His Leading Man

by Ashlyn Kane

  “Uh-huh.” Drew dropped his washcloth in the laundry bag beside the vanity. “You did look like you might try to eat me at one point.”

  Steve paused with his arm raised to throw his cloth in the bin. Really? He looked over and met eyes with Drew, whose expression mirrored Steve’s surprise. They held eye contact for a second before they both snickered.

  “I’m maybe a little still in character,” Drew apologized with a slight groan. “And a lot still hungry. You want to check out if there’s any leftovers in craft services? Or we could see about takeout. Maybe I can help with script ideas.”

  “Yes to the food.” Steve stood and stretched his shoulders. “No to the shoptalk. I need some distance before I can write, if that makes sense.”

  Drew nodded. “Sure. But the offer stands.”

  They were mostly quiet on the walk to the craft station, where they managed to scrounge up enough food that Steve could put off shopping. Actually if this was indicative of his schedule for the next few weeks, he was either going to need to hire a service to get groceries for him or just eat on set. “Does this get easier?”

  Drew had a bite of pulled pork in his mouth, but he made a so-so gesture. After he’d swallowed, he offered, “I’m kind of the wrong person to ask. I grew up with it. Though back then child labor laws applied to me, so it wasn’t as intense. But the first week’s always an adjustment. It gets better after that.”

  Steve nodded thoughtfully as he chewed. “I never wanted to be an actor, you know.”

  “So I gathered.” Drew picked up a pickle. “But you did theater in college, or so Hilary says.”

  “I was in a couple productions. I liked the behind-the-scenes aspects better, though. Did my minor in creative writing because I was good with scripts. The acting was just because I needed someone to be in them when they were done.”

  “Not me.” Drew crunched half the pickle in one fell swoop. “I’ve wanted to be an actor for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t easy, though. When I first moved out to LA, my dad and my sisters were still living in Syracuse, and it was just my mom and me out here. They tried not to let on what a strain it was for the family, but….”

  “You’re really lucky to have their support.” Steve wasn’t sure what else to say. He’d rubbed elbows with plenty of actors in his life, and the shine had mostly worn off. But that didn’t mean he’d expected a full-on heart-to-heart over lukewarm food. The attention made him feel like he belonged on this side of the camera, at least temporarily.

  Nodding in agreement, Drew shoveled in another bite. “I was a pill as a teenager, though. And when I hit the party phase at twenty-one, Mom decided enough was enough and went back to New York.”

  “Rough.” Twenty-one was longer gone for Steve than for Drew—ten years rather than seven—but he remembered it. Well, parts of it. He was thankful he’d only had college to deal with and not a career to destroy.

  “Nah.” He shrugged. “I’m lucky and I know it. Charmed life.”

  “If you say so.” Steve picked up his own pickle. It looked a little limper than he liked, but beggars and choosers and all that. He bit it. The flavor was good, even if it could have been crunchier. “Can I ask you something?”

  Drew gestured for him to go ahead.

  “Why this script? I mean, it’s not even done. I have no idea how any of this came together. Don’t get me wrong, it’s like a dream, I just… I have to wonder why, of all the summer projects you could’ve picked up, you chose one that pays peanuts and has zero publicity.”

  “Wow. You don’t pull punches, huh?” Drew finished his sandwich and wiped his hands on a napkin before continuing. “I’ve played a lot of roles. Heroes, villains, antiheroes, romantic leads, sidekicks, blah blah blah. Most of those roles were in big- or at least medium-budget productions. I didn’t get to be bi or even gay in any of them.” He cracked open his water bottle and took a swig.

  Steve nodded and poked at his coleslaw with a plastic fork so he wouldn’t watch Drew’s throat work. He hadn’t been fishing for compliments, but it would’ve been nice if—

  “And it wasn’t like I hadn’t gone out looking for a gay or bi role, but nothing Hilary pitched to me ever fit. I wasn’t going to take a role where I was only gay to get homophobic laughs, or one where it felt like an afterthought.”

  Okay, so he’d asked a more complicated question than he intended. Or the answer was complicated, at least. “Makes sense.”

  “No, don’t humor me, I’m trying to reason it out to myself too.” Drew pushed his plate aside, and Steve looked him in the eye. “Until I read this script, I couldn’t put my finger on why I’d turned those other roles down. But in this script, the characters are funny, and they’re gay, but they’re not the—God, forgive the pun—their sexuality is not the butt of the joke. It informs who they are, but it’s not the base of the plot. It would work just as well—differently, but just as well—if they were straight, but they’re not. That’s why I like it.”

  He was so straightforward about it, so earnest, Steve couldn’t doubt his sincerity. Which meant he’d impressed one of the more influential celebrities in Hollywood. He’d believed he could do it, but it was still different from getting praise from his mom. “Thanks. I hope the movie does well, whatever that means for an indie flick. I mean, a lot of people will see it just because you’re in it, so we’ve got that going for us.”

  “I’m glad I don’t have to deal with any of those details,” Drew laughed. “Organizing theaters and premieres and Netflix releases and all that. Much easier to show up and take my shirt off as directed.”

  Steve reminded himself it would be unprofessional to write Scotty taking off his shirt just because he wanted to see it again. He’d have to come up with a plot reason.

  “What about you?”

  Blinking, Steve rewound the last few seconds. He hadn’t said any of that out loud, right? “What about me what?”

  “Why’d you write it? I mean, I assume you weren’t counting on this happening, and you’ve got to be familiar enough with Hollywood to know this wasn’t the most likely script to get picked up.”

  “Oh. That.” Steve shrugged. “Same as you, really. I started writing the kind of movie I wanted to see. I’ve seen gay love stories and tragedies and dramas—not a lot, not big-budget productions, but they exist. I wanted something ridiculous.” And then he figured to hell with it and admitted a little more of the truth. “Plus I’d just broken up with my boyfriend, and I wasn’t going to come back from that with anything he thought he could see us in. Too much pride to give him the satisfaction.”

  “Living well is the best revenge,” Drew quipped with a wry, dimpled smile. If he was surprised to have confirmation Steve was gay, he didn’t show it. Maybe Steve’s remark earlier in the day had sealed it. “Though having your first script picked up for production is a nice bonus.”

  You have no idea. “When my ex finds out I’m acting opposite you he’s going to shit a Frisbee.” Steve allowed himself a blissful second to imagine the look on his face.

  “Gee, I feel so used.”

  “Yeah.” Steve sighed and made a face. “Me too. Hence the ex.” But he wasn’t going to vent his personal problems to a star who probably didn’t care.

  He’d already made that mistake.

  THE following day Steve took a sort of working lunch with Nina, half getting directions and half talking out plot points. He could already tell work was going to be much easier when he wasn’t distracted by a yawing pit of hunger. He had thought Drew might join them. So far he hadn’t been shy about offering Steve “advice”—more like direction, but he was encouraging and not a jerk about it—and he seemed incredibly invested in what would happen with the story. The extra attention made Steve feel singled out in a good way, and he had to remind himself Drew’s interest was professional only. But Drew’s phone had rung, and he’d made an apologetic face and excused himself from their table.

  “You’re the writer,” Nina said. �
��You know how Morgan is feeling in every scene.”

  Steve nodded. “Yeah. Which is helpful for the acting, but sometimes now it’s giving me blinders when I try to switch into writing.”

  “So don’t force it.” She waved a french fry at him. It had gone limp in the heat. “Talk with your costar. If you can’t get out of Morgan’s head, get some insight into Scotty’s. Drew can help you with blocking too—when to turn, when to fidget, how to account for the camera.”

  Steve opened his mouth to answer, but something in his peripheral vision caught his eye, and he turned to look instead.

  Two men were walking toward them carrying stacked boxes. Steve recognized the tan pants and shirt of a delivery service uniform on the guy on the left. But the guy on the right, easily lugging two cases of water, was Drew.

  Nina followed his gaze and clucked. “He better not get his wardrobe dirty or Will is gonna have his ass.”

  Will stood five seven and was one of the campiest men Steve had ever met, and he could suddenly see it with astonishing clarity. The mental image brought him up short, and he flushed.

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” Nina huffed.

  “What are they doing?” Steve asked, then immediately felt stupid. Clearly they were carting bottled water.

  “Handcart broke,” the delivery guy said, obviously having overheard. “Gotta deliver it the old-fashioned way.”

  Before the invention of the wheel was a heck of a definition for old-fashioned.

  “Can’t leave my coworkers thirsty.” Drew was close enough now for Steve to note the way his biceps strained the sleeves of his T-shirt.

  Drew doing physical labor wasn’t lowering Steve’s thirst any. Maybe the opposite. His blood pressure was rising too.

  “You just wanted one last chance to show off the muscles from that superhero movie before they atrophy,” Nina quipped. “Now quit distracting the talent.”

  As Steve attempted to die of mortification, Drew grinned and shot Nina a wink. Then he sauntered off after the delivery guy, stopping every now and again so crew members could grab water.

  Nina patted his arm. “You’ll get used to it.”

  Somehow Steve doubted that.

  Chapter Five

  “WHAT was the most frustrating moment filming High Water?”

  The question was for Drew, and he took a moment, arranging himself more comfortably in the talk-show chair. Gloria, the host, waited patiently while Austin and Leigh, his costars from the film, turned expectantly toward him.

  “Honestly I think the whole film was pretty grueling,” Drew said as Austin and Leigh nodded along. It was a drama about a seemingly perfect ranching family that lived under the tyrannical rule of an abusive father who was slowly dying of liver disease. Drew had played the prodigal son—a character who started out unlikeable because of his estrangement from his family but won the audience over as his family’s twisted nature came to light. “But there was this one moment….”

  “Oh my God, are you ever going to let it go?” Leigh flopped back theatrically in her chair.

  “No!” Okay, so he was playing it up for the camera, but it really had been frustrating at the time. He turned to Gloria to explain. “See, in the movie there’s this really emotional moment—I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it.” The abusive father finally died before he and Drew’s character could reconcile. “And look, I’ve been working on being able to cry on command since I was twelve, but I’ve never actually had a director ask me to do it until now.

  “So we’re doing this scene, and the whole family is in it, and the director wants to do it in a continuous shot. It’s grueling, and we all manage to screw it up at least once before we even get to the end. Just a really long day.” In the end that had really made the scene, because the characters were supposed to be exhausted and brittle. But at the time, Drew just felt tired and sweaty and done. “The first time we get to the end of the scene, I storm out, and there’s all this pressure riding on me to call up the tears so we don’t have to go through this hell again.”

  “I’m gonna tell Danny you said that,” Austin quipped.

  Leigh snorted. “Good, maybe he won’t torment others in the future.”

  Drew actually liked the continuous shots Danny was famous for as a director, and was pretty sure Leigh did too. He thrived on challenges. But that hadn’t stopped him from wanting to strangle Austin just a little the third time he messed up the blocking. “Anyway.” He shot Gloria an apologetic smile for the interruptions. “After all that, crying on cue? Easy as pie. Just one problem: we’re filming on location in Oklahoma. And in the perfect moment of pathetic fallacy, just as I squeeze out the first tear, the f—reaking skies open”—oops, live television—“and absolutely drench everything. So anything after the first half a second is tears of frustration because I was all set to have this emotional snotty ugly cry on camera, and I know this is the take we’re using, and it’s all for nothing.”

  Leigh patted his hand. “There, there.”

  Gloria took control of the conversation again to engage Leigh and Austin a little more and have them introduce a scene from the movie. Drew sat back and let them do their thing. As long as someone was here promoting the movie, the studio would be happy. Austin was hungrier for attention than Drew, and Leigh, as a woman, would always have to fight for recognition and airtime.

  Eventually, though, the conversation came around to what they were working on now. Austin had lined up a miniseries for Netflix. Leigh was doing voice work for a Lego movie and “Honestly loving it. Though I’m a little jealous I can’t just pop my head off and put on a new one sometimes. Headaches would be a breeze.”

  “I could get on board with that,” Gloria laughed. “What about you, Drew? Anything new in the pipes?”

  Drew checked his watch. “I’m actually due on set in like two hours.” He only had the morning off because he’d had this appearance scheduled for weeks. “It’s this—I’m going to go out on a limb and call it a labor of love, because it’s a small production that came together kind of at the last minute and was only possible because funding for something else fell through and we snapped up everything we could.”

  He knew Austin knew about it since he’d expressed interest in the role of Morgan, but Gloria seemed surprised. Probably because Drew’s publicist hated him for taking on this project. Oh well. He’d get over it.

  Drew gave her a quick rundown of the plot and his character. “It’s just a totally different experience from anything I’ve done before. I really have to hand it to Steve Sopol—the writer—the script is sharp. I sort of strong-armed him into acting as well. I don’t know how he keeps a straight face… so to speak. It’s impressive.”

  Austin sat forward, gripping the arms of the chair. “Wait, wait, wait, the writer’s got a role in the movie? That usually happens the other way around, doesn’t it? An actor tries their hand at writing?”

  With a snort, Drew waved him off. “We’re not doing anything the usual way. Why not a writer as the second-billed actor? Besides, he’s good.”

  Leigh huffed a laugh. Austin huffed a plain old huff. “Jeez. Call me next time.”

  Not a chance.

  When the show wrapped, Leigh met Drew in the ready room, full of questions. “An independent project, huh?” She shook her head. “And here I thought you were in this business for the money.”

  “Ha-ha.” He kissed her cheek.

  “I’m jealous, honestly. Well, no. Animated movies mean no makeup chair. I win.” She perched on the arm of the couch while he ditched his jacket and button-down. “But I’m glad you’re having fun too.”

  “Speaking of having fun.” He waggled his eyebrows. “We still on for Saturday night? Aquarium fundraiser?”

  Leigh smoothed a hand over her hair and pursed her lips. “Actually, about that. I need to cancel.”

  Drew’s heart sank a bit. He and Leigh had been friends—occasionally friends with benefits—for years, and she was one of t
he few people he trusted enough to be seen in public with. After all, she was as famous and jaded as he was. She didn’t need to use him as a stepping-stone to better roles. “But penguins and caviar! What could be more important than entertaining me for four hours while I try not to fall asleep on my feet?”

  “I’m seeing someone.” She blurted it out quickly, flushing. “Um, yeah. It’s our three-month anniversary. We’re going to Hawaii for a long weekend. Be happy for me?”

  He sighed, put-upon. “Well, if you’re ditching me for love. Come give me a hug. And please realize that you’ll be spilling all the details at a makeup event of my choosing. Since when do you even date?” For years Leigh had lived by the same philosophies he did. It was part of why they’d always gotten along.

  “I promise to kiss and tell at our earliest mutual convenience,” she said into his shoulder.

  “Meanwhile I have a thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner to find a date for.” Drew abruptly pulled back from their embrace and looked around. Still no Austin to invite himself along, thank God.

  “Maybe you should take your writer friend,” Leigh suggested wickedly. “It sounds like you’re hitting it off. Are you? Hitting it, I mean.”

  Drew speared her with a withering look. “You know better.” He was happy for her, but he was sticking to his rule: no dating anyone in the industry. And since this was Hollywood and everyone he knew was in the industry somehow, that meant no dating. So far his dick hadn’t fallen off, and he was too busy to be lonely.

  “I do, but I’m going to tell you disgustingly sweet and true romantic stories to seduce you to the dark side.” She gave him another quick hug. “Now if you weren’t kidding about needing to be on set, I think you better haul ass. You’re gonna be late.”

  Drew wanted to stick around and ask more questions about her new—or not-so-new—love interest, or even just catch up on other stuff. But he really did have to leave. “I’m looking forward to those stories.” He kissed her cheek. “Have fun in Hawaii. And let’s hope the traffic gods are smiling on Jorj, or Nina’s gonna have my ass.” Normally driving Drew around wasn’t one of Jorj’s PA duties—Drew preferred autonomy and privacy inasmuch as they were practical—but his schedule was tight today.