Page 92 of Angel

I scrunch up my face. I’m not explaining this right. I’m only making things worse.

“Hey.” Rhys brackets my face with both hands. “Let’s start from the beginning. You were supposed to be gay for pay, but…?”

“I was supposed to be straight, but doing gay porn for money.”

Rhys gives me a decisive nod. “Right, yes, I’m following.”

“But I’m not straight.” That’s the first time I’ve said it out loud and just as the words leave my mouth, a light, bubbly feeling floats up in my chest. “I’m not straight!” I exclaim.

“I figured as much.” Rhys laughs out loud, throwing his head back, exposing his long, elegant neck. His hair swishes through the air and all I want is to nuzzle my nose to where his pulse beats the strongest.

I have to clear my throat before continuing, and I reluctantly drag my gaze away from Rhys’s neck. “If I’m not straight, then what does that make me?”

He gives me a one-shouldered shrug. “Bi? Pan? Maybe you are gay? Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to figure that out right away.”

I nod, though I don’t really know what he means by “pan”. I have pans in the kitchen?

“What’s the pay part?”

“Uh…” This is more embarrassing to admit. “Well, the thing is, I didn’t really need the money? I mean, the money’s great. We have a second mortgage on the house because of my pop, so the money’ll help pay it off. But like, I was managing with just my construction paycheck, so we weren’t about to lose the house or anything.”

Rhys hesitates before responding, his brows drawing together a fraction, like he’s trying to process what I said.

“So you don’t need the money,” he clarifies.

“No.”

“And you didn’t need it before we started either.”

“No.”

“And you knew you didn’t need the money.”

“Yes.”

“So the whole money thing was an excuse.”

“Yes.”

Rhys’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “If money was an excuse, why did you really want to shoot porn with me?”

The answer is so obvious, I don’t even know how to explain it. “Because… Because I…”

Rhys’s suspicion fades as he watches all the emotions that must be flying across my face. “Teddy bear?”

“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

His lips part in a silent gasp, and for a second he looks like he might start crying. But then his face breaks out into a wide grin. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you either.”

I close the distance between us, catching Rhys’s lips in a desperate kiss. He tastes like the marinara sauce Mama makes from scratch, tangy with a kick of spice. Exactly how Rhys should always taste.

“Stay the night?” I ask, keeping my lips against his.

He smiles without pulling away. “Don’t you have to work tomorrow morning? At like, the ass-crack of dawn?”

“Yeah, but you can sleep in.” My hands slip under the hem of his sweater. “You can stay here for as long as you’d like. I’ll give you the spare key so you can come and go whenever you want.”

He giggles, and his hair shimmers in a curtain around us. “Then I can snoop around your apartment all day.”

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