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the emergency room. Replaying the way the nurse’s legs swayed slightly as she sat on Brice’s bed, leaning over towards his face. I didn’t see the kiss, but my brain has no problem filling in the details.
Horrid flashbacks of all the times I’ve played Brice’s wing woman fly through my mind, flapping about and reminding me that this isn’t the first time I’ve caught him in a compromising position. For the longest time, we celebrated each other’s conquests. There would be months where we hardly met because the other was busy with a new girl or guy. With the inevitable break-up came a weekend of day-drinking, too many movies, and taking solace in our friendship.
Because that’s all it ever was before. A friendship. Completely platonic.
Until that night when Brice found my camming site and Greg tipped us an insane amount of money to sleep together, we had never acted on any feelings, drunk or sober.
I never talked to Brice about it, but I’m sure that he would agree that our love didn’t spring up out of nowhere that night. Instead, it was growing slowly, spreading its roots all those years. So when we finally did come together, it might have been a surprise, but it wasn't spur-of-the-moment. We were always together before, so this wasn’t a new dynamic to our relationship; it was simply the next, inevitable stage.
Which is the reason my heart hangs a few inches lower tonight. Why I choose to walk the three miles home, even though my body is heavy with the pure exhaustion that only comes from physical labor. I need time to think, but no matter how many steps I take, nothing becomes clearer. A self-pitying cloud obscures all other thoughts. It rains down on me, leaking out in the form of tears.
Sure, I fantasized about Jack. Got off to thoughts of him. Showered in the same room as him. But we never did anything. It was all strictly business. I was planning to reject his offer. Filming with him wasn’t even a possibility. Now, though….
When I reach home two hours later, I fall on the couch and am asleep within minutes. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but it can’t be worse than what today has left me with.
Chapter 15
Having stayed awake into the early morning drinking the cheap vodka hiding in the back of my freezer and watching every corny Christmas movie I could find, I finally wake up at 4pm the next afternoon with thirteen missed calls and twice as many texts. All from Brice. The most recent is on my phone the moment I flick it on:
I really need to talk to you. Call me back. Please.
But I don’t call him back. I don’t even read the rest of the messages. I prefer the route that countless people take when faced with a mysterious pain that could either be a benign nothing or a life-threatening condition—I ignore it completely. After burying my phone between the couch cushions, I get up to pee, wash my face, and drink three glasses of water in quick succession. Then I get a bowl of cereal ready only to find that I have no milk. The bread I then pull out of the cupboard is moldy. There’s nothing for me to eat, and I’m feeling shaky from my overexertion and under-eating yesterday.
Briefly I think of running to the supermarket three blocks away, but I dash this idea away. I decide then and there that I will not be leaving the house today. Perhaps for longer, but definitely not today. I need time to myself, without even the barest hint of human interaction. So I flip open my laptop and order a pizza. Normally I would get the cheapest option, but I go wild with cheese crust, cheese bread, and two bottles of soda. I leave a message that I’ll tip ten bucks if they get it here within thirty minutes.
The driver arrives in twenty-five, panting and complaining about the lack of an elevator in my building. After handing him the cash, I plop back down in front of the TV. But before I can even get the first slice out, my phone vibrates from within the couch. I take my first bite and it vibrates again. The sound is incessant, distracting, and incredibly annoying. So in a fit of rage, I dig the phone out, still deciding whether I want to toss it out the window or simply turn it off. That’s when I see the latest message.
It’s not from Brice.
There’s been a fire. Everything is gone.
It’s from Greg. And my eyes are bulging as I read it, the pizza beside me now completely forgotten. I text back, asking what he means. Although I wait a whole minute, the phone shaking in my hand, he doesn’t reply. I can only imagine Greg standing in the parking lot, looking upon the erotic empire he built going up in flames. My pity for the man who brought me into the more professional side of this business dies away when I think of myself.
My videos.
Did they really lose everything? Is it all gone? Everything I’ve been working for the past couple of weeks? Maybe there are back-ups somewhere. I grab my phone, ready to tap out a message asking Greg this exact question, but I stop myself. At least for the time being, he has bigger concerns. I might have lost a few weeks’ worth of filming, but he lost his life’s work.
No matter how I tell myself that there’s nothing I can do—that I might as well relax, enjoy my pizza and movie—I can’t just sit here any longer. When I even chance a look out the window with the bizarre thought that I might be able to see the flames rising in the distance (which, of course, is impossible), I give up on my lazy evening, pull jeans on, and head out.
Another taxi ride that bites into my quickly shrinking budget, and I’m soon able to smell the smoke, even if I can’t quite see it yet. It’s too dark, and the flames have all but been extinguished when I arrive. Firefighters and cops linger, but they aren’t shouting orders or rushing around. The fire has gone, and with it all the frantic energy.
I find Greg sitting on the curb, his face in his hands. I join him without a word. I’m not even sure if he’s noticed my presence until thirty seconds later when he announces, “Jack’s talking to the fire chief about what we might be able to salvage. But he said he can’t allow us in for at least three days. Maybe a week. He said we shouldn’t get our hopes up either. Even if anything survived, it’s going to smell like burnt plastic. I don’t know why, but that’s what he said.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, but I don’t place a comforting hand on his shoulder. Despite my business, I’ve never been the touchy-feely type.
He raises his head and levels his eyes with mine. Although there’s no evidence that he’s been crying, he wears the expression of someone desperately tired. “You don’t need to worry about your videos. I know that’s why you’re here. We back up what we can to the cloud every night. And I take home redundant drives too. Ever since I lost a month of recordings to a stupid intern, I’ve been hyper vigilant about keeping backups of my backups.”
I don’t even try to deny that this is exactly what brought me here. Nor can I hide the sigh that deflates my chest at this announcement. But I do try to turn the attention back on him.
“So what are you going to do now? Can you rebuild it?”
He shrugs. “It all depends on what the insurance company finds. We have to figure out if it was malicious or just faulty wiring or something.”
This isn’t a thought that even passed through my head. Who would want to burn Greg’s building down? I mean, sure, there are probably ex-actors who feel spurned, but enough to commit arson?
“What do you think? Do you think someone did this on purpose?”
Another shrug. “Who knows? Maybe, I guess. But that’s going to mean more work to get this place back. We’ll have to file police reports and go to court and all that jazz. All I want is to get back to work. This probably won’t come as a surprise to you, but I don’t really have a life outside my work.”
