The Rebel - Raleigh Ruebins Page 0,32

breathing, and right now, that was enough.

“Holy shit,” Liam said after a minute had passed, and I heard him sigh.

“I know,” I said.

“I came really hard,” he said.

“Naturally.”

“I mean… even more than usual.”

Liam was known in the gay porn community for his cumshot videos. He tended to come very hard and come a lot, and plenty of people were into that. He had many solo videos online that featured him jerking off either onto himself or onto other guys, and all of them had thousands and thousands of views.

And I knew for a fact that it was all real. He’d come even harder when it was behind closed doors, actually.

“Thank you,” I said, not really knowing what else to say. “I can’t believe you answered the phone this late, and I’m an idiot for calling so late, but I definitely forgot about my nightmare.”

“I’m glad,” Liam said. “And… you don’t have to do the video. I’m not going to be offended if you don’t, Red.”

“Excuse me?” I said. “Liam, you know me better than that.”

“What?”

I turned over in bed, smiling a little as I cradled the phone against my face. “You seriously think that I would agree to do anything I didn’t actually want to do? Have I ever done that?”

He puffed out a small laugh. “I guess you never do.”

“You’re damn right about that,” I said. “I quit doing things I didn’t want to do a long time ago, and I don’t plan on starting again now. I’m nearly forty years old.”

“Okay,” he said softly. “I understand.”

“So when I told you I want to do the video, I meant it,” I said. “I’ll do the video for you. You’ll pay me, probably way too much money. And we’ll both benefit from it.”

“I’m sure it’ll help me more than it helps you, but… thank you, Red.”

“Never really have been able to stop myself from helping you,” I said.

I stood up and padded over the cold hardwood floor toward the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of water.

He let out a long breath. “Hiding out in Amberfield is turning out to be a lot different than I expected.”

“Hiding out?” I asked. “I thought you just brought your ass all the way out here to bug me again.”

He snorted. “Bug you, huh? Is that what you call the thing we just did?”

I hummed. “No, I call that hot as fucking hell,” I said. “But seriously. What do you mean, hiding out? I thought the stuff with your ex-boyfriend was over.”

“It’s a long story,” he said after a short pause.

“Everything’s okay, right?”

He hummed in response and I heard him yawn. “I suppose it is,” he said. “It’s not a big deal, though.”

“Hey,” I said. “Talk to me.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t do that, Liam,” I said.

“Don’t do what?”

“Diminish what you are feeling,” I said. “You always used to.”

He sighed. “I guess that’s kind of what all the drinking and partying was in the end, right? Diminishing what I was feeling.”

“Sounds about right,” I said.

“I’m not in any mood to complain to you right now, Red,” he said. “It’s stupid.”

“I guarantee you it isn’t stupid,” I told him. I chugged the rest of my water and headed back to bed, slipping underneath the sheets.

He yawned again. “Maybe I’ll tell you sometime when I’m not about to pass out.”

I couldn’t help but smile. That was another undeniable fact about Liam. when he was tired, there was no pulling him back. He loved sleep, and he could easily do it for twelve hours at a time.

“Deal,” I said. “Hope you’re cozy over there.”

“I am so cozy, you don’t even know,” he murmured, and I could picture him tucking himself up into his plush blankets.

“Liam burrito?” I asked.

I heard a low chuckle. “Liam burrito.”

My heart warmed with affection. “Good,” I said.

“G’night, Red,” he said, and I could hear the sleep in his voice already.

“Good night, you,” I said.

We hung up and I looked down at my phone, realizing that I’d been talking with him for over half an hour. I couldn’t remember a single time I’d spent that long on a phone call with someone and didn’t wish I could hang up the entire time. Even my own mother didn’t like phone calls longer than about twenty minutes.

But the call with him had passed so easily I hadn’t even realized it.

I curled back up in my sheets, trying to get another hour or two of shut-eye before Anna and Elsa started begging me to go outside.

As I drifted off,