The Confused Heart

chapter 4

Granted, there is always vomit on his shoes the first night of shooting, but it usually happens at dawn, not dusk, and the vomit typically belongs to an overserved contestant, not to Prince Charming himself.

Then again, it turns out Charles Winshaw is no one’s definition of a Prince Charming, no matter how much he might look the part. And he really does look the part. Broad-shouldered, with the tux doing little to conceal his muscular build. Straight-nosed and square-jawed and sweet—it’s the sweetness that caught Peter off guard when Charles fell out of the town car. All the men who come on this show are handsome. None of them have ever been sweet.

Then again, none of them have ever been quite this handsome. Charles Winshaw is somehow the most beautiful man Peter’s ever seen in real life, even with vomit in his chin dimple. Even talking absolute nonsense. Even with all the nervous sweating.

(Maybe especially with all the nervous sweating.)

“I… I’m s-so, so, so sorry,” he sputters.

Any annoyance Peter feels about the vomit disappears when he looks up into Charles Winshaw’s enormous eyes. He’s like a terrified baby bird. Like a two-hundred-twenty-pound baby bird with crippling anxiety and a fairly intense germ phobia who can’t navigate his way through a complete sentence.

A man from set design comes over with a hose to casually clean the puke off the pavement and douses Peter with a burst of cold water, which is pretty par for the course on his night so far.

“I… seriously… so sorry,” Charles says again as the makeup team swoops in to fix his face without missing a beat.

The vomit is cleared from his chin, the lights are adjusted, and from somewhere in the dark, the first AD shouts, “Final checks, please!” whether Charles is ready to become Prince Charming or not.

He’s definitely not. He looks gray and sickly, and Peter wants to stay by his side, but the AD calls to lock it up, and Peter jumps out of frame at the last second.