“No Apologies, an ode to the little white cock sock,” Kit mumbled after reading aloud the line, “I’m gonna be on you every minute we’ve got left.”
Several of the actors around the table chuckled, but not Greg, who said drily, “I don’t recall writing that, Mr. Harris.”
Kit shifted, uncomfortable, in his seat. Greg had been on him all afternoon—annoyed—while heaping Jeremy with praise and attention.
“What’s a cock sock?” Jeremy asked.
This time the entire table burst out laughing, even the actress playing the part of Grant’s grandmother, “Gan,” Eugenia Dovecote.
“It’s a sock used for modesty during love scenes”—Eugenia leaned back and looked directly at Greg—“of which there are plenty in this film, I might add.”
Greg scowled. “This isn’t a skin flick. It’s an exploration of first love.”
“And teenage boys are horny,” she finished, obviously loath to let go of the bone she shook.
The director, Nick Jorgensen, a man with owl-eyed glasses and thinning blond hair cut bluntly to his chin, straightened from his perch on a stool. Mostly, he’d been observing and taking notes for the last hour. Greg, as the financial backer, had an unusual amount of say for a writer over how the characters were played. Probably he’d have directed it himself if he had more experience.
“We’ll have plenty of time for observations and discussion after,” Jorgensen said. “Moving on to the next scene…”
Nodding, Greg read the scene directions, “Interior. Dorm room. Early evening. Grant takes off his shirt, preparing to go to the locker room for a shower as Alan watches from the bed.”
“Grant.” Kit put a husky edge in his voice, and Jeremy met his eyes from across the table. The physical proximity to the kid annoyed him, and he struggled to keep focused on the role.
Apparently, Jeremy had no such trouble. His glare seemed authentic enough as he read, “You have to stop calling me that.”
The climax of the scene occurred when Alan tried to kiss Grant, and the two were discovered by their arch nemesis, McHugh. Thank God Greg didn’t require them to act out the part during the read. Still, the idea of the number of times he’d have to touch Jeremy to get through filming made Kit’s stomach go funny all at once. Or maybe he’d eaten too much of the pâté?
Either way, he felt more than a little ill by the time they read through the scenes illustrating the gay bashing their characters endured as a result of being outed. From this point on in the script, each scene seemed more brutal than the next, from Grant’s isolation at the hands of the administration to the taunts and jeers he endured from his classmates. Then, when it seemed things couldn’t get much worse, the character got the shit beaten out of him by a gang of students while a teacher watched.
“I need some air,” Kit said, standing.
“Sit!” Greg grabbed a napkin and some water. “You’re going to pass out.”
Kit’s legs gave out, and he put his head between his legs as black spots swam before his eyes. The cold cloth pressed to the back of his neck focused his attention on something besides the urge to be sick.
“Sorry.” The word came out slurred, and he wondered if he was getting the flu.
“It’s an intense few scenes.” Greg crouched down and brushed back Kit’s hair in a gesture at once comforting and confusing. The guy never did anything this nice.
“Jeremy?” Greg asked, softly. “Can you take Kit outside for some air?”
Kit heard the slide of the chair and felt a cool pressure on his arm.
“Can you stand okay?” The quiet rumble of Jeremy’s voice caressed Kit’s ear.
Embarrassed to be so coddled by a neophyte, Kit shrugged off Jeremy’s hand and stood. Out on the deck, they sat shoulder-to-shoulder and watched the surf ushering in high tide. The smooth redwood boards of the deck stairs pressed into the back of Kit’s knees. A salt-tinted breeze teased his face, and he pushed back his hair with shaking fingers as he took a steadying breath.
“You okay?” Jeremy asked finally.
Kit shook his head but said, “Yeah. I just didn’t expect there to be this level of violence in the script.”
The explanation seemed inadequate given the harsh words and raw anger on the pages. He couldn’t quite believe that people went through that shit in the real world. It had to be a Hollywood creation—or maybe Greg’s reality—because if people experienced this every day, someone would have to do something about it. Wouldn’t they?
“Why’d you leave?” Kit changed the subject, wanting something else to think about.
For weeks, he’d wondered and worried about Jeremy. Even went so far as to call the cops to make sure he hadn’t landed in trouble. This afternoon, when Kit walked into Greg’s place, Jeremy’s expression seemed so shut off, and it threw him. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but he hadn’t thought to feel like the enemy.
Jeremy cleared his throat and twisted his fingers together before answering the question with another question. “What happened that night?”
Was that what this was about? Oh holy fuck.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Kit meant the words to come out teasing. Instead they sounded mean.
“Yeah, actually.” Jeremy grabbed a handful of pebbles from Greg’s potted palm and chucked one toward the water. “It’s why I asked.”
Truth plain and simple, Kit didn’t remember. He had vague recollections of watching Jeremy undress and finding it disconcertingly hot. He remembered hands on his cock, but couldn’t say whose. A mouth on his back, a tongue trailing his spine to the crack in his ass alternately confused and tantalized his memory. Recalling at some point the suspiciously masculine taste of salt and scent of musk, he almost bet on Jeremy but couldn’t rule out Amber. Ultimately, if pressed, he couldn’t say who’d done what to whom.
“What? You weren’t sore?” Kit asked, wanting to press for more information without giving away his clueless state.
Jeremy went very still. “You fucked me when I was totally obliterated?”
“I—” Kit realized his mistake too late. He ran a palm along the back of his neck and wished for a sinkhole to swallow him up. “I don’t remember.”
“You…don’t…fucking…remember?” Whispered words never packed such a punch.
Elbows on knees, Kit hung his head. “Sorry. No.”
Jeremy exploded off the stairs and strode toward the water, footprints marking his passage through the newly groomed sand. Kit watched him go and rubbed at a foreign tightness in his chest. Well, this exchange spelled nothing good for their filming relationship.
The door opened, and Greg stuck his head out. “Better?”
Kit leaned backward on his elbows to look at him upside down.
“I am.” Kit sat up and pointed to Jeremy, who’d reached the water and seemed to be railing at a seagull. “But I think he might’ve lost it.”
Greg frowned into the sun and said, “Well, make him unlose it. We’ve got work to do.”
“Since when is he my job?” Kit muttered before Greg completely shut the door.
The man’s tousled head appeared again. “Don’t make me hurt you before the first day of filming.”
Pushing from the stairs, Kit made sure Greg couldn’t see his eye roll as he crossed the beach to collar his costar.
Nearing Jeremy and the seagull, he saw the kid gesticulate wildly—a slice of his hand to the air—and heard him ask, “…am I s’posed to say? Well, gee, I don’t know my status? See, I might have accidentally fucked Kit Harris? No! That’s the thing, see? I really don’t remember what should’ve been an incredible, special, amazing moment of my life because Harris is…is…”
“Really, really sorry,” Kit cut in.
Whirling, Jeremy spat the question, “Do you even know if you’re clean?”
“Huh?” Sincere confusion overtook him. “I took a shower today…and I went for a swim before—”
“No, dumbass. Your HIV status.” The waves crashing to shore had nothing on Jeremy’s anger. Eyes sparking dark fury, he snarked, “Communicable Disease isn’t the name of a heavy metal band, you know.”
Cold water lapped at Kit’s sandals, and he stepped back. Jeremy thought they’d fucked. Had they actually fucked? Pushing his hands through his hair, he tried for the millionth time to remember and couldn’t.
“Look,” Kit mumbled. “I don’t know what happened, but if it helps, my health tests last month for Greg’s film production insurance came back clean. And they included all that stuff, since we’ll be macking on one another so much.”
Jeremy pushed him hard with both hands against his chest. Kit went down in the wet sand on his butt. A wave came in, sloshing up his nose. By the time he stopped coughing, Jeremy had already mounted the steps. Kit watched his retreating back and frowned. People didn’t get angry with him. Not really angry. Sure, he had tiffs with friends over stupid stuff, but nothing serious. He mulled over Jeremy’s words as he made his way back to the condo. A heavy feeling in his gut told him he’d really fucked up, but by the time he dried off with another of Greg’s beach towels, he’d managed to shrug off the discomfort. After all, no real harm had been done, and he’d apologized.
Inside, he automatically glanced at Jeremy, whose beet-red face and clenched fists spoke volumes.
“Let’s pick up from where we left off. Jeremy, your line,” Greg said.
Kit slid into his seat and grimaced as his wet jeans plastered more firmly to his thighs. Focusing on the white pages before him, he tried to understand why Jeremy still seemed so upset. If losing his virginity were the issue, then Kit came up empty, because only girls were supposed to worry about that sort of thing. Sure, he remembered his first time, but mostly because he’d come too fast and the girl cried a lot. Certainly the experience had been nothing to write home about, nor was it something he cared to remember.
The rest of the table-read lasted an hour and a half and went without incident, with Jeremy reading his lines with rabid intensity—packing an emotional punch with each and every word. Kit fed off the energy, using it to inform his own performance. Where Jeremy played angry, he played softer, quieter, drawing him out and using his character’s own inertia against him. The exchange of lines went so well the rest of the table’s focused interest further buoyed the performance. As they came to their final lines, the sun-bleached hairs on Kit’s arms stood on end. A stunned silence reigned for one beat, and in the next came clapping and cheers of adulation.
The actor slated to play McHugh—Matthew Cleary—slapped Kit on the back and said, “I’d believe you as queer any day.”
Ripping a needle across old-fashioned vinyl couldn’t have cut the sound in the room any faster. Everyone held their collective breath and looked from Matthew to Greg.
Quiet as thunder rumbling on the trailing side of a storm, the screenwriter said, “One fuckup. You get one. And you’d better hope you’re going to channel that shitty attitude into this role, because if I don’t get one hundred percent from you, I’ll personally pay to reshoot your scenes and make damned sure you never work again, not just in this town but in any backwater literate enough to read your résumé.”
By the time Greg finished tearing the guy a new one, the actor slid down so far in his seat his chin almost leveled with the table.
“Sorry, everybody,” Matthew said, looking around. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Sure, Matt. We know.” The director dared to intercede when nobody else spoke up. “Greg, let’s let these guys go. We can talk to them individually about any questions they have, ’kay?”
As everyone stood and gathered their things, the director gave out information on the shooting schedule—Tuesday, tomorrow, only Kit and Jeremy needed to report to the set. Everyone else started next week.
“How come?” Jeremy asked, bringing several cups and plates into the kitchen area.
“Love scenes,” Kit said automatically, then wished he hadn’t when Jeremy gave him the stink eye. “They give us privacy on the set for them.”
Arms folded over his chest, Jeremy leaned a deceptively casual hip against the counter. “You mean they don’t invite their girlfriends to watch?”
“Jesus Christ.” Kit hissed the curse. “Cut the shit, will you? You want me to end up the example Falkner’s trolling for?”
Jeremy shrugged.
Throwing back his head, Kit gesticulated at the ceiling as everyone else trailed out the door. “I said it once. I won’t say it again.”
“What? That you’re a self-centered shithead with more dollars than brains?”
Jaw tightening with the first real anger Kit could remember feeling before today, he stepped forward and met Jeremy nose to nose. “How d’you know you didn’t take advantage of me? I’m not the one who’s known for liking guys, am I?”
That shut the kid up in a hurry. Jeremy looked away, his color going high then very pale.
“I don’t,” he admitted after a minute. “I assumed because you’d fed me drinks all night…”
“Trying to get you to loosen up and have fun!” Kit finished, exasperated. Every nice thing he’d tried to do for this guy had been thrown in his face from the moment he walked out his door until now. “I felt sorry for you and wanted you to enjoy yourself, not look like a reject from community theater.”
“I’m sorry,” Jeremy whispered, digging in his pocket. “You’re right. And here.”
Looking down at Jeremy’s uncurling palm, he saw his cell phone.
“How…” Cold fury froze his chest and crackled outward. He snatched the phone from Jeremy’s hand. Closing his fist, he brought it under Jeremy’s nose. “You sorry son of a bitch! I trusted you, and you stole from me.”
“I’ll reimburse you for your new one.”
“Fuck your money.” He’d felt like such a jackass when he figured he lost his phone in the club. Assumed his friends and business associates would soon receive embarrassing and intrusive calls from a stranger and blame him. “How about giving me a week of my life back—a week I spent trying to get unlisted numbers for everyone from my agent to my friends?”
“I’m sorry. I freaked.”
“Freaked? Freaked? You are a freak!” Hurt and anger, emotions all the more raw in their newness, threatened to choke Kit as he got in Jeremy’s face. “It’s not the phone. I invited you into my home, and you stole from me. Do you get that? Stealing? It’s wrong? Do they teach you that back East?”
Unflinching eyes full of sadness and regret stared back, making him all the angrier for what could have been. The hope for friendship—what Kit considered his first real chance at having someone to talk to he could trust and be himself with—he recognized and lost in one shining, shattered moment.
PIVOTING, KIT SHOULDERED past Greg out the door. Jeremy watched as the setting sun turned his hair a fiery gold before the glass closed behind him. Regret pulling at him, he looked at Greg’s broad back and wished he knew the man well enough to confide in him. What he’d done was wrong. He saw that. Given another opportunity and the same information, however, would he make a different choice?
In all the months he’d worked his fingers to the bone—sometimes literally when he cut them wide open doing food prep to earn extra cash before his shift—he’d never stolen so much as a potato. What about the situation with Kit made him feel it’d been all right to take from him? Not desperation. Not Kit’s money. Maybe anger? The sense of betrayal at waking up with him and Amber? Jeremy shook his head, not understanding himself any better for the momentary soul-searching. For now, he’d have to settle for calling himself an asshole, because that seemed the only epithet that fit.
“Do I have to lock up the silver?” Greg asked when Jeremy met his eyes.
“You heard that?” Jeremy steeled himself to hitchhike back to the shelter.
“That and a lot more.” Flicking the switch by the door, Greg cleared the glass, and the sunset came into sharp focus. A private smile tugged at his mouth. “But I don’t have time to discuss it unless I want to reach four.”
Relieved that Greg didn’t seem inclined to throw him out, Jeremy followed.
“What’s the counting thing?” He trailed Greg upstairs, taking the risers two at a time. “It was in the script too.”
Stripping off his clothes as he made his way into a bedroom on the beach side, Greg left the door open, and Jeremy stopped short in the doorway. A waterfall cascaded over glass on the side the neighbors could see in, distorting the view but refracting the orange and gold rays of sunshine across the room in a brilliant display of color and liquid sound.
“Sure. Make yourself at home. Come upstairs,” Greg groused when he turned, half naked, to spy Jeremy hovering in the doorway.
“Eh. It’s like watching myself undress. Not very interesting,” Jeremy replied.
Thankfully, Greg laughed. “I’m telling Aaron to take out my punishment on you.”
“Is that what it’s about?” Jeremy latched onto the original topic. “Punishment?”
Considering him for a long moment, Greg seemed to come to a decision. “I’m telling you this in context of the film. For research. Ergo, it’s confidential. Tell anyone and I sue you after I break every bone in your body.” The threat carried no real menace, and Jeremy felt the weight of the trust placed in him as Greg continued. “It’s about boundaries and knowing when I cross them. I used to suck at that, so Aaron invented the game—and yes, it’s sexual—to clue me in. Now, we mostly play it for fun. Though if I get to four, it’s not. Or at least, while it’s still interesting, it’s not quite so…pleasurable.”
Jeremy leaned his shoulder against the door frame and considered a gull preening on Greg’s upper deck. He imagined waking up in this room next to Kit, like he bet Greg did with Aaron. Wondered what it’d be like to play love games of dominance and submission…and who would be on top.
“Are you always the bottom?” Jeremy blurted the question.
Pausing as he shrugged on a tuxedo shirt, Greg arched a brow at him. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re the one in control but pretending Aaron is makes you feel secure.”
Long fingers stilled on black buttons. A million thoughts seemed to churn behind those glittering, black-brown eyes, but only one came out Greg’s mouth. “Go to your room. You’re making me late, and I want to be allowed to…finish my dessert tonight.”
“What happens if you reach five?” Jeremy teased. “You have to eat Brussels sprouts and liver?”
A pair of dirty socks whizzed past his head, and Jeremy ducked to the side. Laughing and more lighthearted than he probably had a right to be, he crossed the hallway and left Greg to finish getting ready. Flopping down on the daybed, he took in a desk and a dry-erase wall covered in scribbled storyboards.
Slipping on his tuxedo jacket, Greg appeared in the doorway looking classically handsome. Elegant.
Jeremy smiled and rolled his head to look at the desk clock. “Three minutes to spare. I hope he’s coming here.”
The doorbell buzzed. Greg pivoted toward the stairs. “That’s him. Help yourself to whatever.”
Padding to the hallway, Jeremy asked, “Is it his birthday?”
“Shit!” Greg pushed past Jeremy, almost knocking him over. He emerged again from the bedroom with a long, velvet jewel case wrapped in red ribbon and bounded down the stairs.
From his perch at the top, Jeremy heard Aaron’s soft, “Hey.” Then the rustle of fabric against fabric filled the silence. A whispered “Happy birthday,” from Greg punctuated a deep, audible kiss, and then the door closed with a soft click behind the couple.
The couple.
Jeremy wandered into Greg’s bedroom and lifted a picture of him and Aaron from the nightstand. Arms slung over one another’s shoulders, the two faced the camera in their white high school graduation robes. Laughing smiles marked the day as happy, but an indefinable sadness lurked in Greg’s eyes. Jeremy tried to picture having a friend or a lover—someone with whom he shared secrets. Pain. Joy. Perhaps that person could’ve been Kit.
As soon as the thought popped to the surface, it wilted and died. Even if the actor felt a physical attraction to him, everything about how their association began seemed off kilter. Imbalanced. Kit held all the power—knowledge about Hollywood, experience as an actor, money, fame, and even sexual experience. What did Jeremy have to offer other than a brief diversion? Any scenario placing them both in the same frame could only end badly.
Setting the photo on the nightstand, Jeremy decided to clean up downstairs, then memorize his lines. Excitement and trepidation warred as he placed dishes in the dishwasher. He’d be on a real Hollywood sound stage tomorrow…while he filmed sex scenes he had no idea how to approach…with a guy who hated his guts. Feeling vaguely ill, he started the dishwasher, then took his script upstairs. Overhead, the night sky loomed, and he turned off the light to better see the stars through the glass ceiling. Light pollution made it difficult to detect all but the brightest.
Kit stood out like those stars. Jeremy wondered if his own career would shine brightly or dimly. Quickly burn out or glitter for a lifetime? Whether on the verge of a great birth or a quick fizzle, he couldn’t tell, but looking up at the velvet darkness, it struck him. With so much space in between, it must be awfully lonely to be a star.