Gone for You (Wild Side 1)

“I think I’m okay. What about you?” Matt asked Oliver.

“Are you sure? You didn’t eat much,” Oliver replied. Matt shook him off. His eyes darted up as he made eye contact with the waiter, who blushed.

“I’m okay. Thank you,” Oliver told the waiter who nodded and then looked at Matt again.

Oh, fuck. He knew what was coming next.

The kid spoke with a lowered voice when he said, “I’m not supposed to do this but I have to.…You’re Matt Daniels, aren’t you?”

“Um…yeah. I am.” His stomach immediately twisted into knots that he fought damn hard to shove away. He hated this kind of attention on him, but he smiled his flirtatious smile that projected the opposite.

“I knew it!” the boy said a little too loudly. He looked around before speaking with a hushed tone again. “You’re even more beautiful in person. I’m an aspiring model. I’ve done a few small shoots…nothing that really makes any money or anything but…I went to Hollywood Academy of the Arts too. I was able to get in on a scholarship because…well, you don’t need to know my life story but I just wanted to let you know I really admire you. Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m meeting you right now.”

Matt immediately felt like invisible walls were closing in on him. He couldn’t see them, but he felt them squeezing the space around him so it was smaller and smaller.

He wasn’t really anyone to admire. Here this kid was—whose dream it was to model, and Matt only did it because he didn’t have a choice. Because it was easier to get by off his looks. Not that modeling wasn’t hard work. It was and he respected the hell out of everyone that did it but for him, he didn’t burn for it the way this kid did. He didn’t have the fire in his eyes the way he did.

Every time he was in front of the camera, he wanted to hide, to close in on himself.

He couldn’t say that, though.

“Hey, thank you. I appreciate that. It’s nice to meet you.” Matt held out his hand. His eyes darted to the boy’s nametag. “Bailey.”

“Thank you. It’s nice to meet you too.”

They shook hands and spoke for a minute before Bailey told him, “I need to get back to work, so I don’t get into trouble. Thanks for being so gracious. Not everyone is.”

Matt shrugged. “Thank you for introducing yourself. I’m not sure I deserve the admiration, but I’m incredibly thankful for it.” And he was. How could he be thankful for something but resent it at the same time? “You keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll make it. One day I’ll be able to say, I met Bailey at lunch and he was incredibly gracious and down-to-earth.”

The boy’s eyes blazed brighter. “Thank you. Holy shit, I can’t believe this. Thank you so much. I’ll be back with your check.” And then Bailey disappeared. The second he was inside, Oliver spoke.

“You should be proud of yourself, babe. You worked hard and you made it but you haven’t lost who you are. You made that kid’s day because it was the right thing to do, while part of you wanted to crawl out of your skin because you’re uncomfortable with the attention.” He wasn’t surprised that Oliver noticed how he felt. Maybe that was part of the reason he’d stayed away. Oliver would see the things he could lie to everyone else about. He also wasn’t surprised his friend called him out on it.

“I don’t know if crawl out of my skin is the best way to put it.” But maybe it was. He could tell Oliver how his nerves were getting the best of him, how having eyes on him was getting more and more uncomfortable. That it was hard to make it through photo shoots sometimes. That there were moments he thought he would lose his mind, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. The truth was, he just had to deal with it.

“In some ways you’ve changed, and in others you haven’t changed at all.” Oliver cocked a brow at him and Matt was pretty sure that wasn’t a compliment. Before he could respond, Bailey came back with their bill. He pulled his card out before Oliver had the chance.

“I got dinner,” Matt told him. He turned to look at Bailey. “This is my friend Oliver. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have been able to go to Hollywood Academy of Arts. His family sponsored me. I never expected to make anything of my life, but I did. You work hard and you can make your dreams come true too, Bailey.”

“Oh wow. I didn’t know that. Thank you,” Bailey told him again. When Matt risked a glance at Oliver, he saw the question there before he forced himself to look away. Did your dreams really come true, Matt?