Page 28 of Steam

There was no agreed upon dynamic—there hadn’t needed to be one with Wyatt easing him back in his own opulent apartment, relaxing and teasing him open, climbing adeptly on top of him, and fucking Logan like it was his goddamn job. It had been a decade since he’d been so thoroughly taken care of, and even before his crashing orgasm under Wyatt’s ministrations, Logan was imagining just how sweet it could be if it didn’t have to end. Wyatt came into him shaking and smiling and stroking through his hair. He stayed the night but left before Logan could cook him breakfast.

The week afterward was painful and odd. Logan found himself reading into everything, analyzing—and worse, making shitty judgment calls. Texting Wyatt, stopping by his desk unannounced.

These were the type of risks a player takes when he knows he’s losing—the type of downward spiral that Logan’s industry secretly hopes to trap a player in. When one relied on luck rather than statistics, risks stop paying off.

Logan watched himself do it and could not seem to stop, wanting nothing more than the reward of Wyatt in his bed again, growling Logan’s name into his neck.

In the end, Wyatt had let him down easily. The man was too friendly for his own good.

“It doesn’t seem like the right choice for either of us, Logan,” he’d said casually but carefully over lunch. “It was a great time and I’m glad we tried it. But I already miss having you as a friend.”

And yeah: if it hadn’t made so much sense, Logan might’ve been heartbroken. But it was more like a superior mathematician pointing out an error in his proof than anything he needed to be emotional about.

At the very least, it cracked open the door for the two friends to discuss their private lives.

They commiserated over their shared inability to maintain a successful romantic relationship. Logan lamented his many exes in Florida, described the relationship he dreamed of versus the relationships he’d maintained in real life.

Logan had watched the expression on Wyatt’s face change one night as Logan described his ideal relationship. There was a calculation going on behind the man’s eyes, and he fell silent.

“What?” Logan had asked. “I know it sounds cold—It’s just that I don’t feel like I’m cut out for the traditional thing. Does that make sense?”

“Oh, it makes perfect sense,” Wyatt had said. “It’s not that at all. I just, uh. Might have a solution.”

“Oh?”

“Just… hear me out.”

* * *

Prostitution in Nevada is, in total, a $5,075,000,000 per year industry.

The zeroes aren’t a mistake. More than five Billion bucks, with a capital B.

Logan had always assumed that the industry raked it in hand over fist in the state because it was the only place in the US where prostitution was legal. And sure, he’d been to Vegas, gotten the hundreds of fliers advertising escorts, seen the listings in the phone book.

In reality, only about $75 million of that huge figure, however, comes from legal prostitution. The rest—a full five fucking billion—encompasses the estimated profit of the illegal sex work in Las Vegas alone.

Logan didn’t know the figures. It was never something that compelled him.

* * *

“I have a guy,” Wyatt had said that night. Logan hadn’t taken his meaning.

“Well that’s good for you, Wyatt,” Logan had said rolling his eyes, feeling a little hurt at the mention of someone who Logan mistook for a new boyfriend. “But I don’t see how that helps me.”

“He could help you, though.”

“As tempting as it is to do just about anything to get you back into bed, I don’t think polyamory is my thing.”

Wyatt had laughed hard at that.

“It’s not like that,” Wyatt said. “He runs an escort service downtown.”

“A brothel, Wyatt?”

“An escort service. I know it sounds fucked up. I guess you’d have to meet the guy to get it.”

“This guy have a name?”

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