Page 37 of Cocky Bastard

“Yeah. He’s, er, he’s been saying a lot of the same things. And I figured since he used to cover for us, he deserves the chance to gloat a little.”

“Did every other fucker know something we didn’t?”

“Maybe? I think it’s more like we were too stubborn to notice.”

“That’s probably it,” I said. “I’m glad we noticed now, though.”

“Me too,” he said. “Took us long enough.”

I grinned. “Could’ve taken longer if you’d wanted.”

“Nah, this is good.”

We sat in silence for a minute, enjoying the sounds of the garden and life beyond the wall. It was a moment of peace in our otherwise busy lives.

“Show me your suits then,” Kanan said, standing up and holding out his hand to pull me up. “I want to see what options you’ve got.”

“Don’t you trust me to look sexy for you?”

“I do, but I still want to see.”

I grinned and picked up my mug and the empty plates to take them back to the kitchen. “You just wanna see me in my underwear, don’t you?”

Kanan gasped playfully, leaning over to kiss me. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because you’re a horny bastard who loves looking at my body? You can admit it. I know I’m hot.”

“Hot and an asshole, you’re the complete package!”

I laughed and kissed him again. “Hey, you chose me!”

“I guess I did,” he said with a smile that told me this really was so much more than we’d ever dreamed it could be.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kane

I squeezedAustin’s hand tightly as we prepared to step onto the short red carpet in front of a huge promotional banner and a crowd of hungry journalists. Nerves bubbled in my stomach and it felt like the waistband of my suit trousers was digging in horribly. The collar of my shirt was also choking me, and I didn’t know if I’d somehow been dressed in the worst-fitting suit of all time or if my anxiety was making me hyper-aware of my clothes.

I wasn’t afraid of introducing Austin to the press or announcing our relationship. It was more the whole presenting our relationship to the world and knowing that people would judge us.

I’d never been in a public relationship that wasn’t approved by a label or publicity team, and with Luke I hadn’t really cared how people reacted because our relationship wasn’t real. Nothing the fans or the media had said had bothered me because they were more invested in the relationship than I was. Luke and I had been friends and that was it, and kissing him, holding hishand, or putting my arm around his shoulder had only been part of the act.

Luke had once joked that our relationship had given me the best acting lessons in chemistry available because we’d both known we had to sell the whole charade and sell it well. And both our fans had been dedicated enough to know if something was off—which had always been a little creepy and invasive, but at least it had taught me how to fake it with someone.

But things were different with Austin.

This relationship was real and so were my feelings, at a level that almost scared me. I’d never imagined feeling like this about anyone, let alone the man I’d been hooking up with and bitching about for the last ten years. Although in hindsight, maybe this outcome had been inevitable given everything we’d been through. But that inevitability didn’t make my feelings any less real or all-encompassing. In fact, it almost made them more intense. Like a tidal wave had finally been released from the dam that had been holding it back.

I knew people were going to say shit and I’d already muted a ton of keywords on my secret social media accounts to block out everything. But I also knew someone was probably going to say something to my face, and it’d take everything in my power not to tell them to get fucked.

Austin had promised me over and over that it didn’t bother him, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I believed him. It had to hurt knowing people judged him so harshly for doing porn, especially when those same people were probably going to go home and jerk off to whatever subscriptions or videos they’d got bookmarked. It was so fucking hypocritical that I wanted to scream.

Maybe I would.

Or maybe I’d just start asking pointed questions to whatever journalist was trying to dig and cause trouble about whether they’d ever watched porn themselves.

It might not get me very far or make me very popular, but it would get my point across.

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