I chewed my lip, and Atlas continued his lecture about talking to him first before I did anything stupid, and I tried to listen, but it was just noise and a lot of things he’d said before.
“… agreed?” he finished. “Finn? Do you agree?”
“With what?” I asked. There was no way I was going to be fooled into agreeing to something I hadn’t even heard. That was how I ended up eating a gallon of ice cream when I was ten and losing the lot over my teacher at the school nativity.
“Dinner with Natalie Hager, somewhere in the spotlight, somewhere up market. Okay?”
I sighed. He cursed me out.
Natalie was lovely, another one of Atlas’ actors, a veteran of daytime soaps like me, and now entrenched into a string of superhero movies. She was gay as well, so it was a mutual thing to be each other’s backup, but at the previous public dinner to show how straight we were, she’d admitted she was tired of hiding.
I was tired of hiding.
Only I didn’t know how to explain that to anyone, or for it to be in a safe space where what I said wouldn’t leak.
“Sure,” I said, “text me the details, and I’ll pick her up.” I’d arrive at the restaurant, step out of my bright yellow Lamborghini, wearing designer stuff, the right watch, my hair would be screen-perfect, and I’d be the faultless straight gentleman I needed to be.
The call ended, and I stared at my cell for a few moments, replaying all the highs and lows of a shitty conversation.
The studio wanted me for Ladybug 2.
I wasn’t allowed to tarnish my reputation if I had any hope of making it to a level where my sexuality be damned.
But most of all… had I really been staring at Cameron as if I could eat him?
I opened the TMZ app, something I avoided doing unless I could help it, scrolled past stories about Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, a soap star in rehab, and a TikTok of Miley Cyrus and a squirrel, and then there I was, fifth one down.
Finn Kerrigan and unknown man in exotic dancer showdown.
“Man? He’s not just a man; he’s Cameron freaking Chavkin,” I muttered, then scrolled the story.
According to the journalist, I’d gone from salivating over naked women, straight through to making eyes at Cameron. All while refusing to sign autographs, telling people to leave me alone, and being a diva by ordering champagne they didn’t have.
The fuck?
The last line was a kicker. Sources confirm the anonymous man is Cameron Chavkin, star of the LA Storm, the hockey team that recently lost to the Boston Rebels in the finals. More to follow.
I checked the photos and winced. Yep, that was definitely me staring up at the stripper, but I’d been staring because I was curious, I mean, how do they keep those tassels on? And the girls were so flexible—I wish I was that flexible, but I was all about the muscle needed for parts and less about the bendy bits. Also, I was possibly the single Hollywood holdout who didn’t do yoga.
And yep, the second photo was me staring at Cameron. I zoomed in as far as I could to check out my expression because I don’t recall staring at him in anything other than a friendly way, but the picture was a little grainy so I zoomed back out.
It was a perfectly innocent photo, and less worrying than the time I’d been caught naked next to the pool in my backyard, by a paparazzi drone flying at three hundred feet. The resulting picture had been good, and it was gratifying that the publication the pap sold it to, had used a ton of pixilation to cover my cock, which was no slouch in the size department.
Well, so said most of social media, anyway.
I opened another tab to check for stories of Cameron sleeping with anything that moved, Atlas’ words, not mine—but immediately closed it down. We all deserved our privacy, including Cameron stud Chavkin.
Who I was not staring at in the club photo, with sex on my mind and heart eyes.
I’m not that easy.
Oh shit.
I’m way too easy.
Cameron was so sexy, that I couldn’t help but stare, and I bet the sex in my head was front and center with the hearts in my eyes. I’d arrived at the private rink I’d hired, in my less obvious SUV with the tinted windows, parked up next to a similar SUV with custom plates and headed inside, dragging the bag of what Cameron had said I’d needed to buy. Which was a lot.
He’d sent me the list, as well as a copy of the NDA Atlas had made him sign. It was embarrassing how long I’d stared at his strong signature while spinning stories of how Finn might look with a spiky surname like Chavkin. I could do amazing things with the K in that last name.
And now I was here in a locker room that smelled a little funky, and yes, I was staring at the sex god himself.
“And this is what we call a cup,” Cameron explained, and thrust something at me.
“I’ve played sports, I know what a cup is,” I defended as I took it from him, and he rolled his eyes.
“Strip to your underwear and I’ll go through what we need to do to get ready.”
“Okay, yeah, method acting, I like that.”
He was already dressed, but not in LA Storm colors, which I now knew were purple and blue. Instead, he wore a generic black jersey, no name, no number, and mine hanging up, was white. If this was a movie, then he’d be wearing black to indicate that he was bad to the core, but in real life it just made his smoky eyes pop, and his lips seem even more lush.
Of course, me wearing white was all about my purity, and innocence.
Which was diametrically opposite to the lust uncurling inside me.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
I started, and undressed rapidly down to my jersey boxers, and then held the cup to my groin, staring down at it.
“It’s not going to cover your junk by magic,” Cameron said, and reached forward to help me. I scrambled away because I was already half hard, and the idea of Cameron anywhere near my dick didn’t bear thinking about.
“What do you feel when you put yours on?” I asked instead, and he stared at me.
“I’m sorry?” He frowned.
“Like your motivation in the scene,” I expanded.
“My motivation is not letting a one hundred mile an hour puck crush the boys,” he said.
“Well obviously, your boys are very nice, and uhm… important.” I gestured at his groin, and then sat back in the cubby, knowing damn well my cheeks would be bright red soon. “But I mean, what are you feeling when you put it on.”
“Like my cock is way too big to fit in a tiny space?” he deadpanned, then gestured at his groin before making a shape with his hands that I assume was an indication of his unfeasibly large penis.
And there I go, heat in the cheeks, and thoughts fleeing my mind.
“Are you excited?” I blurted.
“About shoving my cock in a jock strap? Not particularly.”
“So, it’s a necessity, just a stage you go through to get ready, a safety thing. Your excitement for the game, or your focus, doesn’t start until…” I left him to fill in the blanks, and for a moment I thought he’d explain. Only he didn’t. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest, and stared down at me.
“Put on the freaking jock strap, Hollywood.”
“With you watching?” I asked in shock.
“There’s no such thing as modesty in a locker room,” he said.