Page 3 of Sebastian

“Can I start eating already?” Noel scowls at the rest of us while we furiously tap away on our phones.

The reality of being a camboy is that our lives exist online. If we’re not stripping down for a video, we’re snapping pictures of everything to keep our fans engaged on social media. It’s the hustle and if you don’t keep up, you’ll fall behind.

Well, everyone except Noel, that is. But Noel’s got that dark, edgy bad-boy reputation that fans can’t get enough of. He barely has to lift an eyebrow and he’ll have people begging him to fuck them. If he wasn’t my best friend, I’d hate him for it. I know other guys in the industry who do.

It helps that Noel’s generous with his fame. He never fails to boost our posts and make guest appearances on our feeds. I swear that half my followers are only here because of the off chance that they’ll catch a picture of Noel.

The rest of us—me and Rhys and Hayden—we’re at different stages of our camboy careers, but we’re all fully in the game. Which means pictures of our food and of each other and mutual tagging and posting and replying to comments from fans before we can actually get down to eating brunch.

“Sooo…” I say, dragging out the syllable until I get everyone’s attention. I woke up this morning wondering if it was all a dream again. But nope, that confirmation text is still firmly in my phone and there’s even a confirmation in my email inbox as backup. It’s totally unreal.

I’m practically coming off the edge of my seat with excitement. They are going to lose their minds. “Remember that one gym I was going to check out? The gay one?”

“Mars Fitness?” Hayden asks. He’s the one who told me about the place to begin with. A friend of a friend of his roommate went there one time and said good things about it, so he thought I might be interested. Guess I owe this Chris Preacher encounter to Hayden.

“Yep. Guess who I saw while I was there?” I get three sets of curious faces.

“Matt Bomer?” Rhys jumps in first. “Jonathan Groff? Andrew Rannells? Neil Patrick Harris? Zachary Quin—”

“No, no one like that.” I wave Rhys down. Mars is upscale, but it’s not Equinox-level fancy.

Noel’s not even looking at me, focusing on his plate of bacon and eggs. Hayden gives me a shrug.

“Chris Preacher!”

Silence. My earth-shattering revelation is met with complete and utter silence.

“Come on, guys. Chris Preacher! Don’t tell me you don’t know him.” I’m seriously shocked. Didn’t every gay boy of my generation grow up on Chris Preacher porn? I can’t be the only one.

Rhys cocks his head like he’s heard the name before but can’t place it. Hayden stares at me blankly—he clearly has no clue. It takes a minute for Noel to make the connection, but he eventually manages to look surprised.

“You mean that old porn guy?” Noel asks.

“He’s not old,” I jump to Chris Preacher’s defense. “If anything, he’s a legend.”

Noel snorts. “Yeah, like Ian McKellen’s a legend. But he’s still old.”

“Chris Preacher is not that old. He’s in his forties.” I might have looked that up to double-check. I might have spent all of last night devouring every morsel of Chris Preacher-related information I could get my grubby little hands on.

“He was at the gym?” Hayden asks, bringing us back to my point.

“Yes! He’s a personal trainer there!” It’s a miracle I’m not floating above my chair at this point, I can barely contain myself.

“Oh! This guy!” Rhys holds up his phone. It has a picture of Chris Preacher on the screen, probably one taken around the time of his retirement. “He’s hot. He’s got that daddy vibe going on.”

Hayden takes the phone to study it and nods in agreement. He passes it onto Noel who hardly glances at it before giving it back to Rhys.

“Does he moonlight as a personal trainer?” Rhys asks. Of the four of us, he’s the only one who’s got a side gig on top of being a camboy. When he’s not in front of the camera, he’s on stage at a local nightclub, doing splits and spinning himself around a pole.

“No, he retired from porn a few years ago,” I explain. “But he was huge back then. Won tons of awards and stuff.”

“How come he’s not performing?” Hayden asks. “If he looks anything like that photo, he could still attract a lot of fans.”

“I don’t know. He never said. At least not publicly.” Trust me, I for sure would have come across it if he had.

“There was a rumor that he couldn’t get it up anymore.”

I glare at Noel, my hackles rising at anyone trying to smear Chris Preacher’s name.

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