Composed (The Art of Love Book 7), page 7
It didn’t really matter. There was always work to do. Jude had captured enough video of the practice to whip up a short clip for all of Nally’s social media accounts. While the two besties talked, he edited and posted the clip, and when that was done, he scrolled through Nally’s DMs to see if anything needed answering.
He stopped cold when he saw the message from NallyFanNo1.
“I saw you at Tesco on Monday. You didn’t even say hello to me. I saw you at Broadcast Hall just a few hours ago, too. Why don’t you ever acknowledge me anymore? Don’t you know I love you?”
The message sent shards of ice down Jude’s spine. He glanced up from his phone. Nally was still chatting away with his mum and playing a couple bars of his work for her. Neither of them glanced his way.
Good. Jude wasn’t sure he’d be able to mask the worry on his face. He didn’t want Nally to know something might not be right.
He let the DM go and scrolled through the rest of the messages. A few others were from people who said they loved Nally and his work. Maybe there was nothing unusual about NallyFanNo1.
If only that was the truth. Jude moved on to post the video to a different platform, and when he checked the DMs on that one, NallyFanNo1 was there, too.
“You’re so beautiful when you’re racing to catch a train. I know you take the train often. You don’t see me riding the train, too, but I’m there.”
Jude swallowed hard and glanced up at Nally and his mum again. They were laughing over something else now. Nally really was a good sport where his mum was concerned.
He looked at his phone again and took a deep breath. He could handle this. It wasn’t the first time he’d encountered an overzealous fan. He’d had a few himself, a few guys who asked him out repeatedly and didn’t like being told no. This wasn’t anything different, or so he told himself.
He switched back to the first platform, which had an easier messaging interface, in his opinion, and clicked on NallyFanNo1 again.
“Thanks for your support, but let’s keep it professional. Have a great day!”
He clicked send on the message, then closed the app and put his phone down, breathing hard, as if he’d run a marathon. With any luck, that would be the end of that and they could all move on to brighter days with Nally being a big star and him riding on his coattails.
“Everything alright?” Nally asked, looking around Jude’s mum at him.
“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, everything’s great,” Jude answered. He pushed himself up out of the chair and wandered over to the piano. “What are you two lovebirds doing over here?”
“Jude, don’t tease. It’s beneath you,” Jude’s mum said, standing and stepping away from the piano. “I was just telling Nally that I think you have the capacity to achieve as much as he has, but you’ve become so lazy.”
“Jude isn’t lazy,” Nally rushed to defend him, standing as well. “He’s done amazing things online. He has hundreds of thousands of followers, and he’s helping me sort my social media presence.”
“I don’t understand any of that social media nonsense,” Jude’s mum said. “I’m glad my son is doing something to help you, but I do wish he would help himself by getting a real job.”
“Being an influencer is a real job these days, Mum,” Jude said.
“It really is,” Nally backed him up.
It was Nally’s endorsement that caused his mum to reconsider. “Perhaps, but it certainly hasn’t done anything to help Jude earn money and move out of the house.”
“Jude earns a lot of money as an influencer,” Nally defended him again. “Don’t you?” he asked Jude, looking suddenly uncertain.
“It earns me enough,” Jude said, still bristling from what he’d seen on Nally’s accounts. “Not as much as I would earn if I was on OnlyFans.”
Nally snorted.
Jude’s mum frowned. “What’s OnlyFans?”
“It’s, um, it’s a website for, well, sort of live video interactions and things?” Nally answered, turning beet red and fighting not to laugh.
“It sounds like I don’t want to know,” Jude’s mum said. She turned to leave, but before she did, she said, “I still think you could be doing better things with your time.”
She didn’t leave any space for Jude to protest or defend himself. Not that Jude expected anything like that.
“Does she actually know what OnlyFans is?” Nally asked, eyes still bright with humor.
“God, no!” Jude answered. “But she’s smart enough to figure out it’s naughty.”
Nally laughed outright, leaning heavily against Jude’s shoulder. Jude shoved him in return, but mostly because his instinct was to pull his friend into an embrace.
“What were you looking at on your phone?” Nally asked, reaching for Jude’s hand, which still held the phone.
“Nothing,” Jude answered sharply, anxiety rushing through him again. “Just checking out some things we could do later.”
“Like what?”
Jude had no idea why he was lying. The right thing to do was to let Nally know he had a questionable fan DMing him. But Nally had maxed out on panic and emotion for the day. He didn’t need something else worrying him. He needed to have fun and forget the cares of the world.
“The Brotherhood is having Disco Night tonight,” he suggested with a fake casual shrug. “Do you wanna get dressed up to get down?”
Nally laughed. “Absolutely! That sounds like an amazing thing to do. And maybe we can both actually succeed at picking someone up at the club this time. It’s been ages.”
“Are you saying that going to bed with me the other night wasn’t enough?” Jude asked with mock offense. Part of his heart really did hurt to hear Nally joking about getting laid like that.
“No, no, not at all,” Nally laughed, slinging his arm over Jude’s shoulders. “You could use a proper date yourself, you know. You’ve been all tense lately.”
“It’s a lot of work managing your career,” Jude went along with the banter, steering Nally toward the door and whisking him out of the conservatory. “I’m not used to all this flashy celebrity stuff.”
“I thought all you did was flashy celebrity stuff,” Nally said, comfortable in their familiar place with each other again.
“My celebrity, yes,” Jude joked. “I’m not used to someone else being the biggest star in the room.”
“Of course, of course,” Nally said, nodding sagely.
Jude laughed, but the sound didn’t match the tight coil in his gut. Like it or not, he had a feeling Nally was in some kind of danger, and he didn’t know how to protect him. He didn’t know how to protect himself from getting hurt again by his growing feelings for his best friend, either.
SEVEN
Everything was normal. Nally didn’t know why he was questioning that. He had absolutely nothing to worry about. It was just career jitters. The interview had thrown him so far off his daily routine that he didn’t know which way was up anymore.
He told himself those things and more as he and Jude walked the relatively short distance from Jude’s house to The Chameleon Club, center and home of The Brotherhood, an LGBTQ organization that had existed since early Victorian times. They walked the same route they always did, laughed and joked about the same stupid stuff as usual, and once they reached the club, they greeted Caleb, the attendant who was always on duty, and asked the same questions about what was on the menu for the night. Caleb answered the same way he always did, “Sausages as far as the eyes can see.”
Nally and Jude chuckled the same as ever, then headed up the long corridor to the dining room-cum-ballroom.
“Is it too late to have supper?” Jude asked as they entered the ballroom just as the kitchen staff was clearing up the tables and taking everything down to prepare for the night’s entertainment.
“Not if you don’t mind eating in the kitchen,” Walt Severance, who was actually a super famous celebrity chef, but who sometimes ran The Chameleon Club’s kitchen for special events, answered them. He nodded over his shoulder to the open kitchen doors.
“Great to see you, Walt,” Jude greeted the man, veering to the side to shake Walt’s hand. “I assume you’ve got something great for me to eat tonight?” He gave Walt a sexy look.
Walt was happily married, but he laughed anyhow. He also stopped what he was doing to pose for a selfie with Jude.
“I’ve been slacking lately when it comes to posting,” Jude explained as he and Nally walked on to the busy kitchen. “Walt is well known enough that my audience will appreciate this.”
“I’m sure they will,” Nally said with a tight smile.
He wasn’t jealous. That wasn’t the emotion he felt at all. Jude had a fanbase to nurture, and posting content with famous men like Walt was exactly what being an influencer was all about. But he didn’t have to make salacious jokes, did he?
Not that it should matter to him. It had never bothered him before.
The kitchen had a large table tucked into one corner that was used mostly by the club’s kitchen staff and members who wanted a little privacy while they dined. Nally wasn’t surprised that he and Jude were the only ones there as they grabbed plates from the earlier dinner service. As amazing as the food was, though, Nally didn’t have much of an appetite.
“I haven’t been to a Brotherhood event in ages,” he chatted as he ate his roast chicken and spiced root vegetables. “This should be fun.”
“Oh, yeah, and Disco Night is bound to be wild,” Jude added. His conversation seemed somehow more stilted than usual.
“We don’t have any costumes,” Nally pointed out.
Jude shrugged. “They usually have a closet filled with bits and pieces we can borrow.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Nally said, nodding like he remembered.
After that, they were silent. It drove Nally mad. What was wrong between the two of them? They weren’t fighting. They’d had spats and disagreements in the past, besides the Timothy catastrophe, and had given each other the silent treatment now and then until they got over it, but that never lasted for more than a day. And they’d never done it when they were sitting across the table from each other. They hadn’t had anything to argue about either.
“I wonder if Gavin Martin is in town,” Nally said when the silence stretched on too long.
“Gavin?” Jude glanced up from his nearly empty plate. His face was flushed slightly, and there was something odd about the energy in his eyes.
“Yeah. Remember him?” Nally asked, heart beating too fast.
“Of course I remember him,” Jude said, now sounding slightly annoyed. “You couldn’t shut up about him last year. Did the two of you ever hook up?”
The question was far more pointed than it should have been. Were they having a fight?
“No, we never did,” Nally answered. “I wasn’t really interested, I was just horny that one time. You know how it goes.”
Jude laughed breathily. “Yeah, I know. I mean, right now, well, it’s been ages.”
“Has it?” Nally asked, way too interested.
“I mean, months at least,” Jude said, avoiding his eyes.
The whole conversation made Nally want to stand up and scream. It was right there in front of him. The reason they were stupidly uneasy with each other when they were usually more comfortable together than with anyone else was staring them in the face. And it wasn’t going to go away unless and until they did something about it.
Only, the thought of doing something about it when the something could end up being a Timothy situation all over again had Nally wishing he hadn’t eaten the small amount of his supper that he had.
“I’m done here,” he said, getting up suddenly and whisking his plate off the table so fast he nearly dropped it on the floor. “Let’s go help everyone setting up.”
“Great idea,” Jude said, smiling like the character he played on social media. “Helping out is part of The Brotherhood spirit.”
It was a blessing that there was so much going on in the ballroom. The noise and confusion of a couple dozen guys working to transform the usually staid and stuffy ballroom into a hot disco club was exactly the distraction Nally needed. And as much as he hated to admit it, when Jude veered off to help some of the guys setting up lights while Nally moved to the opposite end of the room to work on the refreshment table, the distance between them was a relief.
But that didn’t stop him from checking back over his shoulder to make sure Jude was being safe as he climbed a ladder to hang some lights. It didn’t stop his eyes from slipping down from Jude’s face to the wide swath of skin that was exposed around Jude’s waist as he reached up toward the light stand. It didn’t stop him from searching out Jude ten minutes later when he should have been giving his attention to arranging paper plates. And it didn’t stop the churning feeling in his stomach when he spotted Jude laughing with Jamison Smart, a long-time club member who Nally was pretty sure Jude had hooked up with at some point.
“Careful, Nally,” Walt, who was in charge of setting up the refreshments, warned him as he nearly dropped a plate of tarts into the punchbowl.
“Shit, sorry,” Nally said, putting the plate down with shaky hands.
“You okay?” Walt asked.
Nally wanted to answer no. He wanted to spill out all his conflicting thoughts to an older member of The Brotherhood, one who might understand the awkward feelings rushing through him. It pissed him off that men weren’t taught how to deal with their emotions. Not even his weird family had fully prepared him for feelings.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Nally answered with a shrug, not sure if it was a lie. “It’s just been a bit of a whirlwind lately, you know? I was interviewed by the BBC this morning, and I think it’s done my head in.”
Walt came out from behind the refreshment table and patted Nally’s back like he was one of his older brothers. “Trust me, I know how much of a shock those first days of fame can be,” he said. “I went from working in restaurants to cooking on the telly so fast I was convinced it was someone else on the screen instead of me. But you do get used to it.”
“Are you sure?” Nally asked.
Walt grinned. “Yes, I’m absolutely certain. Before too long, you’ll be jetting around, doing interviews on three continents, accepting awards and accolades, and you won’t even remember that you were once a green kid playing around at The Chameleon Club.”
Nally was sure Walt’s words were meant to encourage him, but in fact, they terrified him. He liked who he was. He didn’t want anything to change. What if he changed and Jude didn’t like him anymore? Or what if Jude ended up liking him too much?
That last thought nearly made him throw up. For more than one reason. It was too much too fast.
He threw himself into disco prep, moving on to help with the last of the decorations once the refreshment table was done. The whole while, he kept a distant eye on Jude, checking to see where he was at any given moment and whether he was at all concerned about him. Only once did he look for Jude just as Jude looked for him. The smile that lit Jude’s face when their eyes met…did nothing to make Nally feel like things were alright again.
They met up a few hours later in the costume room just as the party was getting started.
“I love all this wild, disco nonsense,” Jude laughed as they pored through the racks of old clothing in one of the smaller rooms downstairs. “Bellbottoms need to make a comeback.”
“No, they do not,” Nally said, making a face as he pulled a pair of striped bellbottoms from the rack. He made a sound, then put them back.
“Come on,” Jude laughed. “Those would look perfect on you. Especially paired with this shirt.”
Jude took the bellbottoms off the rack again along with a truly garish shirt. He picked out an entire outfit for Nally, took a few pics of him holding the dreadful items, then hurried him behind one of the screens that had been set up for changing.
It was a new kind of torture that Nally wasn’t ready for. He’d undressed with Jude in the room a million times before. They’d seen each other naked so much that it should have been inconsequential. They’d slept together mostly naked more times than Nally could count. But something in the air between them was charged as they stripped down and put on the borrowed clothes. Nally couldn’t seem to catch his breath, and instead of bumping into each other and making jokes, the two of them were quiet and tried their hardest not to touch.
Jude knew something was wrong, too. Nally was certain of it when they caught each other’s eyes as they finished dressing. There was something deep and hot in his friend’s gaze that had Timothy energy in it.
Nally straightened from putting on the platform shoes Jude had found for him. There wasn’t a lot of space behind the screen, which meant that all it would take was a slight shift and he could slip his arms around Jude and pull him close for a kiss. It was absolutely the wrong thing for him to think, but Jude’s lips looked incredibly appealing.
He almost made the move, but the moment was broken when a trio of loud men entered the room to look through the costumes. Nally heaved out a breath in relief and took a large step back, putting on a big smile.
“You ready to get down?” he asked, fighting to make everything casual as usual.
“Just wait until you see my moves,” Jude said, snapping out of whatever spell had almost captured them.
It was infinitely easier to get on with things once they were back in the ballroom. The regular lights had been turned off and the flashing, swirling disco lighting had taken over. A ton of people had arrived for the party in the time they’d been changing, and the space was already noisy with disco and talking.
“Nice!” Jude said as he gazed around at the transformed space. “I love it! I’m going to get some video for both my social media and yours.”
“Perfect,” Nally said.
In actuality, his heart sank as Jude strode away from him. He’d blown it. Something was stirring between the two of them that they should have dealt with, but instead of facing it, he was letting it get so big that whether they hooked up or not, it was going to destroy the best thing in his life.
