Chapter 3
Chapter Three
GRANT
T he photo this morning unsettled Kit, there’s no doubt about it. “We need to get better security on her.”
“What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing? Whoever has those photos knows her,” Rafe snaps. He’s walking beside me and anyone looking our way would see two men who are friends, after all we’re dating the same woman, why wouldn’t we be friendly? They don’t know that I wanted to take his windpipe out this morning over the way he chews.
Kit holds us together. She’s the glue and the softness that somehow makes the fucked up and broken parts of us function enough to pass for normal in polite society.
“She doesn’t know anyone else but Alana,” Rafe points out.
“She’s got those other two.”
He means Kit’s friends from college. “Ivy and Hope,” I remind him but the only thing he does is grunt. Fuck his brooding silent shit.
“It could be them,” he says after a minute. “Why wouldn’t they be handing over photos for money? Maybe they’re jealous.”
He’s got a point. I’m not going to tell him that though and this time it’s me that grunts back and we walk on in silence to hair and makeup. When we turn up, the place is in full swing. Jasmine is getting her hair done and I take the seat next to her without looking her way. She glances at me and I know she’s waiting for me to say something to her, the same way she does every morning.
“Good morning, Jasmine. Everything alright?” I ask, because that’s exactly what people expect from America’s Sweetheart. They think they know me, that I’m the guy that gives two fucks about what a shallow, greedy girl like Jasmine cares about or wants. Even though I know everyone on set has signed an NDA, I’m not stupid. As soon as their legal obligations are over, I know they’re going to run to the first gossip rag that will pay them. Some of them are going to be smart enough to hold out for something close to Page Six, others are going to take the first couple of hundred dollars to come their way and go to a site like the one with Kit’s prom photo.
“I’m doing great. How about you?” Jasmine smiles brightly and gives me a look in the mirror that shows me she’s game to play friends today. Thank fuck. We have a sex scene scheduled and even thinking of touching her makes me want to vomit.
“I’m good. Kit’s happy, so everything is perfect.”
Jasmine’s smile goes a little more brittle in the mirror and she nods. “Sure, sure. I understand.”
“Do you?” Rafe asks from the seat he took on the other side of the starlet and as much as I want to tell him to shut his fucking mouth, I’m with him. Kit doesn’t let us interfere with movie shit, which means we can’t put Jasmine six feet under the way we want to. Kit would lose her shit if we did something like that.
“You can’t just kill the lead actress because you don’t like how she talks to me.”
She’s wrong. We can and we could, but we don’t. What Kit wants matters more than what we want.
It always will.
Jasmine shifts in her seat and the stylist doing her hair ducks her head when I look her way along with Rafe. “I, uh, I mean, well yeah. She’s your…you know.”
You know.
That’s what she’s calling the love of our fucking lives. The woman meant for us and us alone. The one so perfectly goddamned made that she makes us want to be normal.
Our ‘you know’ . Jesus fucking Christ. If I wasn’t trying to do what Kit wants, Jasmine would be in pieces by now.
“She’s everything,” I say smoothly and smile at Jasmine in the mirror. I tilt my head back to look at the stylist and wink. Fuck her NDA. When she’s able to finally talk about me, the only thing she’ll be able to say is that I was an attentive and romantic boyfriend to Kit. I know the rumors bother her—that Rafe and I have Kit in an arrangement that’s just sex. Some kind of “fucked up Hollywood sex cult,” someone with too high a follower count to believe shit like that said. It bothered Kit, though.
She’s too sensitive for this shit. Which brings me back to the important matter at hand.
“I’m sure she is,” Jasmine grumbles.
Who took that photo?
That’s what I think about while I know Rafe is thinking about how he’s going to gut Jasmine later when filming is over. Jasmine thinks she’s immune to us. That she gets a free pass to be a cunt just because she’s the lead. She doesn't get that it’s only because Kit says so. Jasmine doesn’t matter. If she vanished and ended up chopped into a million fucking pieces she’d only be as good as the afternoon news fodder.
She’s nobody.
Kit keeps her alive.
And yet…
She treats Kit like shit.
“Kit is so lucky to have you both,” the stylist says with a kind smile. It’s real. I’ve seen her talking to Kit and they’re friendly. She sneaks a makeup touch up here and there for our girl when filming runs late.
Because of that when I smile at her it’s the real thing–or as real as I can give anyone that isn’t Kit.
“Lucky to have me, yeah. This one, though…” I let my voice trail off and shoot a look Rafe’s way. He’s not worried about what people will say when the NDA’s are up.
He drinks his coffee and flips me off. “Eat shit.”
Jasmine giggles and bats her eyes like she’s impressed, which knowing her—she probably is. She might have given up on trying to get me to fuck her but she hasn’t let it go when it comes to Rafe. Poor planning on her part. If anyone’s going to kill Jasmine for the way she treats Kit, it’s Rafe.
He’s protective and reactive—normally weaknesses I’d use to my advantage but Rafe’s tendencies are perfect for keeping Kit safe.
“You’re so bad,” Jasmine simpers.
Rafe’s eyes cut to her but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even flip her off. He just settles back in his chair and lifts the script he’s already memorized.
“Kit’s dress is gonna be delivered late. I’m having them send it to the apartment,” Rafe tells me like Jasmine isn’t in the room. We’re taking her out to dinner for our two-month anniversary. She doesn’t like us making a big deal out of things but making a big deal out of being with Kit is one of the few things Rafe and I agree on.
“What about the rest?” I ask while the stylist starts dabbing concealer on my chin and tilts my head to the side. The movement lets me get eyes on Jasmine. She’s pretending to read over her script but she hasn’t turned a page since we sat down. And besides that, it’s a pick-up for the scene we shot yesterday. She’s listening but I knew that, even without her sloppy spy skills on display.
Rafe sips his coffee. “Same thing with that, too,” he says, offering nothing else. He knows better than to say too much while Jasmine is around. NDA or not, she’s the type to use it no matter the consequences if she thinks it’ll get her ahead.
“Thanks.” I smile at his reflection and make it look like I mean it. In fact my smile comes a little too easily and I don’t want to think too hard on why that might be. Instead, I think about what Kit is going to look like tonight for our anniversary dinner wearing the dress we picked for her.
We picked the dress out after our one month anniversary, plus a few extra surprises for tonight. If Kit is going to be dating a pair of monsters, she’s going to have to be prepared to spill a little blood of her own.