“You… you what?” Leo asked.
“You heard me!” I said, digging the knife in. I couldn’t deny that it felt good; it felt really good to show him that I was capable of something. I wasn’t a nice Farm Boy from the midwest anymore; I’d shed that identity.
Scott was right — I’d become an L.A. Boy.
And I saw the truth of it reflected in Leo’s eyes, shining under the moonlight.
“When?” he whispered, and I could tell he was pawing through some memories in his brain. He’d been watching me; keeping tabs on me to find out if I was getting close to anyone.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’re not a thing. We’re not exclusive.”
He was looking at me like he hadn’t ever seen a creature like me before.
“…you’re right,” he finally said. “I just… thought I had more time.”
There was something within me that was pleading with me to appease him; to explain to him that what had happened between me, Crim, and Oliver was just sex. But I held my tongue; this was the truth and he needed to hear it.
“More time for what?” I asked.
He took a few steps towards me on the sand. “Jesus Charlie, are you that deep in denial? More time to get to know you. More time to explore this connection between us, hell, more time to find out if—”
“If what?” I asked breathlessly, a strange cocktail of feelings swirling within me.
“If you felt the same way about me,” he finished stoically.
“That’s bullshit,” I said with a scowl. “You had plenty of time. Every single time we were getting close, you pulled away. There was the time you sat next to me on the bench in the garden. There was the time when we were alone together in the bathroom of the restaurant, when you gave me that bandaid. Then there was the time you came into my trailer, and I made a move on you! Every single time, you went back into your shell!”
Leo looked down at the sand like he was a scolded dog. “I’m… I’m sorry. I want to tell you you’re wrong, but you aren’t. I’m a coward, okay? I liked you, and there was something there. I was too chicken shit to go for it. And now it’s too late. Of course someone else got to you first; of course you found someone.”
He put his hands on both sides of my face, staring at me so I couldn’t look away. “You’re beautiful, Charlie.”
I pulled away. “You’re just saying that.”
“It’s true.”
A prickling pins and needles sensation was sizzling through my fingertips. This couldn’t be real — one of the most beautiful men in the world, coming up to me and telling me that I was beautiful? This had to be some kind of trap; this couldn’t be genuine.
“You have something with Reese,” I said flatly. “You should tell that to him.”
Leo looked to the side. “Reese and I… it’s different. It’s very, very L.A., if you know what I mean.”
My eyebrows came together. “No, I don’t. Can you spell it out for me? Can you please just be straightforward with this one, simple thing?”
Leo was quiet, watching me carefully in the moonlight. It seemed almost like he was making some kind of decision, then he said, “Reese and I… we’ve got a thing, but it’s complicated. It’s…”
“It’s what?” I demanded, feeling the frustration.
“We’re… I don’t know the word for it. But we see other people.”
I shifted uncomfortably and crossed my arms. I didn’t know how to respond to that. “You mean you’re poly,” I said.
“Not even quite that,” he said with the air of a man trying to explain himself. “We don’t have the emotional connection there to be truly poly.”
“So you’re just sleeping together. Casual sex,” I guessed.
“No, it’s more than that…”
My heart somehow felt like it was breaking as my mind tried to stretch and bend to understand this thing Leo was trying to tell me.
“Are you… are you in love with him?” I asked.
He laughed. “No. I don’t think I ever could be, and I don’t think he could be with me. It’s just not the same — we don’t share that kind of connection.”
I ran my hand through my hair, struggling to grasp all of this. “So you’re sleeping together, but not in a casual way. You’re not in a relationship, either. And you don’t think you ever… could have real feelings for him?”
Leo sighed, and it was clear his patience was running thin. This must have been too much emotional discussion for him to want to deal with. Much more than he was used to dealing with.
“I thought you were different…” he said.
“I’m trying to understand!” I exclaimed. “I’m trying to figure out where I fit in with all of this! There’s just too much—”
“I want to be with you,” Leo said, pulling me into another big hug. “Is that so much to understand? I. Want. You.”
“But you also want Reese,” I maintained.
“Not in the same way,” he argued, his arms tensing up.
It was taking everything in me not to boil with jealousy. Reese. I could never compare to someone like him; a rich and famous director that could give Leo anything he wanted in life…
And honestly, I had a massive crush on Leo, and I felt like he understood a part of me that not one of these other starboys could. But the emotional connection here… it completely paled next to the connection I shared with Crim.
But Crim was so weird, and Leo was so… so grounded. Leo made sense.
But this didn’t.
I pushed away from his arms.
“I… I need time to think,” I said, turning away. “This is all so complicated…”
“Take your time,” Leo said. “I’ll be here for you when and if you want to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Leo walked with me back to my trailer, and I felt like there was this wall between us. I couldn’t pierce through his stoic shell, and it was clear from his silence that he was closed off for the night, too.
When he dropped me off at my trailer like a gentleman, I went right inside and flopped on my bed. Turning, I wrapped myself in my blankets like a burrito.
I was finally alone; I could finally have time to think. So much had happened — Leo admitted he had feelings for me. Well, more feelings than plain lust. I knew that much from when we kissed near the cliff.
With a great sigh, I realized that I didn’t even do what I set out to accomplish tonight. I still had all of the torn out pages from my journal crumpled up in my pockets, and I still hadn’t apologized to Reese.
The more I thought about how I stormed out of his trailer like that, the more embarrassed I became. I was definitely overreacting — I didn’t know what came over me.
But when all of my thoughts were spiraling out of control and I descended into slumber, one face came to my mind: Mason.
The next day, I felt like people were avoiding me. Everyone except Alina, who was back at my side like nothing had ever happened between us.
Before she shot any more of her scenes, I got to work treating her hair. We both agreed that no stylist could do what I did — the last one that she had work on it left her with black roots. And I had nothing else to do that day, so I pulled out my salon bag and sat her down in a chair.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about my encounter with Leo last night — it still felt like even the memory of it was draining me. Instead, I asked her about the evidence.
When I was painting her black roots with a brush dunked up with bleach, I leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “Did you talk to Rachel?”
“I couldn’t get ahold of her,” Alina said worriedly. “I don’t think she wants to talk to me.”
“Why?” I asked, incredulous. “You didn’t even do anything!”
“I don’t think it’s her decision,” Alina admitted. “I think she’s scared. Like, imagine if you had someone hovering around you all the time, breathing down your neck, keeping an eye on your every move. An
d if you toe out of line, he—”
Alina was blinking rapidly, sparkling tears clinging to her black eyelashes.
“Is she still in the town?” I asked, looking up at the village on the cliff.
“I don’t think so— I think they flew back to L.A. yesterday,” she said nervously.
“Okay, so there’s nothing we can do now about this,” I said, trying my best to comfort her. “All you can do is what you do best: Play Lady Brynn with all of the magic that you’ve been able to bring to the camera so far.
“That I can do,” she said, steeling herself.
I distracted her by talking about surface-level things and giving her a pep talk. She was so nervous about everything that she didn’t catch the faltering in my voice or the shaking of my hands.
While I was finishing up her curls, my eyes kept darting around the set, looking for any sign of the starboys. Before long, my eyes fell on Reese.
Today he looked calm and collected, his silvery eyes sharper than ever as he took command of the crew.
I narrowed my eyes, wondering what happened after I left his trailer last night. Did the rest of the guys comfort him? Tell him what he was doing was right? Did he kick them out? Did anyone back up what I said; that harboring his cousins was wrong?
Leo tearing out of the trailer came to mind.
Whatever was going on in there after I left, Leo didn’t want any part in it. He also kept glancing back over at the trailer when we were talking on the beach…
I was jerked out of my train of thought when the sound of a cracking apple snapped through the air. I turned and saw Mason Vayne leaning up against a nearby trailer, his mouth around a juicy yellow apple, watching me with his glittering blue eyes.
He was up to something.
I couldn't forget that last night in the gelato shop; how he stormed out when I began to ask questions about him and Reese. How he claimed that no one believed him.
A sinking feeling came to me as I thought of what it might be like to be him in that situation: In a relationship with a famous director, but trying to keep it on the down-low. It couldn’t be easy dating your boss.
He stood there watching me wordlessly as I finished up Alina’s hair. His eyes were boring into me the whole time; I could feel them creeping up my spine.
After I was finally done and Alina left the chair to go to talk to Reese, I turned to Mason.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked.
“Just watching,” he said quickly as he took one last bite of the apple. “All my scenes are done — this is our last day on set.”
“I’m aware,” I said, packing my hair supplies back into my stylist bag.
“We should do something special,” he said with that Cheshire Cat grin of his.
I was conditioned at this point to know that that type of look on Mason’s face meant trouble. But still, I couldn’t deny him. He was simply too beautiful. As much as I hated them, I couldn’t stop the butterflies from fluttering around in my gut.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked cordially, cursing the blush rising into my cheeks.
“Did you bring a bathing suit?” He asked with a smile.
Forty-five minutes later, I was carrying my purple beach bag with my Ru Paul beach towel and red and black speedo inside. I was walking next to Mason through the center of the town, still feeling uncomfortable with all of the eyes on me.
Mason seemed to notice. “Come on, it’s your last day here. You have to get used to the fame sometime,” he said.
“Is that your way of encouraging me?” I asked bitterly.
Mason shrugged, walked a few paces in front of me and turned back to say, “It’s what I’d want to hear!”
“You have a strange way of comforting someone,” I said bitterly. And a strange way of dealing with unpleasant feelings, I thought menacingly, remembering how he tore out of the gelato shop last night.
He smirked and rejoined my side.
“Can we talk about last night?” I finally asked.
“What is there to talk about?” he answered quickly.
“How you left the gelato shop, claiming that no one believed you about Reese. Then right after that, I found you in Reese’s trailer. Is there something going on that I’m missing?”
Mason faltered for a moment. He obviously wasn’t used to getting called out like that. “There’s just… some unresolved things between me and Reese,” he finally said. “It’s complicated.”
“How long did you two date?” I asked.
“You’re a nosy one, aren’t you?” he asked with a tone of warning in his voice.
“Just curious,” I rebuffed.
“Alright, that’s reasonable,” he said. “We dated for three months. Met during the academy awards.”
“And that’s how it ended? When you found his cousins in his basement?” I asked.
Reese was looking at the buildings we were passing carefully. If I didn’t know better, I’d argue that he was trying hard to get out of this situation.
Someone was making him uncomfortable, for once.
“I don’t know what bullshit he’s trying to pull, saying they were his cousins,” Mason said. “None of them looked a thing like Reese. Even at the time, he told me they were his cousins, but I didn’t believe him. Then I tried to tell other people about them, but no one believed me.”
“I know what that’s like,” I said, remembering my high school self.
“To not be believed?” Mason asked.
I looked over at him and his blue irises were on me. His gaze was overpowering.
I nodded. “No one believed me when… ugh, never mind, I don’t want to get into it.”
“Here it is,” Mason said, cutting me off and stopping in front of an ancient-looking building with roman columns out front.
“These are the baths?” I asked.
“Yep yep,” he said.
As I followed him up the marble stone steps, I couldn’t help but feel like I was left out in the cold. It was true that I didn’t want to get into what had happened to me in the past, but part of me was disappointed. I was just about to make an emotional connection with Mason, but he was taking the easy way out. Is it possible to feel relieved and disappointed at the same time?
As we passed the check-in desk, Mason flashed his I.D. And said something about his reservation.
I was still lost in thought about him. Why was I even hanging out with him? This was the guy that fucked me and then left me feeling used.
It was just like what happened with that bully…
We checked in and then went into the locker room to change.
“So, you were saying,” Mason said, taking off his shirt to reveal his gleaming abs.
“Saying what?” I asked as I did the same, feeling my face flare as I tried not to look at him.
“No one believed you,” he said cordially, training his eyes on the locker in front of him.
I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t expect Mason to swivel our conversation back around to this. “Yeah, no one believed me during this thing that happened a long time ago.” I shook my head, suddenly making a decision not to tell mason anything. “It doesn’t matter.”
Mason stepped out of his shorts.
I averted my eyes, my face heating.
“No, I want to know what you were about to say. Come on, man, don’t leave me hanging.”
“Not here,” I said, trying to get away from this subject. I would do anything — anything to not have to look at Mason when he was undressing like this.
I had to wonder— what was his game? Was he using his body — being naked like this — to make me squirm like this while he forced me to relive one of the worst moments of my life? That seemed like exactly the kind of weird little power games Mason Vayne liked to play.
“Fine, but I'm going to expect you to tell me later,” he said with a smirk. “We’re supposed to be close, you know?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied sassily.<
br />
“Oh, you didn’t read ahead in the script, did you?” Mason asked, that mischievous glimmer back in his eye.
I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. “Obviously not as far ahead as you have. Why? What’s in it for Chronis?”
“Our characters have a few more scenes together. We should at least try to be friends,” Mason said.
“You have a funny way of wanting to be friends,” I sassed.
Mason sighed and turned to me. “I’m not the best. I’m actually a terrible friend. But can we agree on some kind of truce going forward? It’ll make everything easier.”
He outstretched his hand for me to shake. I eyed it, then returned my attention to my locker.
“Easier for whom? For me or you?” I asked, the words feeling bitter on my tongue.
“Both,” he said confidently. Though there was a small quiver on the edge of his mouth.
“It’s going to take more than that after the shit you pulled,” I said, letting my anger and past hurt boil to the surface.
He withdrew his hand slowly. “What shit?”
I slammed my locker shut and fixed him with an angry gaze. “What, are you used to people letting you get away with things? You just smile and you can get away with whatever you want, pretty boy?” I asked, coming at him.
His thick black eyebrows went up ever so slightly and he took a step back.
I didn’t know what had gotten into me — this was a different side of me that I was completely unfamiliar with.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, his brilliant smile faltering.
“You’re telling me you don’t remember a few weeks ago, when we hooked up in my trailer? What was that about, Mason?”
“Oh, that?” he asked, trying to play dumb. “That was just fun. What, you didn’t want to have fun? That’s what this lifestyle is about—”
“Don’t pull that shit here,” I said, coming at him with my finger pointing at his chest accusingly. “We had a connection. And then you ran away because you were scared of it.”
Mason’s jaw went a little tighter, and there was a nearly imperceptible narrowing of his eyes. “It was just a hookup,” he denied.
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