Of all the things I expected him to say—rage, judgment, a polite but firm “get the hell out”—that wasn’t on the list.
“Am I… what?”I croaked, my throat scratchy.
“Okay,” Jack repeated, softer this time, like he was asking a kid who’d just fallen off a bike.
I opened my mouth to answer.Nothing came out.I shut my eyes instead, willing myself not to break apart right there in their office.
For just a second, it all came rushing back.The three of us crammed into Jack’s dorm room, passing around cheap whiskey and laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe.Liam ordering pizza with whatever ridiculous accents we dared him to use that week.Me and Jack stumbling back from some frat party at two in the morning, both of us buzzed and cocky, singing along to whatever terrible song was playing from someone’s Bluetooth speaker.Liam sitting on the floor during finals week, surrounded by color-coded index cards, swearing he was going to die of stress while we pelted him with Cheetos to cheer him up.
God, we’d been happy once.Stupid and broke, but happy.
I opened my eyes again, and everything in front of me felt heavier.More real.
“No,” I finally said, dragging the word out of my chest like it weighed fifty pounds.“Not really.”
I swallowed hard and pushed forward before I lost my nerve.
“Since I got out… it’s been rough.I can’t find steady work.No one wants to hire a felon.I’ve been living out of this disgusting hostel, and I’ve already had to fight off one bedbug infestation and two attempted robberies.”I forced out a bitter laugh.“My parents won’t even answer my calls.Haven’t spoken to them since sentencing day.”
I picked at a loose thread on my jeans, staring at it like it held the secret to surviving this conversation.
“I just…” I took a breath.“I need a job.Anything.I’ll take whatever you’ve got.Sweep floors.Take out the trash.File paperwork.Whatever.”
Jack and Liam exchanged a look.
I hesitated, suddenly remembering a very important detail that I probably should’ve addressed sooner.
“Well, you know,” I added quickly, my face flushing, “not in front of the camera.I’m not a… um… good actor.”
For half a second, neither of them reacted.
Then both of them cracked up at the exact same time.
Full-on, bent-over, shoulders-shaking laughter.
I stared at them like they’d both lost their damn minds.“What?What’s so funny?”
Jack wiped at his eyes, still grinning.“Bradley… we make porn.Being a great actor is… optional at best.”
Liam nodded, biting his lip to stifle another laugh.“The bar is literally ‘can you form coherent sentences and aim for the right body parts.’”
I choked on a startled half-laugh of my own, equal parts relieved and humiliated.
Liam sobered up first, switching back to business mode.“But seriously… behind the camera… we don’t really have anything open right now.”
I felt my stomach drop.
“Yeah,” Jack added, scratching the back of his neck.“We sort of filled our last available… uh… non-essential role when we invented a fake job for Petyr.”
“Fake job?”I repeated.
Jack grinned, almost fond.“Yeah.Dimitri, remember him?He works for us now.Security.Logistics.A little of everything, really.”
“I saw him.And… that other guy,” I said quickly, remembering the older man perched like a judgmental owl on the front desk.
Jack laughed.“That’s Petyr.Dimitri’s partner.And when I say partner, I mean… capital P, like, love story to end all love stories partner.Dimitri begged us to give Petyr a role here, so we made him the… uh… Studio Compliance Officer.”
Liam smirked.“Which is code for ‘give him a clipboard so he feels important.’”
