Page 42 of The Money Shot
“Liam,” I murmured, looking him in the eye. “Whatever is going on, we’ll figure it out. Together.”
He blinked, his expression torn between gratitude and discomfort. His lips parted, but no words came out right away. After a moment, he looked down at his lap and cleared his throat.
“I lost my job, and it wasn’t my fault,” he rushed to explain, his hands fidgeting in his lap. “The CEO of SynergyCoin got busted for running a Ponzi scheme. The entire company imploded overnight. And now…” He hesitated, as if it hurt to say it out loud. “Now I think I’m having trouble finding another job because of the scandal. My name’s tied to it, even though I did nothing wrong.”
That hit me harder than I expected. Liam had always been so steady, so reliable. The idea of him struggling like this made me feel protective.
He kept going, his words spilling out in a rush. “I got a tiny severance, and I’m on unemployment, but it’s barely enough to cover my rent. And now that Bradley’s gone…” His voice cracked slightly, and he shook his head. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
I stared at him for a moment, processing everything. Then I held out my hand.
“Let me see your phone again.”
Liam hesitated, his cheeks flushing pink, but after a moment, he handed it to me. His fingers brushed mine briefly, and that tiny touch sent a spark up my arm.
I ignored it, focusing instead on the screen. The FantasyFans app was already open, and I scrolled through the pictures. My chest tightened as image after image of Liam filled the screen. Some were suggestive, some downright explicit, but they all had one thing in common: Liam looked… good. Too good.
My throat felt dry, and I cleared it as I quickly handed the phone back.
“So, uh…” I coughed, trying to push the heat out of my face. “How much money are you making from this… endeavor?”
Liam tapped at his phone, his brow furrowed in concentration. For a moment, his face lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Holy shit,” he said, a mix of disbelief and excitement in his voice. “I have 92 subscribers now. Let me check the total…” His voice trailed off as his thumb swiped across the screen. His eyes widened, and he let out a small laugh of astonishment. “Eleven hundred dollars. So far. And it’s only been a couple of weeks.”
My eyebrows shot up, and I leaned back in my chair, trying to process what he’d just said. Eleven hundred bucks in two weeks.My brain couldn’t help doing the math. There was definitely potential here.
“How much is Laura making on FantasyFans?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.
Liam glanced at me, his cheeks turning pink again. “She says she’s hitting almost six figures a month.”
I blinked, struck dumb for a second. Six figures. Six. Freaking. Figures. Images of dollar signs practically flashed in my vision like one of those old cartoons. That kind of cash could solve so many of our problems. I pictured a new couch in the living room, a decent car, maybe even a vacation—hell, I’d never been farther than Florida.
But then, the memory of that muscle-bound guy on top of Liam shoved its way into my head, and the dollar signs faded fast. My stomach twisted into a knot. I couldn’t explain it, but the idea of Liam making videos with random dudes made my skin crawl. I told myself it was because I didn’t want him to get hurt—or to have sketchy strangers tromping through our apartment. Yeah, that was it.
“Why did you have that guy here? And the woman with the camera?” I asked, trying to sound casual, though my voice came out sharper than I’d intended.
Liam winced and looked away. “Laura told me I needed to… spice things up,” he admitted, his words slow and deliberate, like he hated saying them. “She said that videos of me, uh, playing with myself, would only take me so far. If I want my page to really take off, I need to make videos with other guys.” Liam lifted the can of beer to his lips and swallowed at least half the can at once.
The knot in my stomach tightened into something that felt dangerously close to anger. Other guys. More strangers pawing at him, touching him, filming him. I clenched my fists, trying to keep my cool.
And then it hit me like a lightning bolt.
“We could make videos together.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Liam
Istared at Jack, my hand going limp around the beer can until it slipped from my fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud. The remaining beer fizzed out, spreading in a lazy puddle across the concrete. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. My ears were ringing, my thoughts a jumble of disbelief and something else I couldn’t quite name.
Jack. My Jack. The Jack who’d teased me about my first crush and eaten half my fries without asking. The Jack who never, not once, had looked at me like anything but a friend—a brother, maybe—was sitting there calmly suggesting we make naughty videos together.
“What?” The word came out hoarse, almost inaudible. I cleared my throat. “Jack, are you—are you serious?”
He didn’t flinch, didn’t backtrack. Instead, he dragged a hand over his face, looking like he’d just run a marathon in dress shoes. “Yes, I’m serious,” he said, his voice steady even if his eyes weren’t. They darted everywhere—at the beer puddle, at the empty can, at me—before settling on the space just over my shoulder. “We can do it without... ruining anything. It doesn’t have to change us.”
A thousand things screamed through my head all at once. The nerve of him, the audacity to act like this, was a big deal. But also—he thought we wouldn’t change? How was that even possible? How did you go from splitting the rent to splitting... whatever this was?