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Chapter Twenty-Three

Nico

W alking into the Brooklyn Comedy Collective felt like trying to breathe through a wool blanket soaked in beer.

Cramped and vaguely damp, the space felt oppressive, lit only by crooked string lights and a single overhead spotlight that made everyone look like they were about to confess something awful.

Exposed pipes snaked across the ceiling, the black-painted walls were covered in DIY murals and graffiti quotes about art, comedy, and trauma—and none of it matched.

Chairs were scuffed. The tables were sticky. And I loved it here.

Usually.

Tonight, it felt like walking into a bear trap.

I could barely think straight. My mother’s voice kept echoing in my skull like a car alarm. “We’re just sightseeing.” Yeah. With a fucking thumb drive full of stalker data and blackmail threats.

Was she really in on it?

God, I wanted to believe she wasn’t. I wanted to believe she was just stupid.

That she didn’t know what her new redneck boat salesman boyfriend was up to.

But… she called me Nicholas. She ooh’ed and aah’ed at my apartment like she was shopping for it.

And she let that slimy bastard be alone in my bathroom.

Still, the idea that she was deliberately trying to hurt me—again—made something in my chest clench. There was a kid's version of me inside somewhere, still dumb enough to hope she’d come around. That version of me was curled up in a ball and crying right now.

“Nico,” Bradley said from behind me, touching my arm. “You okay?”

I realized I’d just been standing there near the entrance, frozen, people squeezing past me with Pbrs and hummus-stuffed pita pockets. Someone had graffitied “LAUGH OR ROT” in marker on the wall by the bathroom.

I turned and looked at him. He was calm. Steady. Beautiful, in this effortless kind of way that made me want to both kiss him and scream. I didn’t deserve him, but hell if I wasn’t glad he was here.

“I’m freaking the fuck out,” I admitted.

“Totally fair,” he said.

I exhaled shakily and led him through the narrow room to a small table near the back. The light above us buzzed faintly, and the legs of the chair screeched when I pulled it out for him.

“Stay here?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to leave his side.

He nodded. “You’ll kill it.”

I gave him a tight smile, then ducked behind the stage curtain and into the tiny backstage area. It was more of a glorified storage nook than anything—half a coat rack, a single mirror, two rickety stools, and a weird smell I couldn’t place.

Another comic was back there, scribbling in a notebook and bouncing his knee like a man on trial. He glanced up as I came in. Tall, black, mid-thirties, with a gap in his teeth and a T-shirt that said GOD HAS LEFT THE GROUP CHAT.

“You’re up before me?” he asked.

“Yeah. Nico Steele.”

“Right on. I’m Jamal. You good?”

I must’ve looked like I’d just crawled out of a sewer drain. “Not really. My mom showed up outta nowhere today with her weird-ass boyfriend, who might be trying to blackmail me. Oh, and this guy I really like just shot his first bukkake video, and, oh hell. My life is really fucked up right now.”

He blinked, then whistled low. “Bukkake?”

“Never mind,” I muttered. “I don’t even know what I’m gonna talk about. My brain’s a fucking soup bowl.”

He gave a half-shrug. “Then say that. Turn the soup into a bit. Use it. Audience doesn’t want polish, they want blood.” He grinned. “Bleed funny.”

I stared at him.

He wasn’t wrong.

Maybe tonight wasn’t about pretending I had my shit together. Maybe tonight was about showing up with all my broken pieces and making them laugh, anyway. Because if I didn’t laugh, I might scream.

My fingers curled into fists, then loosened.

“Alright,” I said, a small smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “Let’s give ’em the full fucked-up truth.”

“Atta boy,” Jamal said, flipping a page in his notebook.

Out on stage, the host was already warming up the crowd.

“Okay, okay! Next comic coming to the stage is smart, sexy, and possibly emotionally unstable—which, let’s be honest, is the best kind. Give it up for Nico Steele!”

The crowd clapped, whooped, and I stepped onstage.

The lights were brutal. They hit you in the face like, hello, now please be funny in front of fifty strangers so they don’t boo you off stage.

I adjusted the mic stand, tapped it like I knew what I was doing, and gave the crowd a look.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Nico Steele, I’m a gay porn star, and I just found out I’m being blackmailed, so… vibes.”

A small ripple of laughter.

I leaned into the mic.

“Yeah, no biggie. Just your average day in the life of a porn star. Woke up this morning in my boyfriend’s arms like it was a Nancy Meyers movie, and by lunch, I was being emotionally waterboarded by my mother and a guy who looks like Guy Fieri’s failed stunt double.”

Laughter, stronger this time. Someone in the back snorted.

“I mean, truly. His name is Thom—with an H. Which is how I know he sells crypto and wears Axe body spray ironically. He says he sells boats. But not like yacht guy boats. More like ‘I got a guy who’ll float you a speedboat if you don’t ask questions and don’t look in the glove box’ boats.”

Scattered applause. I took a breath.

“So Thom, who I met only a few hours ago, drops a little USB stick in my bathroom, which first of all, who still uses USB sticks? Are you also running Windows 98 and hiding Napster files from your mom? Like what’s next, Thom, a floppy disk labeled porn taxes?”

Laughter, this time with a few claps.

“And here’s the kicker—apparently he’s trying to blackmail me… about being in porn.”

I paused, tilted my head like a confused cat. “Sir. What do you think I’m gonna do? Deny it? My entire ass is on the internet. I have merch. I did a video a few weeks ago called Hole Patrol 7. We wore hardhats with little lights on them.”

The room erupted.

I felt something unlock in me then. Like I’d been pacing a cage all day and someone finally flung the door open.

“And look, being in porn is weird. Not the work itself—that’s honestly fine. It’s the context. Like, you’ll be ordering a bagel and someone’s like, ‘Oh my god, are you that guy from Dungeons & Daddies?’ And I have to be like, ‘No, that’s the podcast. Mine has much more lube.’”

Cackles.

“But it’s fine. It’s all fine. The weirdest part is that people assume I’m some kind of freak because I do porn. Like, I walk into Duane Reade and suddenly it’s ‘hide your kids, hide your husband.’ Meanwhile, your uncle Jerry has bookmarked some of my best work, and he’s in the church choir.”

Roaring laughter. I saw someone literally slap their knee. I exhaled. This was working.

“Honestly, the weirdest thing about being in porn is trying to date. Especially when the guy you’re into is also in porn.

Yeah. Surprise. Plot twist. I’m seeing someone now.

And yes, he’s hot, and yes, we’ve both filmed scenes, and yes, we’ve had a conversation that started with ‘Hey, just wondering—how do you feel about cum shots before noon?’”

Laughter, then whistles and woo’s.

“And like, dating someone in porn means sex is both more fun and more stressful. Because now I’m like, was that moan real? Are you actually into me, or am I just triggering muscle memory from that time you hooked up with Chad in Assgard: Ragnarok?”

I stole a quick glance out at the crowd. My eyes found Bradley’s.

He was smiling—softly, proudly, arms crossed like he was trying not to float out of his chair. Goddamn, that man was fine. I had to look away before I started crying onstage like some gay Eat, Pray, Love reboot.

I took a breath.

“But no, really. We met through work. Very Romeo and Juliet. If Romeo had a ring light and Juliet was contractually required to moan ‘Oh God yes’ at least three times. He’s…” I stopped myself before I got too sincere. “He’s good people. Better than I deserve.”

A beat. The room got quiet for just a second.

I smiled, leaned into the mic.

“Anyway. It’s been a hell of a week. I got cast in a gay bukkake scene for Japanese businessmen. My building manager keeps predicting people’s sex lives like she’s Miss Cleo on molly, and now I’m possibly being blackmailed by a goober wearing boot cut jeans.”

The laughter was rolling now, wave after wave. They were mine.

“So I guess what I’m saying is, life is wild.

You never know what’s gonna hit you. Like today?

My estranged mother and her boyfriend—who sells boats and looks like a racist version of Kenny Chesney—showed up uninvited and made me take them to a fried chicken buffet.

I’m sitting there trying not to scream while this man asks the waitress to repeat herself because he ‘don’t speak New York. ’”

Laughter, groans, someone in the back yells, “Oh my God!”

“By the time we left, I was Googling how to fake your own death in a public bathroom stall.”

I smiled and pulled back from the mic.

“Thank you. I’m Nico Steele. Tip your bartender. And if anyone here knows how to hack a USB stick, I’ll buy you a drink.”

The place exploded.

People were standing. A few were hollering. I heard someone yell, “YOU’RE A STAR!” which, okay, might’ve been ironic, but I took it.

As I stepped off stage, sweat sticking to my back, I felt the rush of it—the buzz, the warmth, the validation. The high.

And then I saw Bradley, already on his feet, clapping like I’d just won RuPaul’s Drag Race: Porn Star Edition.

* * *

The cab ride back to Manhattan was quiet.

Not awkward quiet, just the kind where you’re both coming down from something big.

My brain was still buzzing from the stage lights, the applause, the hundred invisible threads of memory and panic that had been stitched into my set like landmines.

But beneath all that noise was the low thrum of something else.

Gratitude.

For the guy sitting beside me, legs warm against mine, who showed up tonight when I asked.

Bradley didn’t try to fill the silence, which made me want him even more. He just let me breathe. Let me exist.

The cab turned onto Eighth Avenue, and my stomach gave a little twist when I saw the chipped stone facade of the old hostel where Bradley was staying.

A battered sign hung above the door like a shrug.

A place where the water pressure could peel your skin off or disappear entirely depending on the mood of the plumbing.

The driver pulled up to the curb, and Bradley reached for the door handle.

“Well,” he breathed, turning toward me, “this is me.”

I nodded, heart hammering now. Something in me recoiled at the idea of him stepping out and leaving me alone in the cab. Alone in the night. Alone with everything.

Bradley paused, like he sensed it. His eyes were so open, so kind. He wasn’t rushing.

Still, I panicked.

Before he could get the door all the way open, I reached out and grabbed his hand. My voice came out lower than I expected. Unsteady.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” I blurted. “Will you come home with me?”