Chapter 4

I found Jack in the hotel bar, perched on a stool. There was one next to it, so I took it.

Jack smirked at me. “So?”

“So, what?” I gestured to the bartender who came toward me. “Bud Light, please.”

As the bartender moved off, Jack nudged me with his foot. “How did things go with Captain Fabulous?”

“He is pretty fabulous, isn’t he?”

“I thought you were into Derek DeLong?’

“I still think Derek is really cute,” I told my brother. “I just acknowledge Sebastian is a lot different than I had assumed. And you…what was that all about? Why’d you bail?”

Jack shrugged. “I could see I was the third wheel.” He lowered his voice and glanced around the bar. “I didn’t know he was gay.”

“He’s not.”

Jack arched a brow. “Well, he was sure ogling you.”

“He was hardly ogling me. I just meant as far as I know, he’s bi.”

“Swings both ways, huh? I haven’t heard much about that in the Hollywood gossip stuff.”

I almost choked on the beer the bartender had set in front of me. “Since when do you pay attention to that crap anyway?”

He shrugged. “Here and there. I’ve got no life. Might as well read about someone else’s. Are you going to see him again?”

I took a long swallow of the beer, then set it back on the bar. “Yeah, actually. After all the convention stuff.”

“Aha. And did he provide you his room number?”

I flushed. “He did.”

“I can’t believe it’s our first night here and you’re getting lucky with a big star.”

“Keep your voice down, will ya? This place is crawling with convention-goers like us. Nobody needs to know our business. Anyway, it’s not like that. Exactly.”

“What is it like, exactly?”

“You need another drink?” I flicked my head in the direction of his empty beer bottle.

“Yeah.” Jack motioned to the bartender, who brought him another bottle. Fancy imported stuff, I noticed.

“We sort of know each other,” I said after a while.

“What do you mean?”

“Remember years ago when I had that pen pal?”

“Even then you were a major dork,” Jack commented judiciously.

“Thanks. Anyway, Spencer—I mean, Sebastian—well that’s him.”

“Wow, really? How weird is that? Small world.”

“Completely.”

“So is it Spencer or Sebastian?”

“It’s Sebastian now, I guess. But when I used to keep in touch with him, it was Spencer. He said he legally changed it. A lot of actors do.”

“Not so much anymore. Studios used to make them when they had oddball names. Most of them keep their names now.”

I shrugged. “I got the impression he may have changed it even before acting. I don’t really know.”

“And it just came up in conversation that you two are old pen pals?”

I lifted my beer to my lips. “Pretty much.”

Jack shook his head, then dug in his pocket for something.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for the schedule for tonight. Want to plan what we can see.”

He smoothed the schedule out in front of him and I leaned over to look at what was listed for Thursday. He stabbed his finger at an item. “We’ve got the Gold Ticket cocktail party and buffet dinner at seven. A few of the minor actors from the movies are supposed to be in attendance for that. We’re not supposed to ask for autographs or anything during the dinner.”

“Right, because that all costs extra.”

Jack glanced at me. “You know how these things work, Marty. It’s all about making a profit.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Before that, the producers are having a question-and-answer thing in the Farady room.”

“Farady? Like the planet from the movies?”

“Of course like the planet. They name all these rooms after stuff in the Space Heroes movies. That’s at 5:30. Let’s go to that, then the dinner.”

“Do we have to dress for the dinner?”

“I’m sure some will be in costumes.”

“Well, yeah, but I meant like wear nice clothes.”

Jack rolled his eyes at me. “No, Marty. It’s a convention. Not the Academy Awards. So looks like we have time if you really want to unpack your shit.”

I nodded. “I do. I hate wrinkles.”

“What are you going to do when you’re old?”

I shoved him and he just laughed.

* * * *

We’d gone to the Farady room a few minutes early to pick seats, but I quickly realized we hadn’t arrived there early enough because the room was almost entirely full. Jack and I managed to spot a couple of seats together way in the back.

As the producers took the stage, I kind of got why it had turned out to be so popular when, accompanying them, were stars Dee-Dee Cabot and Derek DeLong. No sign of Sebastian, though. Still, the crowd murmured with excitement. The program hadn’t indicated the stars would be in this room this hour, but judging by the crowd, news had leaked out.

“There’s your boy,” Jack said, leaning over to me.

I had to admit, Derek looked really good. He was dressed in tightfitting jeans and a shirt with three quarter sleeves that looked like it might have been painted on. It was a light shade of lavender.

“Still got the heart eyes for him?” Jack smirked.

“He’s really cute.”

“Cuter than Sebastian?”

“Perky cute, yeah,” I replied. “But Sebastian is sexier.”

“Never thought I’d hear you admit that.”

I shrugged. “Well.”

“Dee-Dee is smoking’.”

They began their presentation then, so we quieted down. The producers talked about all the prior movies, and Derek and Dee-Dee both even answered a few questions. Then at the end, the Executive Producer announced they were in the planning stages for another sequel. The room fell into chaos with my fellow geeks going wild. This was the first real confirmation there would be another movie in the franchise. They didn’t take any more questions after that, but they did confirm before leaving the stage that the cast would be back for the next one. All the cast.

Things kind of went fast from there as Jack and I had to get to the cocktail party and buffet dinner for Gold Ticket holders. As the program had said, there were no main cast members at the dinner, but it ended up being pretty fun just the same.

Jack and I went for another drink in the bar. It was nearing eleven when Jack finally wandered up to our room, more than a little tipsy but happy.

I stayed behind in the lobby and fished my cell phone out of my pocket. Now that hours had passed since I last saw Sebastian, I wasn’t sure if him wanting to see me had been sincere or just something he said to any lust-struck fan he ran into that happened to have a prior connection to him.

With a shaky breath I mostly tried to ignore, I called the number. It rang a few times. I tried not to get obsessive and count.

Finally a muffled, “Hello.”

“Uh. Hi. It’s Marty. Martin Brooks.”

There was a pause that seemed more than a little awkward, and for a moment, I thought he was going to say he’d forgotten he told me to contact him and would blow me off.

“Marty.” His voice sounded soft, almost lilting. “Want to come up?”

I swallowed. “To your room?”

A low chuckle. “Where else? You remember the number?”

“It’s 2121.”

“See you when you get here.”

And the call was disconnected.