Page 77 of Rival for Rent

“It’s not your fault,” I said sharply. “I’m the one who put it online.”

“And you’re also the one who took it down. It’s not your fault someone’s targeting you.”

I shook my head. “Thing is, I don’t even think making the video was morally wrong. It was stupid, but it wasn’t evil.”

“So say that. Make that your statement. Say you were young, you regret it, you’ve moved on. Celebrities deal with sex tape scandals all the time.”

“I can’t,” I snapped. “You don’t get it. You’re straight. When you’re gay or trans or whatever, people are always waiting for you to fuck up. Waiting to tear you down. You think they’ll let this go? Some fag with a sex tape wants to open a youth center? I’ll get accused of grooming, or worse. I’m surprised it hasn’t started already.”

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” He slid onto the bed beside me and pulled me into him—and that’s when I realized I was shaking.

“It’s not okay,” I said. “I could lose everything.”

“You won’t. But even if you do, you can start again.”

“I don’t want to start again. I liked my life. I was doing good things with my money. Now no one will touch me.”

I was too exhausted to cry again, but my body shook anyway. I let Mason hold me, even if it felt like pity. I didn’t want to be alone.

We stayed like that for a while, pressed together in silence. Eventually, Mason said, “You’re right that I don’t understand. But for the record, I don’t think I’m straight.”

I pulled away to look at him. I hadn’t expected that admission. I’d figured he was more of ado it in secret and deny it to your facekind of guy.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Huh.” I tilted my head. “Your first time with a guy, and you’re already rethinking everything?”

He laughed. “Who says you were my first time?”

I blinked at him. “Wait—I’m not?”

Something bloomed in my chest, sour and sharp. Not shame. Not even frustration. Jealousy.

Some other guy had gotten to be Mason’s first. Some other guy had been there before me. When Mason thought about being with a man, it wasn’t only me he thought about.

“I told you I was in the Marines,” he said, like that explained everything.

“Yeah, but you never mentioned…that. Do you have, like, an ex-boyfriend or something?”

“No, nothing like that. It was never emotional. Just physical. You’re cooped up, far from home, no one knows what you’regoing through except the people around you. Sometimes you need a release. It never meant anything.”

The words landed like a punch to the gut.Never meant anything.That’s how he saw us too, didn’t he?

“Is that why you never talk about your time in the military?” I asked. “You don’t want people to know?”

“No.” He shook his head. “That’s different.”

“Different how?”

He looked at me for a long moment, then lay back against the pillows and stared at the far wall.

“I told you I enlisted for the money. That’s true. But I also had these ideas about honor and service. Helping people. I knew I wasn’t that smart, and I think I was trying to push down what I remembered from high school. But I also knew I wasn’t a nice guy. I thought if I signed up, maybe I could make up for some of that. Spread democracy, help stabilize war-torn regions, make it possible for girls to go to school and their parents to have clean water.”

He made a disgusted sound in his throat and shook his head. “You want to talk about stupid? I was the one who was stupid. I bought into their whole spiel about being a force for good. Swallowed it whole. I was a dumb kid who wanted to matter and didn’t think it through.”

“Was it really that bad?” I asked, a wave of unexpected compassion rising up so deep and wide I thought it might drown me.

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