Page 25 of Protecting Mr. Fine

“I’ll bet you get so much ass,” JK said with a laugh after taking a swig of his millionth beer.

I felt my face heat even more than what the fire had already accomplished. Thank god the older generation had already gone to bed. “No, actually. I don’t,” I said truthfully. I didn’t want to pretend to be someone I wasn’t around my own family.

Pearl’s friend Grace, the one who played killer harmonica and had stayed later to ask me to sign it, looked disbelieving. “I’ve read about you online. You’ve hooked up with tons of guys. I heard you and Isaiah Harbin were a thing for a while?—”

I frowned. “Who?”

“Football player,” Way explained. “One of the few out gay players in the NFL.”

“Ah.” I shook my head. “Sorry. Never met the man. Definitely not ‘a thing.’”

Grace shrugged. “I bet the scheduling would’ve been a nightmare anyway. And there are plenty of other fish in the sea. Speaking of which, my friend Jay from work is frantically checking Grindr all weekend in case you get on it.”

I felt Silas’s eyes on me. He and the others were fiercely protective, and I knew he’d step in and take over if I was too uncomfortable to speak. I shook my head again. “He can stop checking. I don’t, uh… I don’t use Grindr.”

Pearl was the only one of my cousins who seemed to take me seriously. She frowned and asked why not.

I shrugged and let out a nervous laugh. “My old publicist warned me never to put myself in a situation where I could accidentally wind up in a sex tape scandal. She told me horror stories about hidden cameras and stuff like that. So I don’t, uh… do the kind of stuff that would land me in a sex scandal.”

Landry muttered, “Noelle was good for one thing, I guess.”

Silas reached over and clinked Solo cups with him.

“Sure,” JK said, rolling his eyes. “You’re the hottest rock star onthe planet right now next to Taylor Swift, and you’re not out there fucking roadies? No freaking way that’s true.”

“I swear,” I insisted before trying to laugh it off with a joke. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it. But I also don’t want people I’ve hooked up with posting online about me about my scrawny body and how shit I am at sex.”

Bear shifted behind me, but Grace distracted me with another question before I could think too much about it. “But you have a reputation for hookups.”

“Hookups can include heavy make-out sessions,” I reminded her. “I’m not saying I’ve never messed around with a guy. I just don’t… get naked, basically. With other people.”

Pearl blinked at me. “You… don’t have sex? Like… you’ve never had sex, or you have to really know and trust a guy before you do?”

I ground my back teeth together while I tried to figure out how honest to be. “I told you, I never put myself in a situation where someone could film me having sex.”

Now, JK looked confused. “So, who’ve you had sex with?”

I inhaled slowly through my nose and decided to be honest. There were impressionable people here, including Grace’s younger brother, who I’d caught blushing at me and my gay friends several times from across the fire. “No one. And if you tell that to the media or post it online, I will say I’ve never met you in my life, and I will absolutely sue you until you’re dead-ass broke and begging me to stop.”

Impressionable teens were one thing. Messing with my reputation and causing a public relations situation was another.

Landry sat up straighter. “And I’ll hire someone to beat the shit out of you because I’m not that nice.”

JK’s jaw dropped open. “No one? Bro. We need to get you laid. You can do it at my place. There’s no cameras or nothin’.”

I could only imagine the state of JK and his roommate’s bachelor apartment at the edge of town. “Um, no, thanks.”

Pearl smacked him on the chest. “With who? You think he’ssuddenly going to give it up for the one good-looking gay guy in Barlo?” She glanced at Grace’s brother. “No offense, Hayden, but you’re jailbait.”

“N-no,” the poor kid stammered. “I-I didn’t say anything. H-he… I…”

I mouthed the wordsorryat him, but it only made him blush harder and mutter something about the heat and smoke from the fire.

I tried to change the subject. “Can we stop talking about my sex life, please?”

JK wasn’t ready to let it go. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Landry. “What about these guys? Your friends from Yale? Surely you all…”

“Ew,” Silas said, exaggerating.

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