Page 30 of Freeze Frame

“Unless?”

He narrowed his eyes at me like he was trying to see into my head. Like if he stared hard enough, an answer would pop out at him. “Unless you care that River—Josh—and I have worked together before.”

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. Like… how do you do it? Now that you have Blue and Asher, the three of youare still working in the industry. How do you feel when they go to work, knowing that sometimes it’s their job to be with someone else?”

“Ah.” Jax set the last bit of his sandwich, just a corner of crust now, on his plate. “You’re worried about the fact that sometimes River will have to fuck someone else.”

“I don’t know that I’d put it exactly like that.”

“I would. That’s what it is. It’s not… okay, sometimes it’s fun, but it’s always work.” Jax smirked. “Unless you’re Asher, Blue, and me, and then it’s not like work at all. But that’s different. Fuck, where was I going with that?” Jax shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m sure that I don’t know.”

“Right. Most of the time, working on a shoot with someone is a lot of start and stop. A lot of ‘put your leg here, no wait, you're blocking the shot. Lean back. Get more lube. Oops, that was too much lube. It’s an ass crack, not a slip-n-slide.’ There’s a lot about the job that is, well… work. Sure, pleasure is the goal and the result, but it’s not always that great, to be totally honest. And once you know that it’s a job, it’s easier to not get jealous.”

“So you don’t get jealous?”

Jax shrugged. “Sometimes I do, but we talk about it. And luckily, sometimes that’s kind of hot. But it doesn’t bother me that occasionally they have sex with other people. They’re intimate with me. They come home to me, to our bed, to our cats. They tell me the things that make them sad, or scared, or happy, or horny. That’s the difference.”

A silence fell between us as I tried to think of the difference between sex and intimacy. Maybe I was too old or too set in my ways or just not liberal enough to understand how the two weren’t the same.

Then Jax spoke, “You should watch one of his scenes. That might help you see how it’s not the same.”

I whipped my head up and gaped at Jax. “Isn’t that like… an invasion of his privacy?”

He snorted. “Dad, he has sex with people on camera, for the internet. There’s zero expectation of privacy. And when you meet people who find out what you do, you expect them to go watch your stuff. You just learn not to care and not to ask.”

“You want me to watch one of his scenes?”

“It makes the most sense to me. You’re worried that you’ll get jealous and shit, and you can’t seem to reconcile the difference between the kinds of sex people can have. So you should watch him work. You like him, so let yourself like him while you watch the scene. Sometimes it really bothers people to see someone they like with another person, even in a past tense. And that’s valid. We know not everyone wants to date someone who does what we do.”

“Watch a scene,” I said, more to myself than to Jax.

“Watch one. Watch ten. Watch them until you know for sure where you’re at. And then you’ll know what to say to him to make him answer your texts.” Jax paused. “Or if you still want him to. Look, the thing is, once you’ve been around the block a couple times, you know that people can think they’ll be okay with your job until they’re suddenly not. So… be as sure as you can. Because it’s a challenging thing to deal with for a lot of people, and there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to date someone because of what they do for a living. Just don’t string him along.”

Jax’s speech made me think of all the times I’d asked if there was anyone special, you know, just being a dad and making small talk. Wanting to keep up with his life the best I could. And all the times he’d brushed the question off.

“It was hard for you, wasn’t it? Trying to date, I mean.”

Jax let out a breath. “Yeah. Sometimes it bothered me and sometimes it didn’t. I’d tried dating other people in the industry, but that doesn’t always work out either.”

“I’m glad you found Asher and Blue. They’ve been good for you. They’ve made you happy.”

Color rose in Jax’s cheeks. “That’s all I want for you, you know.” He clapped me on the shoulder.

Jax’s advice stayed with me far longer than he did. I thought about what he said, turning it over in my head, looking at all the possible angles of it. Watching Josh with someone else might be hard. It might also be hot. My dick couldn’t quite decide. After a long day avoiding looking up Josh’s work online, I climbed into bed. Freshly clean and loose-limbed after a long soak in the bath, I searched for him online.

I thought about starting small. He had some solo work. Some with toys. Some without. But I knew I wouldn’t care if he pleasured himself so I skipped those. For now, anyway. Instead I found a video that was about a year old. River and some guy named Joey who was built like a brick wall. Thick, tattooed arms. Legs like tree trunks. The video started out with Joey and Josh—no…River. Joey and River kissing, undressing. Then Joey went down on River. He lapped at that front hole until it was dripping, he sucked River’s cock, and River rode his face, gripping his hair.

Truth be told, I was a little jealous. But also… not. Because that wasn’t the same man I’d been with. Yes, it was Josh, but it was also River. Josh was the guy I met at the dog park. The guy I’d taken to dinner and the guy who’d sucked my brains out through my dick under a willow tree. Josh was the man I’d brought home to my bed. The one I’d teased and devoured and the one who’d curled up against me and fallen asleep.

When it was Josh and me, he’d seemed genuine. Open in a way that he wasn’t when he was on screen. On screen, there wasan obvious scene break and River came on wearing a strap-on with a rather large, hot pink cock attached to the front. I watched him get Joey ready to take it and then jealousy’s hot knives poked me. Driving into my stomach, they twisted.

That should be me in that film. Not that I had any interest ever in being in a film, but that should be me in River’s bed. Josh’s bed. It should be me he was prepping to take that mammoth-sized dick. It should be me melting under his touch. It should be me staring up at him like he was the center of the universe. On screen, Joey barely looked at River, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was confident and sexy as hell.

I knew that River and Josh were the same person, and that it was still Josh having sex with someone else, but to me, it was River doing those things. It was River sliding four fingers into Joey’s ass. Not Josh. Josh had been the one to slick up and loosen my hole. Josh had been the one to kiss me and tease me. It had been Josh who made me come, not River.

They weren’t two people. I knew this. But I also knew that it didn’t matter to me who he’d been with and who he’d be with in the future, so long as I was one of the people. Hell, with any luck, maybe one day I’d be the most important person.