Page 14 of Filtration Play
“She did. I just need…well, fucking everything, apparently. Who the fuck uses social media anyway? Websites? Don’t even know her.”
“Mm, you’re better posting in kink forums, especially with some of the explicit artwork.” Meg skimmed over the photos. “Why the fuck have you been hiding this from everyone, Fin? This is spectacular work.”
“Ew, bile’s rising in my throat.” Fin wasn’t lying per se. Meg’s kindness wasn’t new, but they still hadn’t figured out ways to tolerate it. Usually by bratting out. “I can’t be vomiting all over the place when I have to pull a marketing plan out of my ass.”
“You know Noles can help you with that whole mess, right?” Meg said. “If you stick around a little longer, I’ll drag him out from the back. He’s working on the week event update here.”
“Ugh, no pulling strings. This is just a dumb project of mine.” Fin scrubbed their face.
“None of that shit,” Meg said, their Dom voice sharp as a whip. “It’s not dumb, and you’re not going to devalue your work.”
“Oooh, talk dirty to me more, babe,” Fin teased, even though their chest warmed.
Meg arched a brow. “Right, like you’d submit to me in a million years.”
“We’d have fun trying, though, right?”
Meg snorted. “No, I’d snap and throttle you.”
A laugh burst from them. “Fuck, you’re right. Guess I better go bug Noles, then. T-minus a month until I’m showing the world.” Gag. They wrinkled their nose and tried to ignore the way their stomach attempted to cannibalize itself.
“Better get to it.” Meg flicked them in the shoulder and rose. She blew Fin a kiss, then walked to the counter, where Micah spoke to Greg and Hera.
Leaving Fin with the problem of their own creation.
They were on the precipice of something they’d secretly wanted for a long, long while but also dreaded.
No time like the present to dive in. They just needed to find a muse for their next photo set.
Damn shame they hadn’t gotten Ollie’s number.
Chapter Five
Ollie would just go in and get a coffee.
A week had passed since his night with Fin, and he hadn’t been able to get them off his mind. Not because they were a hottie with a killer Ducati and whiplash grin, but because of the sort of rough play they’d done together, how in that single night, Ollie had felt possessed, valued, seen in a way he craved—fuck.
He needed more.
And they’d told him where to find them.
The breeze filtered through, all exhaust and promise, and he drank it in. The past week, he’d been trapped in a cycle of work and home, desperate for human contact, and yet now that the time had come to go to themunch, he was terrified.
This wasn’t the familiarity of Tabletop Tavern, where everyone knew him thanks to Julian. No, here, he’d be establishing himself on his own. And he didn’t know yet if that was good or bad.
The sign for Whipped stood out at the end of the block, the black script and a whip, and rainbow flags hung ostentatiously out front. The cafe made it brazenly clear what they were about, which reminded him a little of Fin’s attitude. If only he could approach the world that way. For years, he’d crammed himself into boxes, trying to fit in. And not a single time had he found the right group for him. In the family, he was the youngest, the kid who always got in trouble. On the football team, he’d had to bite his tongue over and over until he exploded because the toxic assholes there brought out the worst in him. At work, he kept to himself and focused on the cars, even though his coworkers weren’t bad. And Julian’s friends still viewed him as the little brother.
He walked up the steps, his shoulders locking up tight. The itch rose, the one he needed to manage, but he wrestled it down. If the vibe in Whipped was garbage, he’d grab a coffee, head out, and nurse his disappointment by catching the Packers game at a bar.
The moment he stepped in, the aroma of coffee and vanilla wafted his way. While Fin had mentioned a gathering, Ollie wasn’t prepared for the amount of people crammed into this coffee shop. The tables along the back were filled with groups of folks chatting. The crowd here clearly all knew one another based on their casual touches and laughter, and he didn’t have the first clue as to where to break in.
His stomach sank. Guess he’d snag a coffee and then hit the football game later.
He walked up to the counter, where a cutie in a pink crop top who had gorgeous curls flashed a grin at him.
“Here for a drink or the munch?” the guy asked, his hazel eyes sparking with curiosity.
That was the question, wasn’t it. His palms broke into a sweat. He didn’t see Fin, and he didn’t know anyone here. And honestly, today he wasn’t bold enough to cold-introduce himself to strangers.
