Page 3

Chapter Three

Mikah

I stare at Lorna, my mouth hanging wide open.

“Can you repeat that?” I ask.

She smiles and says, “A calendar, Mikah. You’re doing great here at Behind the Lens, and I’ve hand-picked those I want in the calendar. Are you in or out?”

“I’m totally in. So fucking in,” I say with a disbelieving laugh.

And here I thought I was going to be fired.

She grins. “Good. I’ll put you down for April and get all the details to you as soon as I can.”

“Thank you. I don’t think you realize how much I needed this.”

“Glad I could help.” I get up to leave her office, but she calls my name, stopping me. I turn to face her. “This may be a good opportunity for you to branch out, you know. Maybe shoot with someone? Others are doing it.”

I nod carefully. “I’ll consider it. ”

I rarely work with others because I perform better on my own, and it’s what my subs expect and want. But maybe I can put out a poll to my fans and see what they think. If they want me to do this with someone, I’ll do it. Whatever makes them happy is fine with me.

Getting into my Tesla Model 3, I start her up and call Zach.

“Calling again so soon? You really must be miserable,” he says.

“Hello to you too. I need a favor.”

“Nothing like easing your way in.”

I smirk, taking off when my phone connects to the car, and I can talk to Zach through the speakers.

“From what I remember, you like it hard and fast.”

“Touché.”

Chuckling, I say, “So I can’t open another bank account in my name because of what happened. I need to put one in yours.”

I hold my breath as I wait for him to answer, coming to a stop at a red light. It’s not that I think he’ll say no, but this is a pretty serious thing.

“Yeah, okay whatever.”

“Really? That easily?”

“What are you going to do, Mikah? Steal my identity? Doubt it.”

“Good point,” I mutter, stepping on the gas when the light changes to green.

“Just tell me what you need, and I’ll get it to you. ”

“Thanks, Zach. Seriously, this helps so much. At least I don’t have to worry about these assholes continuing to take everything from me.”

“You’re welcome, bestie. Call me later.”

We end the call, and I make my way home, feeling much better than I did yesterday. Yeah, my life is still messed up, but at least I’ve found some workarounds so I’m not entirely miserable—and broke. This is just a setback. I’ll figure it out just like everything else in my life.

The asshole neighbor is sitting on his deck with a beer in his hand. It’s nine in the morning. What is actually wrong with him?

Pulling into my driveway, I park and head inside, ignoring him even though I feel his glare on me. CP meows at me once I’m inside, rubbing along my legs. I reach down to pet him, but he skitters off before I make contact.

Fucking cats, man. I don’t even know why I got him in the first place. I know how cats are, but the ones in the trailer park were always so cute and loving. Probably because they wanted me to feed them. CP is spoiled as hell, so he doesn’t feel the need to be nice to me. He knows I’ll feed him regardless. Rude.

Heading to the kitchen, the large cat thunders after me, hoping for more food in his dish, but that isn’t happening. I gave him breakfast before I left. I, on the other hand, did not eat before I left this morning because I was so nervous that I was going to get canned from BTL. Sure, I could do my own thing, but I don’t know how to do that. I could figure it out, but that’s time I don’t have and money lost that I desperately need right now.

I’ve been saving in case I lost my job or subs stopped flowing in. But now I have nothing to fall back on. Everything was taken from me. I can’t even think about it. I swear I’m going to throw up if I do. Even the thought of having to go back to the trailer park…

Leaning on the counter, I bow my head and take a deep breath.

That isn’t going to happen. I don’t need to go back there. I’m not that hard off. Once I get paid this month, I’ll just—shit!

Dashing out of the kitchen, I scare CP so badly his feet scrape on the floor as he tries to run, but he stays in place for long enough that it’s comical. I run to my desk, flip open my laptop and go to the BTL website, immediately canceling my payment information. The last thing I need is for that money to go into the account while it’s negative. I’m not paying that negative balance off. It can get fixed when they look into my case and realize it wasn’t me!

When I’m done, I lean back on the couch and take a breath. My stomach growls, reminding me I need to eat, but after this, I’m not hungry again.

CP is glaring at me from across the room, swishing his tail back and forth.

With a roll of my eyes, I get up and go back to the kitchen, dumping three packets of strawberries and cream oatmeal into a bowl, adding water, then putting it in the microwave for two minutes. When it’s done, I take it back to my laptop and work on opening a new bank account. I text Zach the info I need, and he gets it to me right away.

There. Done. Simple enough. Though I think this is illegal, but whatever. It’ll have to do for now. Thank fuck for banks allowing you to open accounts online these days.

I check my phone, swiping down on my emails to refresh it to see if I got a response yet, but there’s nothing there. I even check my spam. Nothing. How long does it take for them to get back to me? Damn.

Patience has never been my forte, so I open the security app up and send another email. I’ll send one every hour if I have to. Someone in that place is going to get back to me.

Hopping onto my cam page from my computer, I put up the poll, asking my subs if they think I should do a “special project” with a partner or not. I don’t want to give specifics about the project yet to help gain interest. Also, I don’t have info yet because Lorna hasn’t emailed me.

I run through the video from yesterday, of me in the shower and getting dressed, making sure I edited it all properly. Once I do that, I upload it and make a post so everyone knows there’s new content to check out. I add hashtags and the title “getting clean” to the top.

With my mood shitty, and not a thing to do today, I head upstairs to take a nap.

“Holy shit,” I murmur to myself, not sure which part of this shocks me more.

What doesn’t shock me is that my poll is currently sitting at a 93/7 percentage, with the majority voting to do the project with someone else. I hardly do stuff with others, but when I do, it gains a lot of interest. However, I have a lot more subs now than from when I did one last, so I just wanted to be sure. This will be bonus content, so if they don’t want to see it, then they won’t have to buy it, but I’m pretty sure at least half of that 93% percent will. I have some pretty loyal fans, and I never charge much for bonus stuff. Since I don’t have info from Lorna yet, I’m not sure how much the cost of the calendar will be, but I plan to do extra shots just for my page—which hopefully won’t be a problem. It’s going to make for great bonus content and should help sell the calendar as well.

What does shock me, though, is the private message I received from a long-time fan. It isn’t the first time he’s messaged me because he’s paid extra to get specific content, something I don’t typically offer but will do from time to time. But the message I’m looking at right now has me speechless.

RyanJack504: I will pay you 100k to do this “special project” with Dominic Blake.

I can’t decide if it’s the money or the person that shocks me more. I had no idea my neighbor was an adult content creator, but based on the link that was sent along with this email, he is. And he’s got more subs than I do, which pisses me right off. What the hell are the odds we’d end up right next door to one another?

The 100k isn’t something I’d turn my nose up at any other day, but it wouldn’t be a key selling point on talking to my neighbor. But now that I have zero money to my name, all of my savings gone, and no clue whether or not I’ll get it back, that 100k has me salivating.

I hate that fucker next door. But for 100k? I’ll fuck him. That’ll be the easy part. The difficult part will be putting my pride aside to go talk to him about it. He’ll obviously want some money too. I doubt he’ll agree to do this for nothing. No successful businessman would.

How much is this RyanJack504 willing to pay?

I message him back.

Me: 100k each?

I stare at the screen, not believing I’m considering this, but I’m desperate. I fucking hate being desperate. But I hate that trailer park more and I think I hate customer service people even more than that. I swear if they don’t get back to me by tomorrow, I’m going to lose my mind. After a few moments of not getting a response, I close my computer, grab my keys, and head out the door.

I need some fresh air and a calm setting.

Lake Tahoe isn’t a far drive, and when I get there, I park in the lot and get out to walk around. I shove my earbuds in, put on some music, and walk .

The sun is high in the sky by the time I get back to my car. I’m energized and exhausted since my walk turned into a run. My head is clear, and I know what I need to do.

Pulling into my driveway, I get out before I can change my mind and head right over to Dominic’s house. I press the button for the doorbell, tapping my foot as I wait.

“Come on,” I mutter, leaning over to look through the window. His curtains are drawn, so I can’t see inside. I bang on the door but still get nothing.

Son of a bitch, if I don’t talk to him now, I’ll change my mind. I think I’ll regret that more than doing it. It’s just sex. I’ve had sex with people I don’t know before. At least I kind of sort of know him. Don’t like him though, but that’s never been a prerequisite for sex. I like sex. His videos are decent from what I saw. He knows what he’s doing, so that’s a plus. I don’t think this will be awful, other than having to deal with him and his arrogance that has its own damn ego. But that could be worth 100k.

I try the doorbell again, this time pressing it a bunch of times. It works and I’m not even sorry for it.

“What in the actual fuck is your problem?” he barks as he yanks the door open. His eyes widen when he sees it’s me. “Oh, it’s you. What the fuck do you want?”

I force my eyes to stay on his and not travel down his bare chest that’s covered in water droplets. Though I can make out his abs in my peripheral and they look fucking good . The hot pink towel around his waist catches the drops that have slipped all the way down, and I hate how good that color looks against his tanned skin. That’s insane. This guy is a dickhead. I don’t want to touch him, and I definitely don’t want him to touch me. I don’t even want to be here.

But I have to be because I need the money. Because the last thing on earth that I want to do is go back to that fucking trailer park. Though I’m not there yet, I could be if I don’t get a good chunk of money back into savings.

I clear my throat and simply say, “I have a proposition for you.”