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“Pretty good shit,” he said to me. “People really seem to like it.”
“I never had any doubts.”
“Look at this one. This says my show is a breath of fresh air for media depictions of gay celebrities,” he said, still focused on his phone screen. “I don’t know how good of a role model I am, but I’m okay with that.”
I looked down at his phone with him as he looked through article after article.
My chest tightened as he landed on one headline, though.
Kace Tomlin’s Parents Speak Out: “Not the Son I Knew.”
I darted a glance up at Kace immediately. It was almost imperceptible, but I saw the switch in his expression as he saw the article, like a cloud had just quickly darkened over his face.
“What the fuck?” he muttered under his breath. “They even found mydadso he could talk about me? He barely knew me.”
“Jesus, Kace—” I tried to say, but he was focused on the screen.
“Huh,” he said, acting nonchalant. But he remained fixed on his phone, scrolling through this article much more slowly than the others.
“You don’t want to read that right now, do you?” I asked gently, already seeing how much it had upset him.
“Dude, they didn’t evenwatchit,” was Kace’s only response, totally lost in reading the article.
He didn’t respond. I watched as he scrolled down. It was apparently an article of highlighted interviews that a conservative news website had conducted with each of his parents separately earlier this week, in anticipation of theLife of Tomlinpremiere. It was the first time either of his parents had said anything publicly about their son, and it didn’t look pretty.
One line that stood out to me was from his mother. “It’s like something has possessed our son to be someone else. Someone we didn’t raise to be this way. Those awful videos he posts on the internet. We will always hold out hope that Kace will turn his life back around, to be back on the right path. But until he is, we remain distanced from him.”
I swallowed hard, wishing I could tear the phone out of Kace’s hands. With each word he read, his expression hardened. He flipped to Twitter next, searching for the article and seeing that it was going a little bit viral, with lots of outrage about it from Kace’s fans. But there was a small amount of conservative support for his parents.
My stomach turned. “Fucking awful, Kace,” I said.
“No skin off my back,” he said, finally locking his phone and shoving it back in his pocket. I could tell he was lying. He glanced toward me, the usual sparkle behind his eyes nowhere to be seen. “I’ll be back in a bit, Nathan. Okay?”
I just nodded, unsure of what else to do. He disappeared quickly, able to slip out into the backyard past the small crowd and cameras near Charlie. It was like I’d just entered some sort of Bizarro world. Charlie was suddenly getting attention that he’d never had and always wanted. Kace was spiraling inward, goingawayfrom the party where he was usually the central hub.
Something flared inside me as I watched everything unfolding around me.
I didn’twantto just be in the background, for this moment. I didn’t want to just some neutral bystander, waiting for someone else to take action.
I was fucking worried about Kace after what happened.
I broke off and went into the backyard, trying to find him. The party had started slowly moving out, and people were just starting to gather on the chairs around the pool and fire pit. But I didn’t spot Kace in any of the groups, and he wasn’t by the pool or hot tub or in the sauna.
I turned onto the path that led to the guest house, and it was only a few seconds before I spotted him there, just pacing in place behind a cluster of trees. He saw me and immediately got a look of relief on his face.
“You don’t have to be out here,” he said, waving me off. “Go have fun. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Kace, what your parents said in that article is bullshit,” I told him firmly, still walking toward him. “It’s bullshit that either of them agreed to do that interview at all.”
His expression was even more pained than before. “I just want to be alone.”
I challenged his gaze, lifting my eyebrows as I stepped in close to him. I could smell his scent again, and already it was driving me crazy. Even when I wasn’t turned on at all—when sex was the furthest thing from my mind—something still felt so good about being near him. Like every time we got close, something calmed down inside my body.
“If you really don’t want me around, I’ll turn back right now,” I offered gently. “But I don’t think that’s true.”
I had seen how relieved he’d seemed when he realized it was me coming up toward him on the path. I wouldn’t have been so confident with anyone or anything else, but with him, I’d come to know when he really wanted something.
“Fine,” he said, the hurt in his eyes almost palpable. “I do want you around. But I also really just want you to kiss me, and Ishouldn’twant that, and we just agreed we aren’t going to be doing that kind of thing anymore—”
