21. Naz
TWENTY-ONE
NAZ
“…and that was about when you ran into me.”
I am reeling. My eyes are dry from how much they were bugging out during his story. I am fully engaged, body turned towards him with my back against the arm of the couch.
“Holy shit. So Blake and Cory were in on the whole thing?”
“Well, Cory was,” Scott says humorlessly. “I’m not sure about Blake.”
“No, I think he was trying to tell me something when I talked to him. I was pissed and not thinking clearly, but he kept telling me to trust him.”
“Well, he was convincing as hell when he was talking to me. So until the man himself explicitly tells me he doesn’t hate me and I still have a job, I really don’t know what to think.”
Extending my leg, I poke his knee with one socked toe. “You know I wouldn’t let them fire you, right?”
Scott reaches down and captures my foot, pulling it to him in one swift move that puts me on my back again. He crawls over me but stays hovering above me, looking down at me with a soft, almost timid expression that I’ve never seen on him before.
“Even though I screwed up?”
Part of Scott’s story tickles the back of my mind. An important detail that almost got overshadowed by how unbelievable our entire situation has become.
“You told Blake that you lo–”
I’m cut off by a phone ringing. Scott gestures for me to hold that thought and pushes up to his knees to fish the burner phone he got this morning from his pocket.
“What’s up?”
I can hear the voice on the other end, presumably Cory, but can’t make out the words. Just his low timbre and clipped tone before Scott looks down at his phone to see the call ended.
His eyes shift to me. “Cory’s here.”
Well shit. We both look down at our disheveled clothes, pants undone, shirts rumpled. There’s an obvious cum stain on the front of my jeans and what looks like a handprint on Scott’s black t-shirt.
Both of us jump off the couch at once, scrambling to put ourselves back together. My t-shirt is long enough to cover the stain on my hip and groin, but Scott’s shirt is too obvious.
“I’ll go next door and change,” he says.
“No time. Try the guest room.”
Scott disappears into Will and Ari’s second bedroom. We’ve all crashed there at one time or another, if he’s lucky someone will have left something behind that fits him.
Cory walks in barely a minute later, looking flat-out pissed and exhausted. He runs his eyes over me, assessing. “You don’t look any worse for wear.”
“Can’t say the same about you, man. You look wrecked.”
“I stayed near the locker facility until it closed for the night, then I got caught in the storm.”
“Do you think they’ll come for the locker?”
“I’ve got a camera on it if they do. That’ll have to be enough. We’ve got other problems to deal with.”
“Like what?” Scott asks, emerging from the guest room in a Shreveport Cyclones shirt and track pants that obviously belong to Luc.
Even the NFL player can’t compete with the sheer size of Scott, the pants clinging to his ass and thick thighs.
The shirt is a little looser, but the arms and a few inches of the bottom are cut off, showing off a tantalizing strip of his lower abs and hair below his belly button.
My mouth goes dry. The sight of Scott in Luc’s workout gear distracts me from whatever Cory is going on about.
It’s Scott’s shift in posture that brings me back to the present. He’s got his hackles up, shoulders raised, jaw flexing, radiating the same tension I saw on him earlier. He’s worried.
“What’s happening?” I say, dragging my eyes away from Scott and facing Cory.
To his credit, Cory doesn’t show any annoyance over having to repeat himself. “There’s been another privacy breach,” he says. His careful tone gives away the next part of the sentence before he says it. “This time it involves you.”
I’m not sure how to feel about that. Part of me is relieved it isn’t one of the other guys, who have already been through so much. Jesse and Ari, especially. They’ve been shredded by the media and tabloids, their personal histories and morality questioned.
Despite the tone of Cory’s voice, I’m not as worried as I should be. I don’t have nude photos or sex tapes floating around anywhere, and the few hookups I’ve had were all pleasant, consensual, good experiences that took place well over a year ago.
Whatever it is can’t be that bad. Unless it’s falsified. That would be painful to deal with, but we could eventually prove the lies just as we did with Ari’s past, and the news cycle would move on.
“Specifically, it involves both of you.”
That gets my attention. “Both of us?”
The press, tabloids, and fans are all pretty obsessed with ‘shipping’ me and Scott, even though there’s never been any acknowledgement or proof to confirm the rumors.
The first article about it was clearly meant to paint our alleged relationship negatively, but fans loved the idea so much, it did nothing to discredit us.
Now it’s just a silly news item that no one takes seriously.
“A recording of the two of you was leaked to all the major news sites and tabloids. We got the alert around seven this evening.”
“Shit.” Scott starts pacing, dragging his hands through his hair.
I’m by his side in an instant, pulling his hands down and getting in his face so he’ll look at me. “Hey. It’s okay,” I tell him. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. It’s probably bullshit, and it’ll blow over.”
“It’s not great,” Cory says flatly. However much he might feel sorry for me and the rest of the guys for what we’ve been through, it’s clear that he doesn’t extend that same compassion towards his employee.
I know what he’s thinking by the way he’s looking at Scott.
This is potentially another black mark on his record.
An employee he hired and vouched for has now found himself in hot water for the third time, fourth if you count the initial discovery that Scott and I were sleeping together.
Neither of us disclosed it because it wasn’t serious, and in my mind it kind of felt like another dynamic of his protective service.
Okay, that makes it sound like I’m paying Scott to have sex with me. Obviously, that’s not it. But the dynamic between us wasn’t romantic. It was Scott taking care of me in a different way, getting me out of my head so I could relax when things got too heavy.
It’s sexual in nature, yes. We both get off.
Regularly. But it’s not really the point, and I am almost positive Scott would do it even if it wasn’t sexual.
It just so happens that Scott’s way of getting me out of my head also makes my dick hard.
And so does the humiliation of him making me do degrading things to earn the privilege of getting off.
But that’s not the point. And it’s not anyone’s business.
“Not helping,” I tell Cory.
Shrugging, Cory takes a seat in an armchair and crosses his arms. “I’m just telling it like it is. This doesn’t look good for any of you. The label is pissed.”
“Good thing Blake fired me then,” Scott deadpans, pulling away from me gently.
He squeezes my forearm reassuringly before walking over to sit on the couch to face Cory.
I follow and take the seat next to him, close enough to let them both know I’m on his side, but not close enough to give the impression that I’m too attached.
Because I’m not. Maybe the lines and boundaries we initially had in place for this arrangement are blurring some, but it’s not like my world revolves around him. We aren’t a couple.
He told Blake he’d fallen in love with me.
Trying not to be too obvious, I scoot an inch to the left, putting a little more space between us. Then, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees, I look at Cory.
“So what’s the damage?”
Cory is silent for a moment, probably thinking about how to break this news.
However unimpressed or upset with Scott he is, Cory is a nice guy who cares a lot about his duty and the people he protects.
He’s had to watch his main charge fall apart under the scrutiny of strangers that almost ruined him.
And then he had to face not one, but two seemingly credible attacks on Jesse’s life.
Even if we know now that the bomb was missing several components needed to make it legitimate, that doesn’t take away the fear we felt when it was discovered.
Maybe the drones with the fireworks were only meant to scare us, but they proved our information wasn’t secure and caused an accident that could have been much worse.
Ever since Jesse got out of rehab and the band had a resurgence of popularity, the attacks have been never-ending.
At first, it was political backlash against us for speaking out about the awful things happening in our country.
The harder the conservative talking heads and politicians tried to put us down, the louder we got, and the more personal the attacks became.
They’ve tried to tear us apart from the inside, and once or twice it almost seemed like it was working, but we keep coming back stronger.
They targeted Jesse and his relationship with Luc, then turned the spotlight on Ari and Will.
My life hasn’t become a target because I don’t have anything they can use.
My background isn’t exciting, and other than the band, I don’t have many personal connections.
There isn’t anything they can use to hurt me.
Except, it seems, my pride.
Because when Cory sets his phone on the coffee table and opens a browser to show the multiple articles, videos, and posts about the newest leak exposing the members of Lest Is Moore, I hear it.
“Come on now, pet. Let me hear you beg some more.”
“Fuck. Scott… Mmmphh.”
“Look what a mess you are. Covered in my marks, full of my cum, and yet still so hard and needy.”
“Fuck me…”
“Again, pet?”
“I need to—Nnyyhh—”
I make a frustrated sound, and Scott chuckles.
“Which is it, Naz? Do you want me to let you come for the, what, sixth time today? Or do you want me to fuck you again?”
“For the love of—Uhnh. Scott! Fuck me already!”