Be My Companion

Alexis

I felt like the floor was going to open up and swallow me whole. In fact, I think I would’ve preferred that over the look of confusion and almost disappointment on Julian’s face. His publicist stood by his side, her hand on her cocked hip, waiting for some sort of explanation.

“You need to tell me what the hell these reporters are talking about, or I will need to organise someone else for Jules,” Vanessa said.

In a sense, I understood why she was being so protective of him. He was her client, and she needed to do everything she could to ensure that Julian had the cleanest name possible.

“I didn’t think this would come up,” I mumbled.

“What are they talking about?” Vanessa snapped.

“Ness, cut it out.” She snapped her mouth shut at the request of her client. Julian looked at me, his blue eyes soft, pleading me for some sort of explanation. “Lex, what are they talking about?”

I took Vanessa’s phone off Julian and skimmed the article. It turns out my appearance at the press conference sparked the interest of some, and they took it upon themselves to dig up dirt on my past. And while they got some of the information right, the rest was a fabricated lie that was made up to make me look terrible. A reminder of the industry that I happily left behind.

“Lex,” Julian pleaded with me.

“I will tell you everything,” I said to Julian, completely ignoring Vanessa at this point. “And if you feel that you can’t work with me anymore, I will pack up my bags and I will let Annie know to assign someone else to your case.”

Julian looked over at Vanessa and jerked his head to the right. She nodded and quickly made herself scarce, shutting the front door behind her.

“Are you okay?” his voice was so soft, it almost broke me.

“I’m fine.”

Julian motioned for me to sit down at the dining table with him. I let out a deep sigh and sat across from him, feeling like I was entering an interview that would determine my entire career.

“What’s going on?” he asked me.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. There was a reason I kept the past in the past and essentially ditched my degree in the trash.

“You know how I told you I worked as a journalist?” Julian nodded his head, hanging onto every word I spoke. “It was truly my passion at one point, and I was very good at my job.”

“You’re very good at your job now,” Julian said with a smile.

I tried to form a half-smile at an attempt to accept his compliment. “I started out at a regional newspaper and worked my way up to one of the biggest media companies in Australia.” I took a deep breath, and if Julian wasn’t watching me with those beautiful blue eyes of his, I don’t think I would’ve made it through the rest of the story. “And then I met my new boss, Hayden.”

I ran my hand through my hair. “He was fine at first; very friendly, helpful, and always there to lean on in case you needed help with a story. But then his friendly advances became more intense, and then the friendly act dropped and he was straight up propositioning me to perform sexual favours for him to further my career. I denied his advances again and again and again, but they wouldn’t stop. I threatened to go to HR about him, and he told me that if he did, he would ruin my reputation, and I wouldn’t find any work if I didn’t fall in line.”

I felt tears line my eyes so I quickly wiped them away. “But before I could even organise a meeting with HR, the damage was done. He smeared my name with every media organisation in Australia and lied, saying I was the one that was hitting on him and seducing him. No one believed me, not even my fiancé at the time. I was fired from my job, my fiancé left me because he foolishly thought I was cheating on him, and no one in the country would hire me for the one thing I swore was my calling in life.”

A few teardrops slid down my cheeks, and before I knew it, a few became a lot more. I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands and willed myself to keep it together. Before I knew it, Julian had gotten up from his chair, rounded the table, and wrapped his arms around me.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Lex,” he whispered.

“I had to get away from there, so I took a one-way trip here to try and make a new life for myself and get away from that mess. I was doing really well until now.”

I guess this is what happens when your sober client is a top gridiron player. The vultures in the media industry had to find out everything there was to know about me before I got too close to America’s bad boy next door.

“I feel like it’s my fault that this happened,” Julian said as if he had read my mind.

“It’s not your fault,” I stated. “This is what the media does, and it’s another reason why I hate that industry.”

Julian sat down next to me and gazed at me. “I appreciate you telling me this.”

“Do you want me to pack up?” I asked him, my eyes still red with tears.

“Of course not,” he said with a half-smile. “If I could pick the perfect person to follow me everywhere I went with a permanent scowl on their face, it would be you.”

He laughed while I pushed him gently on the chest, my mouth falling open.

“See!” he said. “There’s the scowl I was talking about.”

“Julian!”

“You know I’m just messing with you.” Julian smiled at me and placed his big hand on my knee. “Thank you for telling me this, Lex. I can’t imagine what that would’ve been like to have your whole world fall around you. For now, I’ll tell Ness and get her to squash this story. But we,” he gestured between us, “are going to do something fun tonight to get your mind off this.”

I wiped the remaining tears out of my eyes and tried to mirror the smile Julian was giving me. He squeezed my knee one more time before excusing himself to talk to Vanessa.

Feeling like I had just dropped a huge weight off my shoulders, I leaned back against the back of the dining chair and let out a deep breath.

---

Julian

Once I had released Vanessa to squash the fabricated story about my new sober companion, I took some time to myself to process the information that was thrown into my face within the past half hour.

It hurt me to hear that Alexis’s life was so carelessly destroyed by one selfish predator. Hearing about the horrible actions that his former boss had done stirred up a fire inside of me. I wanted to protect Alexis from harm. I wanted to avenge every single tear he shed over this predator, or the fiancé foolish enough to let someone like Alexis go.

Was it normal to feel so strongly for someone who was a stranger less than a week ago?

I re-entered my apartment and saw Alexis sitting at the dining table where I left him, staring blankly at the space in front of him.

I was going to do whatever I could to put that smile back on his face.

“You okay Lex?” I asked him tentatively.

He looked over at me and offered me a partial smile with a gentle nod of his head.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I don’t think I want to be out in public tonight though.”

After giving it some thought, the lightbulb switched on over my head.

“Get changed into something athletic,” I said. “It’s my time to surprise you.”

 

I thought of blindfolding Alexis so I could really see the surprise in his face, but after being forced to relive his past in a matter of seconds, I decided against it.

Instead, I watched him look up at the Sharks stadium with a look of confusion on his face. I would’ve sworn I heard him sigh as I pulled to a parking spot close to the players’ entry of the stadium.

“I guess it’s only fair that I took you dancing that you brought me here,” he said, not sounding the least bit impressed.

“Reserve your judgement for just a couple of more minutes,” I said as we stepped out of the car.

Alexis looked over at me and nodded his head. He followed me into the stadium building and we walked through the corridors in a comfortable silence until we came onto the field. The lights came on and illuminated the green grass, revealing a picnic set up in the middle of the stadium that even blew me away. I really owed the events team big time.

I looked over and saw Alexis’s face light up, and he looked over at me in awe. His warm brown eyes looked they were melting under a thin veil of tears forming in his eyes.

This wasn’t Alexis Mendes, the overachieving sober companion. This was Alexis Mendes, the human who allowed himself to feel.

“Julian…” he whispered. “This is… this is too much.”

“I wanted to cheer you up,” I said simply.

Alexis rushed to me and wrapped his arms around my waist, burying his head into my chest. Gently, I placed a hand on the small of his back and the other on the back of his head.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, pulling himself away from me.

“Don’t be sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re allowed to have a moment every now and then.”

Alexis beamed at me, and then his brows furrowed in confusion.

“So if we’re having a picnic, why did you tell me to dress up for exercise?”

I laughed. “Because after we eat, I’m going to teach you how to tackle, defensive end style.”

---

Alexis

The entire scene in front of me was comical, in the cutest way possible. Here was Julian, who was the size of a small house and probably the very definition of masculinity, using his big hands to spread cheese on a cracker while sitting on a picnic rug laid out in the middle of an empty football field.

He poured himself a glass of non-alcoholic grape juice – something he was sure to point out to me emphatically – and sat back, taking a sip of the liquid and a bite from his cracker-cheese combination.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been here when it’s empty,” he said as he took in the rare sight.

“You don’t bring any special dates here?” I asked him.

He simply shook his head and took another sip of his grape juice.

A part of me was still in awe of how Julian had managed to execute this so perfectly, while the other part of me was trying to deal with the butterflies rushing around my stomach right now. I couldn’t explain where the butterflies were coming from. Or maybe I could, and I refused to acknowledge the real reason why.

“I’m surprised you managed to get the events team to set this up in such a short timeframe,” I said.

Julian waggled his eyebrows at me. “I’m Julian Ambrose, Lex.”

He laughed at me, and cowered when I tossed a cracker at him.

“Do you enjoy being here?” Julian asked me.

“Here in the stadium?”

Julian shook his head. “No, here in America.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “It has its pros and its cons, but every place in the world does I guess.”

“Makes sense.” Julian finished off his drink before topping it up with some more grape juice. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m really glad you’re here.”

There were those butterflies again, except this time that were rising up to my chest and were pounding at my body, wanting to escape.

“What do you enjoy about football?” I asked him.

“Did you just say football?” he teased.

“Sorry, I meant gridiron.”

Julian laughed and shook his head. “I love the game. I’ve loved it ever since I was a kid, and growing up playing it really solidified my love for football. I mean, you see all these big stars create moments that resonate with you as a young boy, and to live that out as an adult is a dream. Knowing that a little moment I create will last a lifetime with people out there hits me like you wouldn’t imagine.”

Julian looked over at me and smiled. “As a fan, I like the unity that sport brings out in people. I’m sure you’ve heard the horror stories of people getting into fights over sport, but you don’t hear about the community it brings to people. You can be in a foreign place and know absolutely no one, but you see someone wearing your team’s jersey, and all of a sudden you identify with that person.”

He stretched out both of his legs and leaned back, supporting his weight with his hands. He began scanning the empty stadium, most likely relishing in the fact that he is one of the few that can say he is living his dream.

“That was a better response than I could’ve hoped for,” I said finally.

Julian turned his attention to me and smiled that award-winning smile.

“I find it very easy to open up to you,” he said. “I know there is no judgement, but a whole lot of understanding.”

Fuck. Those god damn butterflies.

“So,” I said as I pushed myself up to my feet. “How are we going to do this tackling seminar?”

Like a fire was lit underneath him, Julian quickly bounced up to his feet with a certain look of excitement. He picked up the football that was next to our picnic set up and tossed it in the air for himself to catch.

“You’re going to be tackling me,” he announced.

“Isn’t that your job?” I asked.

Julian nodded and grinned. “But I think this is a very important life skill for you to have, so I’m going to teach you by making you do it. Now stay there.”

I froze in my position while Julian ran a few yards back before turning around.

“I’m going to try run past you, and I want you to try and stop me,” he said. “Remember to keep your feet planted and get low.”

“Julian,” I called out. “I think you’re overestimating my ability to do this.”

He shook his head. “Nonsense. Now get ready.”

Before I could protest, Julian had dashed off and ran straight towards me. Looking up at this large, intimidating figure charge at me was terrifying and almost froze me in the spot. I tried to make a swipe at him as he sidestepped but missed entirely, and he managed to get past me with ease.

“Maybe I need a more theoretical approach to this,” I said as Julian walked back towards me.

“Here, catch.” Julian tossed me the ball and I almost missed it. “I’ll show you.”

Julian ran back to his position and turned round, getting into a three-point stance.

“Try and get past me however you can.”

While I was athletic with a background in dancing and swimming, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself an athlete in the same way that Julian would.

“I still think you’re overestimating my abilities.”

He smiled, but nodded at me to go. With a deep sigh, I started running, and tried to mimic his tactic of charging directly at him before trying to sidestep. As I got closer, I quickly changed lanes and began sprinting to the side, and for a moment, I thought I was going to get past the Great Wall of Julian. As if he had read my mind, he followed me like a magnet and quickly dug his shoulder into me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Ah!” I screamed.

Julian easily lifted me up onto his shoulder and he began running around in celebration.

“Julian! Put me down!”

“Your wish is my command, Lex,” he said.

With a gentle firmness, Julian laid me down on the grass, his body towering over mine. He began laughing as if we were play fighting on his couch all over again, but all I could see was his handsome face just inches away from mine.

“Now I see why you’re so good at your job,” I said.

Julian chuckled and nodded his head. A silence built between us, and I felt the heat rise from my chest and all the way down to my crotch. As I stared into his blue eyes, the rest of the world faded away as I scanned his face almost as if I was taking it in for the first time.

---

Julian

The playful look on Alexis’s face had disappeared and was replaced with a fiery look of passion and intensity, and I found myself drawn to it.

With his body pinned underneath mine, my head slowly got lower and lower, closing the small distance between us. Everything within me was screaming at me to stop, to get up and go back home. But the lustful gaze in his eyes destroyed me, and those full, red lips of were singing a siren song to my carnal desires.

“Lex…” I whispered.

Alexis simply nodded his head in response.

Letting out an almost growl, I leaned down and my lips crashed into his. His mouth parted and I heard a moan escape him as our lips moved together in a deep, passionate kiss. His soft lips pressed up against mine, feeding the fire that was aflame inside of me.

Alexis arched his back to try and get as close to me as possible. His tongue escaped his mouth and slowly slid in between my lips, which unleashed a beast inside of me. My tongue danced with his, matching the passion we shared in our heated kiss.

My pants tightened as my cock stiffened to a whole new level in my pants, and as soon as I felt like the beast could no longer be tamed, Alexis pulled back from me, separating our lips for what felt like the first time in forever.

“Julian,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t do this. You can’t do this. We can’t do this.”

He crawled out from underneath me and sat upright, hugging his legs close to his chest. I rolled over and sat next to him, never taking my eyes off him.

“You’re my client,” he whispered.

“And you’re a –” I couldn’t bring myself to finish that sentence, but he knew what I was going to say.

I had never found myself attracted to a man before. Sure, I could appreciate someone like George Clooney for his handsome looks, and I could admit when a man was in good shape. But something about Alexis just enticed me, called out to my most inner desires. But above it all, I cared about him, probably more than I should.

“This…” he gestured between us. “I just…”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry I kissed you, Lex.”

Alexis pushed himself onto his feet and twirled to face me, a painful expression on his face.

“This has been really lovely,” he gestured around. “It’s probably just best we go home now.”

In silence,  I followed Alexis out of the stadium and back to my car. He sat down next to me and trained his head forward, refusing to even blink in my direction.

When we got back to the apartment, Alexis immediately disappeared into his bedroom and shut the door behind him. Not knowing what else to do, I sat down on my bed and pulled out my phone.

“Hey Estelle,” I greeted my sister. “I need your help.”