His Leading Man

by Ashlyn Kane

  So maybe a neighbor spotted them sneaking around in the yard. And maybe someone called the police because Scotty accidentally knocked over a potted cactus or something (“Who pots a cactus!” he’d hiss, looking over his shoulder to try to see the damage he’d inflicted on himself. “It’s a goddamn desert!” “Shut up and hold still or I’ll never get the pricks out of your ass,” Morgan would snipe back. Or, hmm, maybe Morgan needed to be the one knocking things over so Scotty could say the pricks line and then add, mystified, “I’ve never had to say that before.”). And then….

  Steve looked up a few times over the next half an hour. The first was just in time to see Marla Stone walk the red carpet of her comeback movie. She looked pretty good for seventy-three, and early reviews seemed to say the movie was good too. After that Scotty and Morgan pulled him back in until, incongruously, Scotty’s voice came out of the television.

  Drew cleaned up pretty nice too, his thick dark hair artfully tousled and his stubble cultivated to just the right length to make him look rakish rather than lazy. Steve lived the worst possible life to have his head turned by a man in a well-tailored tux, but he couldn’t help it. Drew had a charisma that reeled people in.

  “I mean, yeah, I think it’s a good movie. I wouldn’t have done it if I thought it would suck.” Steve suppressed a smile. That was the kind of honest answer only actors like Drew could get away with—ones with enough success under their belts that confidence didn’t come across as arrogance, and with enough charm to make you forgive them if it did.

  Before the interviewer could ask another question, Austin Sparks stuck his head over Drew’s shoulder. “Don’t let him sell it short—it’s fantastic, he’s incredible,” he said before melting back into the background, signing autographs along the red carpet.

  “I actually hate him,” Drew said in that sly, cheerful way that let you know he was really very fond.

  Steve snorted without true amusement and went back to his notepad.

  By the time Entertainment Tonight segued into whatever even less substantial slush aired after it, Steve had made several pages’ worth of progress. He was debating the humor of Elvis impersonators when the phone rang, interrupting his groove.

  He always answered for the Shirelles, or his mom would think he’d forgotten about her. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, baby.”

  Steve put the notepad down and flicked the TV off. “You’re home awfully early, aren’t you?” She never made phone calls in public.

  “You’re not trying to keep tabs on your mother, are you?” she teased. “I’m my own woman, you know.”

  Steve laughed. Now there was an understatement. “I wouldn’t dare. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

  “Unlike you, I am allowed to call to check up. Mother’s prerogative,” she said loftily. “Besides, Hilary texted me. Something you want to tell me, Steven?”

  “Hilary’s a snitch.” He kicked his feet up on the couch and leaned his back against the armrest. “I was going to tell you this weekend. Wanted to do it in person.” He hadn’t wanted to tell her before the project really kicked into motion. So often scripts got optioned and never went anywhere. He didn’t want her to get excited over nothing.

  “Congratulations, baby. I know you work hard. Is this the comedy script you’ve been writing? I thought it wasn’t finished.”

  “It isn’t,” he admitted. “Hilary must be a little bit magic.”

  His mother clucked in admonishment. “Hilary works hard too.” Then she paused. “Though I have to say she does seem to be having a solid run of luck. Did I read right that Drew Beaumont signed on to play the lead? That’s quite a coup for your first script, and an independent film at that! He must be taking quite a pay cut.”

  Steve was suddenly glad he didn’t have to tell her in person because it meant she couldn’t see him blush. “Apparently he insisted.”

  “He has good taste.” She sniffed. “Did you know he’s bisexual? Handsome too, wouldn’t you say?”

  Oh God. “Mom. Please tell me you’re not suggesting I hook up with an actor.”

  “Hook up!” she echoed, delighted. “Well, why not! Honestly, Steven, you need to have a little fun sometimes.”

  The suggestion would have mortified him under regular circumstances. These circumstances were far from regular, and he reacted accordingly. “I’m not going to sleep with a costar!” he protested.

  His mother’s silence told him Hilary hadn’t spilled all the beans.

  Oops.

  “Costar?” she said carefully, giving away nothing.

  Oh boy. Here it goes. “We’re working on a compressed schedule in order to work with Drew’s availability.” As soon as he said it, he cringed; his mom didn’t need to know he and Drew were on a first-name basis. She’d already gotten enough ideas. “And we held auditions today and yesterday, and, well, let’s just say it wasn’t a good crop. So Hilary asked me to show them how it was done, and….”

  “And then she offered you the part?”

  Steve was a decent actor, but he’d never mastered lying to his mother. “Apparently Drew was very insistent.”

  “And what about you? Is this what you want? You’ve always wanted to write, not act.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t mind acting. I actually think it’ll be kind of fun, with Drew. And I’m still writing the script. I just don’t want to be gawked at wherever I go. Most people don’t know what screenwriters look like.”

  “As long as you’re happy, baby, I’m happy for you. But if you don’t want to do it, you call Hilary back and tell her so.”

  “It’s just one movie. And besides, it’s an indie production company even I’ve never heard of. No one’s going to see it. My privacy is safe.”

  His mother laughed. “For now. Maybe I’ll show up on set one day and surprise you. Think Drew Beaumont will give me an autograph?”

  Oh God. Steve laughed too, in spite of himself, at the idea of his mother acting like a starstruck fangirl. “I think he’d get a kick out of it.” At least judging by their interactions so far.

  “I’ll put it in my calendar,” she said wickedly. “Every mother should have the chance to embarrass her children at work.”

  “I look forward to seeing you,” he said dryly, knowing she’d never show.

  They chatted a few more minutes about the men she was seeing—his father had passed away three years ago, and though she’d loved him dearly, now she was enjoying “playing the field.”

  “Mom,” he protested when she used that phrase.

  “Don’t be jealous, baby. Are you coming up to visit this weekend?”

  He blew out a breath. “I don’t know. It’ll depend on the schedule, I think, and how much work I get done before then.” They were supposed to start filming Monday, which seemed incredibly fast. “Tell Rita I love her if I don’t make it up.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  By the time they hung up, Steve’s cider was gone, and so was his ambition to write. He plugged his phone in, set his alarm, and nudged the coffee table back so he could pull out the bed.

  He brushed his teeth at the pedestal sink in his tiny bathroom, then washed his face. Without meaning to, he scrutinized himself in the mirror. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who should star opposite Drew Beaumont in anything. But maybe that would work to his advantage. He was just an average guy with average looks, distinguishable mostly because he’d broken his nose skiing in college and it had set crooked. Drew was the character audiences were supposed to fall in love with.

  That was okay, though. It fit the genre. They were supposed to fall in love with Scotty, but Scotty was too ridiculous and maybe too beautiful to identify with. It was Steve’s job to provide the human connection, in large part by falling in love with Scotty for the audience.

  Steve wasn’t the best actor on the planet, but he was pretty sure he could pull it off.

  Chapter Three

  WHEN Drew dragged himself into the
makeup trailer Monday morning, Steve was already in the other chair, looking bemused as Nina and Chantelle discussed his goatee.

  “He’s supposed to be older than Scotty and Tony. The goatee lends gravitas.”

  “Sure, but look at his bone structure,” Chantelle countered. “And he has nice skin.”

  Drew plopped down, content to be ignored, and watched the show, cracking open the yogurt he’d picked up from craft services.

  “He has a nice beard!”

  “Clean-shaven would be more typical of the genre.”

  “No one’s going to say that gay men don’t have beards, are they?” Steve put in at this impasse. He seemed resigned to outside influences deciding the fate of his facial hair.

  Drew pulled the spoon out of his mouth. “Definitely not me.”

  For a brief second, he had everyone’s attention. Steve nodded. “Cheers.”

  Drew acknowledged him with another bite of yogurt.

  “No beard would be better if there’s going to be kissing.”

  Through years of training, Drew avoided choking.

  “Is there going to be kissing?” Nina asked.

  Okay, Drew wanted to know that too. It was killing him not knowing how this story was going to end. “Yeah,” he chimed in with an impish grin. “Is there going to be kissing?”

  Steve shot him an indecipherable look. “Shave it,” he said after a few more beats. “I can grow it back if I need to hide from paparazzi.”

  Drew grinned around his yogurt spoon. Facial hair as a disguise never worked, but it seemed like it would be cruel to say so now.

  That set the tone for their morning. With no further delay, Chantelle and her assistant got them made-up and ready for Wardrobe. With the script only partially finished, they were filming more or less in chronological order, so shooting opened with Scotty convincing Morgan to road-trip to Vegas to liberate Roxy—renamed for Drew’s old costar—from the evil Lila.

  They nailed it in three takes.

  “Cut!” Nina yelled, and Drew broke into a grin that Steve answered readily.

  “Don’t look too pleased with yourselves,” Nina warned cheerfully. “Schedule’s tight. Drew, Wardrobe! Steve, you’ve got half an hour until your scene with Trevor.”

  Steve’s stomach growled so loud Drew could hear it.

  “No rest for the wicked,” Drew said wryly. “Duty calls.”

  As it turned out, duty meant a strange echo of Steve’s debate earlier that morning.

  Drew stood shirtless in the wardrobe trailer while Nina and Will debated the line of hair that led down from his navel.

  “Well, he’s vain as hell,” Will pointed out, brandishing the clippers.

  “But lazy,” Nina countered.

  Drew took a seat on the trailer’s only stool and hooked his feet under the rungs. He had no horse in this race. He’d shaved and waxed and manscaped for so many movies his body hair didn’t even feel like his own.

  At least the consensus on lazy meant he didn’t have to get up at five and lift weights for an hour. Though, all right, Drew wasn’t exactly innocent of vanity either. He tended toward lean muscle, and he swam or ran in the evenings to make sure it stayed that way.

  When it didn’t seem like Will and Nina were going to come to a consensus, he pointed out, “We’re on a schedule.”

  They turned to look at him.

  Drew shrugged. “Shit takes time. Gotta keep it up if there’s going to be continuity. What if I have to be naked later?” He didn’t think the script was heading toward a steamy sex scene, but who knew?

  Besides, hair regrowth itched like a son of a bitch.

  Will shrugged, defeated. “Okay.”

  Wardrobe was maybe a bit of an overstatement. Drew left the trailer wearing slides and a bathrobe he’d be ditching at the set of Scotty’s apartment. Chantelle floofed his hair and touched up his makeup, and then he had just enough time to get on set for his call.

  Steve, Nina, and the two camera infants, Mel and Adam, were waiting for him at the door. Nina whistled as he flashed some calf through the opening in the robe.

  “That’s harassment!” Drew said cheerfully.

  “I’ll call my lawyer,” Nina told him. “You ready to talk business?”

  He waved his script, then realized he still had Steve’s costume change in his other arm and started with that. “Here. Saving you a trip, per Will’s instructions.”

  “I never realized being a movie star would be so glamorous.” Steve draped the polo shirt over his shoulder and started taking off his button-down.

  “Careful you don’t smudge your makeup when you put that on.” Nina patted him on the shoulder as he slid his shirt off. “So let’s talk about this scene. Morgan, Scotty convinced you yesterday to road-trip to Vegas to pick up your brother’s dog from his ex-girlfriend’s new place. But when you show up to get him….”

  “I did write the scene,” Steve pointed out, getting ready to pull his polo on over his undershirt.

  Nina fixed him with a deadpan look.

  Steve paused and made an apologetic face. “Sorry. Carry on.”

  “Thank you. Although point taken. Mel, Adam—Morgan’s face when the door opens is key to setting the tone for the rest of the movie. I need you to get it on the first shot, or we’re going to have to have Drew strip naked.”

  “Hey!” Steve protested. Drew and Nina looked at him, and he shrugged. “Give me some credit. I’m an amateur, but I think I can fake attraction to—” He gestured to Drew.

  Fake? Damn. But, well, it wasn’t like Drew dated anyway. “Ouch.” He pressed a hand to his chest.

  “Check your ego,” Nina admonished. “Not everyone wants to see you in the buff. Now let’s get this set up. Where’s that extra?”

  “Here!” Another guy, also wearing a robe from Wardrobe that wouldn’t make it into the film, slipped past them onto the set.

  “Good.” Nina shooed Drew toward the other side of the door. “Don’t forget your lines. And you.” She turned to Steve. “Remember: you’re gay.”

  Drew met Steve’s eyes over the top of Nina’s head. He looked baffled. “Thanks for reminding me?”

  Nina opened her mouth, then seemed to think better of whatever she was going to say and muttered under her breath instead. “The two of you, I swear to God. I came out of retirement for this.” Then she clapped her hands. “Let’s go! We’re wasting daylight.”

  The cameras set up their shots, the door closed, and the Wardrobe assistant came by with Steve’s shirt on a hanger, collected for continuity, and to check Drew’s wardrobe tape. “Good to go,” she chirped, and then she was gone, taking their bathrobes with her.

  Drew and the extra found their marks—Drew a few feet from the door, his character’s flavor of the evening just visible through the doorway to the bedroom. Scotty was a slob with a dive apartment, but that didn’t stop him from bringing his pickups home.

  “Action!”

  Drew counted to ten after he heard the knock. Scotty would have just woken up; he’d be bleary and come-dumb and not particularly motivated by someone pounding on his door—even if that someone was his best friend’s brother coming to pick him up. Even if Scotty was late.

  “Scotty! Come on, are you home? If we don’t leave, we’re going to hit—”

  Drew opened the door, rubbing his face with the back of his other hand before running his fingers through his hair. Slowly he raised his eyes to meet Steve’s.

  Except he didn’t. Because Steve was standing frozen, hand still raised like he was going to keep pounding on the door, his gaze fixed on Drew’s tiny black boxer briefs. Then on his stomach. Then his bare chest.

  Either Steve was a better actor than anyone had given him credit for, or he’d forgotten his line.

  Fortunately Drew was a professional, and he kept any recognition of the stare out of his expression and body language. Scotty would be too fuzzy to notice.

  Finally Steve recovered. “—traffic.” Then he frowned as the
extra started making noise in the bedroom. “Did you—really? You’re late for your own dog rescue party because you were getting laid?” His nostrils flared and he recoiled. “Are you drunk?”

  Drew blinked lethargically, then squinted when Steve moved and the light shone in his eyes. “Lemme get my sunglasses.”

  Chapter Four

  FILMING those two scenes took an entire day. Steve knew it would—he’d been on a lot of sets—but he didn’t realize how greasy and exhausted and hungry the acting side of things would make him.

  “All right, I knew it wasn’t all glitter and glamor,” Steve said, sitting bonelessly in the makeup chair while he scrubbed the makeup off. “I didn’t know I’d be this tired.”

  Drew laughed softly from the next chair. “It’s not always like this. Compressed filming schedule with a small cast means long days.”

  “At least you get to go home and sleep.” Steve studied his reflection. He thought he’d gotten it all, but it was hard to tell. “Some of us still have a script to write.”

  “I’m not doing anything until I eat.”

  Steve’s stomach growled. “Yeah, good point. Ugh, I need groceries.”

  “Tomorrow I’m making sure we get a break for craft services. It won’t be fancy on a shoestring budget, but it’s better than being hungry.”

  “Is that why you got kind of cranky around three?” he asked unthinkingly.

  Oops. Maybe he should play nice with his insanely rich, talented, handsome costar.

  Fortunately Drew laughed it off. Too gregarious to let an offhand comment get to him, clearly. “Like you can talk.”

  “I was in character!” Steve protested, which was only partially a lie.