Page 76 of Hidden Desires

My throat closes, but I manage to nod. “I’ll call.”

She reaches out, squeezes my hand just once, then turns and walks out. I watch her cross the parking lot, her steps slow but deliberate, and I wonder if she’s crying behind her sunglasses.

When she’s gone, I sit at the table for a long time, the coffee gone cold, the residue bitter on my tongue. My hands are steady now, but I feel hollowed out, scraped raw.

I text Jack: “It’s done. She misses me. She hates me. Both, I think.”

He writes back, “That’s progress, sweetheart. Come home.”

I gather my things, leave a tip for the barista, and step into the cold, not sure if I’m coming home to a victory or a loss. All I know is that I hurt … and I have no idea if any real reconciliation is possible.

Jack’s house—our house now, though I still trip over the words—is a fortress of comfort. As soon as I open the door, the scent of coffee and old paperbacks washes over me. But today, something new crowds the air: the plastic-and-metal tang of freshly unboxed Amazon loot.

The living room is a war zone of tech: tripods, ring lights, cables coiled like snakes on the coffee table. A stack of shipping boxes leans against the sofa, and in the middle of it all sits Jack, sleeves rolled up, squinting at a camcorder manual with the single-mindedness of a bomb tech defusing a live shell.

The huge man looks up when I come in, and the whole world narrows to just the two of us. “Hey, sweetheart,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

I drop my purse by the door, kick off my boots, and collapse onto the couch beside him. I’m still shivering from the cold outside, or maybe from the emotional hangover.

“Bad,” I admit. “But it wasn’t as horrible as I thought. Nancy misses me, even though she doesn’t get me at all.” I pause, staring at a blue LED blinking on the table. “She thinks I’m blowing up my life on purpose. She thinks⁠—”

Jack slides closer, his palm resting solidly on my knee. “She loves you,” he says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. “She’ll come around. Or at least, she’ll learn to let go because you’re your own person, Eliza. You make decisions for your life, and your parents have to accept that.”

I nod, then trace my finger along the seam of my jeans. “I guess Nancy’s mostly worried about people finding out about the camming. Even though I told her I’m careful and always blur my face, she says there’s no such thing as privacy anymore, not really.”

Jack leans back, grins, and waves his arm at the mountain of gear. “That’s why we have state of the art equipment, Eliza. We pixelate, we mask, we use burner accounts and a VPN that even the NSA couldn’t crack. No one’s ever going to know it’s us. I promise.”

He pulls me in, tucks my head against his shoulder. I listen to his heart, the steady thump thump that’s become my baseline for “safe.”

“You’re really okay with it?” I say, tilting my head up. “With me, with this life? The camming?”

My man looks down, and his face is so handsome, the features so straight, that I can barely hold his gaze. “Are you kidding? I love it. I never thought I would, but…” He shrugs, lips twitching into a smile. “There’s something about watching you perform. The confidence, the power. I get off just being part of it. And you, Eliza—you light up the whole fucking screen.”

My cheeks go pink, but I nuzzle closer, soaking up every word. He’s not humoring me. He means it.

He picks up a mask from the table—black leather, covers the upper half of his face, makes him look like a supervillain on casual Friday. “I got this for our live show,” he says, eyes glinting. “You want to help me try it on?”

I laugh, take the mask, and slip it over his head. It fits perfectly, accentuating his sharp jaw and the streak of gray at his temple. He looks dangerous and hot and wholly himself.

“Not bad, Captain,” I say, running a finger along the edge.

He grabs me, flips me onto his lap with military efficiency. “Wait until you see what I have planned for Saturday,” he growls in my ear. “We’re doing the double toy challenge. You better get yourself warmed-up.”

I lose it, giggling into his shirt. The last of the sadness from this morning melts away. This is my real life now: exciting, titillating, and shared with someone who loves every part of me.

Jack holds me for a while, then we get up and start sorting the gear for the shoot. While we’ve uploaded some pre-recorded videos to my channel, this weekend is different because Jack and I are going to do a live stream of the two of us for the first time. It’s going to be hot, and as we sort cables and test battery packs, my excitement grows. This is going to be awesome.

When the prep is finally done, Jack pours us a beer, and we sit on the floor, backs against the couch, ankles touching. He puts his hand over mine.

“We’re going to kill it this weekend, sweetheart,” he says. “And after, we’ll celebrate. Just us. No cameras, no audience.”

I think of the show, of the viewers, of my mother, of everything that brought us to this point. But mostly, I think about Jack, and how somehow, against all odds, this is the truest version of myself I’ve ever been.

I take his hand, squeeze hard. “It’s going to be awesome,” I agree with a smile, “because it’s both of us. What could be better?”

The flash in Jack’s eyes as he bends to kiss me is all I need because with two of us against the world … anything is possible.

Holy cow, it’s game time. The spare room at the back of the house is now the equivalent of a professional filming studio, and every inch of it is a testament to obsessive, nervous over-preparation.