Seaworthy

“I cannot work with Colby Kent,” Jason hissed into his phone. “I will seriously end up punching someone in the face. Probably Colby Kent.” “I’ve only ever heard good things.” From the sound, Susan had set down her tea; the old-fashioned porcelain clink echoed across the line from her office, clear and sharp as her reputation. Jason knew both he and his acting career had been lucky to have her as an agent; sometimes, like now, he wished she didn’t know him quite so well. She threw in, on top of the previous statement, “Everyone adores him. Cast, crew, directors, producers. Audiences. Box offices. What did you do?” “Nothing!” “Are you sure?” “Yes!” “Did he say he doesn’t like you?” “No!” “Then what happened?” “He apologized for running late! And gave me his coffee!” This was true. Jason had been precisely on time, knocking at the door of the twelfth-floor Raven Studios production offices where he’d been told to come in for a screen test and chemistry read with the man in question. Colby Kent had opened the door, a flustered column of that everywhere-and-nowhere faded accent and stylishly disheveled shadow-brown hair, and had said, “Oh, no, I’m so sorry, we’re just finishing up some discussion about James—er, that is, the previous person we—would you mind waiting a minute or two? And would you like coffee? Oh, wait, are we out of coffee? Here, have mine, I’ve actually forgotten to drink out of it, so it’s perfectly untouched, I promise.” Jason, standing bewildered in the wake of this blue-eyed hurricane of niceness, had attempted to process an offered coffee-cup. Had hunted for words. That niceness couldn’t be real. That apology couldn’t be true. Colby Kent was an international phenomenon, a superstar, someone who’d built the skyrocket of his career out of romantic comedies and period dramas and critical acclaim. Someone who’d gone from playing the heroine’s gay best friend, to playing the glamorous bisexual hero of that provocative aristocratic television miniseries—even Jason had seen it, and had stared at that cool flippant elegance and that shower scene for far too long—to becoming a film-star romantic lead in his own right, and someone who’d somehow made everyone fall in love with him along the way. He was a producer on this particular film, which was a passion project of his, or so said the general industry commentary. Colby Kent was, at this moment in time, someone who had all the power. Someone who did not need to apologize and give up his own coffee to an aging action hero whose last film had been kindly referred to as “good for a forgettable popcorn afternoon.” For most people thirty-eight wasn’t even that old. Getting up there, though. Jason tried to imagine his future for a second or two. Jason Mirelli, starring in Revenge: Aftermath: Aftermath. Jason Mirelli in John Kill Part Ten: John Kills From A Wheelchair. In Heart Attack IV, only this time it’d be a documentary. He knew that was exaggerating. But he also knew the industry. And he wasn’t that young, and he wasn’t that attractive. Not terrible, or he thought not, but nothing to rely on, either. Brown eyes, square jaw, lots of weight and height, dark ominous eyebrows, craggy nose. It’d be a matter of time before the parts dried up or became self-parody, unless he was unbelievably fortunate, and he’d never been that. And his back had begun to creak alarmingly some mornings. And… …he’d been getting bored. He’d watched Colby Kent command the screen and everyone’s sympathies as the clumsily adorable single father stealing the heart of a cynical journalist in Local News, and as the quick-witted and tragic updated version of Mercutio in that modern-dress Romeo & Jules, and he’d thought: not this, not exactly, but something like this. Something that’s significant, that can also make people smile. Something that’s bigger, brighter, telling stories that scoop up hearts and souls. He was more or less out and public, as far as sexuality and liking both women and men—these days it wasn’t a huge deal, or mostly not, and he’d not made any real public statement or any kind of a big reveal out of it, and that seemed to be that. Quiet. Under the radar. Unremarked. Susan had advised him on that, too; you might see some reaction, she’d said, as far as outdated ideas of masculinity, if you’re massively indiscreet about it. But mostly people won’t care. And they hadn’t, though he hadn’t been dating anyone lately, and lately meant for the last three years. Occasional hookups, yeah. Fleeting connections at a bar, at a party. Nothing more. No time. No sense of connection. Nothing that seemed to click. This project, though…that’d clicked. It’d been a script he’d not been able to put down. Glorious, gorgeous period details. Taffeta and silk, satin sheets and brandy, and the slow unbuttoning of waistcoats and the shapes of two men’s bodies entwined. Lavish sweeping scope. Intimacy and epic proportions. Traded gazes across a Regency ballroom, and the thunder of guns at sea, during the battle of Trafalgar. He’d wanted to play Captain Stephen Lanyon so badly he could taste it: honey over bare skin, a stolen interlude, a dried rose pressed into a love-letter that lay signed, Always yours, Will. He wouldn’t even mind the scenes involving a plunge into deep water. He’d figure out that abyss when he came to it. He’d been in Vancouver finishing up a reshoot on the latest big-budget thriller. He’d sent a video, filmed with the help of friends. A hotel suite standing in for a nineteenth-century library. A short monologue from the script pages he’d seen. A parting vow, a hand held too long, a promise of devotion. He’d sent it shaking with desperation. Guns and battle he could do. Emotion, desire, longing— He hoped. Oh God he hoped. And he’d gotten a call. An in-person audition. And now, today, a screen test, along with three or four other actors, at least two of whom were far more famous than Jason had ever hoped to be. He’d be on camera with Colby Kent, today. Looking for chemistry. And Colby, who loved the novel that was the source material, was—as Jason’s brain helpfully pointed out yet again—a producer on this project. A very active and interested one. Who had a say, obviously, alongside his director—Jillian Poe, another critically acclaimed name, and another reason to be nervous—about whoever’d be playing Stephen, to his Will. Colby Kent had the say, really. Money. Production. The role. The person he’d want to tumble naked into bed with. Which therefore meant none of that apology to Jason, about everyday problems like running late and running out of coffee, had been real. Some sort of act. Or test of his patience. Or intimidation. Had to be. Right? Susan said nothing, exquisitely loudly. “You weren’t there for his coffee,” Jason explained, and heard how ludicrous this sounded, and gave up. “If I can’t work with him…” “Try,” Susan advised unhelpfully. “This is his pet project, and if you love the role as much as you say you do, you’ll get along with him.” “But—” “You told me you didn’t want another John Kill sequel or another Saint Nick Steel project. Serious, you said. Emotional, you said. Epic.” Jason paced a few feet down the hallway, and complained, “We don’t talk about Saint Nick Steel.” “It made you a lot of money.” “I punched a lot of tactically ill-prepared kidnappers while wearing a hat that made me the reincarnated spirit of Christmas. I’ve spent years punching people on camera. Or shooting them. I’ve got range.” “Which is why you asked me for something else, and I delivered. They liked your video audition enough to call you in, in person, and then again, and now you’re here. Doing a screen test for chemistry. With, let me remind you, Colby Kent.” “Dammit.” “Everyone likes Colby Kent, Jason. Do your job.” “I am doing my job,” Jason grumbled, “I’m expressing professional concerns to my agent,” and wandered around the hallway some more. No motion from the closed doors yet. Colby had waved the coffee at him with the insistence of someone who didn’t hear rejection much. He’d been taller than most media suggested, only an inch or two shorter than Jason’s own height, but slim and tidy as ever, in a cozy-looking royal blue sweater over casual grey slacks. That instantly recognizable voice held all those stories, the ones that were part of the public persona: thirty years old, the childhood in England, the American diplomat father and celebrated poet-laureate mother, the years they’d spent following his father’s postings to Germany and to France, and the years after his parents’ divorce, when he’d moved to Southern California with his mother and gone to a casting call as support for a friend, and everything had begun. Those poster-boy eyes had beamed Jason’s direction like the first-ever smile of summer oceans. Jason had taken the coffee because it’d been practically shoved at him, and had tried not to glare. Of course Colby Kent could afford to beam affably at low-budget hopelessly hopeful action-hero stars. Of course Colby felt sorry for him. Offering kindness, offering pity. He’d flung the cup into a trash bin once the door had closed. He muttered into the phone, “I can’t do this.” “Yes you can,” Susan said, “and you know it, so you’re whining at me.” “I am not.” “You are. This is a role you love, you’ve said so yourself, everything you wanted when you were looking at possibilities. And it’ll open up all those possibilities. Film festivals. The awards circuit. Jillian Poe’s a big name, and Colby Kent’s—” “Also a big name. I know.” “A huge audience draw, I was going to say.” “He annoys me.” “You’ve barely met him.” Jason scowled at a hapless nearby wall. The wall remained placidly beige and uninterested. “I told you. He gave me his coffee.” “I’m not seeing the problem.” “It was the way he did it! He looked at me like—and his hair is like—and he smiled and—” He flung arms around in exasperation. “Look, I don’t like him, okay? Nobody like him apologizes for keeping somebody like me waiting. Which means it’s fake. Which means he’s fake. And the stupid hair and the stupid smile are just parts of the act. And I have to go in there and pretend to want to flirt with him.” “If you really don’t think you can do it,” Susan said, “then tell them now, and leave. And give up on this chance. Otherwise, get yourself together, get in there, and be a goddamn good actor. Because you are. You’re good enough for that. And Jason—” Jason, defeated by praise and wanting this and cranky about it, swung around to face the door. And froze. Susan kept talking. He heard nothing. Colby Kent, leaning against the wall, gave him a little wave and a half-smile. The smile did not reach into those blue eyes, this time. “Oh s**t,” Jason said weakly. Susan said, “What was that?” He ignored her. He hung up. He swallowed hard and prepared to watch his career crash into a flaming heap of ignominious rubble. “I’m…I didn’t…I’m sorry if…” “If what?” Colby said. “I only thought I’d come to get you in person, and apologize again for the running late. We’re ready now, if you’d like.” His tone sounded friendly. His smile looked friendly. His eyes… Colby did not look angry. Or upset. Or like a man plotting revenge. Different, yes; some emotion lurked that hadn’t been present before. Jason couldn’t pinpoint it, and found himself looking more closely, trying to figure out answers. Those eyes were a shade darker around the outside of those famous irises, he noticed: a circle of even richer, more luxurious blue. That didn’t show up on most movie posters. “Ah,” Colby said lightly, “getting into character? You don’t have to pretend to want to flirt with me yet, you know. You can put it off until we’re in front of the camera, but we should be heading in, they’re waiting for us,” and turned, obviously expecting Jason to follow. Jason couldn’t follow. Jason could barely breathe. He put a hand on his companionable wall for support. The hallway lights beat down on his head. Obviously Colby had heard him. That comment, that phrasing, couldn’t’ve been coincidental. But it hadn’t even been sarcastic. And he’d not kicked Jason out of the building or shouted back or even suggested politely that he was sorry but this role clearly wouldn’t work out. Jason stared at that slim shape, that knit blue sweater, as it outdistanced him. Resignation, he thought, a thought that arrived all at once, as if fully formed. Acceptance. That look. Taking the hurt and boxing it all up meticulously and sliding it onto a shelf alongside other hurts, because Colby Kent evidently had practice at that. Being professional, after insult or injury. He opened his mouth. Closed it. What would he say? Another useless apology? A vow that he’d not meant it, he’d mostly been frustrated and aching with self-doubt, and he wished he could fish that coffee out of the trash bin? Maybe he should. Maybe he should drink trash bin coffee. He was clearly a trash bin person. Colby stopped, glancing back at him. The hallway lights framed all that fluffy brown hair in sympathy. Even the lights liked him. Who wouldn’t? That answer to that was Jason himself, apparently. “I’m sorry,” Jason tried, and then remembered that he was supposed to be walking, and tried to do that. He tripped over nothing at all. Stumbled. Caught balance. “I’m…I didn’t mean…” Colby said, amused, “At least it’s not a ballroom dancing scene.” He might’ve not heard the apology; he might’ve been laughing, casual, playful, as if they were friends. “Come on, you’re the last for today and I’ll admit I’m absolutely starving, we’ve worked through lunch and I only had a banana this morning, and after this I am completely ordering pizza. With pineapple, I think. How do you feel about pineapple?” “Um,” Jason said. “It’s a fruit.” Were they friends? Should he be worried that Colby Kent, box-office darling, apparently lived on air and various fruit-related foods and the ability to dismiss awful overheard insults without batting an eye? “But. Um. It’s your pizza. You should get whatever you want on it.” “Of course it’s my pizza. But I was only wondering which side of the debate you landed on.” Colby dramatically widened those eyes at him, opening the door. “Some people have opinions about pineapple.” “I sort of don’t.” Jason trailed him in. Gazed at the bare set-up: a wall, a chair or two, the cameras, the table, the people. Three people. Five, counting Colby and the cameraperson. Important people. Watching him. “I can take it or leave it. I mean, if you’re actually ordering the pizza. What you want is my mom’s homemade dough for the crust. And her recipe for the sauce.” Why were they talking about pizza? Why was he explaining his mother’s cooking? What the hell, he thought, very clearly. What the hell am I even doing. This’ll never work. I won’t work. I’ve already hurt his feelings and I don’t know how to fix that and I don’t know how to be a serious actor and I don’t know how I’m feeling and I think I’m drowning. Help. He said, “Colby—” “Oh, sorry, I distracted you with pizza! Of course you should introduce yourself to everyone. Sorry, Jill. Sorry, everyone.” Colby offered up an abashed shrug and wave at the room. The room instantly forgave him. “I’ll just back off and wait until you need me, shall I?” “There’s pizza?” said the cheerful stocky man next to Jillian Poe. In a woolly cardigan and glasses, he might’ve been an English professor or a literary teddy bear given human existence. Jason was pretty sure he had to be Benjamin Rogers, the writer, but wasn’t a hundred percent confident. “Colby, when was there pizza?” Jillian Poe, critically acclaimed director, wagged a clipboard at him. Her hair, purple-striped today, crackled with energy even at the end of the session. “You don’t get to order any. You like anchovies.” “Could we order historically accurate food?” suggested the person on Jill’s left, who was in fact a person Jason knew; Amanda Young had handled casting for several big-budget Hollywood productions, and she’d been in the room the first time he’d come in to read. She was grinning, the usual eruption of black curls leaping out joyfully, comfortable in this room with this group. “Think there’s a Napoleonic Wars version of pizza?” Colby, promptly forgetting to avoid distractions, jumped in with, “Bread and cheese and mutton? Some sort of savory pie? Pineapples definitely existed, I know wealthy people used to rent them for display during dinner-parties and—” “If you want pineapples,” said the cameraman, “I could totally get you some, my cousin knows someone who grows—” Jillian put one hand over her face. “No pizza for any of you, pineapple or not. Jason, I apologize on behalf of the lunatics. It’s been a long day.” Mandy leaned around her to poke Ben with a pencil. “No,” Jason said hastily. Ben grabbed and hid the pencil. Colby seemed to be smothering a laugh, in the background. “I mean, no problem. Right. Sorry.” “You haven’t met Ben, have you? Ben Rogers, our writer. Ben, meet Jason Mirelli, you saw the audition tapes, he’s the one that Colby said the Star Wars thing about, you know.” She made a vague flitting gesture; Jason had no idea how to interpret that, but everyone else did, from the nods. Star Wars thing? What thing? A bad feeling about this? A disturbance in the Force? Something else? “And that’s Brian Park behind the camera—” Brian saluted. “—and now you’ve met everyone. So,” Jill concluded, abruptly crisp and professional, “you know which scene we’re doing, Jason? That first balcony scene. Outside the ballroom. We’re looking for chemistry. That crackle in the air. Will and Stephen instantly tempted by each other. Whenever you’re ready.” Jason wobbled a little in the face of this imminent intensity, hopefully not visibly. Here and now. Himself and a camera and this chance. A real role, a powerful heart-wrenching role, and emotion that’d made him ache to read, spilling from the page. He could do this. He had to do this. He took a breath. Tried to wrap Captain Stephen Lanyon’s world around himself. At war with Napoleon. Responsible for hundreds of lives. Only recently promoted and new to command. Awaiting the launch of his new ship, in fact, which would be why he’d come ashore, to wade into political waters and call in favors from the Admiralty and request better supplies, ship’s carpenters, his own second lieutenant from his old command as support. Here amid this kaleidoscopic reckless whirl of revelry, at the heart of London society, and both playing the game and despising it. Here, at the Stonewood ball, where the aging lion who carried the title of Earl kept trying with all his might to find a wife for his only heir. His beautiful, brilliant, frighteningly frail, secretly entirely uninterested in women, heir. In the present, in a meeting room, under twenty-first century lights, Jason glanced at Colby Kent. Couldn’t help it. Colby gave him that bright welcoming grin again, the one he’d worn when Jason first arrived. That expression shook the whole world out of complacency. Invited it to jump up and join in and pretend along. Jason forgot to inhale, shaken. Colby ran a hand through his own hair, rumpling forest-dark waves, and offered Jason an encouraging head-tip, and then did— Something. No good word for it. Suddenly he was William Crawford, Viscount Easterly: brittle and breakable and lonely and longing, good with maps and ciphers, never having been allowed further than the family estate on his own. Even his shoulders carried that weight, thin and distressed. One hand on a chair’s back for support, he did not look back at anyone in the conjured-up ballroom, beyond imagined balcony doors. Jason, like Stephen on the page, caught sight of him and couldn’t look away. He took a step forward. Colby turned. The camera might have existed, or might not; and Jason thought, very fleetingly, of pain and an earlier wound and friendliness solidly in place to defy it. He said, “My apologies, I wasn’t aware anyone was here.” A lie, and they both knew it. Colby gave him Will’s smile this time, polished and patrician. “Don’t tell me a Captain of the Royal Navy can possibly be so inattentive to his surroundings. I’d be frightened on behalf of the war effort.” “Very well, I saw you. Would you like me to leave?” He shifted weight closer, saying it. Colby’s eyes got a bit wider; Jason knew about the effect of his own muscles, that height and strength and breadth, and he knew it’d work on Will, who liked the thrill of danger and power and tantalizing adventure. That much was in the script. He did not know whether the visible lip-lick, that catch in Colby’s breath, was deliberate or unplanned. “You may as well stay.” Colby waved a hand, purposefully elegant and slightly arrogant, reclaiming ground and not backing away. “You can’t precisely uninterrupt my solitude.” “They’re your festivities.” “They’re my father’s festivities.” Cool and collected, armor up. “Hardly my preference.” Jason took one more step. Directly into Colby’s space. Catching luscious blue eyes with his; letting the moment extend, letting the words linger and then emerge. “What is your preference, in that case, Viscount Easterly?” He’d meant it to be a challenge. It was. But it came out unexpectedly gentle, as something changed in Colby’s face: parted lips, a shiver, an unanticipated vulnerability. Those eyes were very large. Jason said it again, softly, and put a hand out. Traced fingers through a loose wave of Colby’s hair. Tucked it back into place. “What would be your preference, if you could choose? What would you like, from me?” That last bit wasn’t in the script. It’d just tumbled out. Unplanned. In the background, far off, someone said, “Holy s**t—” Someone else demanded, “Don’t you dare stop recording, I want every second of this—” They didn’t matter. Unimportant. Jason watched Colby’s face, the way the next inhale lingered over lips, the way his hair brushed his collar when he tipped his head up to meet Jason’s gaze more directly. “I prefer—” He stopped. Jason had left the hand in place, stroking whisper-soft hair, and now half-inadvertently slid it down to touch his cheek: a caress and a question and a request for forgiveness. Colby seemed to be wordless. Forgiveness, Jason thought. For Stephen’s interrupting of Will’s retreat; for his own idiotic tantrum earlier; for whatever had put that resigned small pain behind Colby Kent’s complicated pretty eyes. They all fell together and blurred into one. He couldn’t pull them apart. He no longer quite knew how. He wanted to kiss Colby Kent on a balcony the way Stephen wanted to kiss Will. He wanted to grab Colby’s wrist and sweep him off into the library and crush him into books the way Stephen very shortly would. He wanted to explain that he hadn’t meant any of his own earlier words, he just couldn’t believe in all that niceness, not without some reason behind it. He wanted, against all logic and rationality, to help. This realization silenced him. Colby, looking faintly shocked, managed to find safe harbor in a line. “I’d like to be able to choose. For once. For one night.” That was more or less the script, but Jason hadn’t imagined it quite so raw, so poignant. “Could you offer that, Captain Lanyon?” “Perhaps I could.” They could’ve had hands on a balcony’s old stone railing, under moonlight; he held his out instead, a suggestion. The scene, this scene, should end with the breath before a kiss, followed by that tumble into the library, a Regency-draped one-night-stand, loosened cravats and undone breeches and gasping breaths. He could have closed fingers around that slim wrist and yanked Colby forcefully to him; he only made the hand an invitation, and waited. “Would you accept it if I did?” Colby’s eyes flicked to the open hand, then back up to Jason’s face. “If you politely offered to give me what I’d like?” “As polite as you’d like me to be, my lord,” Jason promised. “Or—not. Whatever you’d choose.” Colby lifted his own hand. Set it in Jason’s. His fingers were long and graceful, but slightly cold; Jason wanted to warm them. And Colby’s complicated eyes sparked with newfound fire. “Then I’d choose less polite. Captain.” In that reply the title was a beckoning, a flare, a call to action and the future: temptation to push that smile down and conquer it, never without care, never causing harm, but with a fierce and wild need to wind fingers into his hair and hear Colby’s voice murmur the word again, Captain or sir or even Jason’s name— Stephen’s name. Christ. Colby Kent was a damn good actor. Jason couldn’t breathe. Colby’s fingers tapped his, just once, then lifted. Jason was still struggling to remember where and when they were. Colby fiddled with a shoved-up sweater-sleeve for a second. It didn’t seem in danger of sliding down, but maybe it was, or he thought it was; either way, his gaze dropped from Jason’s. Afterward he looked up, smile firmly in place, and displayed said smile at the camera, at Jill, at their audience. “How was that?” Two-thirds of their audience applauded. Enthusiastically. With drumming on the desk. Ben even did a small silent whistle. “God, you make my words sound good.” “Thank you, thank you.” Colby waved airily. “I do try.” As if he’d not been trembling and brave and determined, a moment ago. As if he, like Jason, wasn’t fighting back the urge to reach out again, to touch again, to find out what’d happen if they touched more— He probably wasn’t. Acting, Jason reminded himself. Colby Kent had built a career out of being lovable. Being adorable. Performing. Jillian cleared her throat. Set down her pen. “Thank you, Jason, that was…certainly memorable.” “I’m going to remember it,” Ben murmured. “Later. For script revisions, of course.” Colby avoided looking at Jason some more. “Thank you for coming in,” Jillian said, “and we apologize again about running late. We’ll review today’s tapes and let you know within the week.” “Thanks.” Handshakes all around. Nods. Pretending his career, his future, didn’t hang in the balance. He paused when he got to Colby, who’d come over to perch on the corner of the table. Those long legs stretched out against a backdrop of meeting-room blandness; Jason offered his hand there too, and then internally winced at recent tumultuous memories. “Sorry.” “You do keep saying that,” Colby said, and took his hand very briefly, the limit of what would’ve counted as courtesy, and let go. “Never apologize for honest reactions. They’re rare enough in our line of work. In which some of us, like me, are very good at being fake. As you so honestly observed. Someone will be in touch very soon, since we’re moving fairly rapidly with this. I think that’s all, unless you’ve got any questions for us?” That question wasn’t really one. Rhetorical. Jason, trapped by the middle statement, couldn’t scrape together words. He muttered some collection of sounds, and fled. In the elevator he slumped back against the wall. Shut his eyes. Exhaled. This role. This fantastic waistcoats and ballrooms and love-letters role. And he wanted it. He wanted it so badly he nearly screamed. He wouldn’t get it. He wouldn’t. Brainless action-hero reputation aside—and that’d be a pretty damn big aside—he’d insulted Colby Kent in a hallway, then done…whatever it was he’d done…during the screen test to make famous romantic-comedy blue eyes get even wider and off-balance, and consequently left Colby not quite able to look at him. He contemplated kicking the elevator. Settled for thumping his head against it as they traveled downward. Colby Kent, being a producer as well as playing Will Crawford, would be non-negotiable. Jason Mirelli was likely no longer even on the same metaphorical planet as any negotiations. That comprehension hurt. Like a Regency-era bullet to the gut. To his career. He leaned against his friendly elevator a little harder, sagging. He could play this role. He knew he could. He could handle battle scenes; he could make himself cope with the water scenes; he could love another man and stand up and wave the banners of that love, fighting to be seen throughout history. He knew how he’d play that first kiss, that quiet letter-writing stillness, the moments of stolen shore leave. And someone else would get to do it. None of that would be his. He’d held out Stephen’s hand more gently because it’d felt right. In the script, Stephen and Will would flirt and bicker and challenge each other, and they’d both be sure of what they wanted; but despite the dazzling sparks the element of choice lay at the core. Stephen would definitely haul Will off to the library and ravish him, but not without being certain that was what Will desired; Will would’ve spent too long not being allowed to choose for himself, a path not dictated by expectations of his rank or his ill-health, and he was clever and stubborn and competent in his own right. Anyone who’d simply assume he wanted mindless plundering would be reading their roles wrong. Jason gritted teeth. He was picturing Colby’s slim fingers in his. Feeling the lightness of that touch. Seeing the way those lips had parted, not expecting consideration in the scene. Someone else might not see that, the way those expectations didn’t quite line up, the weight behind the response. Someone else might stampede directly over Colby without noticing the subtlety. Someone else might not play the moment right. He heard that unforgettable multilayered voice saying goodbye again. Telling Jason not to apologize for being honest. Calling himself very good at being fake. Echoing the insult not as if upset about it but as if accepting it as correct. Jason would’ve bet his entire income from the John Kill series on that flicker of vulnerability—his hand stroking Colby’s hair, his question about desire hovering a caress away—being real. Even now, picturing the moment in a slowing elevator, he would again. He didn’t know what that meant. And he’d never know. Big dumb action hero. Trampling all over feelings and a scene. Ruining whatever connection had gotten him to this point. He didn’t know how he’d call Susan. He didn’t know what he’d do next. If there’d ever be a next role, another opportunity. Even if so, it wouldn’t be this. The doors opened. Ground floor. He left the elevator. He stepped out of the wide glass entryway into diamond-bright Los Angeles sun. He winced because he’d forgotten sunglasses, and blinked rapidly, and stepped to one side to not be in the way: a large-shouldered near-forty-year-old action star in jeans and a too-warm jacket, out on the pavement. Even while he stuck a hand in his pocket to find his phone and call a cab, sunbeams leaden on his shoulders, he wasn’t thinking about breaking the news to Susan, or to his own heart, though he would have to do both soon. He was thinking about Colby Kent, instead. Those slightly chilly fingers, and those wide blue eyes. On the phone, later that night, he did not tell Susan that part. She commiserated anyway, an agent and a friend, and promised to send over some other projects that might be a better fit. Jason nodded even though she couldn’t see him, poured a second glass of scotch, and stared out into Los Angeles under thick smoky skies. City of stars. City of dreams. And a future as an increasingly less relevant B-level punch-and-kick-and-explosions memory. He didn’t mind being popcorn entertainment. He wasn’t lying to himself about that; he’d never be anything but grateful for his career. He’d had fun, and he’d never say he hadn’t. Anyway, everyone needed undemanding pure high-adrenaline spectacle once in a while. He’d just wanted something else alongside that. Something that’d mean more for an audience. For history and the stories that got told. For himself. Stupid, he thought. Stupid dreams. As if you could be right for that. As if you could be good enough for that. As if they’d take you and your muscles seriously. As if you could help someone. Anyone. Someone with blue eyes, who uses too many words as friendly rambling armor, deflection over self-deprecation. As if he’d want you to. Jason tossed back the rest of the scotch, sighed, couldn’t face himself in the mirror, and went to bed. He woke to the mild ache of dehydration—he hadn’t drunk enough water—and the slanting bars of optimistic sunshine on his face and two missed calls, both recent, both with voicemails. One from Susan, which he’d get to after. One from Jillian Poe, which had to be the incoming polite no-thank-you after yesterday’s debacle. It was nice that she’d called personally, he supposed. He played that one first. And then he sat very still on his bed, surrounded by rumpled sheets and sunshine, unshaven and fuzzy with shock. Congratulations, Jillian said, and could he come in for wardrobe fittings and makeup tests as soon as possible, and would he mind working with a historical-consultant ballroom dance specialist before filming? They had someone in mind. Someone Colby knew. And congratulations again, and please call her back. He had the part. They’d offered him the role.