Say You'll Be Nine

“And you want to eat my corpse?” Nine winked at me before signaling for the bill. It was a small reminder he wasn’t exactly shy so much as reserved. He certainly wasn’t passive.

I loved flirting with him, especially now that I knew I was the only person he flirted with. “I mean… how am I supposed to answer that…”

When Todd walked up with the bill, Nine’s lips and beard were brushing against my neck.

“Oh, sorry,” Nine said, clearly flustered at being caught mid-PDA. He took a quick look at the bill and barely made eye contact with the man when he handed over his credit card. If he hadn’t been so free with the public affection in the first place, I might have thought he was embarrassed at being caught, but that wasn’t it. He was a private guy. Moreover, I was beginning to realize he was used to being overlooked. In his world, he was only a number, pushed aside and forgotten as an afterthought.

Isaac Winshed didn’t like being the center of attention, period. It had nothing to do with being perceived as gay. But if he hated public attention, why in the world was he working on this project?

When he looked back over at me, I asked him exactly that. “Why did you say yes to this?”

He looked confused. “To dinner out?”

“No, to Cooped Up With Nine. To the project.”

He was silent for a moment, and then he looked away. His fingers fiddled with the water glass in front of him, wiping condensation off the side with the length of his pointer finger the way a gas station attendant would wash a windshield.

“Oh, ah… because of the money.”

Why did he sound weird, like that wasn’t the full story?

“What do you plan to use the money on?” I asked, honestly curious. I was actually surprised we’d never really talked about it before in all the time we’d spent together.

He still didn’t meet my eye because the water glass needed attention. “I want to buy some land. Build my own place. And I wanted the new video equipment and stuff.”

Nine glanced at me really quickly before looking back at his water glass.

He was a shitty, shitty liar.

15

Nine

There was no way I was telling Cooper the truth. If he knew the real reason I’d agreed to this whole thing, he’d feel responsible or something. I didn’t want that. I was happy with what we were doing as long as I didn’t think too hard about the people watching our videos. Hell, I loved the work itself, and I even loved taking the video clips and editing them together. Now that Cooper and I did a lot of the editing as a team, it was even more fun.

I didn’t regret it.

At first, I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t fake being someone I wasn’t, and I wouldn’t take advantage of Stallion’s generosity and efforts at real LGBT representation by lying to them. But then Eli had given me more information about Cooper’s brother, Jackson, and how they needed the money for his treatment. I didn’t know what it was like having a twin, but I definitely knew what it was like having brothers and sisters. If any of them needed life-saving treatment, I’d do anything to make it happen.

I knew my brother Eli felt the same way, but he had even less savings than I did. I just had the money I’d been saving to buy some land one day, and it wasn’t all that much. At the rate I saved, I’d never have enough to actually buy a decent property with a house already on it.

So that left me and this Stallion thing. Pretending to be gay. Pretending to be gay with Cooper Heath of all people.

And now look at me. No more pretending.

I snorted.

Cooper shot me a look as we walked out of the restaurant. I hadn’t dared told him about Todd’s phone number being scrawled on the back of our receipt, but he looked miffed enough, I figured he’d already guessed it anyway.

“We’re going to talk about this later,” he said.

“I thought we already talked about it?” I encouraged Nacho into a patch of nearby grass for a potty break before getting back in the truck.

“You’re holding something back, and I want to know what it is.”

“Fine. Here.” I pulled the receipt out of my pocket and handed it to him.

Cooper looked extra confused. “What the hell is this?”

“His number.”

“Who’s number? The guy from Stallion?”

“Todd works for Stallion?” I thought about it for a minute. That was a weird coincidence. “What are the chances?”

Cooper put his hands on his hips. “Todd works for Stallion?”

“That’s what you just said.”

His hands flapped up and down, rattling the thin paper in his hand as it cut through the air. “No I didn’t. You did. What are we even talking about right now?”