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Chapter Sixteen
Gavin
Joe did an about face before I could get my bearings. I remained kneeling on the bed, sucking in steadying breaths, as Noah stared at me with huge eyes.
Shit.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said gruffly.
Within a minute I’d done a quick washup and was jogging downstairs in a pair of basketball shorts. Joe was in the large foyer pacing with one hand bracing his head and the other clutched around a manila envelope. After watching him for a couple of seconds, I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I knew this would happen,” he growled. “As soon as I laid eyes on him, I knew this would fucking happen.”
“It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Joe shook his head, seething. “There’s already talk. I’ve done my best to keep it from getting out, and that was before I knew you were actually screwing him.”
I frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about this,” he snarled, holding up the envelope. He tossed it at my chest. “You’re really lucky I know the people I know or that would have been all over TMZ.”
A sinking feeling built in me and solidified once I managed to rip the envelope open since my fingers were still too clumsy for the clasp. Inside were pictures of me and Noah. The quality wasn’t amazing and they were obviously taken from a distance, but they were of us kissing by the pool. There were a few in the series but they ended with Noah shoving me into the water again and walking away.
My fist clenched around them. “How?”
“The model,” Joe said. “Apparently, he came by one day to surprise you and saw that. Took pictures, bailed, and tried to sell them to one of the guys at TMZ.”
“That jealous, lowlife motherfucker.” I’d just caught my wind but it’d been knocked out of me again. My entire world was falling sideways. “How did you get them back?”
“My friend at TMZ is gay. He didn’t want to out you, so he called me and said he’d kill the story if I repaid what he spent on the pictures.”
My breath whistled out low. “Joe—”
“Don’t start thanking me yet.” Joe stopped pacing. He whipped around and jabbed a finger into my chest. “I hoped this was it. You were coming on to him, and the pictures would give you a reality check.”
My relief and gratitude merged with irritation that this rant was continuing. How the fuck could I be so frustrated by someone and feel so beholden to him at the same time?
“Joe,” I said from between my teeth. “It’s not a big deal. We’ve been sleeping together for two months and no major catastrophes have fucking occurred. We’re fine.”
“‘We,’” he repeated. “What is ‘we’?”
And now we were entering uncharted land. I had no idea what “we” was, because Noah and me hadn’t gotten that far yet.
“Don’t read into it, okay? I don’t know what we’re going to do in the long run, but what I do know is that we’re having a good time together.” It sounded wrong being left at that. Like our time together was just sex, and that was a damn lie. “I like him, man. Don’t ruin it for me with your ranting.”
Joe sucked in a slow breath.
“Just chill the fuck out and watch the game with us today.” I pushed his shoulder, trying to be easygoing and failing by putting so much force into it that he stumbled. “Noah drove all the way out to some dumbass farm just to get you an organic sweet-potato pie. You gotta love him.”
“Yes, I love it when employees do their job.”
My eyes narrowed.
“But you know what I don’t love? Gold diggers. Social climbers. People who fuck their bosses to get ahead.”
My hand shot out so fast my brain didn’t catch up in time to pull back, but I did shift the movement from a punch in the face to grabbing his collar. I jerked him forward and all the rage that had been absent from the shadowy recesses of my mind, all of the tension that had stopped restricting my chest, returned. Adrenaline fueled a need to hit someone.
Joe let me pull him close to my face; he didn’t resist, and he didn’t show any fear. If anything, he looked disappointed. “Don’t end it like this, Gavin. After all this time.”
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ground together. I heard footsteps tentatively moving down the stairs, but I didn’t look back to see Noah. Instead, I leaned in closer to Joe.
“Don’t talk about him like that.” My voice hissed out low, hopefully too low for Noah to hear. “You have no clue what he’s done for me in the past few months. How he’s treated me. You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know enough,” Joe whispered back. “I know you need to end this bullshit and send him on his way.”
