7. Logan
LOGAN
Chase strides in, sets his bookbag down on the table, and plops down on the couch like he’s already made himself at home, and something about seeing him enter my hotel that comfortably makes me feel like I’m more at home here, too.
He leafs through a couple of my scripts, now that he knows the truth.
I like seeing him do it.
It’s like a weight lifts from me, like I’m shedding a cloak, letting him see my life.
Eventually he gets up and grabs the bottle of silver tequila from the bar. He pours himself a shot, tossing it back.
“Okay. Turn on another documentary, because I already know you want to,” he says.
When he comes back to the couch, instead of sitting away from me, he practically drapes his body on top of mine on the long part of the couch. His back presses up against my chest and he lays one of his legs over mine. He leans back against the pillow so his head is beside mine, too.
“Trying to smother me?”
“Is that what it feels like? You’re being smothered?”
I shift underneath him, moving so my arm isn’t pinned under his back. “No. I’m fine with it.”
“What did you do today?” he asks, and as he takes a sip of tequila I watch the way his Adam’s apple moves as he swallows.
“Had some meetings.”
He shifts so that he can glance over at me, raising an eyebrow. “Damn. Good talk, Logan.”
“You want to know about my meetings?”
He shrugs. “I know what you do for a living now. So it’s not like you have to keep a bunch of deep, dark secrets from me, right?”
I hum. “The first meeting was about a potential brand deal with a health food company. They’re making these seltzer drinks that have supplements in them, I think? They wanted to know if I’ll accept the deal.”
“Fancy.”
I snort. “It wasn’t very interesting. But it’s probably worth what they’re paying.”
“How much?”
I glance over at him. Chase doesn’t seem to think it’s at all too personal to ask a virtual stranger about money, and I kind of appreciate how different he is from the actors I know in LA.
“Four hundred thousand for three commercials.”
“Fuck, man,” Chase says. “Yeah. Um. Maybe you should do that.”
“We’ll see.”
He’s silent for a while. I look at the two little tattoos on his finger as brings a hand to my leg, trailing his fingertips up the inside of my thigh. “You had other meetings too?”
“The next one was with a playwright. He wanted to cast me in a small show they’re doing here in the city, but we had to decline. Then the last one was with some actors who were visiting from LA.”
“Doesn’t sound like a bad day.”
Something else swirls around in my mind and I wonder if I should say it to him at all.
“Something weird happened, too.”
He pauses for a moment, seeming to sense my hesitation. “Weird good, or…”
“Weird bad. Uh, there was a YouTube video of me shared around the internet a couple of days ago where I said some things that upset people. Only a small portion of them were upset, but this person outside was one of them.”
Chase hums. “I can’t imagine you saying a single thing that would ever upset someone.”
“I talked about how fame has been difficult for me to adjust to, and I said that sometimes it can feel like a golden cage. Most people understood what I meant, but some people said I’m an ungrateful asshole for it.”
“Fuck them. One of them was outside today?”
“A woman flipped me off and said if you’re not grateful for your fans, you’ll stop having them soon enough.”
“Jesus.”
“I tried to tell her that I’m deeply grateful for my fans, and that’s not what I was saying in the video, of course, but… sometimes people just decide they don’t like me. I have to get used to the fact that I can’t do anything about that.”
My chest tightens.
“Awful,” Chase murmurs.
“Things can get so misconstrued. I know I could convince that woman that I’m a grateful person if I could just talk to her, one-on-one, but I can’t do that with everyone.
It’s just… it’s… sorry. I am really bad at talking about this stuff.
I’m not used to attention at all, let alone negative attention. ”
“It’s okay. I understand. I’ve had negative attention my whole life.”
I frown. “You? How could anyone ever be negative toward you?”
His hand squeezes my thigh. “Trust me, they’ve found a way.”
I take in a slow breath, trying to pull my thoughts away from the outside world and back to Chase completely.
“What have you gotten negative attention for?”
He exhales, shifting on the couch to look up at me. “Have you ever heard of Oppositional Defiant Disorder?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“It was one of the first things I got diagnosed with. Well, after ADHD, I guess, which everyone saw in me since I was super young. But I’d never heard of Oppositional Defiant Disorder until my freshman year of high school.”
“Did you get in a lot of fights?”
“Yes. Well, I never started them. But I was in them.”
“I see.”
“But one time I told a teacher I wasn’t going to apologize to another student when I hit him. He said something I couldn’t forgive. I still don’t regret hitting him.”
I frown. “What did he say?”
“Called my mom a slut, just for going on dates after her divorce.”
“Holy shit.”
“I didn’t hit him hard for it. I still shouldn’t have done it, but that doesn’t mean I regretted it, either. They suspended me and gave me mandatory therapy.”
“You must have hated that.”
He pulls in a long breath. “I liked the therapy, honestly. Wasn’t sure I agreed with the ODD diagnosis.
The only people I was ever oppositional to were school bullies, bad teachers, and my dad.
But I definitely knew the clinical depression diagnosis was real.
She also made me feel less fucking weird about my touch stuff. ”
“Is that the clinical term? ‘Touch stuff?’”
Chase reaches over and pinches my hip. “She called it touch hyperfixation, but I don’t know if that’s a real thing.”
I want to ask him more about what happened between him and his father, or who the hell bullied him in school. But the look in his eyes when he talks about it makes me think I shouldn’t.
“Well, your touch stuff feels good.”
He pushes his hand a little beneath the hem of my shirt. “Thank you. I don’t know if it’s a sensory thing from my ADHD or what. But I do sometimes feel like I can’t survive without it.”
He keeps trailing his fingers over my skin. A few minutes later, he reaches for the remote and navigates to a documentary on his own, despite the fact that I would have been just as happy to stay in the silence with him, or keep talking to him all night.
I hadn’t realized how afraid of my new life I was until I met someone who knew nothing about me.
Chase is here because he wants to be, not because he’s chasing clout or fame or just wants a piece of me.
His fingers roam on my skin and it feels so good I barely pay attention to the movie.
He touches my stomach first, then he shifts his whole body so that his leg is draped over mine even further. It’s so much more contact than I’m used to having.
I can’t help but respond when his hand slides down, moving just below my waistband, gently rubbing the top of my thigh through my pants.
He’s so close to my cock and it’s starting to drive me fucking crazy.
His shirt has come untucked from the waistband of his pants, and I can see the edge of one of his tattoos peeking out from the top of it.
“I like this one,” I finally say, gesturing at it. “Is the sword from something?”
“It’s just an illustrated spadroon. I love how they look,” he says. He reaches down and pulls his shirt up completely, then shoves his waistband down further to show me the whole tattoo, revealing an expanse of skin that makes my cock throb.
I run my fingers lower across it and he breaks out in goosebumps all over.
“Logan,” Chase suddenly says with an astonished tone in his voice. I freeze, but I keep my hand on his skin.
“What?”
“How long have you been hard?” he asks. He turns and leans to the side a little to look back at me. His eyes are wide as he moves his gaze from me, to my lap, then back at me again.
His palm skates upward to rest on my bulge, and he gives my erection a gentle squeeze.
I can feel my whole body heating. “It’s not a big deal. Just ignore it.”
“Ignore this?” he asks, squeezing it through my slacks again. “Are you sure?”
I exhale. “I’m trying to control myself, Chase. You think I make a habit of doing this with straight guys?”
He turns forward again and brings his hands to the top of his pants, quickly undoing his button and zipper. He shoves the top of his pants and boxer briefs down and frees his cock.
“Clearly you have nothing to be ashamed of,” he says. “I can’t touch you without getting hard.”
“Fuck,” I whisper.
“Give me your hand.”
My cock jumps as I see the defiant look in his eyes. He reaches over to the tip and runs his thumb over it, playing with the precum there.
“Are you always this demanding or is it just with me?”
“Touch me.”
“Hush.” I reach lower and grip his cock firmly.
He moans the moment I touch him, and he drops his head backward for a moment, his hair hanging down behind him.
“That’s better.”
He still has his fingers at the tip of my cock, relentlessly teasing me. He hasn’t made a fist around me or stroked me at all, instead just maddeningly running his fingers through the slickness at my tip, over and over.
“It bothered me when you showed up at my door,” I murmur near his ear, stroking him from root to tip. I hate how desperate my voice sounds, and I know he probably loves it.
I lean over a little and pull in a breath, smelling the scent of his hair.
“Really?” he asks as he tips his head forward again, looking over at me.
“Bothered me how much I enjoyed seeing you. Not trying to make a straight guy think I got attached.”
“Don’t fucking care if you’re a dude or not. You made me come really hard, and my cock has needs. So… I’m the one who’s too needy.”
“No. You’re demanding. Unpredictable. But you’re not too needy, Chase.”
“Demanding,” he murmurs as I feel him pulse in my fist. “Yet you’re the one so willing to wrap your hand around my cock.”