Page 12 of Salacious Star

"Still. I invited you out, so I felt bad." He clasped his hands together on top of the table, and he smiled at me, his eyes sparkling. "So? How did your first day at the new job go?"

My stomach swooped at the question, and I took a sip from my beer to give myself a minute to think. Because I'd avoided the question when Ethan had texted it to me on Friday, and I'd avoided texting him most of the weekend, and I still didn't have a good plan for what I was going to say if my brother came right out and asked me what my new job was, again.

I mean, I could lie through my teeth, but I had the feeling that it would be written all over my face.

Yeah, it was great! I got paid to get hard as fuck and have my dick rubbed by a man that I would literally pay money to fuck. But I'm actually going to be the one getting paid money, because I work for a porn studio now. Yeah, itisa good time...!

I snorted into my drink, and looked up at Ethan, whose expression had grown a little more serious in the few seconds that it had taken me to look back up at him.

"Do we need to have another conversation about cleaning things up for the mob, Xan?" he asked, leaning close. His voice was deeply serious as he asked the question, but the twinkle in his eyes told me that he was teasing, and I snorted again.

"No, we don't need to have that talk. I told you, I'm fine. And my first day went...well. I think, anyway. I'm waiting for my review to come back from the bosses before we plan my next assignment."

I worded my explanation vaguely enough that it could have applied to just about any industry, and Ethan nodded as Mark crossed over from the bar and took his order. He flashed a smile before Mark turned and disappeared, and then his eyes flicked towards the front door of the bar when it opened again, and several new voices sounded.

One of them...deeply familiar.

Don't turn around. Don't turn around. Don't turn around...

I couldn't help myself. I turned in my seat, and watched as Tristan and several other men - all as attractive as him - filtered into the bar and took their seats at one of the booths across the room.

My stomach flipped at the sight of him, and I felt my face flushing bright red as I turned in my seat and took another sip from my beer. I drank it too fast, though, and snorted some of the carbonation up through my nose, making it burn and sputtering as I tried to get my breath back into my lungs.

"Dude." Ethan passed over a napkin, and I coughed, wiping the table and shoving my beer to the side, lest I be tempted to take another ill-advised sip. Ethan's eyes flicked over the Tristan and the others, and then back at my face, and he arched an eyebrow. "Do you...know them?"

There was a thread of tension in his voice that made me draw up straight, and I mentally flipped through every possible excuse that I could have for why seeing Tristan and his other friends would have had such a strong effect on me, other than the truth.

None of the ideas that I came up with were plausible, so I went with...a version of the truth.

"Um, yeah. The guy with the curls? He's a buddy of mine. We just met recently." I forced my voice to remain nonchalant, and only reached for my beer again once I felt like I had my breathing firmly under control.

Ethan's eyes widened slightly, and then they flicked over to Tristan, and then back at me. His throat bobbed with a swallow, and one of his hands reached up to tug at the collar of his white polo shirt, smoothing it down where it was wrinkled the tiniest bit. "Oh," he finally said faintly.

Something in his voice - that same thread of tension that I'd noticed before, along with a healthy dose of nervous anticipation, now, if I made my guess - made me arch aneyebrow, and after a few moments, I sighed. "Your poker face fucking sucks, E."

Ethan sputtered for a moment, and Mark took that moment to return to our table with a Jack and Coke for my brother. He looked between the two of us, seeming to sense the tension, before he turned on his heel and walked right away.

Good call, dude.

Ethan picked up his drink and took a sip, his eyes flicking back over to the new group by the door one more time. This time, I could feel a heavy weight on the back of my head, and I didn't have to look over my shoulder to know that Tristan was looking at me.

The thought made my cock kick in my jeans, and it took everything inside of me not to reach down and press the heel of my hand against it, trying to restrain my erection before it got out of hand.

"Okay," Ethan said, drawing my attention again. He licked his lips and set his glass down, nudging it to the side and looking at me with a mildly uncomfortable look in his eye. "I...That guy is your friend. And I love you having friends. But I need to tell you something about him, because otherwise it's going to be incredibly awkward when you invite him over to hang out with us and I have to look him in the eye."

My stomach flipped, but I forced my expression to say nonchalant as I arched an eyebrow at my twin. "Oh?"

I have the feeling I know what he's going to say...

Ethan looked even more uncomfortable, and he leaned close, lowering his voice as if he were afraid of Tristan hearing him from across the room. "Your friend...he does porn, Xan. And I'm not shaming him or judging, because...well, that would make me a fucking hypocrite after watching him, but...God, how am I supposed to look him in the eye if we're all hanging out together?!"

The anguish in my brother's voice would have been funny if it weren't for the nerves that were suddenly fluttering in my stomach, and I swallowed. I peeked over my shoulder, meeting Tristan's gaze for a second. Tristan's lips curled up in a smirk, and I looked back at my brother before the sexy expression made my cock even harder than it already was.

This was the moment where, if I were better at lying to my twin, I would brush off what Ethan had said and move on. But I couldn't. Not least because...well, I hated keeping secrets from him.

"I know that, E," I finally said, taking a sip from my drink. My stomach flipped, but I forced my voice to stay steady and even as I continued, "I...the job that I'm doing. It's working with him. His name is Tristan, not Lance, by the way."

Ethan's eyes bugged out, and his mouth opened and shut for a moment before he leaned forward, his voice still low and intent. "You're doing porn? That's your new job?"

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