“Jules, wait,” Dolphina said.
“Yeah, babe, you’re dripping on the floor,” Robin pointed out.
“I’ll get a towel and wipe it up,” Jules said, as Dolphina said, “Guys, really, you need to listen—”
“Dolph has worked with plenty of actors,” Robin spoke over them both. “She doesn’t care if you take off your jeans.”
“Yeah, well, I kind of think she would care today, because I happen to be going commando,” Jules said—to fifty close friends and coworkers as he opened the living room door. “Hi…everyone. Wow. Jeez. TMI.”
Too much information, indeed. Jules’s good friend Sam, who was standing near the front of the crowd, started to laugh.
Dolphina met Robin’s eyes and smiled weakly. “Surprise?”
Will Schroeder tried to blend into the background of Robin Chadwick’s living room, wishing he could find the bar in the crush of people and laughter.
He finally gave up and asked one of the men standing near him—tall, with military short hair—where they were hiding the beer. The guy gave him the strangest look. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe the strangeness was all in Will’s head. GI Joe did, after all, have almost freakishly pale gray eyes. It was definitely disconcerting to be the focus of his full attention.
“Soda’s in the fridge,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Cosmo. Robin’s brother-in-law.”
“Will.” He’d learned, the hard way, that it was always better to use his real name. Making one up would surely come back and chomp him on the butt. “I’m a friend of Art Urban’s.” Not entirely a lie, although the word friend was stretching it into the realm of fiction.
And as an award-winning, old-fashioned journalist, a reporter of the facts-and-truth-delivery-vehicle school, writing fiction was something he swore he’d never fall back on.
Of course, lying to get a story was vastly different from lying while writing one.
Or so Will told himself—especially at times like these.
Although right now, he was feeling both enormously guilty and humongously brass-balled. He’d just walked in, joined this party. No one had challenged him. Not yet, anyway. Everyone he’d met so far had been incredibly friendly, but the guilt didn’t keep him from asking questions of—Cha-ching!—Robin Chadwick’s brother-in-law.
“You were in the…Marines, right?” Will had done way too little research for this gig, assuming he could fill in the blanks later, when he was writing the piece for The Boston Globe. But he did remember hearing that Chadwick’s sister—Hollywood producer Jane Mercedes Chadwick—was married to some kind of former bodyguard type.
“Navy SEAL,” Cosmo corrected him. “Active duty.”
Whoa. Okay. “Must be kind of weird,” Will said. “You’re a SEAL, but your wife’s brother is…you know.”
“An actor?” Cosmo was either dumb as a stone or playing with him.
Will had met some SEALs and former SEALs during his world-traveling, investigative journalism days, and dumb as a stone didn’t line up. So he went point-blank, just to gauge the man’s reaction. “Gay,” he said.
“Why would that be weird?” The SEAL crossed his massive arms, as if resisting the urge to snap Will’s neck.
So Will pushed it further. “You’re completely cool with this,” he countered, half question, half statement. “Robin gives up a lucrative movie career, announces he’s gay, and that he’s getting married to another man…?”
Cosmo gazed at him expressionlessly for several long moments. “Who are you again?” he finally asked.
Definitely not dumb as a stone. It was time to run away. Fast. “Friend of Art’s,” Will said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “Excuse me, I’ve got to take this call.”
Phone to his ear, even though no one was really on the other end, he made his way across the crowded room.
He almost regretted the fact that Cosmo didn’t follow him, grab him, and toss him out of the party into the still-steadily-falling icy rain.
What was he doing here? It felt surreal.
He’d crawled through jungles to interview guerilla leaders. He’d investigated and dug until he’d uncovered the location of an al Qaeda training camp, which had helped the U.S. apprehend dozens of terrorists. He’d stood on the ruins of an earthquake-ravaged city and written articles that had moved people and convinced them to send desperately needed aid.
He was a journalist, not a fluff-piece reporter.
So some gay movie star was getting married. Who on earth cared, besides Paul, his editor? And Will suspected that his editor cared more about watching Will fail, then about getting this feature.
But failure was not an option. He was willing to take whatever assignments he was given, because he could no longer simply pack up and go walkabout, searching for the next big story. Thanks to his sister, Arlene, he actually had an apartment now, and rent to pay.
He needed this job, so he was going to deliver the impossible—an interview with publicity-shy Robin Chadwick.
It was then, almost as if he’d willed him there, that Robin himself appeared right in front of Will. He wasn’t in the middle of a conversation. He wasn’t heading somewhere else. He was just standing there, as if looking for someone.
Will pocketed his cell phone. “Hi. Robin.”
“Hey, have you seen Gina?” The actor was taller than he looked on screen, and even better looking, which was kind of backward to the way it was supposed to be. He was younger than Will had expected, too, but that was possibly an illusion due to the obvious pleasure radiating off the man. He’d clearly recovered from being surprised while wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, and was now both fully clad and enjoying this party to the utmost.
Will shook his head. “I…I haven’t.” He didn’t know who Gina was. “Great party.”
“Yeah,” Robin agreed. “Not quite the way I was intending to spend my Saturday afternoon, but this is very nice. Have we met?”
“No,” he said. “I’m Will.” And Robin shook his hand. He had a warm, solid grip.
“Do you work with Jules?” Robin asked.
Moment of truth. Sort of. “No,” Will said, aware of Cosmo’s eyes still on him, from across the room. “I’m new in the office. There was an e-mail going around about this shower, so…I hope it’s okay that I came. I wanted to introduce myself.”
He resisted the urge to touch his nose, see if it had gotten any longer, even though technically it wasn’t a lie. He hadn’t said which office, and if Robin assumed that he meant Art Urban’s, so be it.
“Of course it’s okay.” Robin’s legendary generosity was obviously not just a legend. His charisma was also unbelievable. When he talked to someone, he was talking only to them. It was impressive. Will had met his share of celebrities whose eyes constantly swept the room, looking for someone more important to talk to. “Welcome. Although I gotta be honest, it’s a no-cell-phone day—for me and Jules, anyway. That means no calls, no business—just fun, Will, all right?”
“You got it.”
“Good.”
“But I was hoping to set up a time we could sit down and talk.” Will watched as Robin’s smile faded. He felt like an asshole, which was exactly what he was. “It can be outside the office—in fact, I’d prefer it. More casual—relaxed. Maybe we could meet for coffee—or drinks?”
Robin was too polite to simply turn and walk away. “Will, can I be honest? You’re kind of pushing the no-business boundary here. Why don’t you call my personal assistant on Monday and set something up? Her name’s Dolphina—she’s around here somewhere. Get her card, and call her, okay?” He shook Will’s hand again, giving him a farewell pat on his shoulder with his other hand.
“I’m sorry,” Will said quickly, before Robin could turn away. “I just…I’m new and I wanted to jump right in to fight the bad news—you know, the most recent ratings lag.”
“Crap,” Robin said, taking the bait. “Are we really down again?”
They were. Will had d
one that research at least. And wasn’t he a total turd for giving the man that grim news during a party. Still, he made himself nod. “It’s the time-slot thing.” He didn’t know why the critically acclaimed show was struggling to keep its audience, but surely that wasn’t helping. “They keep moving you. My own TiVo can’t even find you.”
Robin’s smile was rueful now. “Terrific.”
Will pushed it. “I know you’ve said no interviews, especially in regard to your upcoming wedding, but…It’s a good story, Robin. People are curious about you. They’re curious about your fiancé. We can stay away from invasive questions, you know, who’s top, who’s bottom—that kind of thing.”
Robin was shaking his head in disgust. “But those are the questions that would be asked—you and I both know that.”
“Maybe the solution lies in anticipating it,” Will said. “We could come up with a response that—”
“Not even close,” Robin cut him off. “I say anything at all about sex, even if it’s obviously a joke, you know—even if I’m mocking them, like, What I really love is doing it in a pig mask, while swinging from a chandelier, and suddenly it’s a sound bite all over TM-fucking-Z dot-com.”
And wasn’t that the truth. Will fought the urge to say, Stop right there. Don’t say another word to me. My iPod is recording you.
“You know what the problem is?” Robin lowered his voice to confide in him. “There’s no story here. Everyone thinks there is, you said it yourself, but there’s not. I fell in love with a terrific man and…I made some choices about what I wanted my life to be like—sunlight instead of shadows. I’m convinced I made the right choices—I don’t regret a thing. I enjoy my work—I hope the show stays afloat, but if it doesn’t, so be it. What’s important to me is that I’m in an amazing relationship, and hallelujah, Jules loves me, too. We’re getting married for the same reason that everyone else gets married—because we want our commitment to each other to be both publicly known and legal. We’re incredibly happy—and really boring. There’s no conflict, no story. So the media tries to create one, because sex sells, and because gay sex still scares some people. Although you know what’s really scary? It’s why so many alleged conservatives want to know the details about what goes on in the privacy of my bedroom. No offense, Will, I like you, but I really don’t want to know what floats your boat when you’re naked with your significant other. You do your thing, and I’ll do mine, and as long as we’re all consenting adults, what’s the problem?”
Will shook his head, but Robin, God help him, was just getting warmed up.
“The way I see it, sex is an important part of every loving, romantic relationship. And yeah, it’s definitely part of my relationship with Jules. But it’s beautiful. It’s not scary. It’s me loving him and him loving me. It’s making love. And being with him makes me happier than I’ve ever been, and it makes me feel complete, and all those other fucking hokey things that people always say about falling in love, but the bottom line is it’s not a news story unless I say something stupid like yeah, we take turns being top or bottom.”
Damn.
“The story,” Robin continued, “is that there are people out there who want to tell me who I can and cannot love. Like, if they just make some law, I’m going to walk away from Jules. Three pictures, fifteen million, Will. That’s what I’d be earning right now if I’d stayed in the closet. Instead, I chose happiness. I chose self-respect. I chose love. You find me a reporter who understands that? I’ll talk to him. But it’s not going to happen.”
“Reporters are just…” Will felt an idiotic urge to try to explain. “They’re just like everyone else—trying to pay their bills.”
“But they’re doing it at my expense,” Robin said.
“You didn’t have to be an actor,” Will pointed out. “When you were making those choices, you also chose to step into the spotlight. You can’t complain when—”
“Into the spotlight,” Robin said. “Not under a microscope.”
“Well, like you said,” Will told him. “Sex sells.”
“Tabloids,” Robin pointed out. “Not real newspapers. No legitimate, self-respecting news reporter would waste his or her time on a story like this.”
Ouch.
“Talk to Dolphina,” Robin said again. “If you still want to sit down with me, fine. Set something up. But I’m telling you right now that I won’t be talking to any reporters about my wedding or about my relationship with Jules.”
“Dolphina.” Will repeated the somewhat odd name, thinking, Too late, brother.
“Hey, here she is now,” Robin said, pulling a dark-haired young woman out of the crowd. “Dolph, this is Will. Do me a favor, and set up a coffee meeting with him for early next week. I gotta run, I promised Gina a tour of the new house.”
And with that, he was gone, leaving in his place…
The world tilted. It actually shifted and moved, and Will had to widen his stance to keep from falling over onto his ear.
Truly, Robin’s personal assistant was the most beautiful woman Will had ever seen in his entire life. But he’d traveled the world and seen his share of beautiful women, and her pretty face and slender figure wasn’t what had nearly knocked him off his feet.
It was her eyes—those incredible dark eyes. She was looking at him as if she could see clear inside of his head, or maybe as if she recognized him as someone she’d known in some distant past life—
And wasn’t that the biggest load of bullshit his addled mind had ever come up with—probably because it had been way too long since he’d last gotten laid.
But then she smiled at him, pushing her long, dark hair over one shoulder, and somewhere, very nearby, angels sang and fireworks went off, because she was looking at him as if she, too, could not believe the connection they had, just from gazing at one another.
“Will, right?” She held out her hand. “I’m Dolphina Patel. What can I do for you?”
Her voice was like music and touching her hand was like coming home, and Will knew that he was so screwed, because this wasn’t just about sex. No, he, the big cynic, Mr. I-Can-Walk-Away-From-Anyone, had just fallen head over heels in love at first sight.
“Dolphina,” the tall, chisel-faced, red-haired man Robin had told her was named Will repeated. “Like the fish?”
Okay. So much for that point-zero-four-second fantasy that Dolphina had finally found her soul mate. It must’ve been a trick of the dim afternoon light, creating what had felt like a genuine spark.
It was almost funny—this man was the exact opposite of what she would have thought of as her type. Assuming that someone who’d had exactly three and a half boyfriends in her entire life had a type. Especially considering that one and a half of those boyfriends had been back when she was in seventh grade, when boyfriends were procured by hastily scribbled notes and conversations held at a distance, through third party negotiators.
Redheaded Will had a scruff factor of around eight, which was so not her thing. Even though he was wearing a jacket and tie, she got the sense that they were borrowed. He smelled good, though, and he was close-shaven, his cheeks and chin smooth. But there was something about him—in the hard planes and angles of his lean face and in the gleam in his hazel eyes—that made her think he’d done some hard living somewhere down the line.
He was also older than she’d first thought, probably closer to forty than her own almost-thirty.
She took her hand back. “Dolphina, like the sea mammal. If it’s too much for you, feel free to call me Ms. Patel.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He really did have a very nice smile for someone who was either genuinely stupid or stupidly trying to be funny. “A dolphin’s not a fish—of course. I must’ve been stupified by your beauty.”
Funny he should use that word…But okay. “That’s been known to happen,” she told him, as flippantly as she could manage. “That’s why I work for gay men. My powers of stupification don’t seem to affect them.”
He laughed. “She’s funny, too. Well, well.”
“And she hates being referred to in the third person.” Dolphina led him out of the living room and toward the front parlor. “My calendar’s in here. What am I setting up again?”
“Something post-work,” he said. “Maybe drinks?”
She looked at him. “Robin said coffee in the morning.”
“Or drinks,” Will said. “Either was fine with him.”
“He’s a recovering alcoholic,” she said flatly. She narrowed her eyes at him. “How could you be at this party and not know that?”
As she watched, he was clearly trying to think up a good excuse. But he ended up just shaking his head. “I’m obviously factually challenged. I have to confess that I really don’t know very much about Robin. I promise I’ll do more research before our meeting.”
“Hmph,” she said as she flipped through her calendar. “How’s Tuesday at ten thirty?”
“Ooh,” he said, making a face as he wandered around the office, taking in the books on the shelves and the colorful painting that hung above the fireplace mantel. “No chance to make it Monday?”
Monday, Robin would be on set all day. “You really don’t want to talk to him when he’s in character.”
“Well, actually, that might be—” Will started.
“I’m sorry,” Dolphina said. “I was trying to be tactful. Robin’s been trying to get me to work on that. But the truth is, Robin doesn’t talk to anyone while he’s filming. Except for his fellow actors and the director, and maybe the A.D. And Jules, of course. And me. Sometimes. But not you. No offense.”
He was smiling at her again, and if she hadn’t known enough to keep her distance from handsome, scruffy, silver-tongued men who could twinkle their eyes on command, her heart might’ve skipped a beat. But no. If she were looking to get plastered against the windshield of tragic romantic reality, there were about a half a dozen perfectly good Navy SEALs waiting for her in the living room.
“Tuesday at ten thirty is fine,” he told her as he wandered toward her desk and picked up the envelope that was atop the unopened mail sitting next to her computer. “Thank you.”
All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas Page 5
