The kiss was still very much on Lee’s mind, along with what felt like a load of bricks, when he finally woke up midmorning on Saturday. He squeezed his eyes shut against the ache in his head and the harsh light of the real world and tried to hold on to everything he’d felt in the moment when Drew’s mouth had invaded his and their bodies had pressed together. He imagined he could still feel the firmness of Drew’s body against his, maybe certain parts in particular, and taste him.
Which explained why, despite the hangover, he woke up half hard.
“Not a good sign,” he moaned to himself, then pushed away from his pillow and dragged himself out of bed.
The whole thing was supposed to be fake. Rent-A-Boyfriend was a way for him to get ideas for future books so his careerwould take off the way he wanted it to. Drew was actually a nice guy and interesting to talk to. He was not supposed to be a boner-inducing, fantasy-sparking, genuine love interest.
Especially since he was straight.
Lee laughed out loud at that thought as he turned on the shower, then stepped into the spray before it was fully warm to shock himself out of bleariness. He would have bet money on the fact that Drew Oberlin was about as straight as a bowl of soggy noodles.
That analogy had Lee laughing even more, which did nothing for the pounding in his head. He finished showering, dressed, and ambled into the kitchen to make tea, picking up his phone and scrolling as he did.
That was when he saw the posts.
He stopped dead with the kettle held under the tap, nearly overfilling the thing as he blinked at the first social media app he’d opened. He had dozens of notifications, but what snagged his attention were the pics.
Drew looked sizzling hot, of course. Strangely enough, he didn’t look all that bad either. But what arrested him the most was that he and Drew looked great together. So much that his eyes nearly bugged out, like he was looking into some sort of alternative reality instead of his own life.
Right there, on the sacred screen of social media, he and Drew were kissing like they would never come up for air.
“Holy shit,” he mumbled, finally putting the kettle on to boil.
Once he had both hands free, he sped through all the other apps, finding more of the same pictures and a hell of a lot of commentary to go with them.
“Who is Drew Oberlin kissing like he’s trying to fish his keys out of the guy’s throat?”
“Is this for real or is it AI?”
“No way. Drew would never cheat on Nikky like this.”
“They look so unbelievably hot!”
“I told you Drew was gay. Isn’t this what I’ve been saying all along?”
The more Lee scrolled, the more intense the comments got. Sure enough, people had identified him, naming him in a bunch of the posts. A few people mentioned they’d read his books and loved them. A few others said his books were stupid and trashy.
Lee was used to his work being reviewed and didn’t think much of the nasty comments. What did give him pause was that he’d somehow gained over a hundred thousand followers to his account overnight.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He put his phone down when the kettle clicked off and quickly made his morning tea. Once that was done, he carried his mug and his phone over to his computer and sat down to investigate further.
What he discovered absolutely blew his mind. Drew hadn’t been kidding when he said the two of them would get a lot of attention once the story broke. For some reason, Lee assumed Drew would be the one getting the attention and he might get a mention here or there. But everywhere he looked, on every social media app where he had a presence, Lee had exploded.
It wasn’t just social media followers either. When Lee checked his sales from the day before, like he did every morning, he nearly fell out of his chair.
He’s sold more books in the last twelve hours than he had in a month.
“This is….” He couldn’t even think of a way to finish the sentence. He almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Never in a million years would he have guessed that being caught kissing a multi-mega-star would do anything to his career. Other than give him something to write about.
Unsurprisingly, nearly everyone he knew had messaged him overnight and wanted to know the full story. He had about twenty variations of, “What the hell is going on, Lee? Did you kiss Drew Oberlin?” waiting in his inbox.
And one message from Diana saying, “You’d better message me back RIGHT NOW to tell me what’s going on.”
When Diana messaged, Lee obeyed.
“So I take it you saw the pics?” he typed into Messenger.