Mike smirked.

I fucking hated him.

“You’re forgetting all the uploads I already have of you, Dash. That one of you and Jayden got over ten thousand hits.”

“Yeah. The day you streamed it. How many hits it get yesterday?”

He lost his smirk.

I cocked my head and explained to the idiot, “Depreciation. Shit’s only hot when everyone who subscribed got notice of the stream and logged on. Stayed hot for a few days thanks to word of mouth. Now?”

I let that question hang in the air between us.

I knew the answer. So did Mike, based on the agitation shadowing his face.

He was barely making jack-shit off dated uploads. Nothing compared to the new stuff. It was why he always pushed getting me here every chance he got.

I had a motive, giving that kid as much money as possible. That’s the only reason I obliged him.

Otherwise I would’ve told him to fuck off.

“See you’re understanding me now,” I said after he refused to offer up the answer, knowing I’d like what he told me. “You wanna keep me here? Keep pulling in the kind of money you need to be pulling in? You’re gonna let me switch to solos and pay me close to what I was making already.”

“How close are we talking?” he snarled.

The shit bag was pissed.

Too bad I didn’t give a fuck.

I leaned back and stretched my legs, replying, “Six.”

“Six,” he repeated as he cracked his knuckle. Laughter built in his throat and erupted on a breath. “You want me to pay you six hundred dollars to step in front of a camera and whack off when I was paying you eight to fuck someone? Do I look like an idiot to you, Dash?”

I smiled.

“Absolutely.”

Mike didn’t find any humor in my response. If anything, I think it pissed him off even more.

Again, I really didn’t give a fuck.

I was taking a pay cut but I really wasn’t if I played this how I was planning on playing it, coming in on my terms and filming more than I had been. It’d be just me, so I wouldn’t have to wait on a call when Mike had a girl lined up, and I was jerking off every day at this rate anyway, so what the fuck?

This would work.

Mike wasn’t as enthusiastic about the change as I was. His eyes darkened.

Flashing a smile, I reminded him, “Biggest pull you got.”

I watched him breathe tight through his nose and shake his head.

“Fuck,” he growled, shoving papers off his desk before slamming himself back in his chair.

He pulled out a pack of smokes and stuck one in his mouth, smacking his pockets looking for a lighter.

“You’re an asshole, man,” he mumbled around the cigarette, lit it, then took a drag. “Get the fuck out before I start giving a shit about my kids and tell you where you can shove this new arrangement.”

I stood up and turned, ignoring his pathetic little tantrum, and walked over the scraps of white and yellow that had floated to the cement, heading for the door.

“I’ll be in tomorrow to shoot. After six sometime,” I told him behind my back.

“Whatever.”

I slammed the door shut.

Yeah, Mike was pissed. And yeah, I still didn’t give a fuck. I belonged to someone. This girl fucking had me.

Craziest shit I’d ever felt.

She didn’t know it. She might not ever know it, but the second this changed between us, the night Sydney gave herself to me in a way I will never fucking let go of, that was it.

Fucking it.

She came.

And I was a fucking goner.

I wouldn’t give Syd what I was giving her now and have this shit going on behind her back. Fuck no. Never.

No matter if she found out about this or not, I wouldn’t betray her like that. I wouldn’t taint what we had or spit on what she gave me.

It was everything. From the start, from that first mistaken phone call, it was everything.

Everything I had and wanted and needed.

I’d do this new arrangement and get the cash for the kid, help his family the way I needed to be helping them, and I’d have my girl in my ear at night.

Fuck yeah. This would work.

It had to. I didn’t have any other options.

* * *

Balancing the two boxes on one hand, I took to knocking after ringing the doorbell once and not getting an answer, hoping the pounding of my fist would grab someone’s attention.

It did.

The door swung open seconds later.

A round face with big brown eyes framed in blue glasses and freshly bathed hair, wet and wild looking, drew my attention down from where it was fixed to greet my sister.

Oliver, my nephew, filled the doorway instead, standing in his Star Wars pajamas and the dog slippers he got for Christmas last year.

“Hey, Uncle Brian,” he greeted me with his crooked smile, then immediately slid his eyes to the boxes in my hand, where they went wide and stayed wide as he pumped his fists in the air and jumped up and down, chanting, “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”

“Pizza?”

I heard another little voice calling from inside the house, then not two seconds later Olivia came rushing up to stand beside her brother, grinned big when she saw me and even bigger when she saw the pizza boxes I was carrying, pumped her fists in the air but did it by alternating them in time with her knees drawing up as she bounced from one dog-slippered foot to the other, also chanting, “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”

“You guys eat yet?” I asked over their chanting, stepped inside, and closed the door behind me.

“Nope! Momma’s making a roast and it smells like feet. We don’t want it,” Oliver answered, scrunching up his nose after.

I kept my laugh silent.

“Feet?”

“It really does, Uncle Brian,” Olivia assured me, reaching out and tugging on the bottom of my shirt. Her hair was wet, too, and fell in two long braids past her shoulders, making damp spots on her flower-covered pajamas. “Can’t you smell it? She put onions in there and those green things we don’t even like! She’s trying to poison us.”

“Now we’re having pizza.”

Oliver held up his hand and his twin high-fived him.

“Yes!” Olivia whispered excitedly.

They were seven. Got along great for siblings, which I figured had to do with them being twins and sharing something regular siblings didn’t share.

Regular siblings fought, at least occasionally. These two didn’t. Siblings also liked having breaks from each other, alone time, but not Oliver and Olivia. They mourned each other if they were ever apart. Even for a night.

My sister Jenna moved into the room then from the direction of the kitchen, wearing an apron and wiping her hands off on a towel.

“Uncle Brian brought us pizza, Mom!” Olivia shrieked, pushing her matching blue glasses up her nose when they started sliding down. “Can we have it?”

“But I made roast,” Jenna replied, watching both kids drop their heads. She gave me a wink, then shifted her gaze between the two of them. “Yes, we can have it. I’ll save the roast for tomorrow.”

“Yes!” Oliver pumped his fist into the air, then spun around and took the boxes from me.

Olivia followed behind him into the kitchen, hooting and hollering.

“Big brother,” Jenna greeted me, coming over for a hug. “It’s good to see you.”