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He shakes his head and scritches Artemis under her floppy ear. In her sleep, the pup snuffles and turns her big, square head. “You could at least tell me how dashing they make me look.”

“You look like a nerd,” you tell him honestly. “Luckily for you, nerds rev my engine.”

“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

You de-escalate the conversation with a silly joke, because FaceTime sex is another one of Sterling’s boundaries.

He’s forever paranoid about the possibility of someone hacking the connection to his phone, which…

yeah, okay. You don’t even know if the technology’s there, but you can imagine why someone of Sterling’s stature would worry about it.

Personally, you’ve got bigger worries than some hackers seeing your O-face, but you know enough about Sterling by now to understand what a violation that would be.

To have a stranger make tens of millions off the invasion of his privacy.

It would be horrible for anyone, but for a person as introverted as Sterling? Nightmare fuel.

You don’t know how someone as inherently private as Sterling managed to become so fucking famous , but the contrast between the face he puts on for the world and the person he is naturally is stunning.

Outrageous, even. You feel like you’ve only begun to scratch the surface on Sterling’s inner life, and you’ve been dating for over a month.

He’s very used to the stratospheric level of celebrity, but that doesn’t mean he embraces it.

He sings his songs like he’s opening the pages of his diary, but even spilling his deepest thoughts on life, love, and sex to hundreds of millions of adoring fans, he keeps so much locked away.

That’s the Sterling that you are starting to get, and it kind of bowls you over.

“Tell me something about the album,” you say impulsively, because you can. (Because he trusts you.)

“Umm.” He sounds surprised. “Other than what you know already? Remind me what you know?”

“It’s called Golden ,” you recite. “It’s going to have thirteen tracks. Sixteen on the Target-exclusive deluxe variant. It’s coming out some time early in the new year.”

He nods. “Very good. Umm. Zhavia and Graham have commented separately that they think it’s my most personal album to date. Zhay told me just today that she thinks it’s intimate.”

You’ve heard a lot about his two producers, although you haven’t met them.

Zhavia and Graham are fixtures in Sterling’s life.

They each bring something different to the table, musically: Zhay gravitates towards the more sensual, rhythmic tracks, while Graham is the genius behind the “bangers” that have become some of Sterling’s best-known singles.

There are other producers, of course. Writers, too, although Sterling is the first-credited author of both music and lyrics on each track.

“Intimate and personal,” you echo. Smiling. “Yeah. Sounds like an album of yours. You said the same things about Taurus and Stargazer before they dropped.”

Sterling looks up in surprise, his pretty eyes blinking owlishly behind his glasses. “Have you been Googling me again?” he jokes.

“Little bit,” you admit. “I’ve been listening to more of your stuff lately. Gotta read up on the context.”

He looks pleased, a little smile tugging at his lips. “I didn’t know you were doing that. And you could just ask me, you know. I’m told that people in relationships talk to each other.”

You smirk at your own words being weaponized against you, but drop the subject.

It’s skirting too close to you opening your idiot mouth and admitting that you’ve been playing Sterling’s albums on repeat, using his songs as background noise so that he’s always crooning in your ear when you’re running errands, eating, or about to go to sleep.

You sometimes space out completely on the lyrics, just getting slightly, stupidly high on the way he phrases love songs.

It’s a confession too close to the chest, so you push in the other direction.

“Are you having any features?” you ask. “I’m surprised you and Gabi haven’t recorded something while you guys were on tour.”

“It’s not for lack of me trying!” he laughs. “We’ve screwed around here and there, but nothing good’s come out of it. Our styles are pretty different. For one thing, Gabi’s about ten thousand percent sexier than I am…”

“...Hard disagree,” you interject.

He ignores you. “The label would like me to pick one or two features,” he says.

“I’m told that they are really favoring a few fresh faces from their country-pop stable.

I love country as a sound, but I’m leery of picking anyone without a solid reputation from that area, though.

You just don’t know who’s a closet racist or homophobe. ”

You’ve never considered that. The thought makes you hum thoughtfully. “Can they make you pick someone you don’t want?”

“No.” His response is definitive. “My contract is airtight. I signed with them because I got creative control and ownership of my masters, and I’m not relinquishing either. They can push, but, at the end of the day, I get final say.”

You understand the truth, but don’t voice it: Sterling is too big to bully.

Regardless of his contract language, he holds all the cards with his record label because he’s a generational superstar, and he makes them a pile of money.

He calls the shots. You assume that Sterling knows that, too, but he’s too polite to say so.

“You gonna let me listen to the album early?” you ask.

Sterling makes a face. “Probably not.”

You are disappointed, but you try hard not to show it. Maybe Sterling picks up on something anyway.

“It’s nothing against you,” he says. “I don’t let my family listen to it, either. None of my friends. It’s a superstition thing. I only let the production team hear it.”

You slide further down your bed. “I guess that’s fair.”

“I am really curious to know what you’ll think about it,” he says. “Promise me you’ll be honest?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

He smiles at that. He’s getting tired, you can tell.

It’s been a long day of business meetings and workouts for him, and he was up well before the sun talking to his overseas team about promo going on in Sweden in advance of the tour stop there.

He’s yawning a lot. It’s adorable, honestly, and it means a lot to know he wants to keep talking to you enough to stay up past his bedtime.

“Do I need to let you go to sleep?” you say gently.

“Am I making it that obvious?” Sterling favors you with a drowsy smile, and you want to melt into your bed.

“You have a long day tomorrow. You should hit the hay.”

“It’s always a long day,” he complains, stretching.

His arms go up over his head, exposing the patches of light-brown hair underneath.

His torso extends with the motion, and you see his little happy trail appear above the sheet on his lap.

Is he naked in bed? You’d kill to know, but asking could lead to trouble.

“Goodnight, Ster,” you say.

“‘Night, Kai.” He blows you a kiss, and disconnects the call.

Sterling probably goes straight to sleep, but you are feeling wired. Outside your bedroom window, the Miami autumn is humid and airless. Your air conditioning runs constantly, even in late October. Your skin is prickly, like it’s stretched too tight over your bones.

You run a lukewarm shower and soap up. As the spray washes the suds away, you sigh and close your eyes.

Thinking of Sterling in bed, all alone up in New York.

It’s too late to argue with your body, so you lube your hand up with body wash and jerk your dick as the water splatters your head and shoulders.

You were already mostly hard when Sterling hung up, and it takes very little to get your prick stiff and feeling good.

Images flash across your eyelids: Sterling in bed, doing this same thing to himself.

His head thrown back, his white throat exposed.

The movement of his abs tightening under his skin, the movement of his wrist. His fat cock.

You’re moaning a little, but there’s nobody to hear.

There’s nobody to see when you spread your feet, arch your hips, and come all over the shower wall, hot streaks of cum that get washed away as quickly as they erupt from your dick.

Stroking yourself through it, you realize that you’ve bitten your lip hard enough to make it bleed.

Your legs are still unsteady when you turn off the faucet.

It’s become a nightly routine. Talk to Sterling, jerk off. You are pretty sure your cock is going to fall off from all the abuse before you even get the chance to show it to Sterling again, at this rate.

***

Thread on r/sterlinggrayson, 31 October 2024: HOLY SHIT U GUYSSSSSSSS

u/apollosfan [Author]: Happy Halloween, babes !

u/goodcupbabe: IS THAT. IS THAT????

u/ay__papaya: fuck me with a rake in the PUSSY daddy

u/emm5: u need jesus

u/ay__papaya: thats what your mom said

u/guuguugaga: I thought Ster was a dog person?

u/quiver_gate12: Art )