Faking with Benefits : Chapter 42

There are three big holidays in the lingerie world: Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and Mother’s Day, in that order. Usually, Mother’s Day is the least of my concerns — I’m still struggling to get over the post-Valentines rush — but this year is different. Because this year, I have almost six times as many buyers than I’ve ever had before.

The last week leading up to the holiday is absolutely hectic. Orders are through the roof. I’m sending out last-minute shipments multiple times a day. Sifting through invoices. Fixing website problems and customer complaints. Running the Mother’s Day sale social media campaigns. Pink Pearl Silks have finally shipped my order of lace, so my production team have been working overtime to get back on schedule, and Josh sat down with me and managed to fix the issues with my email campaigns.

On top of that, I’ve had to get my application in for the Anna Bardet scholarship. I finally found the invitation email buried in my spam folder. I didn’t have enough time to come up with a whole set of new designs, so instead I submitted a few excerpts from my upcoming Butterfly collection. I seriously doubt that I’ll win the scholarship, but if I do, it’ll be great marketing.

What with everything going on, I can barely find enough time to record the episodes with the guys, let alone go on proper dates with them. We make it work, though. In the evenings, the boys drop in with some food, to check on me and force me to eat. Other times, they just sit with me, chatting, signing merch, doing their own thing. I always used to worry that when I started dating, my future boyfriend might get needy or annoyed when I dropped off the radar for work, but the guys understand. They know I’m not ignoring them on purpose. And when I need a break, they’re there for me, too.

My busy schedule has not gotten in the way of my ‘bedroom classes’, as Zack likes to call them. And now that all four of us are sleeping together, they’ve really become next-level. I think I’ve been screwed in every room in my flat. Last weekend, I blew Luke in the shower when he snuck in after my morning run. Later that day, Zack made me dinner, then laid me out on the kitchen table and ate me out for forty-five straight minutes for ‘dessert’.

On Thursday evening, they all take turns. Josh takes me first, laying me flat on the bed and pounding me hard and fast until we’re both coming hard. Then, before I can catch my breath, Zack takes over, spreading my legs wide apart and drilling into me mercilessly. When he comes, his release is so hard I swear I can feel his heat splashing inside me, coating my walls. Then, while I’m still squirming and dripping, Luke takes over, positioning his body over mine and screwing me like a piston, our eyes locked the whole time. I’m already so full that I’m squelching with every thrust, the come inside me frothing and dribbling out onto my thighs. When he finally spills inside me, my release is so strong I feel my vision black out for a few seconds. He pulls out gently, leaving me sore and gasping and absolutely overflowing with the boys’ cooling seed.

That night, I dream of what they did to me. I wake up hot and sweaty and sopping wet, and have to drag myself across the hall to their flat and wake them up for a repeat performance.

So, yeah. Between the eighteen-hour workdays, and getting systematically railed by my three fake boyfriends, I’m pretty busy. By the time Mother’s Day rolls around, it’s actually pretty anticlimactic. By Sunday, there’s nothing left for me to do. Everyone has already bought their gifts. Everything has been shipped. The few stragglers who forgot to get presents are frantically ordering gift cards online, but that just generates them an email code, so I don’t have to actually do anything. When I wake up on Sunday morning, I snuggle in bed and enjoy my newfound freedom for a whole thirty minutes.

Then I start to get antsy. I get up and clean my bathroom and kitchen. I rearrange my wardrobe into rainbow order, then decide it looks stupid, and reorganise it by clothing type. I draft three new email campaigns. I do all the pampering things I’ve been neglecting during the last week: painting my nails, shaving my legs, embalming myself in lotion like a dead pharaoh. I even go to the effort to curl my hair, and experiment with a glittery green smokey eye that looks so hideous I have to remove it immediately.

By evening, I’m just lying like a starfish on my bed, all soft and exfoliated and manicured, bored out of my skull. I check my phone over and over, but aside from a good-morning text from Zack, no one has messaged me at all today. I’ve been waiting for over a week to finally have some time off, and now that the day has come, I’m lying here watching the clock on my bedroom wall tick away the seconds.

Screw this. I do not have three fake boyfriends so that not even one of them can admire my freshly shaved legs.

Jumping out of bed, I pull open my wardrobe and pick out one of my favourite pieces of lingerie. It’s an Anna Bardet: a pale pink corset with white ribbons and a built-in garter belt. I get dressed quickly, slick on some lipstick, then toss my coat over my underwear like a hooker, buttoning it carefully shut. Grabbing my keys, I slip into my shoes and head across the corridor to apartment 6B.

The guys’ flat is dark when I unlock the door and step inside. Which is odd. What are they all doing on a Sunday night? And why wouldn’t they invite me?

“Hello?” I call into the empty room. “Is anybody there?”

There’s no response. I flick on the light, and my eyes land on a pile of torn pink wrapping paper and tangled silver ribbon spread haphazardly across the coffee table. It looks like someone was trying to wrap a gift in a hurry.

Crap. I sag in the doorway, suddenly remembering a conversation I had with Zack on Friday night. He told me that he and Luke were planning on visiting their families this weekend. I was knee-deep in emails about late postage, so I’d just nodded and then immediately forgotten. I guess the boys are all out tonight, taking their mums for extravagant Mother’s Day dinners, like good children. And here I am, standing in their flat in my undies, like an idiot.

Well. I guess it’s Netflix, a bottle of wine, and an early night for me, then.

I’m about to turn and leave when I hear a low sigh echo from somewhere in the flat. I squint around, suddenly noticing a crack of light outlining Josh’s bedroom door.

I perk back up. Kicking off my shoes, I pad up to his door and knock. “Josh?”

There’s no response.

“Josh? Can I come in?”

There’s a cut-off sigh, then a hitched breath. It almost sounds like someone crying. Alarm rushes through me, and I shove open the door.

Josh is sitting hunched at his desk, his head in his hands. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and a loose, worn T-shirt with a hole in the sleeve.

“I’m busy,” he intones, not looking up. His voice sounds weirdly choked.

I frown, glancing around. The lights are all off. “Josh? Why are you sitting in the dark?” He doesn’t move. His shoulders are heaving with uneven breaths. “Josh—”

“I said I’m busy,” he snaps, his head finally jerking up. “Layla, I don’t have time for this right now.”

I stare at him. Josh and I have bickered plenty over the last three years, but he’s never snapped at me before.

“… Josh?” I say softly. “Has something happened?”

He closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “Shit. Sorry, L. You can come in. I just…” He turns back to his laptop. The screen glows, illuminating his face in electric blue. He swallows thickly. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

I pause, then step inside the room, looking around.

I’ve never been inside Josh’s bedroom before. He’s a lot more private than Zack and Luke, so when I stay over, I sleep in their beds instead. I imagined his room to be as pristine and bare as an IKEA catalogue, but it’s actually a lot more cluttered than I expected. His double bed is covered with rumpled navy sheets. A handful of colourful festival lanyards are hanging on his door handle, and his walls are dotted with signed convention posters. One entire wall is lined with bookshelves, stuffed with thick-looking books. As I step closer, I realise they’re textbooks, with titles like Attachment Theory in Relationships and How to Solve Conflict and Appease the Inner Child.

I point at them. “Hang on. Do you actually know what you’re doing?”

He follows my gaze, running a hand through his ruffled hair. “Hm?”

“You say on your show that you’re not qualified,” I point out. “You have more textbooks than most people would need to buy for a five-year psych degree.”

“Well,” he says after a moment. “I want to help people. I can’t do that if I’m giving bad advice.”

I turn to look at him. He looks exhausted. His face is pale, and there are dark circles curving under his eyes. “You really care about this, don’t you?”

“What?”

“The show. I assumed you were more focussed on the business side. You’re usually so busy with emails and finances and marketing.” I tilt my head, studying him. “But you’re not, are you? You care about the listeners. You want them to improve their lives.”

He doesn’t say anything, his lips thinning. Everything starts to fall into place. No wonder Josh is so emotionally invested in the show succeeding. And no wonder he’s so adamant about impressing Buzztone. If he were doing Three Single Guys for money, the boys would have gone solo a long time ago. But he wants the marketing reach a production company can give him. He wants to reach people.

I’m pretty sure Zack just does the podcast for fun. Luke is a teacher at heart, so of course he likes giving advice. But Josh actually cares about helping people.

My heart thuds. I cross the room and cup his cheeks, stroking my thumbs over his cheekbones. His eyes flicker shut.

“What are you working on?” I ask.

“Just going through some emails.”

I glance over his shoulder at his laptop screen. As usual, his inbox is overflowing. I scan the subject lines.

Josh is drafting a reply to that one in another window.

It suddenly hits me that he has to do this every single day. Every day, hundreds of people are messaging him, unloading on him, begging him for help. And he tries to help every single one of them. Even the emails he can’t read aloud on the podcast, he answers privately.

It must be exhausting.

I lean over him and shut the laptop. “You don’t need to do this now.”

“Our numbers are up,” he says dully. “We can’t lose momentum.”

“Don’t act like you’re doing this for the numbers. You’re not doing marketing or social media, you’re answering emails.” He doesn’t say anything. I sigh. “You don’t record for another week,” I remind him, wrapping my arms around his neck and sliding into his lap.

He clears his throat and shifts. “No, but these people can’t wait another week. They have problems now.”

“They’ll cope. You’re a podcast host, not a mental health professional.”

“I just need—”

I cut him off. “No. You’re shaking, Josh. Look.”