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“Dylan! It’s about time you got back to me. I’ve been trying to reach you to discuss the licensing deal for that new Galaxy Force app. They want to use your likeness in the game. The numbers they’ve mentioned are excellent. We’re still negotiating, but—”
“That’s not why I’m calling,” Dylan said. He was standing by the open window in his room at the Ocean Bluff Inn, a cold, salty breeze whispering through the screen. He could see pale gray wisps of clouds floating in the late evening sky above a dark ocean. The horizon was barely visible, dark blue against dark blue.
That darkness suited his mood. He’d turned on the desk lamp, but it spread only a small pool of amber light across the desk’s surface, not much brighter than a night-light. He remained at the window, his back to the room, staring out at the night.
He didn’t want to hear about Brian’s negotiations regarding some cell-phone game that would feature a Captain Steele avatar who resembled Dylan about as much as Goofy resembled an actual dog, but which would wind up paying Dylan enough to make the house just a few minutes’ drive north of where he stood even more affordable. It was ridiculous, the amount of money people flung at you when you were the star of a successful film franchise
He’d already heard back from Andrea with a counter-offer from the house’s current owners; those negotiations were going fine. He wished he cared. Right now, he wasn’t sure whether he should pay whatever the sellers demanded just to own that house in Brogan’s Point, or pack up his stuff, return to California, and pretend he’d never set foot in this God-forsaken town.
But first things first. Brian. “I’m firing you,” he said.
Brian fell silent for a moment. Then he burst into laughter, hoarse and rasping, a tribute to his thirty-year love affair with cigarettes. “Oh, come on, Dylan. You spend a few days on the East Coast and forget who you are! Look, I’m sorry The Angel didn’t pan out. But I got you that audition, and they loved you. They didn’t even want to consider you—they kept saying you couldn’t possibly overcome your Captain Steele identity for the film. But I got you in the door, and you blew them away at the audition. You came this close to getting the part, man. I’m sorry I couldn’t work a miracle for you, but I got you in front of them, and they thought you were fabulous.”
“Screw that.” Dylan dropped his gaze from the ocean outside to the glass in his hand. It contained an inch of scotch and a couple of ice cubes. They clinked against the glass as he took a sip. “Six years ago, I knocked a woman up.”
Another silence. Then Brian said, “Okay, buddy. Personal business. I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know, either, until today. But I should have known. You ran interference. The woman tried to tell me at the time, and you stopped her.”
“Six years ago? I have no memory of this.”
“Well, she has more than a memory. She’s got a little girl. My daughter. She said she tried repeatedly to contact me at the time, to let me know, and she finally got as far as you, and you threatened to have her arrested for harassment if she called again.”
“Oh, man.” Brian’s sigh was loud, whistling through the phone. “Okay. This must have been right after the first Galaxy Force movie came out. It was crazy times, Dylan. You were suddenly a star, a fantasy stud. You were getting hundreds of calls and emails a day from women. They wanted you. They wanted to bed you. They wanted to own you. They knew you when you were eight years old. They went to college with you. At least a dozen of them claimed they were carrying your baby. They were crawling out of the woodwork, oozing out from under rocks. I had to protect you, Dylan. That’s what you were paying me to do, and I did it.”
Dylan said nothing. In the first few months after his debut as Captain Steele, he’d been heralded as cinema’s newest hot guy. His privacy had evaporated; his face had appeared on celebrity websites, accompanied by stories of dubious origin. One supermarket tabloid had published a photo of him hugging his sister Grace—God knew where they’d gotten it—with a huge headline: Captain Steele’s Mystery Babe!
The gorgeous little movie he’d filmed in Brogan’s Point, Sea Glass, went forgotten. Dylan was Captain Steele. A star. The stuff of women’s fantasies.
He’d been vaguely aware of all that Hollywood noise. He’d wanted to tune it out, and he had—thanks to Brian. His manager had run interference, and Dylan had let him.
“You’re not going to fire me, okay?” Brian went on. “We’ve been through a lot together. I’ve made you rich, and you’ve made me rich. I’m sorry The Angel didn’t work out, but I’ll get you more auditions. You won’t be Captain Steele forever. Once you finish your contract obligations to the Galaxy Force series, you can write your own ticket. I’ll write your ticket for you, so it’ll say exactly what you want it to say. Don’t throw away a terrific partnership just because six years ago I did what you were paying me to do.”
Another gulp of scotch couldn’t wash away the truth in Brian’s words. Brian had only been doing his job, protecting Dylan from his voracious new fans. Acknowledging that fact didn’t make Dylan feel any better, however.
“So...this baby mama. What’s the deal? Do we need to take care of her? Does she want money? How do you want me to handle this?”
“I don’t want you to handle it.” Brian may have done what Dylan had wanted him to do six years ago, but that didn’t mean he’d done the right thing. “I’ve got a daughter.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
“I have to make things right,” Dylan continued, talking to himself as much as to Brian. “I have to fix this.”
“I’m your fixer, man. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Nothing,” Dylan said. “Just be grateful I’m not firing you. Yet.”
“It’ll all work out, buddy,” Brian promised him. “You’re a good man. You’ll do the right thing. Just let me know if I can help in any way.”
How Brian could help was beyond Dylan. The man had no children of his own. He couldn’t begin to understand the tangle of emotions settling in Dylan’s gut like a knotted ball of yarn spun out of lead. Heavy, painful, impossible to unravel.
He said good-bye, disconnected the call, and took another slug of scotch. And struggled to unravel those knots, to smooth out that leaden thread of yarn.
First of all, financial obligations. Of course he’d pay child support.
But did he want to be that little girl’s father? A real father, one who didn’t just write checks but participated actively in her life. Gwen didn’t want that. She’d already cast another guy in that role. Dylan had never even been granted an audition for it.
What did he know about being a father? He was a doting uncle, sure—but being an uncle was easy. You could spoil your nieces and nephews all you wanted, and accept none of the responsibility for them. He adored his sisters’ kids, loved hanging out with them, loved family get-togethers when he could play catch with them or build architectural wonders out of Legos with them or give them piggy-back rides.
But a family gathering was one thing. Day in and day out, disciplining a daughter, signing permission slips from school, sitting up at night with her when she had an ear infection, arranging his schedule—his freaking life —around a child? Did he want that? Even if he did, could he do it?
Gwen had been doing it for five years now. All by herself. That just wasn’t right.
And letting some other guy step in and take over Dylan’s role... That wasn’t right, either.
He polished off his drink and returned his gaze to the dark seascape on the other side of the window. And realized his mind was made up.
