aggressive way he used her name made the woman take a step back, creating a little more space between us.
“I didn’t realize…” she said with an embarrassed glance my way.
Xavier quirked a brow. “I mean, you did. It was on the news, and I have no doubt Jared informed the company since Noah wasn’t able to post content for Hot Falcon.
You just didn’t care. Also, Noah doesn’t thirst--trap, so we respect that and don’t place him in the awkward position of needing to say no on shoot.
Come on, Little Dude. Let’s get coffee while the team deals with issues that were entirely foreseeable. ”
Still speechless, I let Xavier guide me back inside the house, where a buffet of snacks and drinks were set up, and blinked stupidly while he poured us both a coffee.
“Um, thanks,” I said awkwardly once the shock wore off enough to make words work. “That was unnecessary”—-total lie, it was very necessary—-“but I appreciate it, even if I am confused why you did it.”
Xavier shot me a puzzled look. “Why would I not? Too many of these brand reps push the limits with our contracts, and it pisses me off. Consent is so fucking important in our line of work, otherwise it all starts to feel sleazy and then we may as well fucking quit.”
Consent? Xavier Stone wanted to talk consent when he was watching illegally uploaded revenge porn just last week?
“While I do agree,” I said slowly, choosing my words carefully so we didn’t have another broken coffeepot incident, “I find it hypocritical for you to preach consent when you’re still subscribed to Peaches when I already told you her content is stolen and uploaded without her knowledge.”
Xavier rolled his eyes and sighed. “I don’t know where you got that idea from, Little Dude, but I asked her about that, and it’s not true. How do you know her, anyway? Old friend or…ex--girlfriend?”
My brain was short--circuiting. “You asked her? How? When? What did she say?” I couldn’t hide the disdain from my voice. Fucking Rich. I had to meet with him and put a stop to this as soon as humanly possible. Tonight.
“Last week when she reactivated her account. Apparently that was some bullshit started by her jealous ex, to interfere with her earnings.” He turned to give me a narrow--eyed stare. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Where’d you say you heard that information from again?”
My jaw dropped. Was he seriously implying that I started a rumor about my own stolen porn clips? What the fuck was even happening right now?
“What?” I squeaked, feeling my face heating. “No! She’s not my ex--girlfriend. What the fuck? I just happen to know for a fact that the person you’ve been messaging is not Peaches. You’re being catfished, Xavier, and it’s frustrating that you won’t believe me.”
Even though he didn’t interrupt me, I could see that my opinion meant nothing to him.
He was too convinced of Rich’s bullshit to take what I said for anything even close to truth, and I wasn’t willing to come clean and tell him that he’d been jerking off to videos of me all this time, so I was wasting my breath.
As it was, one of the wardrobe folks came rushing over to us with a peach--colored Hot Falcon T--shirt in hand to show me for approval, so I sighed and pushed Xavier and my slimy ex out of my head.
I needed to get through the shoot without scowling and cringing the whole time, so I needed to forget what a massive hypocrite Xavier was right now.
The T--shirt they’d somehow magically found was shorter than I preferred to wear in my boy wardrobe, but it was long enough to cover my binder entirely, so I wasn’t going to make a fuss.
Especially when they assured me I absolutely did not need to get in the pool and apologized profusely for the lack of consideration.
Thankfully, Xavier didn’t revisit the subject either, and we were able to get through the shoot with relative ease. We did the outdoor scene last, and Xavier was more than obliging about getting in the water and showing off all his rippling abs with droplets glistening as they rolled down his—-
“Watch out!” Xavier exclaimed, grabbing me around the waist a split second before I fell into the pool because I’d been too fucking busy staring at Xavier’s abs and not watching where I was going.
Panic flashed through me for a moment, my body totally off balance and teetering over the water, with only Xavier’s hands around my waist preventing me from plunging in. It would be so easy for him to simply let go.
“Fuck, Little Dude, the amount of times I save your ass is getting silly,” he said with a smirk, pulling me away from the water and placing me back safely on my feet.
“Are we done here?” he asked the photographer, who gave a thumbs--up and turned his face to the camera screen to start looking through his images.
My near--miss with the pool only served to fray my nerves even further as we headed back inside to finish up our shoot and return the wardrobe. In my attempt to keep it under wraps, I bit my lip so hard it bled, then moved on to my thumbnail.
“Do you mind dropping me off somewhere on the way home?” I finally found the courage to ask Xavier after we got changed back into our clothes and headed for his motorcycle.
He shot me a curious look as he helped me into my helmet. “Sure thing. Where and why?”
I rattled off Rich’s address, having already texted him during one of the breaks to tell him I’d be coming by.
“Okay, that’s the where. What’s the why?” Xavier probed as he typed the address into his phone.
I shrugged, keeping it as casual as I possibly could with how anxious I was on the inside. “Just need to tie up some loose ends.”
He squinted at me for a moment longer, then sighed. “Whatever. I don’t care. Let’s go.”
Disappointment churned my stomach. Apparently I’d been hoping he would say no, to give me a thin reason to back out, but Xavier was nothing if not unpredictable.
At least Rich could say whatever he wanted to say, then fuck off for good.
Or shit, worst case, we’d file another lawsuit.
At least I’d have tried to save my sanity and social media reputation.