Total Creative Control (Creative Types, #1)

by Joanna Chambers

“It’s just…” Mason sighed again. “He’s so much. And when he’s gone, well, he leaves quite a gap.” Aaron could imagine that. If he was honest, it was one of the reasons he wasn’t interested in the script development role. He just couldn’t imagine not working with Lewis every day. Not having that fizzing, dangerous energy in his life. It would feel like dousing the sun.

In his scripts, he revealed a sensitive and romantic soul. One Aaron would have staked his life on finding beneath all Lewis’s bluster. Unfortunately, it was buried deep. Very deep. Too deep to ever uncover, realistically.

“You can’t keep him forever, Lewis. I’m not the only one who sees his potential.” He could, Lewis thought savagely, and he would. But he didn’t say that to Toni. He just pointed at her, narrowed his eyes and hissed, “Hands. Off.”

jolt of something electric shot through Lewis, shocking him right to his marrow. Pleasure, he realised as his lips curled into an irrepressible smile. No, triumph. Which didn’t make a lot of sense until he made the obvious connection that, with Colin out of the way, Aaron would have a lot more time for him. Specifically, more time for him this weekend. At Safehaven. Thank fuck.

This situation is… suboptimal. The single most transformative sexual and emotional encounter of Aaron’s life, one that had crystallised years of repressed longing, had been suboptimal. Regrettable. It was so pathetic it was almost funny. Only it wasn’t funny at all. It was fucking heartbreaking.

Truth was, his stupid heart had broken this morning. And, God, every hackneyed word he’d ever written about angst and pining was a fucking lie—there was nothing romantic about this feeling. It just really bloody hurt. Physically and emotionally. All he wanted to do was curl up in the dark and howl out his misery.

“It’s about everything I said in that meeting. Skye and Faolán. Their relationship. The show. Those things mean something to me. I don’t want to be part of destroying the thing I love.”

just missed Aaron. The trouble was, he didn’t have a fucking clue what to do about it. Aaron’s only tie to him had been the job, and now he’d moved on. What could Lewis do now? Ask him out? He didn’t exactly have a good track record with relationships. As one of Lewis’s exes had once memorably said, “I think asking me out was your way of saying goodbye.”

“What’s wrong with am-dram? What’s wrong with amateur musicians playing in the pub on the weekend? What’s wrong with people painting by numbers because painting gives them joy? Why is art only considered worthwhile if it brings in money? Why do you only get to call yourself an artist if you do it as your job?”

He wanted Aaron like he’d never wanted him before… Or maybe like he’d always wanted him: at his side, sharing the lows and the highs. As his friend, his ally, his constant companion. His lover. The man, Lewis realised with sudden, shocking clarity, that he loved. The man he couldn’t live without for another fucking day.