Page 30 of Get A Fix

I smiled at him and got a trace of one in return. “So then what?”

“Then he was all over me, and I was so pissed because right then I knew he’d made a choice he couldn’t come back from.”

“How so?”

He squinted at me.

“No, I know what he did. I just want to hear what you were thinking.”

“I thought, shit, Burke, after this I’ll never be able to trust you again, and even more than that, when I tell you no, you won’t be able to look at me again.”

“You weren’t afraid he’d hurt you?”

“No. Plus, I can defend myself. I lived in North Hollywood, and my next-door neighbors were crackheads.”

“So you’re a badass,” I said with a grin.

“No, but I can get one guy off me even when I’m not really awake.”

“So he wanted you, you said no, and then what?”

“Then he tried to make me do what he wanted for a minute, and I kicked him in the balls, probably harder than I needed to, but again, I’d just woken up.”

“He tried to assault you.”

“He tried to manhandle me, which I do very much like. I guess he spied on me in the past and knew that rough isn’t necessarily bad.”

“And then?”

“Then I turned on the lights, asked him if he was drunk or stoned or whatever, and he got mad and tried to blame it all on me, and that wasn’t gonna fly because I know who I flirt with and who I don’t.”

“He thought you’d been flirting with him?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe it was convenient in that moment, but as I predicted, he said sorry like a million times and went back to his room. It was a mess.”

“What’d you do?”

“I woke up Daniella Russo, Dani, at three in the morning, and she came stomping down the hall from her suite to mine in supercute sleep shorts, bunny slippers, an oversize T-shirt of her husband’s, and a bunny sleep mask with ears.”

Daniella Russo had gotten an Academy Award for Best Actress last year for starring alongside Ash in Shadow and Soul. She had thanked him in her speech and hugged and kissed him when she got back to her seat. They were, by all accounts, very good friends. Her husband apparently loved it when she made movies with Ash, and when a reporter had been snide, saying, well, of course, because he was gay, Apollo Guzman said no, it was because he loved and respected his wife. The reporter had not shown his face for a bit after that.

I smiled and put my fingers in his hair, addicted already to touching him. “So she slept with you so you’d feel safe.”

“I mean, I didn’t feel unsafe, and I locked the door,” he said, closing his eyes, savoring my fingers tracing over his brows, his lashes, down his nose. “But I had no idea what was going on in his head, so yeah, I knew if he broke in for some reason, Dani being there would end whatever he had planned before it started. He wasn’t going to do anything in front of her.”

“What happened in the morning?”

“In the morning he was gone,” he said with a sigh, tipping his head up so I could touch the vulnerable skin on his throat. “He emailed me his resignation, and that’s the last I’ve heard from him.”

“Have you reached out?”

“I tried to call, but I’m not going to leave messages or email him. I’ve learned that communication that you think is clear can be misconstrued.”

“I’m sorry that people have taken advantage of you.”

He opened his eyes to look at me. “I haven’t been taken advantage of, but I’ve had to involve lawyers, and that’s always a pain.”

“Do you have any concerns that he took video or pictures of you when you were with other men?”