Page 146 of If This Gets Out

“Don’t,” I say.

We’ve spent a lot of the past week talking about setting up a healthier boundary between him and his mom. I know it’ll be a long process, but we’ve got to start somewhere. Hopefully I can help him with it like he has helped me with my assertiveness.

He glances at me, like:I wish,and he swipes to accept it, putting her on speaker.

“Ruben,” she says. “I take it you’ve seen the Hot One Hundred?”

“Hey, Mom, Zach’s here.”

“Oh hi, Zach. I take it you’ve seen the chart?”

“I have.”

I mouth the wordshang upto Ruben.

“‘End of Everything’ is overperforming, which is good. I just wish it were a better song, Ruben, we really should’ve ironed out the flat you hit on the bridge…”

Ruben swipes across, ending the call.

“Oh god,” he says, tossing away the phone as if it burned him. “Oh fuck.”

“Hey,” I say, laughing. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not, she’s going to kill me.”

“She was ruining it. You didgreat,Ruben. Full stop.”

“You know I’m going to have to call her back, right?”

“Yeah.” I lean closer, and start kissing his neck. “It can wait, though, right?”

His eyelid flutter closed, and he moans softly.

“She’s going to be so mad at me.”

I grin. “Probably.”

He starts blushing, and it drives me wild. I start kissing down his chest, each kiss going lower. He brings a hand up, running it through his hair, and closes his eyes. He’s turned on, and it’s making me want to tear off his boxers.

“And she… oh fuck, who cares. Don’t stop.”

“There we go.”

I kiss back up, until my lips meet his.

A little while later, we’re in the shower. He has his back to me, and I’m using the new loofah he got to wash his back.

“What do you think this means?” I ask.

He looks back at me. “In what way?”

“Well, our numbers must be incredible to chart without much radio support.”

“Yeah. It’s all streaming and pure sales. Our fans are the best.”

“Plus‘Overdrive’ is still number one. So Geoff’s big worry about us coming out hurting our numbers is certifiable bullshit, and we can prove it. It puts us in a pretty strong position.”

He turns around. “What are you saying?”

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