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“I know, Adam. And…me too.” Noah smiled at him, even if the thought of Adam packing up his things and moving made his chest ache. But he desperately wanted that for him too. He just wanted his brother to be happy.
The only difference now was that he wanted to be happy too.
CHAPTER16
Adriano didhis best to avoid the bake shop, but he keenly felt the absence of Noah in the hours he was gone. Adriano hated waking up alone. He’d been with Eric for longer than he hadn’t by that point in his life, and even though they were barely acquaintances by the end, Adriano always woke to find him in bed.
Well, almost always. Sometimes he’d stay out late. Sometimes he’d text and say he was crashing with a friend, and Adriano never questioned it. He never thought to ask what friend or what that meant. He wondered if Eric would have lied directly to his face, but Adriano was so caught up in himself he hadn’t considered that Eric might have been looking elsewhere.
As he stared at himself in the mirror, combing through his freshly washed hair, he wondered when his vanity had turned into narcissism. Eric was to blame for cheating—there was no denying that—but Adriano had let himself grow so self-absorbed, so content with their life, he hadn’t considered that maybe Eric was unhappy.
Maybe Adriano was the one who was impossible to live with.
His gut clenched, and he took a breath, resolving not to let that happen again. Not with Noah. Noah was too precious to him.
He stared down at Jude, who was lying on his feet, and he smiled. He felt at home here, even in the tiny little rental with three bedrooms and a kitchen he could barely turn around in. It felt like home because Noah was there with him, and their things had sort of mingled together in the corners of the space. Adriano would have to work at it to pull them apart.
He wanted it to stay that way, even though he knew he needed to take it slow. For his sake and for Noah’s.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out to find Anthony’s name on the screen.Skype, two minutes.
Adriano wanted to tell him no, to tell him this was still his sanctuary and the chaos and coldness of his previous life—or his real one, he still wasn’t sure—wasn’t allowed in this bubble, but he knew he couldn’t do that.
Adriano padded back to the bedroom and fell onto his stomach, flipping open his laptop. Jude nipped at his heels until Adriano gathered him up and sighed as the dog tucked himself under Adriano’s chin. The Skype screen sat blank and waiting, and Adriano buried his nose in Jude’s fur until the call lit up.
Anthony looked tired and frustrated, and he turned to the side and said something before a younger man wearing a white t-shirt with brown skin and a mouth turned down into a natural frown stepped behind him. He had the sort of Hollywood hipster look Adriano hadn’t been missing—attractive and probably hired based on his headshot.
“I found an interpreter for the afternoon,” Anthony said, the man’s hands working through ASL almost flawlessly. “His name is Lemorris.”
Adriano’s stomach unclenched. ‘Great. Nice to meet you. Anthony, is this important?’
The man spoke haltingly after Adriano’s hands stilled, and then he waited patiently. Where had he been when Adriano was losing his shit in Xander’s office? But that was unfair, and really, that moment had led directly to Adriano wanting to leave town, and now he had Noah. There were no regrets.
“You just opened up a SinSity account,” Anthony said, and Adriano’s stomach plunged toward his knees.
‘Are you having my email accounts followed?’
Anthony gave him a flat look. “Xander still has access to your social media, Adriano. You opened up a poster account, not viewer. He’s trying to get a court order to collect.”
Adriano rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t have exclusivity with him for Adriano Moretti. I have exclusivity for Sylent, and Sylent doesn’t exist on SinSity. Besides, I have a signed contract with my co-star. I’m working P R O B O N O.’ He spelled the word out carefully, watching Lemorris’s lips curve over each letter.
Anthony’s face got redder. “That’s not going to fly.”
‘Then he can take me to court,’ Adriano said. ‘I’m not listed on the credits, though. And I fired him, so just because he can take money from me doesn’t mean he can log into my email.’ And really, that was his own fault. He’d been so caught up in all this, he’d forgotten just how much Xander controlled. Not his finances, but every facet of his public face. It would be easy enough to fix. For now. He just wanted to get Noah paid, and he wasn’t going to let Xander ruin one more good thing.
“Why do you enjoy making my life difficult?” Anthony asked, and Adriano wouldn’t have been surprised if it was said with a groan.
‘Because I pay you a ridiculous amount of money for it,’ Adriano answered, his face cheerful.
Anthony scowled, but Adriano didn’t care. Yes, this offered a new complication to the already messy situations he and Noah were both in, but it was worth it. At least he knew Noah was worth it, and he could only hope Noah felt the same way.
Checking the clock, he saw that Noah would be in the middle of his afternoon rush, whatever sort of rush it was. Adriano had been respecting Noah’s space, but Noah had been free in admitting his business was in sorry shape over the last few years. He didn’t want to bother him, but he was feeling restless after ending the call with Anthony.
It was the first real conversation he’d had with his lawyer in days, and instead of anything being close to solved, there were just more problems piled on. His head pounded a little at the temples, and he pushed up from the bed, glancing behind him to see if Jude followed.
He dressed quickly, slipped his hearing aids in, and adjusted them so they’d filter out the more obnoxious sounds from being in public, then clipped Jude to his leash and jumped in the car, heading for downtown. He could see how Noah worried about him getting bored in a place like this. After a few weeks, it would be easy to exhaust what little there was to do.
He was a California boy, born and bred. He grew up with his toes in the sand, with his feet on a board, with saltwater in his ears, nose, and eyes. The Atlantic wasn’t the same as the Pacific. It was calmer, greener, softer.
