Page 75 of Provoking the Punter

“Because it’s easier to work out what angle to take. You know this.” Her voice was calm and reassuring. He counted her as a friend, but right now, this was a little more serious than arranging a “welcome to the team” charity dinner, or any of the other frivolous crap he did because people liked it and it benefited the business.

Garrett didn’t benefit the business.

Garrett didn’t look good on his résumé.

Garrett wasn’t the kind of man he had ever envisioned in his life.

No, everyone he’d been with had always been boring. They had been the brown peahen to his peacock. He was the one fronting the establishment and having the fun. Garrett outshone him. Garrett was better known, though, and like every other man Chester had dated, he was consumed with his career.

Was he jealous because he wasn’t the center of attention? The attention he claimed to hate?

No, it wasn’t jealousy. It was fear, because if the spotlight wasn’t on him, he couldn’t control where it was going.

Chester spun the pen in his fingers. “That’s why this is a problem. People will dig into my life.”

“And what’s there to find? Relative in prison? A kid somewhere?”

“That would be better.” The pen flicked out of his fingers and skated across the floor. He should tell her. She wouldn’t cut him off and making it more difficult for her wasn’t going to help him. “Caitlin, my family was dirt poor. As in, I didn’t have shoes until I went to school. My mother took off when I was a kid because she wanted more, and my father lives in fear of the government. If reporters find him, they’ll get an unhinged rant about how I sold out and went legitimate. If they see the shed, I grew up in…” He drew in a breath. “No one here will speak to me.”

And he’d end up back where he started.

He couldn’t do that. He didn’t think he had the strength to climb out again, especially now he understood how much effort it took.

He’d spent years showing people what he wanted them to see, and they saw what they wanted to see—a successful gay businessman to some and an overly out and obnoxious entrepreneur to others.

He was fun or frivolous, depending on which side of the fence they sat on. He was too pierced, too money hungry, too much to be taken seriously. Chester knew what people said about him, because that’s what they were supposed to say. They were supposed to look at the rings in his eyebrow, lip, and ears. They were supposed to talk about the bar and the distillery while clamoring to book a seat in the restaurant. They were supposed to whisper and speculate about his relationship status.

They were not supposed to enquire about his childhood.

He added Caitlin to the tiny list of three people he’d told the truth to.

“I’ll still talk to you,” she said. She wasn’t old enough to be his mother, but he liked to think sometimes that his mother was like her. Smart, sure of herself, and able to fix any problem.

He wanted to believe her.

“Thank you.” If she’d said she was sorry about his mother or something similar, he’d have hung up. “What is your plan? You always have one.”

“I’ve made a list of the photos I want.” Her tone was all business again, which Chester appreciated. Business he understood. “Most of them are low-key selfie-style photos of you two. Something that can be posted from your account as his is barely used and you’re out and aren’t hiding anything.”

“Everyone is always hiding something.” He’d told Garrett that waiting for the truth to come out wasn’t living. Chester had ran and dodged and thought he’d put enough distance between him and his past, but there was never enough, and he was familiar with the lurking fear. He thought he’d tamed it. Instead, it had caught him. He refused to let that fear drag him home, back to that hovel.

He couldn’t keep running. Which meant he had to dig in and ride this out.

He didn’t have to like it, but he had to do it.

“Send me what you want me to do, and I’ll make sure it happens.” He would do it for both of them.

“I want it done tomorrow,” Caitlin said.

No worries, let me clear my schedule because of someone else’s fuck up. “What’s the bigger problem: the Harrison connection, or that he was photographed with me?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“I want to hear it from you… because right now I can’t bring myself to call him, even though I should.”

“It’s Harrison… We don’t want the continued speculation. We know who took the photo of you and him, and even though it has turned out to be a blessing in disguise, he has been dealt with.”

Chester sat up. “You had nothing to do with that shot.”

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