Faking with Benefits : A Friends to Lovers Romance(123)

“What? Why?” I sit up, alarmed. “Oh, God. Is it because of me?”

“No, no,” Luke soothes me. “It was Zack’s fault.”

“I forgot you didn’t know,” Josh says into my hair, nuzzling the base of my neck. “He got into an… incident at the convention.”

I raise an eyebrow. “That sounds ominous.”

Zack waves a dismissive hand. “It was nothing, really. Your ex was there. Danny What’s-his-name.”

I squint at him.

“Pritchard,” Luke supplies, watching me closely. “Donny Pritchard. Said he came to hear us talk, but I think he really wanted to see you.”

I stick out my tongue. “Gross. He is not my ex.”

“Damn straight,” Zack agrees cheerfully. “Anyway, I punched him in the face.”

“What?”

“He deserved it,” Zack says. “Are you mad?”

I snort. “No. Is there video?”

Zack grins. “Atta girl. Show her, Josh.”

Josh brings up YouTube on his phone and hands it to me. It’s a shaky video, taken by a fan a few rows back in the audience. I see Donny go up to the mic in a stupid baseball cap, smirking at the guys. There’s a few seconds of back-and-forth, and then my mouth falls open as Zack stands, jumps off the stage into the crowd, and smacks Donny right in the nose. There’s an awful cracking sound, and blood spills out of Donny’s nostrils as he falls to the ground and screams.

I’m entranced. When the video ends, I rewind it and watch it again. And then again. And again. I know it doesn’t make me a nice person to enjoy the sound of my ex-bully’s nose breaking — but hey, I never claimed to be nice. I want this video tattooed on the back of my eyelids.

Eventually, on the fifth rerun, Josh takes his phone back. “Okay. I think that’s enough.”

I turn to Zack, cuddling against his side. “Thank you.”

“You’re really not mad?” He mutters.

I shake my head, pressing my face into his neck and inhaling his warm honey-whiskey smell.

“It wasn’t the right thing to do, obviously. But I appreciate it. God knows he deserves it.” I twist to look back at Josh. “So, what happens now? You’re in trouble?”

Zack whistles. “Hoo, boy we are.”

“The convention is ‘looking into it’.” Luke says. “Zack and Donald both explained their sides of the story. I didn’t say anything about your time together in school,” he adds quickly, when I tense, “but I did say that he harassed you in a pub a few weeks ago. I hope that’s okay.”

I nod slowly. “And what did the staff say?”

“They’re sort of at a loss. I’m pretty sure they believe us. They’ve known Zack for years, and there’s no reason for him to risk his career by attacking a random audience member. And apparently Donny tried to flirt with the female security guard who questioned him, which didn’t exactly help his case. But without any proof that Zack was provoked, there’s not much they can do. We’ll probably be banned from future conventions and events.” He hesitates. “Our production company is talking about removing us from the roster.”

I sit up. “But that’s a big deal, right?!”

“It might mean going solo,” Josh admits. “No company to produce us or promote us or find us sponsors.”

“Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

Josh shakes his head. “It’ll be hard, but we can manage it. From the response we got from our livestream, we haven’t really lost many listeners. In fact, we’ve gained quite a lot.” His lip curls. “No one really gives a shit about one of our hosts punching a creep.”

“So you’ll be self-employed?”

“Finally,” Zack booms. “It’s not like we needed those twats at BuzzTone tellin’ us what to do and taking half our royalties.”

Luke nods. “There will be a lot of benefits, actually. We’ll be able to pick our own sponsors, organise our own events. Say what we want.”

I pat his shoulder. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll show you how to pay your taxes. I am a font of small-business knowledge, after all.” He smiles, pressing a kiss into my hair, and I turn back to Josh’s phone. “What about Donny? Is he running his mouth on social media?” I bet he’s milking this for all it’s worth. He always was a greasy little attention-addict.

Josh snorts. “Oh, yeah. He’s already tagged us in about fifty tweets. And he’s threatening to press charges. Zack might end up in court unless we can convince him to drop it. Which is kind of unlikely.”

“What?” I’m horrified. “But you could go to jail!”

“Aye. I’m already pickin’ out my prison tats.” Zack sighs. “I miss bein’ on the team, man. Back then, if I got rowdy with some drunk fan, the club would just pay the guy off.” He slides his hand up my arm. “We could blackmail him, I guess. Or kidnap him. Set up a bear trap outside his house, then drag him here and hold him hostage until he promises to drop charges.”

An idea dings in the back of my mind. “Is it blackmail if he deserves it?” I say slowly.

“Yes, Layla,” Luke sighs, sounding exhausted.