Page 56 of For Pleasure Or Worse

The corner of my mouth lifted and I pushed a sigh through my nostrils. "Yeah, well, not much to hear right now. Tal and I haven't had sex in weeks."

"Your job is having sex with her."

"That's not the same thing. That's not us. That's whatever character we're playing at the moment. I'm talking about her and me rolling around in the hay, having sex just to fuck. Not to film."

"That's not helping your stress levels."

"You fucking think?"

"We'll be in Vegas soon, Cap. You'll have a whole weekend to make up for lost time. It's gonna be fine. I'm here if you need me."

“I know the girls probably chat every day, but could you tell Ophelia that Tally’s having a rough time? She won’t say it for herself. Maybe she can talk some sense into her that I can’t.”

“Sure thing, man,” Pike replied. "See you in Vegas in a couple weeks. Happy Easter."

"Happy Easter,” I returned. “Later."

Before I went back inside I sat on my conversation with Pike. I wanted to be better, for myself and for Tally, and the only person who could help me…was me. That first step, as scary and uncertain as it felt, was necessary. I knew my harmless work secret had a time limit, and after that ran out, life would go back to normal. My house would feel like a home again, my fiancée would be my wife, and my life would be truly beginning. I was ready for that. More than ready for it. It was just a matter of getting there in one piece.

chapter nineteen

Natalia

I had always beena bed rotting queen. Mateo woke up before me every single day, Frankie even earlier than him when he still lived in the house. For the last few months I’d faked a morning routine several days out of the week to keep up my bank teller charade with the Durans, when all I wanted to do was stay in the comfort and warmth of my bed sheets until noon. But for the better part of this morning, my in-laws had been away on a boat tour with the neighbors and I was free.

Free to lie in bed and watch reality TV while shoving my face with food I definitely shouldn’t be eating this close to my wedding. It also meant catching up on the film schedule. In the last month we’d lost over a thousand unique subscribers to the page. I was getting emails from clients requesting refunds on bookings we hadn’t had a chance to get to yet, and DMs on our social media profiles asking if we’d broken up in response to Matty’s scarce appearances.

It was hard not to feel resentment about how late he’d been working and how it was negatively affecting the cam business because I’d never had to share my time with him before. One simple hire could give me my partner back. According to Mateoit was much more complicated than that, but that didn’t make the stress any easier.

Even sleeping didn’t come easy. When I did, I'd only reach that first level of unconsciousness, where my brain wouldn't shut off completely and I would have dreams about falling off roller coasters or slipping through quicksand, or trying to punch a murderer in the face and my hand dissolving into Jell-O every time it made contact.

The longer I stayed in bed in the mornings, the longer I could avoid walking out into the living room and having a conversation with someone. It wasn't that I didn't want to bond with Mateo's parents anymore—they’d loosened up significantly since my father's catastrophic failure of a birthday party, probably taking pity on me—but my body didn't physically hold the energy for socialization.

The soles of my feet rubbed back and forth like a grasshopper over the soft cotton sheets in our king-size bed. I reached over blindly searching for Mateo’s body, unsurprised to find him already gone. It was Thursday, the day before we left for Vegas and he was rushing to finish a last-minute installation. He promised that after this he was totally free from any work for our joint bach weekend. I was holding out hope that a long few days away from home was all we needed to rekindle the spark that had been missing between us emotionally and intimately.

Sun spilled in from a crack in the curtains and my phone started vibrating from somewhere underneath my heaps of pillows and blankets. I rooted around until I found it and squinted at the screen, seeing it lit up with the only person in the world I wanted to talk to at that moment.

"Phee!" I sat up, dazed and bedraggled. Ophelia’s perfectly put-together face appeared in a video box on the screen. She was wearing a striped sweater and a lanyard around her neck, and aschool smartboard was turned on behind her. She was likely in her classroom waiting for her students to arrive for the day.

"Good morning, sunshine." She cackled. “Sorry to wake you up at ten in the morning.” Her skin was glowing, long brown hair swept up in a bun as her concerned blue gaze studied me.

"I need my beauty sleep."

She hummed. “Mateo might have mentioned something to Frankie about you living in a cave in your bedroom and making little voodoo dolls of your family members. So I figured a wellness check was due before tomorrow.”

"Does my dad have salami-sized nipples yet?"

Ophelia swept a piece of dark hair out of her face and frowned sympathetically. "He might."

“Good,” I huffed. “God, I can't believe I'm getting married in a month." There was no excitement at all in my voice. The process had completely drained me of it. At that point I didn’t care about the details anymore, or the guests. I was counting down the days until it was over and my life could return to something resembling normalcy.

"Tell me what's going on," Ophelia said warmly.

I dropped back into the pillows and stared at the ceiling. "I think this is a bigger dick than I can suck."

"I think the saying is 'I bit off more than I could chew.’”

"Is it?"

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