I nodded. “And I told you at the time, never bet on interstate rivalries. Those always get weird. Anything can happen. Guys play harder when it’s a rival.”
“Next time I’ll listen.”
“No, you won’t.” I patted his shoulder, turning for my truck.
“Later. Nice to see you, Charlie.”
“You, too, Tom,” I heard my friend and employee say jovially in return.
Once we were in my pickup, I cranked up the heater; January in Nevada was cold, not like the Midwest, but still arctic to me, and I was not a fan of freezing. Charlie slid into the passenger side and locked the door, putting his gloved hands next to the heater.
“Next year I’m going to Hawai’i or something,” I grumbled.
“Leo.”
I turned my head to look at him.
“Did your friend Brian tell you why I quit doing porn?”
I leaned back, having been ready to put the car in reverse but realizing he wasn’t ready to go. “He told me what he thought, what a lot of people think.”
He nodded. “Has he seen it?”
“Yes.”
“Does he own it?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
He cleared his throat. “Did he show it to you?”
“I think he wanted to, but I don’t wanna see you having sex any more than I wanna see Tom doing it, you know?”
I had meant for him to laugh, but he wasn’t.
“It’s called Rough Love.”
“Yeah, Brian said.”
“I think having ‘love’ anywhere in the title is the funniest thing ever.”
I had no idea what I should say. He was staring straight ahead, but I didn’t think he was seeing the strip mall we were currently parked in. I had a feeling he was looking at a whole other scene playing out in his head.
“’Cause it had nothing to do with love.” He started trembling ever so slightly.
“Charlie.” I said his name softly.
“Did he tell you about it?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “After they fucked me, I just lay there, and they all took turns kissing me everywhere, like all of us were lovers and it was part of it.”
I wished I had been there to protect him, and I really wished he would stop sharing.
“That’s not in the final cut of the movie, but Doran has the footage to show to the cops if I ever say anything. But really, who would believe that a porn star got raped, gangbanged by a bunch of guys he’d been with in one way or another in a ton of other movies? I mean, how ridiculous is that? How could it possibly have been rape?”
My heart hurt. “Charlie—”
“And they all used protection, so—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut him off, hand on the back of his head. “They hurt you, and they should suffer for that, but that’s up to you, Charlie. You are the only one who—”
“I went to a porn convention in Vegas,” he interrupted me, and his voice sounded like I had never heard it before, flat and dead. “That’s why I was in Nevada in the first place. Remember you asked me when you interviewed me? ‘What brings you to Nevada, Mr. Ryerson?’” he repeated the question from years ago. “I think I told you I had gone to Vegas to gamble, but I lied. I was in Vegas to kill Doran Lear.”
I stared at his beautiful profile, the chiseled features, the high cheekbones, and his impossibly thick eyelashes. He really was the most stunning man, and the outside was hiding an inside of hurt.
“I took the gun I bought before I left, right after it happened, and I was going to shoot Doran, but when I had my chance, when… I chickened out. And how could I not go through with it? I mean, he planned it, he’s the one who talked my boyfriend into it, and he filmed it all and sold it, and people buy it and look at it and see me as a whore—”
“Fuck,” I groaned, pulling him sideways against my chest, tucking his face into my shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Charlie. It’s not a bad thing to trust; you just gotta find the right people, you know? And I promise you that most of the people who watch that video think it’s staged. They think you’re hot, they don’t think you’re pathetic, because it’s all an act. Only you and the guys in it know what really happened.”
He shifted against me, turning, tipping his head back so his lips brushed over my throat, his hands clutching at my sweater.
“And maybe even some of the guys that were there didn’t really know what was going on.”
His lips parted, and his breath was warm on the side of my neck.
“I bet your boyfriend had no idea. I bet he called and called after to find out what was going on, and then when somebody finally told him, most likely that Doran guy, he probably called and called again to tell you how sorry he was. Your phone rang night and day with him begging you to take him back. Am I right?”