Spoiler Alert

by Olivia Dade

  Dude. Your career.

  He couldn’t meet her in person. He couldn’t.

  Which meant he was going to have to hurt her now, in ways Marcus couldn’t yet soothe, and he wanted Ian to kick him again. Harder, this time.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I can’t. I’m so sorry.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Okay.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Okay. I guess I’ll talk to you whenever, then.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Ulsie, I

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Please take care of yourself.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Same to you.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’ll miss you.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Sure.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’d better go now. Bye.

  Before he could say anything more, she was offline and gone.

  He was going to see her the day after tomorrow. Any minute now, they’d be texting about exactly when and where to meet.

  Somehow, in that moment, the knowledge didn’t help at all.

  Rating: Mature

  Fandoms: Gods of the Gates – E. Wade, Gods of the Gates (TV)

  Relationships: Aeneas/Lavinia

  Additional Tags: Alternate Universe – Modern, Fluff and Smut, Celebrity!Aeneas

  Collections: Aeneas’s Angry Boner Week

  Stats: Words: 1036 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 23 Kudos: 87 Bookmarks: 9

  Rising Fury

  LaviniaIsMyGoddessAndSavior

  Summary:

  Aeneas’s invitation was only meant to be kind. But when the paparazzi insult his Twitter date, he finds anger isn’t the only thing of his on the rise.

  Notes:

  Yeah, so I would die for @Lavineas5Ever, and also die to be her. It’s complicated, okay?

  * * *

  . . . last of the paparazzi slink out the restaurant door, broken cameras cradled in their arms.

  Maybe they’ll sue. He can’t muster any real concern, not with Lavinia candlelit across the table, her lush mouth parted in shock, her breasts heaving with the aftermath of violent confrontation.

  Blood running hot with fury, he finds his cock has become a divining rod, pointing hard and true toward the only relief for such deep, deep thirst: the woman he met on Twitter only yesterday.

  Dimly, he hears the shattering of glass. The gasps of other diners.

  “Um . . . Aeneas?” Her voice, sweet and low, only makes matters worse.

  “Yes?” He stands tall and proud and erect. In this moment, anything she wants, he’ll give her.

  “I think you just knocked over a water glass with your dick,” she says.

  And so he has.

  9

  “MY TRAINER SAYS I SHOULD HAVE A CHICKEN BREAST within reach at all times,” Marcus told his parents the next day. “The more protein the better, especially when you’re trying to bulk up.”

  Which he wasn’t. Not now, anyway.

  That didn’t matter, though. For the sake of this private show, pretense took precedence over reality.

  He stretched out an arm and let it rest along the top of the dining room chair next to him. With a smug smile, he cast a caressing, lingering glance over the muscle definition evident beneath and below his tee. The bulge of his biceps. The thick solidity of his forearm. The veins on the back of his hand. All evidence of endless, sweat-soaked hours at innumerable hotel gyms around the world. All evidence of how seriously he took his job and how hard he worked at it.

  In his profession, in the role he’d inhabited for seven years, his body was a tool to be maintained. Kept strong and flexible both. Polished. Admired by the audience.

  He appreciated the actual exercise, how it felt and what it helped him accomplish, much more than how its results looked in the mirror. But once more, this wasn’t about reality.

  “You’re supposed to carry a chicken breast at all times?” Horizontal lines scored across his mother’s high forehead, as familiar as the graying ponytail at the nape of her neck. “How would that even work? Would you bring a cooler with you everywhere?”

  Under the table, he tried to find enough open space to stretch out a bit, but amid the tangle of four chairs, his parents’ own long legs, and the legs of the table itself, there was nowhere to go. Fair enough. If his knees were beginning to feel a bit cramped, he supposed he could suffer through the discomfort for another hour or so.

  Like the rest of this San Francisco home, the dining room was barely large enough to serve its purpose. Five years ago, flush with Gates money, his parents’ cramped quarters in mind, he’d offered to buy them something bigger. They’d immediately, and emphatically, refused. He hadn’t asked a second time.

  They didn’t want what he had to give. Again: fair enough.

  “No cooler necessary.” He lifted his shoulder in a desultory shrug. “Ian, the guy who plays Jupiter, always has a serving of fish in a pocket somewhere. A pouch of tuna, or a filet of salmon.”

  That much, at least, was the truth. It was only one of many reasons Marcus and most of the cast avoided Ian.

  Fishy motherfucker should’ve played Neptune, Carah had muttered only last week.

  “The practice sounds . . . dubious, at least in terms of sanitation.” His mother tilted her head, eyes narrowing behind her wire-rimmed glasses. “Why would you need to bulk up? Didn’t you say you were done playing . . . your previous role?”

  She still couldn’t bear to say Aeneas. Not when she believed with every ounce of conviction in her ancient-languages-devoted heart that E. Wade’s books had bastardized Virgil’s source material, and that the Gods of the Gates showrunners had only dragged the demigod’s lyrical, meaningful tale further into the muck.

  His father agreed, of course.

  “I’m done playing Aeneas, but I need to maintain a baseline fitness and strength level, even between jobs. Otherwise, the road back is too hard. So thanks for this.” With a sweep of his hand, he indicated his half-finished plate of food. “You’re helping me remain a prime physical specimen. Grade-A man meat.”

  His father didn’t look up from his own plate of poached chicken and roasted asparagus, instead dragging a forkful of the tender poultry through the green goddess dressing he and his wife had prepared in their small, sunlit kitchen earlier that morning as Marcus watched.

  When his parents cooked together, it was like his sword fight with Carah. A dance rehearsed so many times that each precise movement required little thought. No effort.

  His parents didn’t stumble. Not ever.

  Lawrence picked fragile leaves from bundles of fragrant herbs while Debra snapped the offending woody ends off her asparagus stalks. Lawrence prepared the poaching liquid while Debra trimmed the chicken breasts. Spoons flashing in the sun, they tasted the dressing in the food processor, a slight tilt of the head and a moment of eye contact enough to indicate the need for a pinch more salt.

  It was beautiful, in its own fashion.

  As usual, Marcus had leaned against the cabinets closest to the door, safely out of their way, and watched, arms tight across his chest or against his sides.

  If he took up more space, he’d become an intrusion. Unlike most of his lessons, that one hadn’t taken long to sink in.

  Marcus’s mother rested her fork and knife neatly on her now-empty plate. “Will you be joining us for dinner too? We planned to go shopping this afternoon, then make grilled cioppino tonight. Your father intends to char some flatbreads while I mind the seafood skewers.”

  On their tiny deck, the two of them would crowd around the old charcoal grill, arguing amiably as they worked within arm’s reach of one another. Another version of their dance. A tango, fiery and smoky, rather than the pristine waltz of the morning.

  His parents did everything together. Always had, from as far back as Marcus could remember.

  They cooked together. Wore blue button-down shirts and endless khaki slacks together. Washed and dried dishes together. Went on rambling after-dinner walks together. Read academic journal articles togeth
er. Translated ancient texts together. Bickered about the clear superiority of either Greek—in her case—or Latin—in his—together. Taught until retirement at the same prestigious private prep school together, in the same foreign languages department, once Debra no longer needed to homeschool Marcus.

  Long ago, they’d also conducted late-night, not-quiet-enough conversations about their son together, in mutual accord about their growing concern and frustration and determination to help him succeed. To push him harder. To make him understand the importance of education, of books over looks, serious thought over frivolity.

  From their cowritten opinion pieces about the Gods of the Gates books and series, he imagined that aspect of their partnership had never entirely disappeared, even after almost forty years. Much to the glee of various tabloid reporters.

  So, yes, he was going to lie to them.

  He directed a casual, gleaming smile to the table at large, focused on no one and nothing in particular. “I appreciate the invitation, but I have a dinner engagement tonight. In fact, I’ll need to leave in an hour so I have enough time to get ready.” Tousling his hair just so with a practiced, easy gesture, he winked at his mother. “This kind of beauty takes effort, you know. And with the ubiquity of smartphones, cameras are everywhere these days.”

  Her lips compressed, and her gaze sought her husband’s.

  Marcus pushed his plate an inch or two farther away, leaving a knob of chicken uneaten amid the sauce. There was never enough heat or acid in their green goddess dressing. Yet another truth that had survived decades.

  His father had insisted Marcus’s unsophisticated palate would appreciate subtlety if they only exposed him to it often enough. But insistence alone couldn’t transform reality.

  That was a lesson they should have learned more easily.

  “We’d hoped to show you the new neighborhood park after dinner tonight.” Lawrence finally looked away from his wife, his familiar blue-gray eyes solemn and magnified by the glasses he wore. “We could walk together. You always liked the outdoors.”

  As a child—hell, even as a sulky, bratty teenager—Marcus would have leaped at the offer. Outside their home, his body in motion worked exactly as it should, and the benches by the sidewalk reliably stayed in one place, facing one direction, unlike letters on the page. His parents might finally notice the one arena where he did excel. Might appreciate the talents he did have.

  He could dance at their sides, at least for the space of a single night.

  Instead, he’d been tasked with finishing the day’s schoolwork as his parents walked every evening. He’d been wasting everyone’s time and not working up to his potential, they’d said. Translating that passage should have taken him half an hour at most, they’d said. He needed to learn, they’d said.

  Despite his native intelligence, he was lazy and recalcitrant and required routine and fair, predictable consequences for his behavior, they’d said.

  “I’m sorry,” he’d told them so many times, head bowed, until he’d finally realized there was no point. There was never any fucking point. Not to his apologies, which they didn’t believe. Not to his efforts, which never bore enough fruit. Not to his shame, which curdled in his stomach and left him unable to eat dinner some evenings. Not to his occasional childish tears, after they left him in the darkening house night after night and walked away hand in hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he told them now, and part of him was. The part that still ached watching their graceful, two-person waltz from a safe, inalterable distance.

  They cared about him. In their own way, they were trying.

  But he’d also cared and tried. Too hard, too long, only to receive baffled disapproval in response.

  He was done now. He’d been done since the age of fifteen. Or maybe nineteen, when he’d dropped out of college after only one year.

  “If you have a dinner engagement, does that mean you’re dating someone in the area?” His mother’s lips tipped upward in a hopeful smile.

  He was bursting to talk about April, about all his excitement and longing and regret, but not with his mom. The less his parents knew about him, the less they had to criticize.

  “Nope.” He set his napkin beside his plate. “Sorry.”

  When silence descended on the table, he didn’t break it.

  “Have you chosen your next role?” his father finally asked.

  With his thumb and middle finger, Marcus fiddled with his water glass, turning it in endless circles. “Not yet. I’ve had a few offers, and I’m looking over some scripts.”

  Lawrence had given up on the last scraps of his own lunch and was now watching his son from across the round table. In the breeze from the open window, his white hair—still reassuringly thick, which augured good things for Marcus’s future ability to score silver fox roles—fluttered. Using his fingers, Lawrence carefully combed the wayward strands back into place.

  Just before leaving for college, Marcus had finally noticed the pomade under the lone bathroom’s sink. That old-man brand of hair product certainly hadn’t belonged to him, and he’d held the jar in his palm, wondering at it. Confused, until he’d realized the truth.

  His father did care about appearances. At least a little.

  Back then, Marcus had exulted in the evidence that Lawrence had his own vanities, however minor compared to his son’s seeming obsession with good looks and good grooming. Marcus had taunted his father about that damn pomade for months, to Lawrence’s clear discomfiture, and he’d done so using his father’s own pet phrase.

  “Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas, pater,” he’d singsonged whenever possible.

  Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, father. Spoken in Latin for extra spite.

  Each repetition of that smirking gibe had tasted sweet and bitter both, like the kumquats he ate whole from the struggling tree in their small front yard.

  He wasn’t a defiant, heartsick teen anymore, though. He might be tempted, but he wouldn’t mention the proffered role he would never, ever take, not given the director’s reputation when it came to women on set and the movie’s truly terrible script.

  “I’m still considering my options,” he told his parents honestly.

  “Hopefully you’ll pick something we care to watch this time.” His mother shook her head, lips pursed. “Before we retired, Madame Fourier insisted on telling us about that horrid show every week. In great detail. Even though the narrative defied history, mythology, literary tradition, and all common sense.”

  Lawrence sighed. “She enjoyed torturing us, once she found out you were involved. The French can be très passive-aggressive.”

  His parents looked at each other, rolled their eyes, and chuckled at the memory.

  Something in that fond amusement, their easy, shared dismissal of seven years of grinding work and effort and hard-won accomplishment—

  One time on set, a careless fall from Rumpelstiltskin had cracked a couple of Marcus’s ribs. This felt like that, somehow. Like his chest had caved in, just a little.

  Before today, his parents hadn’t seen him for nearly a year. Hadn’t shared a meal with him for longer than that.

  For all their supposed desire for his company, had they truly missed him for a single moment? Could he even call whatever emotion they felt for him love, when they didn’t either understand or respect anything he did, anything he was?

  His mouth opened, and suddenly he seemed to be telling them about that one role. That one script they’d hate, if possible, even more than Gods of the Gates.

  “I’ve been offered the part of Mark Antony in a modern-day remake of Julius Caesar.” His voice was breezy. A lazy taunt. Unpleasantly familiar to all of them. “The director intends to make Cleopatra the main protagonist of the story.”

  In the worst, most exploitative possible way, of course. Marcus had told his agent he’d rather return to bartending than work with that director and that script.

  Watching R.J. and Ron willfully misinterpret E. Wade’
s iterations of Juno and Dido for seven years had been painful enough. He didn’t need to lend his time and talents—such as they might be—to yet another story ready to equate women’s ambition with instability and evil. The violent sex scenes, numerous and full of dubious consent at best, had only been the poisonous icing atop a cake already tainted by toxic masculinity.

  No, he wasn’t going anywhere near that misogynistic train wreck of a movie, or that genial predator of a director.

  Somehow, though, he was still talking, talking, talking. “They’re all vampires, of course. Oh, and Caesar comes back from being staked somehow, intent on revenge, and starts killing senators one by one, in the grisliest possible fashion.” His most vapid smile in place, he ran his fingers through his hair. “Stylistically, it’s very Marc Bolan and David Bowie, so I’d be rocking guyliner, and in the ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears’ scene, I’d only wear a strategic coating of glitter and a smile to give my big speech. I figure I’d better start putting some chicken breasts in my pockets now, right?”

  A deathly silence fell over the dining room, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  Apparently, he was still an asshole teenager. Striking out when hurt. Playacting the Worst Possible Son. Phrasing the truth to inflict maximum distress, then making shit up, anything he could imagine that would horrify his parents.

  He was a thirty-nine-year-old man. This had to stop.

  “You’re . . .” His father visibly swallowed. “You’re considering that role?”

  He almost said it. Almost shrugged and answered, Why not? The director says I’d look fantastic in the costumes.

  His water glass was going to break if he kept gripping it so tightly.

  He put it down very gently, removing his fingers from the fragile glass shell one by one.

  The truth. This time, he would tell them the unvarnished truth, with no affectations adopted for self-protection.

  “No, Dad.” His voice was even. Toneless, verging on bored. It was as much grace as he could muster in that moment. “No, I’m not considering the role. I had my agent turn it down immediately. Not because it violated Roman history, but because I deserve better as an actor, and I demand better in my directors and my scripts.”