Chapter Seven
Nate slouched in the armchair, phone glued to his ear, his knee jostling the tiny hotel desk. A white takeout box teetered precariously, cold noodles sloshing inside. He hadn’t been hungry enough to finish it. Or maybe he’d been too distracted.
“Still in Geneva?” Jason’s voice crackled through the line, already laced with that older brother tone that said, I know something’s up, and I’m going to drag it out of you.
“Yeah,” Nate said, spinning a chopstick. “Decided to extend the stay.”
“Extending your stay?” Jason scoffed. “In Switzerland? Collecting lakeside guilt trips now?”
Nate exhaled. “I needed some time.”
“For what? To write a memoir? Stare soulfully at the Alps until they forgive you?” Jason’s voice sharpened, signaling he was about to ask the real question. “Or… you’re not actually serious about leaving the industry this time, are you?”
Nate laughed, but it didn’t make it out of his throat. “Yeah, man. I’m done. For real.”
The quiet dragged on. Nate could practically see Jason raising an eyebrow.
“Okay, what happened to ‘it’s just a job’?”
“It was just a job,” Nate replied automatically. He’d fed that line to friends, strangers, even himself in the mirror at 3 a.m. It was practically a slogan by now. “Some of the best people I know came out of it. Decent. Loyal. The kind of folk who’d Venmo you rent without asking questions.”
He could almost see them—the faces, the names—the ones who’d kept him from drowning in his own nonsense more times than he could count.
“But,” he continued, voice dropping, “it’s also crawling with assholes. The longer you stick around, the harder it gets to pretend they’re just an unfortunate coincidence. Like, wow. What are the odds there are this many terrible people in one place?”
Silence.
“I’m not saying I was some victim. I chose it. Signed the contracts. Got paid. And yeah, I was careful. Didn’t wake up missing days, money, or teeth.” He swallowed. “But I can’t act like the fallout doesn’t count just because others got it worse.”
His gaze dropped to the hotel carpet, a tight, geometric pattern in muted grays and blues. Expensive-looking, but hard on the eyes if you stared too long.
“I’ve seen good folk get messed up. I just… I don’t want to be that guy in ten years, pretending I didn’t see it coming.”
Jason cleared his throat. “Maybe? Sort of? Actually, no. But spill. What’s going on here?”
Nate’s knuckles blanched around the chopstick. He could lie, deflect, throw out some vague excuse about needing a change. But Jason had always been the one to call him on his crap, and right now, Nate was too tired to dodge.
“I bailed,” he said finally. “Mid-shoot.”
The confession felt enormous and ridiculously small at the same time.
“You’re kidding?” Jason’s surprise was audible, but beneath it, Nate heard the thread of understanding. Jason knew.
“Yeah,” Nate admitted. “Walked off set. Left my stuff in the trailer and everything.”
“Holy shit,” Jason breathed. “What happened?”
Nate’s jaw clenched. This was the part he hadn’t said out loud yet. “Couldn’t…” He swallowed. “Couldn’t get it up.”
Somewhere across the street, a train screeched to a stop.
“Like, at all?” Jason asked carefully.
“Like my dick decided to go on strike and take the rest of me with it,” Nate said, bitter and rough. “Camera rolling, me standing there naked, thinking about taxes. It was a disaster.”
“Damn,” Jason said after a beat. “That’s rough.”
“Understatement of the year.”
“So, what’d you do next?”
“Called my agent. Told him I’m out. Finished.”
“And now you’re in what? Geneva?”
“Yep. Because where else do you go when your dick quits on you and your career’s in the toilet?”
“Well…” Jason’s grin stretched through the line. “India’s the gold standard for finding yourself. Switzerland? More like finding cheese.”
Nate groaned but couldn’t hide a smile. “Asshole.”
“Love you too, little brother,” Jason said softly. “You gonna be okay?”
Nate leaned back. “I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, I met someone.”
“Oh,” Jason said immediately. “There it is.”
“We really clicked,” Nate said, plowing on before his brother could ruin it.
“And she’s just… normal.” His mouth quirked into a smile, the image of Ella flooding his mind.
“I know that sounds stupid. Like, wow—you hung out with a real human woman, and she didn’t have a porn name?
But it’s not that. She’s lived, you know? ”
“Sounds dangerous,” Jason said dryly.
“Sounds easy,” Nate shot back. “Not that kind of easy. Easy like someone you’d want to go home to. Someone to bitch to about life’s dumb stuff. Wi-Fi going down. Or why the dishwasher wasn’t unloaded.”
He scratched under his chin, suddenly hyperaware of how lame it sounded—and how much he wanted it anyway. “The kind of stuff that doesn’t matter, but somehow does.”
“Oof. Never thought I’d hear Mr. Big Shot Actor wax poetic about the joys of domesticity.”
Nate groaned, tipping his head back. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. But I’m not kidding. You take this stuff for granted. The moment I tell her what I do—what I did—she’s gone. We won’t even get to try.”
“So, you’re going to ghost her?”
“What? No. Hell, no.” Nate sat forward so fast he nearly dropped the phone.
“I want to see her again. Like, really want to see her.” The words tumbled out, racing to escape.
“She’s clever. Funny in this sneaky way where it takes a second to land, like she’s telling the joke just for you.
And she does this thing with her nose when she’s thinking.
” He mimed it, scrunching his own nose, and immediately felt ridiculous.
“Okay, slow down, Romeo,” Jason said. “You met her when?”
“I know,” Nate said, wincing. “I hear it too. But I’m telling you, Jason, she’s different. And yeah, it’s probably nothing. Except it doesn’t feel like nothing. Which makes dropping the porn-bomb feel unfair.”
Jason hummed. “Still doesn’t make it optional. She’s going to find out. You get that, right?”
“Yeah.” Nate exhaled through his nose. He paused, words backing up behind his teeth. “I just want her to meet me first. Not the Google results.”
Jason was quiet for a beat. “You sure that’s a great plan? Because when she does—”
“I’m not claiming it is,” Nate cut in, jabbing a thumb into his eyebrow like he could press away the headache forming. “It’s the only one I’ve got.”
Jason let out a disbelieving laugh. “Wow. You’re actually in trouble.”
“Uh-huh.” Nate groaned.
Jason shifted the topic. “Well. Offer still stands. TriaPulse could use you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nate said. His brother’s tech startup had been an ongoing conversation for the last year, one he’d kept dodging out of stubbornness.
And a low-grade fear he’d discover he wasn’t good at things people were allowed to put on LinkedIn.
Besides, this exact moment was crowded with thoughts of melted cheese, cool air off the lake, and an Austrian art student.
Nate said goodbye and let the call die. The phone slid onto the arm of the chair, face-up, as if waiting for further instructions.
He stared at it, the room suddenly too quiet for the noise in his head.
Jason was right. Of course he was. The internet existed.
There was no universe in which Ella didn’t eventually connect the dots.
He stood, crossed the room, changed his mind, crossed it again. Eventually, he thunked his head against the window. A train whooshed past outside. Maybe he should just call her. Rip the Band-Aid off. Pray for minimal bleeding.
Except, how? Hi, Ella, had a great time today. Quick question: ever accidentally watched Big Booty Beach 9 while scrolling at 2 a.m.?
He groaned aloud, the sound muffled against the glass. Nope. She’d hang up and block him. Anyway, she was heading back to Austria soon. He had a return flight too. Whatever this was, it came stamped with an expiration date.
So what was the harm in waiting? In keeping that one inconvenient truth folded away. Until there was more of him for her to weigh it against.
It wasn’t lying. It was curation.
Nate straightened, rubbing a hand over his face. Yeah. That was fine. People curated things all the time. Instagram. Résumés. First impressions. This was basically the same thing. Right?
He pushed away from the window, his reflection staring back at him—wide-eyed, a little desperate, and definitely not convinced. But he squared his shoulders anyway, because if there was one thing Nate was good at, it was acting like he had his shit together.
And for the first time in a long time, he wanted to be the guy Ella seemed to think he was.