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Chapter Twelve

Nico

I walked fast, but not because I was late.

It was just nerves. That low-key, vibrating kind you feel before a set, like your whole body is an unopened soda can that someone’s been shaking for the last ten minutes.

I shoved my hands in my hoodie pockets as I cut through the Brooklyn streets, the neon sign of Little Bastard just barely visible in the distance.

I wasn’t sure if Bradley would show up. Hell, I wasn’t sure why I even wanted him to.

It’s not like I had a shortage of friends.

But the way he’d looked earlier that day, standing on the sidewalk like he was negotiating with the universe about whether it was worth it to keep going, that shit stuck with me.

The guy had just agreed to get jizzed on by a bunch of dudes for half his soul and a fat paycheck. I mean, welcome to the industry, right? But still. Prison to porn was a whiplash transition, even by our standards. And I’d seen some wild résumés. One guy I worked with used to be a pet psychic.

I laughed to myself, then realized I looked like a crazy person walking alone and chuckling. Whatever. Maybe I was crazy. Or maybe I just wanted to make someone else laugh tonight—someone who clearly needed it more than most.

As I reached the corner, a tiny old lady, like, barely five-foot and wearing a puffy coat even though it was July, walked straight up to me.

No words. Just pantomimed twisting the cap off a bottle.

Then she actually handed me a cold glass bottle of Coca-Cola like this was some kind of fairy tale side quest.

I blinked, opened it for her, and handed it back. She nodded like I’d passed a test or unlocked a secret level.

A hand landed on my shoulder.

“Shit!” I spun, heart launching into my throat, ready to square up with a mugger or something worse.

It was Bradley.

Holy hell.

We were eye to eye. His face was flushed from the walk, hair windblown, eyes all sharp and sad and impossible not to get pulled into.

A shiver ran up my spine, but it wasn’t fear.

More like the fizzy electricity right before your name gets called on stage.

He looked good. Too good. Like prison hadn’t broken him, just reshaped him into something lean and rough and way too attractive for my current mental state.

I grinned like a dumbass. “Hey. You made it.”

He shrugged one shoulder, half-defensive. “Free entertainment. Couldn’t say no.”

“Well, prepare to be moderately underwhelmed,” I said, then immediately regretted it.

“I mean, I’m funny, I swear. I just, sometimes I try out new stuff and it’s not always—like, last week I had this bit about raccoons that bombed so hard I got a drink thrown at me by a woman in a crop top that said ‘Live, Laugh, Lube.’”

Bradley smirked. Not a full smile, but close enough. “Sounds like a quality crowd.”

“You have no idea,” I said, still talking way too fast as we fell into step together, walking the last block to the bar.

“But hey, the drinks are cheap, and if the comedy sucks, the drag queens save the night. Just wait. The emcee tonight is a queen named Candy McSlutsky. She once did a whole set about being banned from Etsy for selling homemade butt plugs.”

Bradley actually laughed at that. A real one. I filed the sound away in my mental vault under Treasure This Forever.

Inside, Little Bastard was already humming—dim lights, mismatched furniture, and a small stage at the far end of the room with a glitter curtain and a pink neon sign that said “SPILL IT.” We grabbed a table dead center, probably the worst place for anonymity and the best for attention.

I didn’t care. I wanted to see his face if I made him laugh again.

A waitress in a crop top and fishnets came over, snapping gum and spinning a pen between her fingers like a baton. “What’ll it be, sluts?”

“Whiskey ginger,” I said.

Bradley looked at her like he wasn’t sure if she was joking or about to steal his soul. “Just a beer. Whatever’s cold.”

“Two drinks, comin’ up,” she said, pivoting hard enough to nearly knock over a chair.

The lights dimmed, and the mic squealed as Candy McSlutsky strutted out onto the stage in eight-inch platforms, a sequined leotard, and a wig that could double as a flotation device.

“Good evening, you beautiful bisexual disasters!” she bellowed, getting immediate applause. “Welcome to Little Bastard’s Open Mic Night! Where your dreams go to die, and your drinks are strong enough to revive them!”

I glanced at Bradley. He was smiling. Then Bambi dropped a punchline about her ex being shaped like a beanbag and how she didn’t know he wasn’t breathing until three days later. Bradley laughed. Loud.

I could’ve melted into the sticky floor with joy.

The waitress reappeared and plunked our drinks down in front of us. “Next up,” Candy announced, “we’ve got a lady comic with the body of a Barbie and the rage of a Jersey divorcee. Give it up for Barbie Malibu!”

And this woman stepped up to the mic wearing pink head-to-toe, platinum-blonde hair, and the world’s most unsettlingly cheerful smile.

I leaned toward Bradley and whispered, “If she pulls out a taser and starts talking about her ex-husband’s balls, I’m proposing marriage.”

Barbie Malibu stepped into the spotlight, heels clicking like a warning shot. She adjusted the mic and blinked into the crowd with fake innocence. Up close, she looked like a high-gloss perfume ad that had been exiled from a mall kiosk for inciting violence.

“Hi babes,” she said sweetly, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m Barbie. Yes, that Barbie. But don’t worry, I’m the limited-edition version they don’t sell anymore. ‘Divorced & Dangerous.’”

Laughter erupted.

“I used to be a housewife on Staten Island. Three kids, two dogs, and a husband who thought foreplay was me doing the dishes faster.” She rolled her eyes. “Now I’m a recovering suburbanite. I swapped my minivan for vodka and regret.”

Bradley laughed beside me, and the sound was music to my ears.

“I was the PTA president. You know what that means? It means I organized bake sales for people I wanted to run over in the carpool lane.”

More laughs. She was a machine.

“I got a boob job after my third kid, and let me tell you, it was the worst decision ever. These things look like two stressed-out water balloons. I asked the surgeon for ‘fun and flirty,’ and he gave me ‘divorced with a Groupon.’”

The crowd roared.

I glanced at Bradley. He had both hands wrapped around his beer, head tilted back, shoulders shaking.

God, he was beautiful when he laughed.

“I don’t hate kids,” Barbie continued, eyes gleaming. “I just prefer them quiet, asleep, and belonging to someone else.”

The applause was thunderous.

“And if my ex-husband is watching this on someone’s hacked Ring cam, I just wanna say: Chad, I hope your new girlfriend is as dumb as your crypto investments.”

The crowd exploded. Candy McSlutsky herself appeared offstage in full sparkle to give Barbie a literal bow. Barbie blew kisses and strutted off like a queen, hips swaying like justice incarnate.

I, meanwhile, was dying inside.

“Next up,” Candy crooned into the mic, “we’ve got a real treat. He’s tall, he’s funny, and he’s got a killer smile. Please welcome to the stage, Nico Steele!”

My legs moved, and I’m not sure how. I walked up to the stage, my heart hammering like it was trying to claw its way out of my chest.

The stage lights hit me, and I squinted at the crowd. The mic stand was slightly crooked. I fixed it. It was crooked again. I fixed it worse. Great start.

“Hey,” I said into the mic, voice higher than usual. “So, uh… hi. I’m Nico, and I’m not nearly drunk enough for this.”

Scattered laughter. Very scattered. Like two people in the back and maybe someone coughing.

Not cool.

“Anyone else here working in adult entertainment?” I tried. “No? Just me? Great. This’ll be weird.”

A couple of titters. No full-on laughs yet. My brain screamed at me to abort.

But then I glanced down, just for a second.

Bradley.

He wasn’t laughing. He was watching. Really watching, like I mattered.

And something inside me cracked open.

Screw it.

“You know, people think doing porn is glamorous. It’s not. I’ve had sex on a pile of gym mats next to a broken fog machine and a craft service table with nothing but expired Pop-Tarts and a single sad banana. That was our budget.”

“I once did a scene in a fake dungeon with a guy whose safe word was ‘Applebee’s’. I just want you to imagine trying to stay in character while someone screams APPLEBEE’S! like their soul depends on it.”

Laughter. Real now. Full-bodied.

“Family dinners are weird when you do porn. My aunt asked if I was still doing ‘the acting thing,’ and I said yeah, last week I played ‘Pool Boy #3 Who Hears a Noise and Gets Distracted by an Orgy.’”

The room was laughing louder. Candy McSlutsky cackled in the corner. I started pacing the stage, letting my rhythm settle in.

“I’m also doing stand-up because my therapist said I should ‘process my trauma in a healthy way.’ So now I tell strangers about my issues while drinking whiskey in a bar. Nailed it, right?”

People were practically howling. I dared another glance at Bradley—his face lit up, tears on his cheeks, his whole body rocking with laughter.

I was flying.

“My favorite scene I ever did? I was supposed to be a ‘space alien sex god’ with six-pack abs and tentacle arms. The abs were painted on, and the tentacles were pool noodles. The director yelled, ‘Give us E.T. with a boner!’ and I blacked out from embarrassment.”

Standing ovation? Not quite yet.

So I pushed the gas.

“I asked my mom if she’d seen any of my movies. She said no, but she did see a meme of my ass on Instagram. She sent it to the family group chat. It was titled ‘National Treassure.’ With a typo.”

That was it. The room went up like fireworks.

Applause. Whistles. A guy in the front stood and started clapping over his head. Candy returned to the stage as I finished with a wink and said, “I’m Nico Steele. Be sure to tip your bartenders and your sex workers. Goodnight!”

Standing ovation.

I stepped offstage, blinking, grinning like an idiot, heart pounding like a drumline. The applause still thundered behind me as I made my way back to our table.

Bradley was on his feet before I even got there.

He wrapped his arms around me, tight. Fierce.

“That was amazing,” he said, voice thick with laughter and emotion. “You killed it. I haven’t laughed like that in… Jesus, I don’t even know.”

I melted. Right there. No resistance. Just leaned in and let myself be held.

He smelled like beer and aftershave and something underneath I couldn’t name yet but already wanted more of. I pulled back slightly, just enough to look into his eyes.

“You really think I was good?” I asked, suddenly eight years old and fishing for a gold star.

He blinked. “You were better than good. You were the best thing in this whole place.”

I blushed.

Right there, surrounded by glitter and cheap liquor and strangers in various stages of tipsy euphoria, I thought,

I want this night to never end.

* * *

We spilled out of Little Bastard like soda fizz.

Loud, bright, and slightly unsteady. The warm Brooklyn night wrapped around us like a hug from someone who doesn’t really know you but means well.

I was buzzing, just a little drunk, very full of myself, and somehow more alive than I’d felt in months.

“You had fans,” Bradley said, bumping my shoulder with his as we walked. “Actual people screaming for more.”

“Okay, screaming is generous. It was more like… vocally enthusiastic hooting.”

He snorted. “You got a standing ovation.”

“Bradley,” I said, mock-serious, “never underestimate the power of whiskey specials and unresolved daddy issues. That room was primed.”

He laughed again, and I swear, every time he did, a little cartoon bird landed on my shoulder and sang about self-worth. I was in way too deep.

We kept walking, side by side, matching each other’s pace like we’d been doing it forever.

The street was quieter now, storefronts closed, the air a little cooler.

Bradley’s hostel was only a few blocks away, which meant I only had a few more minutes of pretending like I wasn’t low-key freaking out about how much I wanted to hold his hand.

We passed a bodega with an entire wall of Doritos, and he pointed. “One time in jail, a guy traded a bag of those for a tattoo of a squirrel on his thigh.”

I blinked. “That’s… oddly poetic.”

“Nah, it looked like roadkill.”

And we were laughing again, shoulders bumping, almost stumbling, and I couldn’t tell if it was the whiskey or just… us.

Then, all at once, we were there.

The hostel loomed—old brick, sketchy windows, and a flickering light above the door that definitely said “you will not get your deposit back.” It was like the city itself sighed and pulled a curtain shut.

I stopped with him at the front steps. He glanced up at the building like it might bite him.

And suddenly—poof—the air changed. The way it does at the end of a night where something’s been brewing under the surface, all smiles and shared jokes and too-long glances.

Was this a date?

Because it felt like a date.

And if it was a date, did that mean I was supposed to kiss him?

Nah. We work together. That alone should’ve been a giant red stop sign. Hooking up with coworkers? Messy. Hooking up with coworkers in porn? Messier. Like, wardrobe-malfunction-during-a-threesome level messy.

And besides, what would we even be if this went somewhere?

Boyfriends who have scheduled gangbangs?

Lovers with time-blocked orgy windows? I knew guys in open relationships, sure, and some of them made it work, but I’d never been in any kind of relationship.

The idea of opening a door that didn’t even exist yet made my brain do backflips.

So instead of kissing him, I hugged him.

Quick, but real. Warm. Solid. His arms came around me a beat later, like he wasn’t expecting it but didn’t hate it. And when we stepped apart, his eyes were soft, tired, grateful. Maybe a little curious. But he said nothing.

“Get some sleep,” I said, voice softer than I meant it to be. “This week is going to be crazy at work.”

“Getting jizzed on by strangers? Yeah. Dream career unlocked,” Bradley winked.

We both laughed, but mine came out too quick.

“Night, Nico,” he said.

“Night, Bradley.”

I turned and walked away, hands in my pockets, heart in my throat, the sound of his voice trailing behind me like a song I wasn’t ready to stop listening to.