Heaven Sent.

by Heather Mar-Gerrison

  Chapter 7 – Road trip…

  Gerard

  I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t expect to. I lay there listening to Jason’s even breathing all night instead. He was cuteness personified. Everything about him was cute from his curly dark red hair and perfect cameo skin to his slight stature. God. It was no wonder he was every teenage girl’s heartthrob – and likely for a fair old number of boys too…

  I guess I must have slept at some point because I woke up to the sun streaming through the open curtains. I wrinkled my nose. God this room was cheap and nasty in the cold light of day.

  I turned to see if Jason was awake and just stopped and stared. Oh, my God. I’d never seen such a beautiful person in my whole life. He was still asleep. His perfect mouth was slightly open, showing that he was in a perfectly relaxed state. His eyelashes were long and dark for the rest of his colouring. My God. He was beautiful. Utterly beautiful. I felt quite blessed to see him like this. Not many people would have this privilege.

  As I watched him, his eyes flickered open and he blinked a couple of times before he focused on me, “Oh,” he murmured, “Mornin’,”

  I smiled, “Good morning.” I replied, “Would you like to join me for breakfast? I was just gonna head down.”

  He scrambled to a sitting position and nodded, “Sure, sure.” He said, “Give me a minute to use the bathroom?”

  I nodded, “Of course.” I agreed.

  I watched him as he riffled through his holdall and pulled out a toothbrush and toothpaste, “Can’t go down with morning breath.” He said with a little grin and then shot into the bathroom at the speed of light.

  I smiled. Cute.

  Minutes later he was back out of the bathroom and throwing on a tee shirt and hopping around getting his jeans on. Finally, he shoved his feet into his Converses and he was ready. He looked up at me with a grin, “Shall we?” he asked.

  I smiled and nodded, “Come on then.” I said. I grabbed the key off the sideboard and opened the door.

  Jason ducked under my arm and out into the hallway. “God, I hope they do a decent breakfast.” He said.

  I nodded, “Yeah.” I agreed. I was less enthusiastic about breakfast than Jason – but then I was British and we were in America. I wasn’t a massive fan of the food over here.

  “Pancakes.” Jason turned and beamed at me, “Let’s have pancakes.”

  Pancakes? I wanted to scoff at him. Pancakes back at home looked nothing like these things, “Fine.” I agreed.

  “Blueberries and bananas on mine.” He rubbed his hands together in glee.

  I grimaced slightly but decided to give it a whirl. I’d never tried them and I hated to think that I wasn’t open-minded enough to at least try them before declaring them the worst food in the world.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong, though. They were heavenly. “Oh, my God.” I murmured, “These are amazing.”

  He nodded, “I know, right.” He said, beaming at me, “They’re my favourite breakfast food! Mom cooks them all the time.”

  I raised an eyebrow, “Mom still cooks for you?” I asked with a smile, “You still live at home?”

  He went a little red and nodded, “I haven’t had the time between movies to even go looking for my own place.” He explained, “And it’s easy, you know? To just go home and let her fuss over me.”

  I smiled, “Sounds fabulous.” I said. “I left home five years ago.”

  He nodded, “And you live with your girlfriend, right?”

  I nodded, “Yeah,” I agreed, “That’s right.”

  “What’s that like, then.” He asked, “Living with someone, sharing your hopes and dreams with someone special – sharing your life?” He was leaning his chin on his hands and looking kind of wistful and dreamy. My God. It hit me once again just how beautiful he was.

  I blinked. “Um…” I felt like shaking my head to get the image of his face out of my mind but in all honesty, I didn’t think I’d ever manage it. It was like he was indelibly imprinted on me now. I really didn’t know how to answer that one. The truth was that we didn’t really share much – we co-habited and little else. I’d never really thought about it before but we shared very little. I was beginning to wonder what on earth it was that we did have in common.

  Jason was looking at me expectantly. I had to say something, “We’ve been together for five years. We rub along pretty well, I guess.”

  He blinked, “Oh.” He said, hurriedly looking back down to his breakfast, “I’m sorry.” He added, “I’ve got a terrible habit of asking too many questions – I didn’t mean to pry.”

  I shook my head, “You didn’t.” I said. Fuck. Now I’d made him feel uncomfortable again. That really hadn’t been my intention. I’d just been caught on the hop. He’d only been trying to find out a little more about me but he’d inadvertently asked a question that had, for me, opened a can of worms. What were we doing together, Gina and I? I honestly didn’t have a fucking clue.

  *

  “We’re going to drive to San Francisco in this?” Jason was looking at the car a little dubiously.

  I rubbed the back of my neck nervously, “Uh, yeah?” I said, “What’s wrong with it?”

  He shrugged, “It’s kind of shitty,” he said.

  I laughed, “Yeah.” I agreed, “You’re right. It is – but that’s all Jack’s willing to pay for. What? You want to go back and pick another one and we’ll throw in the rest between us?”

  He nodded, “That’ll work.” He said, “Like I said, this is my first road trip. I want it to be cool.”

  I chuckled, “Come on, then. Let’s go back and re-negotiate.”

  Jason

  “Oh, my God! This is fantastic!” I shouted excitedly, as we set off in the brand-new Land Rover Evoke.

  Gerard grinned, “They’re cool, aren’t they?” he said.

  Cool? Cool didn’t even being to cover how awesome this car was. “I’m gonna get me one of these babies just as soon as I’ve got my own place with a driveway.”

  Gerard chuckled, “Good idea.” He said, “So, with your schedule, you should just about manage that when you turn thirty.”

  I laughed. Gerard was much nicer today than he’d been yesterday. I was beginning to relax around him.

  It must have been the kissing. It might not be everyone’s way of breaking the ice – but fuck, it had worked for me – and possibly him too, since he’d been really quite human all morning.

  I bit my lip. Should I mention it? Apologise for it? Ignore it? Ignore it… definitely.

  “So, what got you into acting?” I asked, expecting that to be a nice, safe subject. Most actors I’d met loved talking about themselves…

  “Um…”

  But, just like everything else about Gerard Sinclair had surprised the shit out of me, it seemed that talking about himself wasn’t something he was particularly comfortable with either.

  Eventually, he answered me. He’d gotten into it at university and hadn’t actually finished his course as he was offered a part in a movie before he took his finals.

  “Wow.” I stared at him, “What were you studying?”

  He raised his eyebrows at me, “Why do you want to know?”

  I shrugged, “I’m curious, I guess.” Because I’ve had a crush on you practically forever and I want to know everything there is to know about you.

  He nodded, “Fine.” He said, “I was studying law.”

  Fuck. He was super intelligent… “Wow.” I repeated, making him smile.

  “Didn’t you want to go to college?” he asked.

  I shrugged, “I wasn’t too concerned about it.” I said, “I figured I could always go back if my career as an actor bombed.”

  He laughed, “Good plan.” He said.

  We talked about all sorts of things after that. I have to admit to doing most of the talking. But Gerard was so good at asking questions, it didn’t occur to me until we arrived at Jack’s house that I’d spilled my guts almost completely abou
t my life – and I still knew jack shit about his. I was going to have to start getting better at asking questions…

  “Well, here we are.” Gerard said as he pulled into a massive sweeping driveway and we stopped in front of the most impressive house I’d seen in a long time, “No wonder he wanted us to film here – it’s incredible.”

  I nodded, “Incredible.” I agreed.

  Chapter 8 – Confusion…

  Gerard

  There was no denying it. I was confused. Not by the movie. No, quite the contrary – playing the part of uptight, lonely, eccentric Henry was surprisingly easy. I was beginning to think that Jack was a genius. He’d seen the potential for this role in me from my other movies, since we’d never met – something I would never have seen myself doing had it not been offered and yet I loved Henry and all of his little quirks. I’d borrowed the book from the library before I’d come here and I’d got an insight into Henry that I’d really wanted to bring to the screen – his vulnerability even while he was pushing everyone who cared about him away.

  And then Jason’s character, Sasha had arrived – as if from nowhere – transforming his loneliness into something he’d never dreamed of. He discovered that he was capable of caring about another human being. He fell in love. Sasha, he believed, had been sent by an angel to save him from killing himself.

  We’d filmed the last scene today, which had left me feeling slightly bereft. Knowing that we only had three weeks left here in this little bubble we’d created for ourselves, I was beginning to dread going home, back to Gina with her silly crush on Jason. She didn’t know him. She couldn’t possibly even begin to realise what an extraordinary human being he was.

  I sighed as I watched him diving into the swimming pool. We were all still around at Jack’s house. His house was amazing and he had a pool and it was where we all hung out almost every evening after filming even though we’d been here all day. It was massive so it didn’t feel like the same place where we were staying and this part of the garden couldn’t be seen in the movie either.

  Jack believed in early starts and early finishes – and when there were so few actors in the production – the film revolved almost entirely between Henry and Sasha, it was easy to stay within the schedule – especially with the way Jason was able to deliver his lines in one take almost every time. He was incredible, absolutely incredible.

  I knew it was impossible, but I wanted to stay here forever, just me and Jason and the crew. Forever…

  We’d become a bit of an eclectic family and I was uncommonly fond of everyone – and everyone loved Jason. He was the total darling of the entire group.

  Jack absolutely adored the pair of us together and had gone on about it all night when we went out for Jason’s twenty-first…

  I was watching Jason dancing on the dance floor. He was adorable. He looked really sexy in his tight, dark red jeans and that pristine, tight fitting, white shirt. God, I could have sat there all night just watching him.

  “We have to shoot a sequel to this movie!” Jack said, nudging my elbow and then putting a beer in my hand as he sat down next to me, “you two are going to make me a millionaire – together you are solid gold, my friend.”

  I chuckled, “We have to write the screenplay first, dude.” I reminded him.

  He shrugged, “I’m sure if we put all of our heads together, we could accomplish almost anything. Look at the talent of Carl,” Carl Kyle was the screen-writer, “he’s a genius and there’s no getting away from it – you and Jason have a gift.”

  I raised my eyebrows, “A gift?”

  He nodded, “You know what I mean,” he said, “The chemistry you two have together… Chemistry like that is hard to come by – and you two have it in bucket loads. This film is going to put you both centre-stage when we get back. We have dozens of appearances to make together, the three of us, actually. Are you prepared for that, Gerard?”

  I blinked, “What do you mean?” I asked taking a sip of my beer. What was he singling me out for?

  He took his glasses off and squinted at me, “The UK media are relentless for a story, you know that. They will scrutinize your relationship.” He nodded towards Jason who was still swaying to the music, his eyes closed and a little smile on that perfect rosebud mouth.

  I frowned at him. Relationship? He made it sound like Jason and I were having some sort of love affair… “But we don’t have a relationship.” I said defensively. “We’re working on a movie together, that’s all.”

  He laughed, “Oh, yes you do have a relationship.” He argued good-naturedly, “Henry has come to life with you acting out his lines – and as for Sasha…”

  I blinked, “What about him?”

  He raised his eyebrows, “You know as well as I do that he wasn’t written this well.” He said, “I know you’ve read the book.”

  I nodded, “Yes.” I admitted. Because I’d had to read the book to understand Henry. To be fair, I’d taken far more notice of Henry’s character, since I knew I’d be playing him…

  “Read it again.” He said, “And then tell me if his lines are better in the book – or coming out of Jason’s mouth.”

  The thought of Jason’s mouth made my head feel a little swimmy, as all the blood in my body rushed to my groin but I did my best to keep my expression neutral, “I’ll do that.” I said, “I’ll read it again when I get back.”

  He raised an eyebrow, “So you’re going to bed alone tonight, then?” He asked with raised eyebrows.

  Fuck. He made it sound like we were sleeping together, now, too. We really weren’t but there was no denying that Jason and I never went anywhere without each other, including going to bed at the same time and obviously the rest of the crew had noticed – particularly Jack who had been instrumental in throwing us together in the first place.

  He knew there was more to our friendship than either of us were willing to admit to. Fuck it, they all must have fucking known… I just hoped we were all as good friends as we were now when we got back – because I didn’t know about Jay, but I really wasn’t ready to come out – and loose lips made for a great story…

  “Yes, I’ll be sleeping alone.” I said, frowning at him, “Jason and I are just friends.”

  He nodded, “Cool.” He said, “But it would be equally cool if you were more than that – no judgement here, dude.”

  Jason came bounding across the room at that moment and all discussion about our ‘relationship’ ended.

  “Come and dance with me.” He wheedled, grabbing my hands and pulling me out of my seat.

  I went with him, laughing at his enthusiasm, “Okay, birthday boy,” I said, “I’m coming.”

  Dancing was something I loved to do – but being the size I was, I needed a lot of room – particularly when I was dancing with someone as flamboyant as my beautiful co-star.

  His smile was mesmerising as he moved to the music, “You’re a great dancer.” He said loudly over the driving beat.

  I grinned, “Not as good as you.” I shouted back to him, “You’re a total natural,” he was as graceful as a gazelle and utterly beautiful to watch, “I’m like a carthorse in comparison.”

  He shook his head and laughed, “You just don’t see what I see.” He said.

  *

  Wow. I turned the page and shook my head. Jack was incredible with the way he’d wanted to film the movie. It was all sort of dreamy and surreal. Everyone was a little hungover today and Jack had decided we could all have the day off. As far as I was aware, Jason hadn’t surfaced from his room yet, and I was reading the book for the second time, having nothing else to do.

  I could totally appreciate the way Jack had shot the movie now. And he was absolutely right about Jason too. He really had put so much of himself into the part that Sasha was better in the movie than he’d been in the book...

  I bit my lip as I closed the book and checked the time. I really needed to go and check on Jason. Poor kid was going to be suffering for his ‘coming of age’ dr
inks the night before.

  I padded through the lounge area that was between our two bedrooms – it was almost like having our own apartment. The only thing missing was a kitchen – we had a bedroom each, a sitting room with TV and a bathroom to share. I knocked on his door and then, not waiting for him to speak, popped my head around his door, “Jason?”

  He peeped at me over the top of his quilt cover, “I feel like shit.” He croaked.

  I smiled, “Me too.” I admitted, although I doubted I felt anywhere near as bad as he did, “I was just reading this through again.” I held up the book, “Making sure I’m a properly authentic Henry.”

  He nodded, “You’re perfect as Henry.” He mumbled, “Oh, God.” He closed his eyes, looking decidedly green, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  I pushed his door open and went into his room, “Want some help?”

  He nodded, “Please.” He said, “Not sure I can feel my legs properly yet.”

  I shook my head, “You know,” I said gently, “You didn’t have to get shit-faced just because all the guys were buying you drinks.”

  He smiled, his dimples showing up in his pale face, “I know I didn’t,” he said, “but I was having fun.”

  I nodded, “Yeah,” I agreed, “It was fun, wasn’t it?” Especially the slow dances at the end of the night.

  I got him to the bathroom and he threw up.

  “I’ll get you some water.” I said.

  He nodded, perching himself gingerly on the edge of the bath, “I’m gonna stay right here I think. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna throw up again.” He groaned, “And I really hate being sick.”

  My heart went out to him. He looked so young and vulnerable in just his boxer shorts.

  I’d kind of assumed when we first met, that he was skinny, but obviously with the nature of the movie, I’d been able to look at him properly over the last few weeks and he was actually really toned. His legs were shapely and muscled. My dick twitched in my jeans and I was heartily glad that I was dressed. There was no way he wouldn’t notice my arousal if I was dressed the way he was…