Page 73 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

“Only guys who swallow my cum.”

I bit down on my tongue. Before I could respond Max started his blender going with some godawful mixture of greens, protein, and fruits, the loud sound filling the air in his home. I headed out and grabbed the equipment for the security system, bringing it out to the front porch and getting started on the installation.

I worked for about an hour in peace. The sky overhead was overcast, slowly darkening as the morning went on. Max went for a run, and I worked in silence. It was an easy setup for the cameras in the back and front, and after I’d gotten them in place I headed back inside to finish connecting them to the network.

Max was back soon after, sweat glistening all over as he breathed heavy after the run.

“That was quicker than I expected,” he said.

“Not quite finished yet. I need your phone.”

He pulled it out and tossed it next to where I was sitting on the couch. “Going to shower off.”

He disappeared into the bathroom and I heard the water running a moment later.

Max had left me with his unlocked phone and the temptation to check out his photos or leave a nude photo of my own was massive.

He was too trusting.

Exactly why he needed things like the security system in the first place.

I’d only been setting up the app on his phone for a minute before notifications started popping up at the top of his screen. My eyes scanned over the private messages, all from people who were fans of his cocktail videos. Some of them were the usual, normal type of comments that people left on recipe videos—saying they tried the drinks, or that Max was creative, or that the drink sounded weird but amazing.

My eyes skipped over those messages, though.

There were a fewotherones that were a whole lot less innocent. That was what caught my attention.

“Do you post on OnlyFans? Pls send feet or cock.”

“Hi big boy.”

“I’m visiting Tennessee, I will destroy your tight little twink ass at the Hard Spot, Cocktail Bro.”

My blood boiled when I saw the last one.

So many people knew exactly where Max worked, and some creeps would stop at nothing to get to him. He always acted so sweet and lightly flirty in all of his videos, and of course he always looked so good that it was only natural that anyone would want to lick every inch of him.

I clicked on the message from the last guy and went to his profile, my blood pressure rising the more I scrolled through his page.

He had quite a commenting history.

And a lot of it was on young men’s pages. But even more of it was on martial artists’ pages that seemed to be teaching people how to subdue other people.

The kind of thingsIused to study like it was my full-time job. I only ever grappled with people who were consenting to it, typically—people who wanted to fight just as much as I did.

But based on this commenter’s sloppy message history, I added him to the growing list of threats to Max.

Max had left the bathroom door open a crack. I headed over and started to push it open, then remembered the way he’d reacted this morning and reached up to knock instead.

Look how polite Bestens is making me.

“What?” he called out from the shower.

I pushed inside, entering the small, steam-filled room. He was behind the glass enclosure of the shower, which was fogged up with enough water that I couldn’t make out more than a vague image of his figure.

“Hey. We need to talk about something.”

“Can you give a guy five more minutes to shower?”

---