Chapter Two
Nate Donovan should have been thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic by now. Instead, he was staring at a vending machine in the lobby of the H?tel des Voyageurs, wondering if paprika chips counted as dinner.
The place had all the charm of an IKEA showroom.
Neutral-toned everything, furniture that looked like it had been chosen for durability over comfort, and wall art that suggested someone somewhere had Googled inoffensive print: hotel.
It sat a stone’s throw from Geneva’s train station, vibrating every few minutes as if the building was clearing its throat.
Nate had told himself he was staying a few extra days to clear his head. The truth? He was hiding. From his agent. From his inbox. From the fact that he had no idea what the hell he was doing with his life.
He was twenty-six, allegedly in his prime, and so profoundly, cosmically done with sex he could feel it in his bones. Which was awkward, considering it was literally his job.
Porn hadn’t been a career decision so much as a pratfall.
One minute, he was a freshly fired gym instructor with rent due and a voicemail from his mum asking if he was “doing okay, love?” The next, he was answering an ad that promised easy cash, no experience required.
Turns out, when you’re six-foot-two with abs you could bounce a quarter off of, no experience means we’ll teach you how to angle your hips for the camera.
Just a handful of scenes, he’d told himself.
That handful had snowballed into a savings account with a bunch of zeros, a shrine of adult industry awards he mostly ignored—because what kind of weirdo polishes a trophy shaped like a dick?
—and a fanbase terrifyingly skilled at identifying him from the belly button down.
In theory, it was the perfect gig. The kind that made men at parties sputter mid-drink and ask him to repeat himself, slower, while their girlfriends Googled him under the table. What he’d failed to account for was the immutable law of work: if it needs a meeting, fun is doomed.
Suddenly, sex came with call times. Continuity notes.
Long stretches of standing around barefoot in a robe, arms crossed over his chest like a security guard, while strangers argued over lighting boxes.
“Relax your jaw, Nate.” “Try not to squint.” “Also, sign this and submit your STI clean bill of health.” All delivered with DMV level enthusiasm.
He hadn’t just ruined sex. He’d HR-ified it.
The money had been a lifeline. Seriously.
It paid off his mum’s mortgage, which sent her into a 72-hour emotional spiral that bounced between “Oh my God, thank you” and “Nate, be honest, is this drug money?” That conversation ended awkwardly with, “Well, at least you’re not a politician.
” The cash also fixed her boiler, redid the roof, and covered her knee surgery, which she’d accepted with a nod and a firm “We’ll just tell the neighbors you’re in IT. ”
For a while, he’d convinced himself that made what he did noble-ish. Or, at the very least, defensible.
Lately, though? Even the paychecks landed with a dull thud.
The shoots blurred together: same recycled lines (“Oh God, you’re so big!
”), same rehearsed moans, same hollow “nailed it!” fist bumps afterward, like they’d wrapped a team-building exercise instead of a threesome in a rented beach house.
He wasn’t performing anymore. He was clocking in. A human dildo with stage directions.
And then, three days ago, in a drafty chateau an hour outside the city, mid-shoot on The Countess’s Confession 9, his body mutinied.
Not shy. Completely AWOL. A flag on a windless day.
The fluffer had pulled out their whole bag of tricks.
Nate stared at the ceiling, fists clenched, willing something—please, anything—to happen.
“You good, man?” the director hissed, sweating through his polo.
“Yeah,” Nate lied, because what else could he say? “My dick just ghosted me?”
Five minutes later, the director’s face had gone from pink to beet red. A clipboard had been hurled, a chair flipped, and a boom mic murdered.
Nate grabbed his clothes and bolted.
He sat on a stone wall outside, legs bouncing, waiting for an Uber. When it arrived, he called his agent and said the words out loud: “I’m done.” The laughter on the other end had been sharp enough to make him flinch.
“Nate,” the agent said once he recovered, “you’ll know you’re out when no one calls back.” The line went dead before he could argue. Or cry. Or maybe ask for a reference.
So, he’d holed up in Geneva. A city of people too busy saving the world—or selling watches to folks with blood on their hands—to care about his on-screen exploits. The plan? Stroll the lake. Over-caffeinate. Figure out who the hell he was when the cameras stopped rolling and the lube dried up.
Spoiler: he hadn’t figured out a damn thing.
Now he lingered under the flickering glow of the vending machine, his only company an elderly couple on a couch across the lobby, heads bent over a pocket camera, giggling like teenagers.
Nate jabbed C6 with more force than necessary.
The machine paused for dramatic effect, then clattered and shoved a bag of paprika chips into the tray.
He tore it open and glimpsed himself in the glass. Pale skin, marked by old spray tans. Dark stubble he hadn’t bothered to tame. Hair crushed flat under an LA Dodgers cap that had seen better days. Gray T-shirt. Faded blue shorts. No gloss. No polish.
He looked ordinary. Like a guy you’d sit next to on a bus and immediately forget. A forklift operator, maybe, or a drywall installer. Weirdly, he liked it.
Behind him, the elevator chimed. A couple careened into the lobby, clinging to each other.
Her lipstick had migrated halfway to her cheek.
His shirt gaped open, buttons hanging on by sheer optimism.
Same-day acquisition, no question. Nate clocked them instantly.
Met at the Sustainable Cotton Symposium (he’d passed the signage upstairs), now operating under the mutual understanding that time was short and dignity optional.
One of them had a flight soon. Or a spouse. Possibly both.
He stepped aside automatically, giving them space. His nose wrinkled. Not in disapproval, exactly. In exhaustion. Jesus, they looked tiring. All that groping and teeth-clashing, as if they were afraid they’d evaporate if they paused. It made him want to lie down.
His eyes slid back to the white-haired tourists, their heads still tipped together as they inspected whatever blurry selfie they’d taken earlier. The woman swatted the man’s arm, laughing again. The man leaned in closer, their knees brushing. Just a glance of contact. Entirely accidental.
Nate’s stomach twinged. He rubbed at the spot with his knuckles, like easing a stitch. The sensation didn’t go away. It slid upward instead, settling behind his breastbone, then creeping into his throat until swallowing felt oddly deliberate.
Huh.
That was… inconvenient. The idea didn’t arrive whole. It leaked in around the edges. What if he hadn’t just wrung his libido dry? What if it had packed up because there was no good reason to stick around?
His agent’s mantra surfaced: “Feelings? Fuck around with them and you’re fucked.” Nate had treated it like gospel. Not because he fully believed it, but because it shut up the little voice whispering maybe all the squishy, messy, human stuff wasn’t a trap. Maybe it meant something.
“Well, bravo, Nate,” he said aloud.
Six months. His record for anything pretending to be a relationship.
Always with women from the industry. Gorgeous and capable, and perpetually weary.
Everyone hyperaware of angles and lighting, even in the dark.
Especially in the dark. As if an audience lived permanently in the back of your skull, taking notes.
And now, here he was. Unemployed and talking to himself.
His apartment silent, his plants dead. Yes, even the stupid succulents had thrown in the towel.
He sighed and pulled out his phone. He could still make tomorrow’s 6:45 to LAX.
Be home by nightfall, sitting cross-legged on his rug, pretending to meditate while deleting DMs from strangers who opened with, “Hey, I saw your work in—”
The thought made his skin prickle. He locked the screen and shoved the phone away.
Another day. Buy himself more time to figure out what normal meant for someone like him.
Manual labor? He had the shoulders for it.
Stocking shelves? At least soup cans didn’t have opinions.
Or, Christ, go work for his brother’s tech startup and nod thoughtfully while people said words like “scaling” and “synergy.”
Hell, just surviving a day without someone telling him where to stand, or a director barking “Reset, Steele!”, felt like a Herculean task.
Then there was the couple fantasy, suddenly padding into his head like a stray cat he didn’t dare feed.
Netflix on the couch. Occasional hand-holding.
Boring closeness that almost sounded nice.
He grunted and shook his head. Come on, Nate, don’t be a clown.
No woman in her right mind wanted to explain to her parents that the Steel XXL?—’s top-selling anatomically accurate vibrator, with a frankly ridiculous number of settings—had been modeled after the guy sitting across from them at brunch. And yes, he had his own IMDb page.
Still.
Statistically speaking, there had to be someone out there. That one lunatic of a woman who might shrug and say, “Sure. Let’s give this a shot.”
He caught his reflection again. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
“If you’re doing this whole ‘new you’ thing, might as well go all in.
” His eyes dipped to his groin. “Sorry, buddy. You’re benched.
” He popped a chip into his mouth and crunched.
“Temporary,” he added, as if it were a promise instead of a guess. “Until we sort our shit.”
Then, on impulse, he bent forward and scrawled NATE across the glass in greasy paprika dust. Because apparently this was how vows worked now. Made to vending machines, certified by fluorescent lighting, and filed by the universe under Very Serious Adult Decisions.
“Starting now.”
The machine hummed in what might have been agreement.