>> Kile: You available?

The text message from Kile was the last thing I expected to find when I picked my phone up from Dylan’s desk. I’d been working on transcribing our last interview and thinking about if and when we’d meet up today. Guess that answers that question, I thought. Still, the urgency in his message scared me so I fired off a response as quickly as I could.

>> Me: Like right now?

>> Kile: Yeah. We need to talk. It’s serious.

His last message certainly wasn’t helping to calm my nerves and it wasn’t like I was doing anything particularly important at the time so I hammered out a reply.

>> Me: Alright, I can head over there now.

>> Kile: Just you. No cameras.

>> Me: Got it. Be there in fifteen.

“Everything OK?” Dylan asked. He’d come back from the break room with a soda and a bag of candy. I stashed my phone in my pocket before he had the chance to see anything we’d said. I trusted Dylan but now wasn’t the time to be careless.

“Yeah. I need to go over to Avery’s place for a bit. Will you cover for me if Lee asks where I’m at?”

“Yeah, sure, as long as you promise me this isn’t for an afternoon delight,” he said.

“Now’s really not the time for that,” I said.

“I’m joking. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”

“Thanks,” I said and threw on my jacket before tearing out of the office. Thankfully, Lee was in a meeting in his office with the blinds drawn, so I darted for the door and ran to the train station. Once onboard, I read over Kile’s messages a dozen or more times while waiting for the train to get to its stop by his house, wondering what the hell was going on and why he needed to talk to me so soon—and why he didn’t want the crew to come along.

Ten minutes later, I knocked on his door with the same three knocks I always used. He flung it open and when I saw his face my stomach plummeted. Something was wrong.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“No, I’m not,” he said. “Hurry up and get in here. Did anyone see you come in?” he asked, checking the hallway for anyone who might’ve followed me.

“What? No. Why?”

“Lee knows about us. I don’t know how much he knows but he definitely knows something is up,” Kile said, retreating back to the sofa where an open fifth of vodka sat on the table in front of him. He poured himself a glass and knocked back half of it before I could stop him. As his words sank in, I found myself wanting to join him in drinking.

“Whoa, back up. What makes you think that?” I asked as I sat down in the chair across from him.

“I had lunch with him today.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“He called me at The Flame and said he wanted to catch up,” he said and the world came to a slow halt around me.

“OK, so what makes you think he knows about us? We’ve been so careful.”

“This,” Kile said, turning over the tabloid sitting on the table next to his vodka and the floor of my stomach dropped out. If I hadn’t been sitting down, I might’ve fallen over. There were several photos of us together—none of them suggesting anything good, though they weren’t hard and damning evidence, either—each of them taken during the times we’d hung out outside of work. The photos had a giant, bold headline splattered across them: ‘Have America’s Biggest Enemies Become America’s Biggest Sweethearts?’

“God damn it,” I cursed, slamming my fists into the armrests of the chair. “How did the paparazzi get these? How did they even know we were there? Fuck, Kile, I told you going out together was a bad idea!”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry! I really didn’t think anyone would know and I sure as hell didn’t think they’d be snapping pictures of us from miles away. Whoever it was, someone got a tip we were going to be at all of these places so they could take pictures and send it to the tabloids for cash. I think Lee’s having us followed or something. How else would anyone have known we were there?”

“This is insane. Are you sure he knows anything at all? Even with this rag’s photos of us he might just be trying to rattle us.”

“No, there’s no mistaking this. He knows, Jeff.”

“What did he say? Why did he tell you this and not me?” I asked and Kile’s face broke.

“What is it? I don’t care how bad it is, don’t try to sugarcoat it. We’re past that point. Just tell me,” I said, my voice’s volume much higher than I’d meant for it to be. A mixture of panic and adrenaline tore through my veins like fire.

“He tried to talk me into using our relationship in the show. He said it would help us get out in front of it before the press had a chance to spin it themselves,” Kile said, his eyes locked on the floor in front of him.

“Holy shit,” I said and my head swam as I realized how quickly and easily this had all gotten out of my control. It hadn’t even been a week since Kile and I had gone to bed together and already the paparazzi and my boss knew we were seeing each other. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the world found out too, if they didn’t know already. I should’ve known better. This was so stupid. We’re both fucked, I thought.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe how crazy this has all gotten, I had no idea it was going to go this way,” Kile said, cradling his head in his hands.

“It’s not your fault,” I said and Kile looked up at me. His eyes glistened with the start of tears that he hadn’t allowed to fall. The truth was, we’d both been at fault. I should’ve never have asked him out, or at least should never have agreed to go out together publicly, and definitely shouldn’t have kept it going by asking him to meet me at Adam’s. If anything, the blame for this fell more on my shoulders than his.

“Did Lee say anything else?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer. Kile looked away from me again and seemed to grow increasingly anxious. “Kile?” I asked.

“Yeah, he did. Look, I don’t mean to start trouble or cause any problems, I’m sure I’m overreacting…”

“What is it? What did he say?”

“It’s stupid, forget it.”

“Whatever it is, you have to tell me,” I said and he rubbed his eyes for what seemed like forever before finally looking up at me with a grimace.

“He told me you asked him to interview Walker Matthews because you were getting cold feet,” he said and I sighed. I’d had a bad feeling my interest in Walker might get back to Kile and it’d gotten to him in record time.

“I did ask Lee if I could interview Walker. But it wasn’t at all because I wanted out of working with you. Not even close,” I said. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see or work with Kile anymore, it was more so that the pressure of trying to keep our personal life out of the public eye was getting to me—and that was before it’d leaked to the press.

“Then why did you do it?” he asked.

“I know Walker and I figured I could get him to talk to me. I also thought interviewing him would help both me and NewSpin. It seemed like a no-brainer. But I didn’t think about what that might telegraph to you,” I said and stood from the chair to join him on the sofa. I wrapped an arm around him and he fell into me, his head resting against mine.

“I know it was stupid to jump to conclusions but I couldn’t help wondering if Lee was right. Honestly, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you were trying to get out of this,” Kile said. “The whole thing is a fucking mess, especially now.” I stroked his hair and shushed him.

“It’s OK. I understand,” I said. “But I want you to know that I would never have chased a story over what I have with you. I don’t know what exactly we’ve got, and I won’t pretend to understand it in the slightest, but what I do know is that I want it. I want to keep it, protect it. It’s ours, it doesn’t belong to anyone else and it’s not for anyone else to try and figure out or explain. That’s our job,” I continued.

“I’m scared, Jeff. I’m scared of the things I feel about you, scared about what happens next…”

“I’m scared, too,” I said and I damn sure meant it. Even as I tried to comfort Kile, my pulse wouldn’t settle down. I didn’t know what to do or how to handle it. On the one hand, Lee had a point. If we went public with the fact we were dating, people would go nuts over it, but it didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t want our relationship, as new as it was, to have to endure that. The odds were already stacked so much against us, and having every person in the world speculating about every little thing we said and did in public and in private—because the photos on the cover of the District Inquirer definitely wouldn’t be the last—would only make things worse.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, pulling back to look me in the eye. His were bloodshot and puffy.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think going public is the answer. There’s too much riding on this. If we do, people might feel lied to or misled and that could screw all of us,” I said. “Then again, the same could be true if we keep quiet and they find out after the fact.” He looked away and for a moment we fell quiet before he took a deep breath and found my eyes again.

“Can I ask you an honest question?”

“Of course.”

“Do you want the world to know we’re together? Like, ever?”

“What?”

“Are you embarrassed by it? I mean, I’m not exactly an ideal match for you. I don’t think anyone would have pictured the two of us together.”

“I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks. I never have and I’m not about to start now—especially not now,” I said and stroked his cheek with my thumb. A half smile appeared on his face. “So to answer your question, it’s not about whether or not I want the world to know. It’s more about what that could do to my career and to yours.”

“I don’t know. I’ve gotten lots of comments over the years telling me all I needed was a good man to show me what love was really all about. Maybe they were right. But I have to be honest, I never thought I’d fall in love again—especially not with someone twice my age,” he said and I chuckled through the fuzziness growing in my chest.

“Do you love me?” I asked, my throat suddenly dry. The word should’ve scared the hell out of me, particularly given our current predicament, but I didn’t feel afraid. If I was being totally honest with myself, I’d wondered if that was what I was feeling for him, too.

“I think so. But I don’t really know what it looks or feels like so it’s hard to tell,” he said. My hand snaked its way down to his chest, where it slipped under his shirt to rest above his heart. It beat against my palm, fast and hard.

“Your body seems to know what it feels like,” I said.

“My body might like you but my brain still very much doesn’t,” he said and I laughed.

“I know the feeling. I don’t understand what’s going on any more than you do. But it’s real, isn’t it? I’m not imagining this?”

“It’s very real,” he said, moving closer to me. His hand rested on my thigh and gave it a soft stroke. My cock swelled to life and I had to fight the urge to throw myself at him right then and there. I needed to keep my head on straight, needed to think clearly to find us a way out of this. Having sex now definitely wouldn’t help—but damn was it hard to resist.

“Maybe we should just do it. No more hiding, no more sneaking around,” he said, his face now so close to mine that I felt the heat radiating from it. “I don’t care what people think, either. All I care about is this right here, whatever this is. I’ve never felt anything like it before and as crazy as it is, it feels right,” he said and his lips grazed mine, lightly enough that I’d feel it and to entice me. It might’ve worked if it weren’t for the voice screaming in the back of my head that this was a bad idea.

“We can’t,” I said, gripping his arms and pulling him away from me though I very much wanted to pull him in the opposite direction.

“Why not? Neither of us really has anything left to lose,” he said.

“What about The Flame?”

“What about it? It won’t matter once people know I’m a fraud.”

“That’s exactly my point, though. Us going public could cost you big time, potentially your entire audience. They’ll turn on you because you won’t be one of them anymore.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want them. I want you,” he said, leaning forward to try and kiss me again and this time I didn’t fight him. His lips crashed into mine and his hands snaked their way around my neck, holding me exactly where he wanted me, while he climbed into my lap. We broke long enough for him to tear off his shirt and throw it to the floor and I couldn’t stop myself from kissing every inch of his incredible chest, from his abs up to his collarbone.

“I need you,” he groaned as he tilted his head to the side to expose his neck. I seized it with my mouth, kissing and biting it, my cock jumping at each of the moans that slipped from his mouth. They overpowered the voice of reason still screaming in the back of my head. The last thing we needed to be doing was this but I couldn’t stop myself.

“I need you, too,” I whispered, though I doubted he’d ever have any idea how true the words were.

“Then let me have you,” he said, need filling his voice. “All of you.”

“I’m yours,” I said. Saying it was the most natural thing in the world and I knew it was true. No matter what happened, good or bad, I would always be Kile Avery’s. He owned me now. As he slipped down onto the floor in front of me and unzipped my pants to pull my cock out, I realized he’d forced an opening into my heart, an opening I’d sworn I’d never allow to exist again.

“I think I might love you and I hate it,” I groaned as my cock slipped into his mouth and my hands wound themselves in his hair. The words seemed to trigger something in him, something deep, that made his sucking turn from craving to caring. His pace slowed and his tongue delicately lapped at the underside of my cock, almost as if he were making love to it with his mouth, which made me feel incredibly conflicted.

It was all so wrong and yet so right. Nothing about the two of us together made sense but with our bodies bonded like this, it didn’t seem to matter. The only thing that mattered to me in the moment was that we were together, physically and otherwise.

“Then prove it to me,” he said without looking up, his voice swollen with longing, his breath hot and electric on my cock. My resolve melted as his mouth closed around my cock again and I melted into pleasure along with it. As if he were reading my body, Kile slipped down to the base of me and hovered there for a moment, his tongue undulating to tease the underside of my cock, before pulling so slowly up to the head that the feeling was overwhelming.

Without another thought, I tore off my shirt and tossed it onto the sofa beside me. Holding him by the shoulders to keep him back, I stood and let my pants fall into a pool around my ankles before kicking them off to stand naked in front of him. He admired my body in the afternoon sun, which made me feel somewhat self-conscious and want to cover myself up again, but when my eyes met his again I could tell that what he saw about my body wasn’t the same thing I saw when I looked in a mirror.

Then he was at eye level with me again. He hurriedly unfastened the button and zipper on his pants, and when they fell his cock sparred with mine. He gripped them both and gave us a series of soft, wet, and tender strokes as he leaned forward and kissed me again so gently that the feeling was barely perceptible. My heart fluttered and goosebumps crashed across every inch of my skin.

His free hand found my chest and gave me a shove, sending us both falling back onto the sofa where again he climbed into my lap, his cock grinding against my stomach, mine against his ass. The warmth from his entrance made me swell even harder than I already was and he moaned into my ear as I guided the tip of my cock to it, swirling it in circles to tease him.

“I can’t wait. I won’t wait,” he said, climbing off of me and disappearing down the hall to his bedroom. When he returned, he had a condom and bottle of lube in his hands. He sank to his knees in front of me again, tore open the condom wrapper, and slipped it on me, his eyes never breaking contact with mine. He slathered it in lube before straddling me once more and coating his hole.

My heart thudded in my ears as he reached back and guided my cock to it before taking a deep breath and sitting back. A moan escaped me as I entered him and I clutched his hips to steady myself.

“God, yes,” he groaned, his arms wrapping around my neck. I stayed as still as possible because I didn’t want to rush things or hurt him, and because him being in control aroused me more than I would’ve ever guessed. Truthfully, he’d had control over me all along, as much as I’d tried to pretend otherwise. As I examined his face, all scrunched up and consumed with pleasure, I realized that I wanted to lose myself in it.

And then his hips rose up and his hole clamped down around me, the grip making my cock throb and forcing a guttural sound out of my mouth. When only the head of my cock remained inside, he let himself fall back down, his ass colliding with my thighs, the sudden overwhelming sensation pushing the air out of both of our lungs. His forehead crashed into mine and I wrapped my arms around his waist as yet again he rose up, agonizingly slow, only to come crashing back down.

The pace only intensified as we lost ourselves in each other, his mouth gasping and moaning into mine as I started to meet his down strokes with my own upward ones, my hands locked behind his back to hold him in place. His cock bounced and leaked on my chest with each stroke and as hard as it was he never once touched it until we were moving so quickly that nothing but the sound of our bodies slapping together filled the room.

He pulled back and I held him at an angle so that he could stroke himself and he did so at a hungry pace. His eyes half closed and his breathing pattern turned erratic and I knew he was getting close to the edge, so I took deeper, longer strokes, each plunging further than the last.

I buried myself in him to the hilt as he erupted on me, coating my chest with rope after rope of his cum. His grunts and moans filled the apartment and his head fell back as his body gave one last shudder before he swung forward and his forehead found mine again.

“That was quick,” I laughed through my own labored breathing.

“I needed it,” he said and without giving himself time to recover he rose up on me again. “Your turn,” he said, returning to our rapid pace as he bobbed up and down on my cock. He rested his head in the crook of my neck, kissing and biting it as he rode me with increasing intensity, using his every muscle to grip and twist me with increasing need. It took mere moments for the burn of my orgasm to surface.

“Slow down,” I begged, digging my fingers into his back. It felt far too good to end it all so quickly.

“No. Let yourself go. I want it,” he whispered into my ear and I knew I was lost. My cries of pleasure mixed with his as I gave him what he wanted in burst after earth-shaking burst. My eyes snapped shut and I stopped breathing as I emptied myself into him. It was so intense, so incredibly overwhelming, that I worried I might pass out if it continued, and then as suddenly as it had seized me, it released me. I gasped back into life and my eyes fluttered open to find him smiling at me, his own eyes twinkling.

“That was beautiful,” he whispered, placing a soft kiss on my lips. After gulping down a breath of air, I kissed him back, cradling his head in my hands as I did, hoping he picked up on the intensity of the feelings I felt for him in the moment. I didn’t have enough air in my lungs to form words and even if I had, I doubted I would have expressed myself adequately. When we broke he chuckled and nuzzled his nose against mine.

“I take it that means you agree,” he said and I could only nod as he stroked my shoulders and every other inch of me his hands could find. Though my pleasure had passed, he was still hungry, still wanted more, almost like he couldn’t get close enough to me.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” he laughed. Beyond screwed, I thought, laughing because it was all I could manage. Moments earlier I’d thought the best thing to do would be to nip whatever this was between us in the bud before it got serious and before the press ran wild with it, but now I doubted it was possible. I didn’t ever want to be without this, without him. But I had to.

He climbed off of me and I waddled into his bathroom to get rid of the condom. When I came back, he pulled me down to lie beside him on the sofa. He tugged my arm over his chest and held it tight, his fingers winding together with mine over his heart, the heat radiating from our bodies keeping us warm. I buried my nose in his hair, inhaled the scent of him, knowing it might be the last time for a long time. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t have the heart to tell him, especially not after what we’d just shared.

“What are you thinking?” he asked as if he’d read my mind.

“Not much. I’m pretty blank upstairs,” I lied. I couldn’t do it here. Not now. He chuckled and gripped my hand with his.

“That’s OK. Maybe we don’t need words right now,” he said.

“Yeah, maybe not,” I said, my heart deflating. The thought of ending things, even temporarily, was almost too much for me. But what other choice did I have? We couldn’t keep this going and keep it a secret, not when we’d progressed so quickly and with this kind of intensity. The tabloid photo of the two of us at the restaurant proved we couldn’t keep it a secret even at a much lower level.

Maybe this is my chance to start over, I thought. I don’t have to keep running. Kile really wants to be with me—despite everything—and I want to be with him, too. Are either of our careers really more important than that? Or am I being blind again, like with Jeremy?

“We’ll have to be more careful from now on out,” I said, my courage building as the words came out.

“I know,” he said. “What about the tabloid? What about Lee?”

“We’ll deny the photos and any requests for comment. We can put out a joint statement and say that they were taken completely out of context and published without explanation. We’ll say the photos made it look like something was going on between us that wasn’t,” I said, making it all up as I spoke.

“OK, but what about Lee? He knows and he still wants to make us out to be Romeo and Juliet in the documentary,” Kile said.

“Then we won’t give him anything else to work with. When we’re together and the cameras are rolling, both tomorrow for the last bit of the production schedule and for every little press appearance we do to promote it, we’ll be as professionally cold and distant as possible,” I said, doubting even as I said it that we could pull it off.

“And privately?”

“Privately nothing changes.”

“Where will we meet? If the tabloids suspect something is going on, they’re going to be following us now,” he said. I hadn’t even thought of that.

“Shit,” I cursed. That alone undid my entire plan. It hit me then that there wasn’t any other way out of this. We couldn’t lie, couldn’t steal away to see each other with Lee and the rest of the world watching our every move. It would only be a matter of time before another photo just like the ones already in existence sprung up and the next one might be even worse. My pulse quickened and my throat tightened as I struggled to find the words to tell Kile.

“Jeff, you can say it,” he said. “I understand. I hate it, but I understand.”

“Is that why you…?” I started and trailed off as he nodded. It made sense now. Kile had known it was over as soon as he found out about the photos of us, the same way I had known. Neither of us wanted to say it, and now maybe neither of us had to.

“It doesn’t have to be permanent,” I said quickly, trying to soften the blow—for both of us. “Maybe once all of this is over with and the attention on us has fallen off we can give it another shot.” He squeezed my hand again before lifting it to his mouth and kissing the back of it.

“You and I both know that’s not going to happen,” he said. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Why can’t it?”

“Because this problem isn’t going to just magically go away once we’re done with the documentary. If it wasn’t that, it would be something else, another job, another opportunity standing in our way. You’ve got your career and I’ve got mine and no amount of passion between us can replace either of those. Maybe it was stupid of me to think it could have ever worked out in the first place,” he said.

“No, don’t say that. Nothing about this is stupid or wrong or any of that crap,” I said, forcing myself up on an elbow to stare down at him. He rolled his head toward me and in his eyes I saw a mixture of admiration and sadness that almost crushed me. He sat up and pressed his lips against mine. We stayed that way for what seemed like forever until finally he pulled back and the look in his eyes had shifted back to the closed off and determined look I’d seen in them the first time we met.

“I’m nothing if not a realist, Jeff,” he said, his voice turned flat and emotionless.

“This doesn’t have to be the end. It isn’t the end,” I insisted and he said nothing. Instead, he sat up, retrieved his clothes from the floor and quickly dressed. “Kile, say something, don’t shut me out. Not now, not after this,” I said, fear clawing its way up my throat as I realized I was losing him when I thought I’d finally won him.

“It does and it is,” he said with his back to me. “I think it’s probably best if you go.”

“Kile, please,” I said, reaching for my own clothes.

“Don’t make this harder than it already is,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he continued, and disappeared into his bedroom, leaving me sitting in the echo of his door locking, naked, confused, and heartbroken.