Chapter 29
RILEY
“I’m gonna sleep for a week,” I groan, kicking my shoes off and collapsing onto the couch next to my boyfriend.
Luke reaches over and pulls me into his side, shaking his head with a chuckle. “You’re being a bit dramatic, I think.”
“Am not,” I pout, curling into his side and swinging my legs up across his lap.
“I love my sister, but oh my god, how does she have so much energy?” Between the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Venice Beach, and Universal Studios, I think I walked twenty thousand steps every day she was here.
I never want to walk again. Luke will just have to carry me everywhere now.
“She was on vacation, and it was her first time in LA,” he chuckles, rubbing a hand soothingly along my thigh.
“Maybe, but I really don’t think we had to do everything in the entire city in four days,” I grumble. “It’s not like she’ll never be back to visit.”
My cheek vibrates from the rumble of laughter in his chest. “Well then, next time you won’t have to do as much.”
I lift my head and attempt to glare at him. “Ugh. I hate when you’re so logical and reasonable.”
“Sorry, sunshine.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a while, enjoying the feel of being in one another’s arms again.
With Mandy visiting, we didn’t get a lot of alone time together.
I was up early and out late, crashing so hard as soon as I got home that we haven’t even had sex in almost a week.
I’ve missed these quiet, intimate moments, just the two of us.
“This is nice,” I say finally, nuzzling into his neck. “It was great to see my sister, but I’m happy to have our little bubble back.”
“Me too,” he hums, his breath warm in my hair.
“Did you get some work done this week while I was out, at least?” I try to sound as nonchalant as possible when I ask, because Luke’s demeanor after his collab with Cooper has still been weighing on my mind.
Even though he’s seemed closer to his normal, happy self the past few days, there’s been a cloud hanging over him that keeps his smile from reaching his eyes, and I hate it.
I want to fix it, but I don’t want to overstep, either.
“Yeah, I managed to film a few jerk off videos for my page and started editing the collab I did,” he answers. The words are flippant, but there’s a tightness to his tone.
“Oh yeah? How’d that go?” I wince a little at how perky I sound.
“Fine,” he sighs. I wait a beat to see if he’ll follow that up, but he stays silent.
Sitting up, I prop my arm on the back of the couch and face him fully. “You don’t have to talk to me about anything you don’t want to…but how are you feeling now that we’ve each collabed with someone else?”
Luke’s jaw clenches, and I can’t tell if it’s from frustration at himself or annoyance at me or both. “I feel fine. It’s just work. Sometimes it sucks more than other times.”
“I know, but I don’t want you to feel like it sucks,” I press. “What if we do our outside collabs together next month? We could do another threesome, people really liked that before.”
Luke chews his bottom lip, considering. “I guess we could try that…”
It’s not exactly enthusiasm, but it’s better than nothing.
My phone is on the bar where I dumped it with my wallet, and I don’t want to get up, so I fish my hand into Luke’s pocket to retrieve his.
I smirk as he squirms beneath me when my fingers brush his dick.
“Anyone in your messages you’d want to work with? ”
He takes his phone from me, and I prop my head on his shoulder, peeking at the screen as he begins scrolling. “Maxturbator…Jacked Jaxxxon…Hung Twunk…” I read aloud. “God, these people are really out here with these pseudonyms? These are terrible. Dixon Holes? Absolutely not.”
Luke is shaking with laughter now. “Hey, you do what you can when you need anonymity.”
“I guess. Glad I stuck with my own name, though, ugh.” He keeps scrolling, and a couple of profile pictures catch my eye. “What about that one? Uncut Caleb? That name sounds less awful, at least.”
“True, but I’m not sure we’re his type.” Luke opens up his profile, and we’re met with a clip of a twunk I assume is Caleb being absolutely railed by a huge, hairy, bear of a man.
“Hey, you’ve got a little bit of a bear thing going on,” I argue, rubbing at his chest. “Or you would, if you weren’t so well-groomed.”
He cocks an eyebrow at me. “That’s why he’s in my DMs—he asked if I’d ever be willing to give the trimmers a break. Told him my man prefers me appropriately manscaped.”
“That’s right, I do.” I turn back to the screen and point to another picture that caught my eye: a handsome, muscular blond with piercing green eyes who looks like he stepped right out of an old Western film.
I’m kind of digging it. He looks like he’s around Luke’s age, and there’s a kindness to his rugged features that looks easygoing and natural. “What about him?”
“Oh, that’s Rod Steele. And yes, that is his real name, believe it or not.”
My eyes widen and my jaw drops, because no, I don’t believe it. “Wow, his parents must have really had it out for him. Have you worked with him before?”
“I haven’t, but I’ve met him a few times,” Luke muses. “Really nice guy. He’s been saying we should work together. He bounces between here and Chicago. I think his family is out there or something. According to his profile, he’ll be here in two weeks, though.”
“Is he someone you’d be comfortable doing a threesome with?”
Luke stares down at the photo of Rod, considering. “Yeah,” he finally says slowly. “I think he’d be okay.”
“You want to message him, or should I?” I try to put as much enthusiasm into the words as possible.
Maybe if I’m into the idea, it will bring him around a little more, because I can tell he’s still not sold.
But if we can do a few collabs like this together, maybe it will ease his mind and make the ones we do apart less daunting.
“I can do it,” he sighs, opening up the message thread between them.
Or maybe not. At least he has two weeks to get used to the idea.
I’ve showered, taken Aggie out to potty, fed her, and currently have breakfast not burning on the stove…
and I’m pretty sure Luke is still in bed.
I glance at the clock as I’m checking the pan with the bacon sizzling, the scent making my stomach growl.
Almost noon. We have a half hour before we have to be walking out the door, and I haven’t heard any movement at all from upstairs.
I flip the eggs with an irritated huff and shake my head.
Luke has definitely not warmed up to the idea of this threesome.
If anything, it’s the opposite, and I don’t understand why.
He’s been moody and aloof for the past two weeks, and it’s like I can visibly see him retreating into his own mind.
It makes me crazy. It makes me worry. It makes me want to fix it.
But how can I help when he won’t even tell me why this is bothering him so much?
I’ve tried to bring it up casually, like just another event we have on the calendar, and I’ve tried to bring it up excitedly, like it’s something I’m really looking forward to doing with him.
No matter what approach I take, he suddenly has to take Aggie out, or go to the gym, or take a shower.
He’ll think of anything and everything to keep from just talking about his feelings, and I can’t understand it.
The first rule we made about this whole situation was that we would communicate, and he’s been completely shut down.
Even in the evenings when we’re watching Friends, he barely snorts a laugh, even at the funniest parts.
A far cry from the deep belly laughs that made tears spring to his eyes when we first started watching together.
For as frigid as he is during the day, he turns into this needy, insatiable animal at night.
It’s like a switch flips as soon as we crawl into bed, and then it’s soft whimpers and please baby’s and orgasms so powerful they’ve actually made him cry.
We’ve filmed a couple of these heated nights, but when I’ve watched them back, they’re far too intimate to post to the world.
Deeply emotional and exposing a side of Luke that I don’t think he would want anyone else to see.
I’m not even sure if he wants me to see, but it’s like he becomes a whole different person as soon as we turn the light out.
I don’t know how to reconcile these two versions of Luke, neither of which is the same as the man I first met and quickly fell for.
He’s obviously going through something that he isn’t ready to share, so I’ve tried to be patient and be whatever he needs…
but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been deeply worried.
The level of submission he seeks between the sheets is a complete juxtaposition to the control freak who handles everything himself during the day, and I don’t know where I fit in all of it.
Maybe I was naive to think that time to get used to the idea of this collab was all he needed.
But this has to run deeper than the collab, surely? If it were only that, we could just call it off, and everything would go back to normal. I just don’t know what else could be going on in that beautiful head of his because he won’t tell me anything.
Sighing in defeat, I turn the stove off and make us each a plate.
A scrap of bacon falls to the floor, and Aggie has snapped it up before I can even blink.
I grin and shake my head. This little girl has been a bright spot in the midst of this hurricane of emotion I’ve been weathering.
She never fails to make me smile. “Ready to go wake Daddy?” I ask her.
She’s right on my heels, hoping I’ll drop some more bacon.
“Luke?” I call, bumping the door open with my shoulder. “You up, babe?”
I’m met with an irritated grumble, and my heart sinks to my stomach. Guess he’s still pissed at me for last night.