Page 24

Chapter Twenty-Two

Bradley

I was naked on a bed in a tiny room at Boys On Film Studios, staring at a green screen and wondering if my life had officially become a meme.

It wasn’t even a proper bed—just a squeaky metal frame with a mattress covered in something that felt like industrial-grade paper towels. But the camera was rolling, and the lighting was soft, and I’d just… finished. You know. Finished.

Liam, standing behind the camera, looked up from the monitor and gave me a small thumbs-up like I’d just delivered a solid PowerPoint presentation. Then he handed me a pack of wet wipes.

“Great work,” he said casually, like I’d just filed some invoices instead of jacking off in front of a green screen. “Really solid content. We can get three different edits out of that.”

“Can’t wait to see where I end up,” I muttered as I wiped myself off. “The moon? A locker room? The back of a dragon?”

“Actually, there’s one version where you can be in a hot-air balloon.”

I stared at him.

He shrugged. “People are into all kinds of shit.”

To be fair, I hadn’t hesitated when Liam asked. Nico had vanished with his mom, and the energy in the office had been weird ever since. Jack and Nessa were in a meeting. Laura was filming a scene involving a bald man and Catholic guilt, and I was just… there. Floating.

“If you want to make some quick cash,” Liam had said, “we can shoot a solo scene right now. Real simple, and quick”

And I’d said yes.

Because I wasn’t embarrassed by anything anymore. Not after the bukkake. Not after crying into Nico’s shoulder in a towel. And definitely not after Nessa announced, our budding relationship would be filmed as the second coming of gay porn for women.

So I’d taken the little blue pill, stripped without flinching, and did the damn thing.

Now, freshly wiped and slightly sticky, I sat on the edge of the bed and started pulling on my clothes.

First the briefs. Then jeans. T-shirt. Hoodie. My body moved on autopilot while my brain spun in slow, agitated circles.

Nico had left hours ago, and I hadn’t heard a word.

I didn’t want to seem clingy. Or paranoid. Or like the type of guy who spirals the second someone walks out of the room.

But I was spiraling.

He’d looked tense when he left. That announcement from Petyr—“there’s a woman claiming to be Nico’s mother in reception”—had cracked the air like a thunderclap.

Nico’s whole vibe had shifted. Guard up.

Jaw tight. That rare, serious version of him had emerged, the one I barely knew but somehow already cared about too much.

I pulled my hoodie over my head, ran a hand through my hair, and was about to check my phone for the thousandth time when it buzzed.

From Nico:

I need you. Can you please come to my place?

That was it.

Seven words. No emojis, or jokes. No deflection.

Just raw honesty in a tone that made my chest twist.

I didn’t overthink. I didn’t text back some dumb meme or ask what was wrong or try to sound cool.

To Nico:

On my way.

Then I grabbed my bag, nodded at Liam—who gave me a “go get him, tiger” thumbs-up I chose to ignore—and bolted for the door.

* * *

Nico’s door opened before I could knock a second time.

He looked like a ghost of the guy I’d kissed senseless just this morning. Same face, same clothes, but drained. Dull in the eyes. Wound so tight he looked like one good gust of wind might snap him in half.

I said nothing, just pulled him into my arms.

He didn’t resist. Just folded into me like gravity finally caught up with him. His arms wrapped around my waist, his face pressed into my neck, and his breath came out in this jagged sigh that sounded way too close to breaking.

I kissed his temple. Then his cheek. Then his mouth.

The kiss was slower this time. Not like the sleepy morning ones we’d exchanged a few hours ago—these were needier. A little unsteady. Like we were holding each other up with our mouths.

I couldn’t get enough of him lately. Still couldn’t believe he let me touch him, much less kiss him like this. Like we weren’t both disasters pretending to be people.

When we finally pulled apart, he rested his forehead against mine. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course,” I said. “You okay?”

He stepped back and waved me in.

I’d been here before—hell, I’d woken up in his bed this morning—but the apartment felt different now. The comfort was still there, but so was something else. A weird, sour tension in the air. Like the ghost of an unwanted visitor, still lingered in the corners.

We sat down on the couch and Nico sank back into it like his bones hurt. He rubbed his eyes and sighed.

“My mom is in New York,” he said. “Floris in the flesh. Haven’t seen her in years, and she just shows up out of nowhere with a redneck boyfriend and an urge to sightsee.”

I leaned in. “What happened?”

He snorted. “We walked the city. Or tried to. They didn’t want to eat anywhere that wasn’t serving fried meat and Jesus. Thom kept saying he couldn’t understand anyone’s accent. My mom acted like this was some kind of mother-son vacation we forgot we planned. It was embarrassing, weird, and awful.”

He stared at the ceiling for a moment before continuing, his voice quieter now. “I don’t know why they’re here. We’re not close. She threw me out when I was seventeen. Now she’s knocking on my door and acting like we’re the goddamn Gilmore Girls.”

I hesitated. “Do you think… maybe she wants to make amends?”

Nico shook his head slowly. “It didn’t feel like that. There was no apology. No recognition of what she did. Just passive-aggressive compliments and weird fake smiles. And Thom? He barely said a word. Just watched everything. Like he was casing the place.”

I reached for his hand and took it gently. “You don’t have to make excuses for how you feel. I’d be pissed too.”

He looked at me, really looked at me, and something in his expression softened. Like he was letting himself lean into the comfort. Trust it.

“You ever just want to burn your entire past down?” he asked quietly.

“All the time,” I said. “But then I remember it’s the reason I found this version of my life. And you’re in it. So maybe it’s not all bad.”

He blinked like that hit him in the sternum, and I had to look away for a second just to keep from blurting something embarrassing like I think I might actually be falling for you.

After a long silence, I gave his hand a little squeeze. “Mind if I use the bathroom?”

He gestured toward the hallway. “You know where it is.”

I stood and walked the familiar few steps down the hall, flipped on the light, and stepped inside. The bathroom was small but clean, like everything else in Nico’s apartment. I unzipped, started to piss, and let my brain blank out for a minute.

That’s when I noticed something on the floor.

A little plastic shape down by the base of the toilet, near the back. Black. Slim. At first, I figured it was a cap from a deodorant stick or maybe one of those plastic things razors come in.

But as I zipped up and leaned down for a better look, it caught the light.

I flushed, washed my hands, then crouched and picked it up with a towel.

A USB stick.

Seriously?

I turned it over. It didn’t have a brand name, just a small red dot sticker on one side. Cheap. Generic. The kind of thing that looked like it had something sketchy on it by default.

I headed back into the living room.

“Hey,” I said, holding it up. “I found this on the bathroom floor.”

Nico took it from me, squinting at it. He flipped it over in his fingers. “I think this is a USB stick,” he muttered. “Who the hell still uses these things anymore?”

Then I watched it hit him.

His entire face changed. Eyes narrowed. Mouth went still. Something cold and sharp slid into the room with us.

“Thom,” he drawled. “He was in the bathroom forever earlier. Said he had a sensitive stomach, but…”

I sat down beside him again.

“What if he dropped it?” I asked.

“Thom strikes me as someone who plants things deliberately,” Nico murmured.

We stared at the little black stick like it might explode.

And suddenly, I didn’t just want to be here for Nico. I wanted to protect him. Not just from sketchy USBs or weird fake stomach issues, but from the past that kept trying to crawl back into his life wearing a fake smile.

Nico stared at the stick like it might bite.

Then, without a word, he stood up and crossed the room to his desk.

I followed, heart already pounding, even though I didn’t know why.

His laptop sat closed beside a half-drunk iced coffee and a tangle of charging cables.

He flipped it open with a snap and plugged the USB stick into the port like he was disarming a bomb.

The screen lit up.

A folder popped up right away. Titled in all caps: NICHOLAS - PERSONAL.

He clicked it open.

Inside were dozens of files.

The first few were screenshots. Grainy captures from the Boys On Film website. Then there were various pictures from different videos Nico had made. All of them explicit.

But it wasn’t the porn that made my stomach lurch.

It was the videos .

Short, silent clips of Nico walking across a crosswalk. Nico outside of a bodega. Nico riding on the subway, wearing headphones, totally unaware he was being filmed.

He opened one. It played with that quiet, grainy stalker energy, the kind that made your skin itch. It was Nico, in his jacket and hoodie, eating a bagel and waiting for a light to change. You could hear city traffic, barely. But no voice. No context. Just… watching.

There was another folder inside the folder, called “ADDRESS & FINANCIAL.”

Nico hesitated.

He opened it.

The first file was a screenshot of a Google Maps street view. His apartment building circled in red. Another was a blurry photo of his front door. His actual front door.

My hands clenched at my sides.

And then there were three PDFs, labeled “Nicholas_Earnings,” “Nicholas_SiteMetrics,” and “FantasyFansBackup.”

“They looked at my FantasyFans page,” Nico whispered, his voice flat.

He clicked one open, and we both stared at a spreadsheet showing his earnings month-by-month. His heart had dropped out of his voice entirely.

“This is from the backend,” he said. “This isn’t public. Someone must’ve logged in to my account, or guessed my password.”

The last file was a Word doc.

Untitled.

He opened it.

“We know who you are and what you do. We know how much you make. And we know how to make it all disappear. If you want this to stay private, you’ll need to cooperate. Your mother is already on board. Don’t make things harder than they have to be.”

No signature. No names. Just that.

A slow chill worked its way up my spine.

Nico just sat there, staring at the screen. Like his whole body had turned to glass, and one wrong move would shatter him.

“They’re trying to blackmail you,” I said. My voice sounded weird. Too calm for how fast my pulse was racing.

He didn’t answer. He just kept looking at the screen.

At the files.

At the proof.

And then he closed the laptop slowly, almost reverently. As if shutting it made this nightmare a little less real.

He leaned back in the chair and looked up at me. Not scared. Not angry. Just tired in a way that went straight to the bones.

“This wasn’t a visit,” he said. “It was a setup.”

I nodded once.

He looked down at the flash drive still sticking out of his laptop. Like it might burst into flames if we stared at it too long. Then a reminder popped up from his calendar-

Open Mic At BCC

“Shit,” Nico grumbled. “I promised I’d be at Brooklyn Comedy Collective tonight to do a quick set. Damn it, I need to take care of this shit with my mom, but I can’t disappoint…”

“Go do your stand up. There’s nothing you can do about your mother tonight,” I leaned over and brushed my lips across his cheek. “Make people laugh. That’s your happy place.”

Nico looked at me, shrugged, and said, “What the hell do I do now?”