4. Adam

Whoever had decided to let more than twenty people into my small house at once had been absolutely out of their mind.

The only problem was that that person had been me.

"Um, can I get just one second?" I asked the director, running my fingers inside the neck of my shirt. It was late afternoon, and my skin was hot all over from the bright lights they used to film, and I'd just screwed up my words at least five times in a row on camera.

The line they wanted me to say was simple: "...And this is the bedroom, where all the magic happens." But every time I tried to say it—while looking into the camera, with everyone watching me—it was like I had marbles in my mouth and a lit fuse in my stomach.

I wasn't used to this much attention anywhere other than behind a computer screen. Every time I tried to say a line, my eyes flitted off toward something else in the room. This time, I'd made the mistake of looking over behind one of the cameras and making eye contact with Chase. He smiled at me, and the moment I saw it, I lost the ability to speak and flubbed the line completely.

Chase had been so nice to me this morning, complimenting me and making me feel like I belonged.

I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Yet somehow, he'd been able to make that happen.

But that didn't mean I was comfortable around this many people.

I knew I should stop looking at Chase, but the blue and blond of his hair kept catching my eye. The way he let his gaze linger on me made my chest feel hot and my brain completely unable to form words.

I couldn't tell if he intimidated me or excited me. Probably a bit of both, as confusing as that was—and it was hard enough for me to tell the difference between being excited and being nervous.

"Cut!" Flynn, the head director, shouted, a sound that was quickly becoming familiar. He slipped off his headphones and nodded at me, with some perceptible annoyance in his gaze.

"Sorry," I said in a knee-jerk reaction.

"Go ahead and take another five minutes to yourself, Adam," he said. "Come on back in soon for the wrap-up, though. We're almost done for the afternoon."

I nodded, sucking in air through my nose and turning away from the cameras. I pushed open the double doors to the outdoor balcony, and I could hear Flynn mumbling into his headset, something about breaking yet again.

It was the second time in an hour that I'd needed a break, and all we'd been doing was filming easy shots with easy lines.

But I'd felt like I was all out of social-energy spoons from the moment everyone had walked in early this morning.

There was nothing quite like being the center of attention as a painfully socially awkward introvert, especially when I was the one who had signed up for it. The Fixer Brothers guys were amazing, but all of them were used to this much action. And the TV crew seemed like amazing people, too—Carla was a badass woman with endless attention to detail, and Chase…

Well, Chase seemed confident, charming, a natural talker, and… everything that I wasn't.

I shut the double doors to the balcony behind me, closing my eyes as the summer breeze hit my skin.

"There we go," I whispered softly into the air, feeling my pulse slow down instantly.

Thiswas bliss. Shutting the noise of the TV crew and construction workers inside and hearing the wind in the pine trees. The smell of someone firing up a grill nearby floated through the late afternoon, and on one end of the wrap-around balcony, I could see a sun-dappled view of Denver below in between the trees.

This balcony on the second floor was my favorite part of the house. I'd gotten a place in the mountains for this reason: peace and quiet, up above the bustle of the city. When I'd searched for a company who could do renovations without messing up the old-school charm of the place, Fixer Brothers Construction was the clear winner for companies in this area.

When they'd asked if I was comfortable being featured on their home renovation TV show, I hadn't given it much thought. How bad could it be, letting them film some before-and-after shots in my house?

Turned out that it involved a whole lot more than that. And it also turned out that I was way more comfortable when I wasthe only one in charge of a camera.

When it was my secret.

When it was just me in front of my cell phone, not surrounded by dozens of pairs of eyes and huge camera rigs. And when I did things on camera that I could never do with another person watching, other than strangers on the internet.

I'd uploaded my first jerk-off video to OnlyShots earlier this year, late at night on a whim, thinking no one would ever see it. I'd only filmed it out of curiosity, to see how it might look, but I'd quickly become addicted to the thrill of anonymously posting the videos to my account online. I'd chosen the name Adam Dix as a joke, and now it was my username on the website, a name that my small group of followers knew me by.

It was one of the places in life where I had the most control. Where I could pretend to be someone with confidence, and where no one had to know how socially awkward I was in real life.

Where no one had to know how truly inexperienced I was in real life, either.

I pulled out my phone, squinting down in the sun at the screen. I thumbed over to the OnlyShots app, checking to see what new comments I had from my most recent video.

Twink_honey69: Best one yet, omg.

Hardsteele1983: KEEP TOUCHING URSELF FOR ME WOW UR HOT

ChillyIcyBlue: Perfection… fucking perfection as usual, Adam, I will never get sick of you.

Plaything4U_Boo: im dying holy god mmmmmmmmmMMM

I smiled to myself every time I read the comments. I had no idea who any of these people were, and that was how I liked it. Sometimes I saw repeat usernames in the comments, but that was it. I didn't know their real names, they didn't know mine. They could appreciate me from afar and that was enough for me.

"Hi," a voice said from behind me as the balcony door swung open and I jumped, dropping my phone onto the deck with a clatter.

I turned to see a flash of blond and blue hair, and my pulse quickened again instantly. Chase was smiling at me and probably wondering why the hell I was out here alone when we needed to be filming.

"Oh, hi, there," I said, reaching down for my phone.

"I got it," he said, bending to pick it up.

"No, no," I said too forcefully, lurching forward to grab it, knowing full well what type of comments were all over the screen.

I snatched up the phone, locking it and shoving it into my pocket. No one in real life knew about my Adam Dix persona, and they never would, because I would promptly die of embarrassment.

"Sorry," Chase said, holding up his hands. The blue of his eyes practically glittered in the sunlight. "Didn't mean to intrude. Flynn's just getting antsy to wrap up filming for the day, and Carla asked if I could come grab you to bring you back inside, and… are you okay? Do you need another five? Because I could push for that."

"I'm fine." Just be normal, like everyone else, I told myself, like I had hundreds of times before.

"Um, is there a reason they want to keep filming by the balcony doors?" I asked. "We could move the cameras to the opposite corner of the bedroom, maybe, and try to get less direct sunlight."

Chase held up a finger, suddenly getting an excited look on his face, like he was eager to talk about the filming process. "Normally, you'd be right," he said, "but actually, because we set up the diffusion filters by the balcony doors, that's actually the best light in the place. It's like butter. Fucking gorgeous, actually. I wish I had that kind of light in every place I filmed."

"Diffusion filters," I repeated.

"Yes," Chase said, nodding. "Really just a big, fancy piece of fabric that turns direct light into softer light."

He looked great when he talked about filming. He talked with his hands, and his soft pale skin peeked out from his T-shirt.

"You know your stuff," I said.

"It's what I'm best at," Chase said. "You can make homemade filters. Pop some wax paper up on the window, and it'll do the trick, almost as good as the expensive stuff. If you're ever filming anything, I guess."

"Right," I said. "I'll remember that. If I ever need it, or anything."

I was already brainstorming ways I could use it to change the lighting in my simple OnlyShots videos, but I sure as hell couldn't admit that to Chase. It led to an awkward pause in the conversation, where I didn't know what more to say and he clearly was trying to figure out what was going on in my mind.

He turned his head to one side after a moment. "So. Think you're ready to head back in and finish up the takes?"

I knew he was trying to ask it as nicely as possible, but the truth was that I'd never be fully ready to head back inside. I just had to bite the bullet and make it happen.

I sucked in a big breath. "Let's head back in. I'll try my best not to screw it up again."

"You're doing great," Chase said. "Just pretend nobody's watching."

"Instead of a dozen people watching."

"Hey," Chase said. "Pretend it's just you and me. Okay?"

I nodded at him. "You and me?"

"You and me," he repeated with a dimpled smile.

We headed back in and I plunged in like I was getting into the deep end of the pool. I tried to do as Chase said, turning on mental blinders and pretending nobody else was in the room.

Once we got rolling, I still flubbed the first take again. But after that, I delivered the next one perfectly.

Flynn seemed visibly relieved, giving me a little salute. "We've got it. We can head home for the day, folks."

I let out a long breath as if I'd been holding it all day.

"Great first day," Charlie, one of the Fixer Brothers Construction crew guys, hollered out, starting up a round of applause. "We're going to rock this reno, Adam."

Sweet, sweet relief. I was so glad the first day was over. I was still looking forward to the renovation, but all of the peopling today had been overwhelming.

Slowly but surely, the construction guys and the TV crew hauled out all of their equipment and filed out of my house one by one. When I headed back into the short entryway, I saw Chase, the last person heading out of the front door with a metal tripod in his hands.

"Hey, you," he said, his kind eyes landing on me.

Something about the casualness in the way he talked to me made me both comfortable and a little jittery at the same time.

Nobody usually talked to me in the way he did. On calls for work, I was Mr. Richardsen. And in public, I was typically introverted enough that a lot of people kind of just left me alone.

Some people just regarded me as a nerd.

Others probably figured I didn't want to chat because I was so bad at chatting.

But Chase was already talking to me like he was my friend. And I realized it had been a long time since I'd had anything close to a new friend.

"Thanks for your suggestion earlier," I told him. "I tried to ignore everyone. It didn't work, but it made it at least a little easier to say my lines."

"I was proud of you," he said with more of the same warmth. "Hey, I'm about to head to Jade Brewery with some of the Fixer Brothers guys, if you want to come along."

"No, no thanks," I said immediately, my usual knee-jerk reaction when people invited me out.

"You sure?" he asked. "We don't bite. Well, I do, but not unless someone asks for it."

"Not tonight. But thank you again, Chase."

"I figured," he said with a nod. "Maybe next time."

"Probably not next time," I told him, knowing that I was probably making a mistake by being too honest. I never wanted to seem ungrateful when in reality I was just being my usual, introverted self.

"Why not next time?" he asked.

"Because after a day like today I prefer a drink alone out on my balcony, honestly," I said. "I'm not much of a going-out-to-bars kind of guy."

He gave me a nod. He was being very respectful, even if his eyes made me feel like there was a battering ram in my chest.

"I understand," he said. "Jade Brewery is much more chill and relaxed than most bars, but I respect it. You like being alone."

I swallowed, feeling like I suddenly had a miniature war going on inside me.

Yes, I prefer being alone.

But I'm also super lonely, every night before bed.

And you're also the nicest person I've met in a very, very long time.

"I guess so," I said.

"I won't bug you again," Chase said, reaching for the front door.

"Wait," I told him. "No. You can, uh, bug me. Please bug me. I'm really sorry. Sometimes words come out of my mouth and they end up sounding much worse than they did in my mind. I'm really not trying to be rude, I'm just… not always good socially."

His expression softened immediately. "I think you seem good just the way you are," he assured me. "Not everyone is a loudmouth, TMI-machine, annoying twink butterfly like I am."

He definitely was a twink butterfly—with that whole hot-and-pretty thing going for him in spades.

But he didn't strike me as a loudmouth, and TMI had never bothered me.

"Trust me, you are not annoying," I said. "I appreciate the invite, even if I'd rather go to the dentist all night than go to a bar right now. The brewery does sound… nice. As nice as a bar could sound."

Chase laughed, and when he smiled I saw faint dimples appear on his cheeks. My heart rate sped up again, and I felt like I was caught in some tornado of nervous excitement.

"Here," Chase said. "I'll give you my number. Anytime, and I mean anytime you might feel an inkling of desire to check out the brewery, I'll go with you. No big social event, no pressure at all. Just us. I'm sure they have some good rum cocktails, by the way."

An image from this morning flashed through my mind. Chase and Carla had seen the smattering of liquor bottles and supplements on my kitchen counter. The last thing I wanted the TV crew to see was a bottle of Hard-4-Long pills. I didn't mind if anonymous strangers on the internet saw me getting hard, but people I had to work with in real life? The idea of them thinking about my cock at all made me want to melt into the floor and disappear.

Chase started to tell me his number, and I pulled out my phone and tapped it into my contact list.

A little glimmer of disbelief filled my chest as I typed in his phone number. I couldn't remember the last time I'd gotten a phone number from someone new who wasn't just a research colleague.

Fuck, had I really been that antisocial since college?

I'd finished grad school four years ago. This year, I'd just turned twenty-eight. Somewhere during that time, enjoying being alone had slowly morphed into being deeply lonely, and being confronted with that fact now was slightly concerning.

I slid my phone back in my pocket. Chase swung open the front door and looked back at me, his hair luminous in the slanted sunlight.

"Have a good night," he said, "And remember--I might be the biggest extrovert in Jade River, but I never make anyone do anything they don't want to do. Ever. Okay?"

I nodded. "Okay."

He held my gaze, making a point of it. "That means if you went to the brewery with me, spent two minutes there, and then just wanted to go home, you could just say the words. Hell, two seconds. Adam, you could just turn around and run out screaming, and I'd even be understanding of that."

"I think I can manage not to run screaming," I said. "Probably."

He smiled at me and the dimples appeared again. "And remember, diffuse light. It works great."

He headed down the front walkway, and finally I was truly alone again in my house.

I headed back through the hall and upstairs, grabbing my work laptop and taking my place again on my bedroom balcony. I plopped down in the lounge chair and opened up some of the data calculation spreadsheets I'd been working on yesterday.

My work was complex, but it made sense. I felt at home in the numbers.

I sat out on the balcony in the low glow of the string lights I'd strung onto the railing, getting lost in my work.

Maybe being alone wasn't so bad, after all. It was safe. Uncomplicated. And it didn't involve me getting flustered and having no clue what to say, acting hopelessly awkward like I'd been all day around Chase. No matter how cute he was.