Chapter 26
twenty-six
Kate
I’m in the café in the hotel lobby, leaning against the wall and scrolling Instagram reels as I wait for our breakfast order.
I find one posted from a doggy daycare comparing their residents to celebrities, and just as I’m about to send it to Josh in a DM, I see a text from him appear at the top of my screen.
Josh: When are you coming back? I need you.
I smile and bite my lip.
Kate: I’ve been gone ten minutes.
Josh: And that’s nine minutes too long.
I close our message thread, go back into Instagram, and send him the reel.
When my name is called at the counter, I slide my phone into the back pocket of my jeans and pick up our order before heading back to the elevators.
As soon as I make it to Josh’s door, my phone vibrates in my pocket.
I ignore it as I enter the room, freezing when I see Josh waiting for me on his bed.
Naked.
Very, very naked.
I set our breakfast on the desk as my phone vibrates twice more in quick succession.
“I told you I needed you,” Josh says, looking directly into my eyes as he strokes himself slowly, and my entire body heats. I pull my phone out of my pocket as I take a quick sip of coffee and see two messages and a missed call from Dani.
Dani: Why is Josh posting borderline inappropriate thirst traps on his IG stories??
Dani: You might want to have a talk with him.
I quickly pull up Josh’s stories and choke on my mouthful of coffee. In the photo, Josh is standing in front of the bathroom mirror wearing nothing but gray sweatpants that do almost nothing to hide his very obvious erection.
“Oh my god,” I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Josh, why did you post this picture to your stories?”
“What picture?”
I turn my phone to show him what I mean before sending a quick text to Dani letting her know I’m going to need her help with this, because I am way out of my element.
“W…what?” he stammers, snatching his phone off the bed. I peel my eyes away from my screen just in time to see Josh’s widen in horror. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck!” He taps away furiously, face growing paler with each passing second.
“It’s only been up for five minutes, it couldn’t have been seen by that many—”
“One hundred thirty-four thousand, five hundred and three,” he says, cutting me off.
“In five minutes?” I ask, jaw dropped open in shock. Jesus. I guess that’s what happens when you have over two hundred million followers. I watch as he rises from the bed, grabs the infamous pair of sweats from the floor, pulls them on, and starts pacing the room.
Who were you sending that to? is what I want to ask as I feel my heart drop to my feet, even though it has no right to. He isn’t mine. I was the one who said we didn’t have to be exclusive. He can send thirst traps to whomever he chooses. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting a little.
“How did this even happen?” is what I ask instead.
“I sent it to you,” he says, tapping into his messages. “I swear to god I sent it to you.”
“Why would you send it to me through Instagram? We were texting.”
“Because it was the last place you messaged me from,” he turns his screen in my direction, and sure enough, seven minutes ago while I was waiting downstairs for our coffee orders, I sent him the reel with the dogs.
“You messaged me here, I watched the video, then pulled up my camera to show you how fucking badly I want you and…fuck I don’t even know how the rest of it happened.” He throws his phone on the bed and tugs at his hair. “How bad is this?”
“It’s fixable, Josh,” I say. I can tell he’s on the verge of spiraling, so I keep my voice as low and soothing as possible. “Everything is fixable.”
“Don’t lie to me, Kate,” he says, his eyes wide and pleading. “There are kids who follow me on that app.”
“If that’s true, that’s ridiculous. Children should not be on social media.”
“My DMs are going to be full of angry parents.”
“Then I’ll be sure to tell them exactly what I think of their parenting choices.”
“What if…what if they press charges. What if they arrest me?”
Oh shit, he really is spiraling.
“Josh,” I say, crossing the room and taking his hand in mine. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You weren’t naked, and you didn’t send it to anyone directly. It was an honest mistake.”
“I hate my brain,” he says, his voice panicked. “I hate being like this. I hate that I can’t pay attention.” I can see tears lining his eyes, and my heart breaks for him.
“Everything is fine, Josh. I can fix this. I will fix this. I promise.” He nods once and I know I should grab my phone and get to work, but I can’t bring myself to pull away.
So, I wrap my arms around his shoulders, and I pull him to me.
His arms wrap around my waist, and he buries his face in my neck.
“I’m such a mess,” he says, voice breaking.
“It doesn’t matter how many Post-it notes I leave lying around or how much I work out or what my diet is, I’m a fucking mess.
I’m broken I’m…” he trails off and tightens his hold on me.
“What’s wrong with me?” he says on an exhale, his voice barely a whisper.
Knocking comes from the door to my room, and Dani shouts my name from the other side.
“Go,” Josh says.
“She can wait,” I say, stepping back out of his arms and taking his face in my hands.
“Josh, look at me.” His eyes slowly make their way from the floor to my own.
“There is nothing ‘wrong’ with you, do you hear me? You are not broken. You do not need to be fixed.” I slowly brush my thumbs along his jaw, and he closes his eyes and leans into my touch.
Dani knocks again, but my eyes don’t stray from him.
“I don’t want to be like this with you. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“I want to see you, Josh,” I say, more fiercely than I intended. “All of you.”
His eyes open again, moving back and forth between mine. “Why?”
“Because I care about you. The real you. Not the version of you that you think you have to be. You. Joshua Matthew Calloway.” His breathing picks up again, and I’m afraid I’ve said too much, pushed too far, so I steer the conversation in a different direction before he has a full-blown panic attack.
“I will handle this, but I need you to breathe with me first, okay?” I inhale slowly, exaggerating it so he’ll follow. After a few moments, his breathing slows to match mine, his chest rising and falling steadily against my forearms.
“That’s it,” I murmur, as Dani knocks again, harder this time.
“Kate, what the fuck is going on?” she calls from the hallway. “Open the door.”
“Good. Keep breathing. I’ll be right back.” As I step back to grab my phone and head to my room, his hand catches my wrist.
“Kate?” he says, voice low and so broken that it guts me. I look up at him, and he manages a small smile. “Thank you.”
I place my hand over his and squeeze gently. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m on your side, Josh. Always.”
I spend the next few hours barricaded in my room with Dani, working nonstop to clean up the fallout. I’m firing off emails to every site hosting the photo requesting it be removed, while she’s on the phone with the label, the PR team, and Josh’s lawyer, trying to get everyone aligned.
Even though I’m fully focused on fixing this, my mind keeps drifting back to Josh, because I know he’s on the other side of this wall in a panic.
I want to run to him. Wrap him in my arms and make sure he’s truly alright.
But I can’t. I can’t comfort him the way I ache to.
I have to be professional, Assistant Kate.
Cool, composed, and detached, even though pretending an assistant is all I am to him is killing me.
“Hey,” I say to Dani before she heads back to her room. “Can you please talk to the guys? Make sure no one mentions this tonight in the greenroom?”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on, that’s how those guys communicate. You seriously expect me to make this off limits?”
“Yes,” I snap. Her eyebrows raise at my clearly unexpected tone.
“What’s got you acting so protective all of a sudden?”
“It’s not protectiveness, it’s common courtesy,” I say, deflecting. “He made a mistake, okay? A stupid, human mistake, and he’s beating himself up over it way harder than he needs to be, so how about we show him a little compassion?”
“Fine, I’ll talk to them.”
I thank her as she leaves, and bolt for Josh’s room the second the door closes behind her.
I expect him to be in bed wallowing in self-pity with the covers pulled over his head—because, let’s face it, that’s where I’d be in this situation—but he’s not.
He’s sitting on the couch, already dressed for the show tonight, and watching something on the TV.
“How bad is it?” he asks, picking at a thread on his frayed jeans.
“Honestly? You’re kind of a hero.”
“What?” he asks, looking up at me, brows furrowed in confusion.
“Let’s just say the internet is…extremely appreciative.”
I watch as a small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, pulling one out of me for the first time since this morning.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Kate.”
“Josh, stop. You have nothing to be sorry about.” He opens his mouth, but I put my hand up, stopping him.
“No, listen to me.” I cross the room to kneel in front of him and cup his cheek in my hand.
“Feel however you need to feel about the mistake itself—be embarrassed, be frustrated, be whatever—but do not, for one second, feel guilty about what I did today.
“I didn’t handle this because I’m your assistant,” I say quietly, my voice soft but unshakably honest. “I handled it because I care about you. Because you were hurting, and I couldn’t stand the thought of you being alone in that.
” His breath catches. It’s barely audible, but I hear it anyway, and it pulls at something in my chest. Something I’m trying to ignore and keep locked up tight.
“So don’t apologize to me,” I whisper. “I wasn’t cleaning up after you.
I was protecting you. And I’ll do it as many times as I need to. ”
He swallows, eyes searching mine like he’s trying to find the part of me that’s lying, but I know he won’t, and I think he does, too.
“You’re not alone, Josh,” I whisper. He leans in, just enough that our foreheads touch. “Not ever.”