Page 26 of Not Your Golden Boy

“It worked if your aim was to be the most talked about person on the internet today,” Maggie said.

“Have a scone.” Laura took one of her scones from the plate with a sympathetic look and rested it on the side of Nikky’s plate. “I made them myself.”

“Thanks,” Nikky said, picking up the scone with a distracted look. He took a bite without putting on any of the jam or cream Harry had dug out of his fridge for the occasion, making the Brits at the table wince.

“What were you hoping those pictures would do?” Laura asked once she’d picked up her cutlery to resume her own breakfast.

Nikky had fallen too far into his thoughts, so Harry answered for him. “We were hoping they would shift the narrative away from the Hollywood golden boy image everyone’s been trying to thrust on Nikky lately,” he said. At least, that was his version of the mission they’d set out on. “The entertainment industry has a way of deciding who you are and who you’re going to be without asking if that’s what you want first.”

Maggie and Laura exchanged a look, both of them humming. They then both looked at Harry with almost pitying expressions. Maggie even reached over to pat his hand.

Harry hated the burst of self-consciousness that hit him with their knowing smiles and unsolicited support. This wasn’t about him and his shambles of a career. It was about Nikky trying to stop his life from being yanked somewhere he didn’t want to go.

“I don’t like fame,” Nikky said, suddenly out of his thoughts and back in the conversation. “I love music and acting and art. I hate constantly being in the public eye, having fans mob me wherever I go, having the paparazzi track my every move, like they’re just waiting for me to put a foot wrong.”

“So you thought you’d put a foot wrong first so you could control the explosion when it happens?” Laura asked with gentle insightfulness.

Nikky blinked and sat straighter. “Yeah,” he said. He sighed and lowered his eyes to his plate all over again. “I thought if I acted out of character, if I did something so controversial and shocking….”

Harry, Maggie, and Laura all waited for him to finish that thought, but Nikky never did. Instead, he frowned and cut into the sausage on his plate, ate a piece, and chewed it as his frown deepened with his thoughts.

“You’ve always been a good boy, haven’t you,” Maggie said with an understanding smile.

Nikky nearly choked on his sausage as he swallowed. He sent Harry a look that had good boy looking for reassurance all over it. Good boy in leather trousers with clamps on his nipples looking for approval from the man holding the other end of his leash while he waited on his knees all over it.

The heady connection only lasted for a second before Nikky glanced across the table at the ladies. “That’s what people want. They want role models and heroes. Ever since Cooked aired, people have put me up on a pedestal.”

“And now you’re dizzy and you want down,” Maggie said, nodding.

“Well, yeah.” Nikky smiled weakly, like he was glad someone understood, but still forlorn about the situation.

“Going out to an exciting club isn’t going to knock you off that pedestal, young man,” Laura said sagely. “You’ve only just made yourself far more interesting to those people who follow every move you make.”

“We weren’t following you before,” Maggie agreed, “but now we’re having breakfast with you.”

“And I made you scones,” Laura added, breaking into a grin.

“The point being that if you want to offend people to the point where they leave you alone to wallow in the shadow of what you could have been instead of embracing the false image of what a powerful industry thinks you should be, you should either write one brilliant song and sell it to a company that will pay out royalties for the rest of your days—” she glanced at Harry, who scowled at her in return, “—or you should do something genuinely scandalous that even your most stalwart fans won’t be able to defend.”

“Like what?” Nikky asked, a little too interested for Harry’s liking.

“Public statements of racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance,” Maggie suggested with a shrug. “Or religious fervor.”

“No,” Nikky said firmly. “I don’t believe in any of that. I speak out against all of those things whenever I can.”

“Of course you do,” Laura said, giving Nikky’s wrist a squeeze. “Because in reality, you are just as much of a good person as everyone believes you to be.”

Harry almost laughed at the way those kind words made Nikky look sad and helpless. No one else but Nikky could take a compliment and turn it into a trap.

“I think having fun at the club last night was a good start down the road of Nikky changing the narrative about who he is,” Harry put in his two cents worth. “The more he does things like that, the more he experiments and lives the way he wants to live, the more everyone will see his version of himself and not the character the media has created for him.”

Nikky glanced gratefully at Harry. Under the table, Harry nudged his leg with a foot, making Nikky’s smile grow and his cheeks flush pink.

“I suppose the acting roles you take going forward would help to change the narrative, too,” Laura said, tapping her lips thoughtfully.

“Oh! I know!” Maggie said, brightening up and sitting straight. When everyone at the table turned to her, she went on with, “You should make a sex tape.”

The room went dead silent.