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Chapter Eleven

Bradley

I sat there, staring at my untouched salad like it had kicked me in the nuts.

Twenty thousand dollars.

For… that.

Jack leaned back in his chair, fixing me with that casual, no-big-deal tone that somehow made everything worse.

“Look, Bradley, I get it. It’s kinda gross.

I’m not gonna lie to you.” He spread his hands like he was giving me career advice instead of planning my public humiliation.

“But honestly? Easiest money you’ll ever make. ”

My stomach twisted.

Jack kept going, like he was selling me on a gym membership. “You’ve had zero training as a performer. Zero. You’re not ready for a scene with dialogue, or blocking, or… you know… actual acting.”

Wow. Thanks for the ego boost, boss.

Jack grinned like he could hear my internal screaming. “But this? This is simple. You kneel on the floor, pretend you’re loving it, and… let nature take its course.”

Nico let out a soft, strangled cough from the chair next to me. I didn’t dare look at him.

“The whole thing’ll take maybe thirty minutes start to finish,” Jack continued, ticking items off on his fingers like he was reciting a grocery list. “And let’s be real. You’re desperate for cash.”

Oof. Direct hit.

He wasn’t wrong, though.

Images of Riley floated through my mind like a horror movie montage. Riley, with her tattoos and deadpan stare. Riley cheerfully explaining interest rates while tossing a butterfly knife between her hands.

I swallowed hard.

As mortifying as this… scene sounded, it still felt marginally less terrifying than waking up duct-taped to a radiator in Riley’s basement. At least I wouldn’t die of internal bleeding.

Hopefully.

I could almost see it now. Paying off a sizeable chunk of what I owed her. Maybe even getting out of that hellhole hostel. A crappy studio apartment somewhere with a door that locked and no smell of stale socks and broken dreams.

I took a shaky breath and nodded.

Doomed. Completely doomed.

But maybe… slightly less doomed than yesterday.

Jack clapped his hands once. “Great. Laura, you’re directing.”

Laura looked like someone had just told her she’d been volunteered to babysit a pack of feral toddlers. “Me? Seriously?”

Jack shrugged. “You’re the best we’ve got at making something like this look… I don’t know… artistic?”

Liam snorted. “Good luck with that.”

Jack ignored him. “We want this done by the end of the week.”

Laura’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “Jack, are you kidding me? Do you know how many guys we’ll need for this? Like… at least twenty extra performers. We’re gonna have to cast, book, schedule, prep… I mean, I appreciate your faith in me but…”

Liam cut her off with a laugh. “Laura, it’s not like you’re asking them to perform Shakespeare. All they have to do is show up and jerk off. You know how many guys in this city would kill for that kind of day rate?”

“Five hundred bucks a pop,” Jack added, like it was some amazing promotional deal.

Laura looked faintly horrified. “You’re both insane.”

Nessa leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs with the smug satisfaction of someone who’d just lit the match and walked away from the explosion. “Make it happen, girl.”

Laura muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a curse in another language, but she pulled out her planner anyway and started scribbling.

The meeting moved on to boring logistical stuff after that. Set rentals, shoot schedules, who’d be running camera B, but I barely heard any of it.

I just sat there, staring at my salad, quietly accepting that this was my life now.

Covered in shame.

And soon… apparently… covered in a lot more than that.

* * *

I left the conference room feeling… nothing. No anger. No panic. Not even embarrassment anymore. Just pure, clean, industrial-grade emotional numbness.

Like my brain had flipped a breaker to protect me from overload. The human equivalent of Windows blue screen of death.

I drifted through the office like a ghost, past Dimitri on the phone, past Moira arguing with a delivery guy about the wrong brand of makeup wipes, past the smell of coffee and scented lube.

None of it registered.

By the time I made it outside, the afternoon sun felt too bright. Too fake. Like someone had cranked up the saturation on my life just to mock me. I stood at the curb, staring at the traffic. Watching cars blur past like they were all late for something important.

And for a second—just one dark, bitter second—I wondered how it would feel to just… step out.

End scene.

Roll credits.

Bradley Mitchell, age twenty-six, tragically flattened by a food delivery guy on a moped.

It’d be poetic, in a gross, low-budget kind of way.

I took one slow step forward, toes just barely over the edge of the sidewalk.

Another step, and maybe…

A hand grabbed my arm.

Hard enough to yank me back like I was a toddler about to chase a ball into traffic.

I gasped, heart slamming against my ribs, and turned around, ready to punch whoever it was in the face.

It was Nico.

“Whoa there, buddy,” he said, keeping hold of my arm like he didn’t fully trust me not to make another run for it. “Let’s not make today worse, okay?”

I blinked at him. “What… what are you doing?”

He shrugged, casual as hell. “Saw you doing your best impression of human roadkill bait. Figured you could use some company.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Looked back at the street.

Yeah… company sounded better than tire tracks.

Nico’s smile got just a little softer. “Wanna grab a drink with me? My treat.”

I hesitated for exactly half a second before nodding.

“Yeah,” I said, voice low and scratchy. “Yeah… okay.”

Because honestly? What the hell else was I gonna do?

* * *

The inside of the Stonewall Inn was dim and cool.

I hadn’t been inside a gay bar in years, not since before prison.

Not that I was some nightlife regular before that, either.

Usually, I only went out to find people to buy my drugs.

I always felt out of place in places like this, like I’d shown up to a party I wasn’t cool enough to be invited to.

But this… this wasn’t that.

There was a softness to the place. Worn barstools. Faded pride flags. The echo of a song I didn’t recognize bleeding out of a dusty jukebox. I followed Nico to the bar, feeling like I was walking into something sacred and mildly haunted.

He slid onto a stool and gestured to the bartender. “Two gin and tonics, please. And make his extra strong. Bradley’s about to star in a porno horror show.”

I sank onto the stool next to him. “Can we not call it that?”

He smirked. “You’re right. It’s more of an avant-garde expression of semen-based performance art.”

I dropped my head onto the bar with a groan. “God.”

The bartender set our drinks down without even blinking. Probably heard worse.

Nico lifted his glass. “To questionable life choices that pay the rent.”

I lifted mine reluctantly and clinked. “To debt. The great motivator.”

We drank. The gin was cheap, but it cut through the fuzz in my head. Nico didn’t say anything for a minute. He just watched me with those big blue eyes, like he could see right through my skull.

“You’re freaking out,” he breathed.

“I’m not…”

“Dude.”

I exhaled hard. “Okay, yeah, maybe a little.”

He tilted his head. “You wanna talk about it?”

I stared into my glass. “It’s not the sex. It’s not even the camera. I just… I don’t want to be a joke. Some guy on his knees, getting jizzed on by a bunch of strangers. That’s not who I ever saw myself becoming.”

He nodded slowly. “Fair. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a joke.”

My chest clenched a little. He said it so plainly. Like it was just a fact.

I looked at him. “Can I ask how you got into all this?”

His usual grin dimmed, the corners of his mouth tugging down for once. “Yeah. Sure.”

He took another drink, then leaned his elbows on the bar.

“I moved here a few years ago. Wanted to be a stand-up comic. Still do. But the city doesn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for you just because you’re funny and broke.

I was bombing open mics, couldn’t land steady work, and one day I realized I had twenty bucks to last two weeks. ”

“Ouch.”

“Exactly. I knew Laura already. We used to hang out sometimes in Brooklyn. And yeah, I knew what she did. Dominatrix by night, deceptively mild-mannered genius by day.” He smiled a little.

“One night over cocktails, she tells me about Jack and Liam. About how they started making porn to survive and ended up building Boys On Film. She told me if I ever needed help, she could introduce me.”

“And you said no.”

“Hard no. At first. I thought I was above it.” He chuckled bitterly. “Turns out ‘above it’ doesn’t mean much when you’re eating canned soup and arguing with your landlord about how electricity is a scam.”

“Been there.”

“So, I called her. She got me an audition. And… well. Apparently, I look good on camera.” He winked.

I snorted. “Yeah. I noticed.”

His brows lifted slightly, but he didn’t push it. “The money helps. But honestly? What keeps me in it is the people. Laura, Jack, Liam… they care. They built something that isn’t sketchy or dangerous. I feel safe there.”

I nodded slowly. “I want to feel that.”

“You will.”

I took another sip of my drink, then glanced over. “Are you gonna be in this scene?”

His mouth twitched. “Yep. Front row.”

I paused. “Like… one of the ones…” I trailed off, suddenly very aware of the heat crawling up my neck.

“Yep,” he said again, smug as hell. “I’ll be one of the splatter artists.”

“Jesus.”

He laughed. “Why are you blushing, Bradley?”

I stared straight ahead. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t stop the flutter in my chest. Because here’s the thing: he didn’t gross me out. The idea of Nico, naked, grinning, and making a mess on me, wasn’t horrifying. It was… complicated. Hot, sure. But also confusing and a little thrilling in a way I wasn’t ready to admit.

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” I muttered, before I could stop myself. “It’s… the other guys.”

He quieted for a moment. “I get that.”

There was a pause, then he leaned in a little. “Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah.”

“I know about the jail stuff.”

My whole body went stiff. “Of course you do.”

“But I don’t care.”

I looked at him, really looked, trying to find a crack in the effortless charm. There wasn’t one. He just meant it.

“Nasty shit happens to good people,” he said. “Sometimes you get knocked down hard. Doesn’t mean you’re not a good person.”

I swallowed. “I’ve never thought of myself that way. ‘Good.’”

“Well,” he said, nudging his knee against mine, “maybe it’s time you started. And until then… I got you. You’re not going through this alone.”

Something inside me softened, just slightly. I wasn’t used to this. To kindness that didn’t come with strings.

He took another sip and smirked. “And hey, if it helps, I promise to make my contribution to your many facials… tastefully.”

“Oh, my God.” I buried my face in my hands.

He cackled. “You walked right into that one.”

“Please stop talking.”

“Never. You’re too fun when you’re flustered.”

I groaned, but a smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, anyway. Somehow, in the span of a drink and a half, Nico had managed to pull me out of the pit I’d been spiraling into all afternoon.

He glanced at his phone and then nudged me lightly with his elbow. “Hey… I’m doing a set tonight. Open mic at a bar in Bushwick. Nothing fancy. Mostly sad hipsters and comics who peaked in 2013, but I usually get a few laughs.”

I blinked at him. “You want me to come?”

“Yeah.” His smile was softer now. “I think you could use a laugh. And I think I could use… someone in the audience who doesn’t throw fries when I bomb.”

I hesitated, heart weirdly fluttery again. “Sure. Yeah. Why not?”

“Cool.” He stood up and tossed a few bills on the bar. “I’ll text you the info. Wear something slutty.”

I snorted. “For Bushwick?”

He shot me with a finger gun. “Yes. The sluttier the better.”

And just like that, the panic about the shoot wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t suffocating me anymore either.

With Nico around, everything felt just a little less terrifying.