“At least it’s warm in here,” Jeremy heard himself say.
“Fucking freezing in this house,” Kit answered almost absentmindedly as he fussed with a tea ball. “They make this stuff in bags now. Jesus.”
Jeremy lifted the stainless-steel ball from Kit’s fingers and screwed on the top before handing it back. His aunt preferred loose tea. He opened his mouth to say so, but what came out was, “I imagine this place’d be a bitch to heat.”
“Greg should turn on the freaking radiators.” The kettle wheezed, and Kit lifted it off the stove. Steam rose from the spout as he poured it into the pot. “Problem solved.”
“Probably he doesn’t have the money,” Jeremy said, knowing he likely divulged something he shouldn’t, though he knew rumors abounded. “I overheard him telling Aaron it’s all tied up in No Apologies. Even this house is for sale and mortgaged to the hilt.”
The sound of water hissing from the kettle stopped briefly as Kit glanced up. “Are we seriously discussing Falkner’s financial problems?”
“I—”
“Because I have to tell you”—tea sloshed over the rim of the cup Kit plunked down in front of Jeremy—“right now you could color me I just don’t give a fuck.”
“Your concern for my welfare is duly noted, Harris.” Greg’s dry rumble came from the dark servant’s stairway before he entered the room.
Red-faced, Jeremy swallowed down a heart that desperately wanted to crawl up his throat and find a place to hide. He had made it how many weeks without divulging Greg’s secrets, and the man just had to overhear the one time he did?
Stopping in front of Jeremy, Greg gave him a steady stare.
“I’m sorry,” Jeremy said.
Greg nodded. “Forgiven. You lived your own personal hell tonight.”
Relief soothed Jeremy’s cheeks, the apology and its acceptance an absolution he desperately needed.
“Did they do that to you?” Jeremy asked, before thinking. “Make you apologize?”
“They made me do a lot of things,” Greg answered, not breaking his stare. Not moving away.
Kit hovered in Jeremy’s peripheral vision. Desperate to bridge the gap between these two people—the only individuals he cared for in what seemed a large, bleak world, Jeremy tried to draw Greg out. He knew Greg would answer almost any question for the sake of the film and used the excuse as a diversion tactic to get around his eight-foot-thick emotional walls.
“The only person you don’t apologize to is Aaron,” Jeremy observed.
Greg swallowed convulsively. “No. I don’t.”
“Why?” Jeremy sincerely desired to know the answer to that question. Every line of his script showcased so much love for one man, yet Greg withheld it. Jeremy leaned in and asked again, “Why?”
“Because he’s the only one who—” Nostrils flaring, Greg came to some personal revelation and paled. “Shit.”
Jeremy gave a small smile of understanding. Aaron was the only one close enough to Greg to hurt him if he made himself vulnerable. He’d had an evening full of these insights into himself—knew intimately the surprised drop Greg’s stomach experienced. Blinking, the screenwriter stepped away, putting some distance between himself and Jeremy.
“I just got the dailies,” Greg said, referring to the raw footage he and the director reviewed each evening.
Kit stepped into Jeremy’s direct line of sight. “You make him reshoot, and I’m going to the union.”
Perching his hip against the table, Greg folded his arms and cocked his head. “What did you think of the work Jeremy did, Kit? Do you think we should reshoot?”
“I think it was the best piece of acting I’ve ever witnessed.” Kit’s upper lip took on a feral curl, and he snarled his response. “Probably because you forced him to bleed his reality all over your set.”
Greg swiveled his gaze to include Jeremy. “The scene you played out? It happened. Only it took a hell of a lot longer before I said sorry.”
Kit rolled his eyes, clearly wanting to lash out. “Oh, poor you.”
Greg dropped his arms to his sides and straightened. Jeremy watched the violence barometer in the room rocket toward red, and scrambled to find a way to resolve the tension that rapidly reached untenable.
“You think I don’t know what Jeremy just went through? What I just put him through?” Greg spoke in a volume so low, so dangerous, Jeremy had to strain to make out the words through the rumble underlying them. “I know exactly what he just lived—what he has lived.”
“Then why the fuck did you do that to him?” Kit’s volume and gesticulations increased in inverse proportion to Greg’s quietude. “And his uncle? Orchestrating that touching family reunion? You’re a sick, self-serving fuck.”
“Thank you for crediting me with omniscience, Harris.” Jaw muscles bunched as Greg swallowed the hard edge of his rage. “I didn’t know the man would be here.”
“Then how did he find out if you didn’t tell him?” Kit pressed.
“Ever hear of a charming thing called the six o’clock news?”
“How convenient for you he just happened to show up in time to inform your scene.” Kit folded his arms over his chest and seemed to search Greg’s face for a lie. “Like I said, that was the best goddamned piece of acting I’ve ever witnessed. Problem was, Falkner? It was no fucking act. You didn’t need to put Jeremy through that.”
Greg’s stare went cold, almost daring Kit to think the worst of him. “I’ll look forward to seeing the dailies, then.”
Vibrating with anger, eyes wild, Kit surged forward. Jeremy attempted to place himself between the two men, but Greg’s gentle palm pushed him back.
“Don’t fucking touch him.” Kit spat the words.
“Or…what?” Greg stepped closer, the corded muscles in his neck standing out in chiseled relief. “You’ll call me a fag and prove you’re not by trying to hit me?”
Feeling as if he lived a scene out of the movie, Jeremy watched in horror as weeks of on-set tension between Greg and Kit exploded. Greg ducked Kit’s wild punch and grabbed his arm. From Jeremy’s vantage point, it appeared as if momentum, not Greg, propelled Kit into the wall. It all happened too fast for Jeremy to react, much less stop the fight. Almost before Jeremy finished translating what he saw, Kit lay in a heap on the floor. Gaze leveled at Greg’s knees, Kit seemed to be thinking about rushing him—taking him down.
“Don’t.” Feeling ridiculous—really, what could he do to stop this fight if it escalated?—Jeremy shoved his way in front of Kit, forcing Greg to back up. He hauled Kit to his feet and directed him into a chair. Staring down at the blue and red of Kit’s rapidly bruising cheek, Jeremy reached out a soothing finger. “I appreciate your defending me, but Greg’s right.”
“Right?” Kit shook his head and looked past Jeremy to Greg. “I don’t know what it is about him using you that you find right.”
Jeremy grabbed his chair, swiveled it backward, and rested his arms along the top as he sat. Probing at the experience like a loose tooth, wiggling it and testing it, he found he wanted to pull it out—purge himself of its sharp edges and unstable surface—to let something new and more substantial grow in its place.
“He might’ve had more than one reason for not sending them away, but I’m glad he didn’t.” Meeting Greg’s eyes, Jeremy considered the meaning behind this new understanding. “I’m glad I saw my family.”
Clearly baffled, Kit pushed long fingers through his hair, and Jeremy remembered how it used to trail in sunlit strands with the gesture. He wanted him to grow it longer again. Hoped he would.
“You’re both messed up,” Kit said, slouching. Petulant.
Greg remained silent—back against the fridge, one leg kicked up. Reminded of the day he and Kit first encountered the paparazzi together, Jeremy almost laughed. When threatened, both men cloaked themselves with the same guarded cynicism, the same devil-may-care stare. Except where Kit generally tried to make friends, Greg seemed to revel in making
enemies.
Clenching the rails on either side of the chair back, needing to bring these two men closer together, Jeremy decided to speak about something he’d never thought to mention to anyone. Ever. He grabbed a paper napkin from the holder in the center of the table and began to tear little pieces from the corners. Staring into space, he felt his gaze soften as he let memory’s cloudy lens focus his mind’s eye.
“None of his kids got it like me. I think my uncle resented all the mouths he had to feed. I wasn’t his. So…” He shrugged, letting the gesture finish the thought as tiny bits of napkin snowed onto the floor. “I ran away at seventeen. Lived all over. Made my living doing street performing—dance and…other stuff. Stuff I’m not too proud of. I was pretty much homeless until I came to LA. I never finished high school. Last year, I got my GED while working my job bussing tables.”
Stealing a glance, Jeremy saw the raw trepidation painting Kit’s features—understood he didn’t really want to know all this. Yet, like with most accidents, he apparently couldn’t force himself to look away as Jeremy, with a sense of slow-moving unreality, revealed the twisted wreckage of his past.
“He never had to hold me down. I just took it. I don’t know why. I never thought I had a choice. I was never like Greg. I didn’t fight. I wish I had. Tonight…” His swallow fractured the tightness in his chest as he met Kit’s horror-struck gaze. “Maybe I looked weak, but tonight I stood up to him. Greg gave that to me. So my last memory isn’t of running away, but of saying no. I needed to say no.”
“He didn’t do it for you.” Kit glared, spitting the words. “He did it for himself.”
Helpless, Jeremy watched as Greg stiffened and pushed away from the fridge. Even if Kit didn’t understand, Greg needed to know Jeremy believed he’d done the right thing. Desperation—a need to remain connected with the man—made him reach out.
“We’re both survivors,” Jeremy said to Greg’s departing back.
His dark twin paused in the doorway, bracing himself with his arm along the frame. Silent but listening.
“I’m proud of us both. We get on with the business of living even when the rest of the world wouldn’t mind seeing us dead.” Jeremy redirected his attention to Kit and recognized the signs of tattered innocence in the pained expression marring his beautiful face. Jeremy took his hand and squeezed gently. “And I’m grateful to have a friend with the courage to speak up on my behalf.”
Back still turned, Greg cleared his throat. “Be on set at five, day after tomorrow, Jeremy. Kit, you’re off until Thursday… Your face needs to heal.”
Then he left. Mesmerized and emotionally flattened, Jeremy stared at the space where Greg had stood until Kit pulled his hand away.
“Want to go to breakfast in town tomorrow?” Tone chatty and light, Kit stood and began to clear the table of the remains of their unsuccessful meal.
Grabbing a sandwich from the tray, Jeremy stared at Kit as if he’d spawned a new personality. Then he remembered. This Kit—the carefree, bad-boy wannabe with his incongruous naïveté about real life—represented the original. In light of the past six hours, however, the authenticity of that Hollywood persona appeared highly suspect. In fact, Jeremy planned to call it an outright forgery the first opportunity he got.
Chapter Eighteen
“Are you seriously gonna eat all that?” Jeremy stared at Kit’s plate.
Heaped high with bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes, corned beef hash, and biscuits, the mound of food formed a caloric Great Wall between them. Examining a fork loaded with the unlikely combination of bacon and hash with a topping of biscuit and honey, Kit grinned, devilish, before popping the entire mass into his mouth and waggling his eyebrows. Jeremy groaned, a little grossed out but secretly amused at Kit’s flirtatious side.
Chewing, Kit spoke around the mouthful, deliberate and self-satisfied in his hedonistic display. “You need to get more fun out of life.”
The little hole-in-the-wall in Litchfield Center served up a mean pancake—or so one of the camera crew had said—but the idea of loading down his stomach this early made Jeremy more than a little queasy. Or maybe the kitschy flowered wallpaper and overly sweet country décor dampened his appetite? He sipped at his coffee and dubiously eyed Kit stabbing at the eggs on his plate.
Bits of yellow dripped thickly from the utensil as Kit wagged his fork in Jeremy’s face. “Open up.”
When Jeremy clamped his mouth shut, Kit touched the eggs to his lips, smearing the slick yolk from one side to the other. Hot and sticky, the food gave Jeremy ideas he conveyed with a burning glance as he languidly unlocked his jaw and slid out his tongue to caress the eggs into his mouth. Gaze rapidly deepening from playful to more electric shades, Kit slowly withdrew his fork.
The high-backed booth at the rear of the restaurant hid them from other diners, encouraging Jeremy to slip his foot from his shoe and stretch out his leg until he made contact with Kit’s crotch. Toes flexing, Jeremy curled them along the gather of seams at the lowest point. Scrunching his way upward, he explored every bulge and rapidly hardening ridge.
Fork abandoned, head tilted against the seat cushion, Kit closed his eyes. Golden lashes, long and thick, fanned against tan skin glowing with lust. Full lips—a light red that almost bordered on pink—parted. Chest muscles pulled and expelled oxygen in an audible rhythm as Kit’s pecs rose and fell against the fabric of his turquoise, long-sleeved tee.
Not even the bruise from last night’s fight with Greg made a difference to this man’s beauty, and Jeremy found himself saying, “You’re goddamned gorgeous.”
Tongue snaking out to wet his lips, Kit opened his eyes. The depth of emotion there nearly took Jeremy’s breath away.
“No. You.”
Kit’s Hollywood self, thick with arrogance and distance, never said such things. Never rescued self-destructing homosexuals from their families. Couldn’t be bothered to mouth off unless posturing to the police. This man—the one with visible frissons trailing his spine and sincerity in the deep honey of his voice—was the real Kristofer Harris.
Grinning, Jeremy dropped his foot and grabbed a piece of toast from Kit’s plate. He tore off a bite, popped it into his mouth, and then said, “Nice to meet you, Kristofer.”
“Hi,” Kit said back, his voice still languid and breathless, his eyes a liquid blue.
Jeremy turned his palm upward in invitation. “Stick around awhile?”
Lips curving in a slow, answering smile, Kit nodded. “Sure.”
In companionable silence, they both attacked Kit’s breakfast. A new waitress came by to refill their coffees. Yawning, she tilted the round carafe, letting the black liquid pour in a steaming stream into Jeremy’s thick-walled mug. Then she turned to Kit, whose mug was out of reach.
“Coff—” Her eyes widened. “Holy shit.”
Kit straightened, and Jeremy saw the wall crash down over his features. Sparkling and pretty for all its swagger, the facade disguised a steel barrier you’d never recognize unless you’d seen what it hid beneath.
Lifting his foot, Jeremy gave a quick, hard push to Kit’s balls that made him gasp. Cheeks a cherry red, he narrowed his gaze at Jeremy, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. An internal war—fought hard and won quickly—flickered in Kit’s expression. When he sat back, he trailed a palm over his face and looked up at the woman. Expression neither flirtatious nor arrogant, he glanced at Jeremy, then back to the waitress and said, “Hi.”
“I’m…” The coffee pot started trembling. “Oh my God.”
“I—” Kit glanced to Jeremy again with a help me out here, dude expression.
Without his Hollywood persona to hide behind, Kit appeared flummoxed. And that was when Jeremy understood. Kit denied his true self for so long precisely because he never came up from behind his Tinsel Town shield long enough to examine what lay beneath.
“I’m Jeremy, and this is Kit.” Jeremy slid over and pulled the waitress by her wrist into the booth.
She s
at with a jelly-legged thud and placed the carafe on the table. Never tearing her eyes from Kit, she said, “Hi.”
“What’s your name?” Jeremy asked.
He looked at Kit, who stared at him like a freak from a sideshow.
“Melissa.” Her breathless tone signaled some kind of starstruck shock even Jeremy found disconcerting, but he refused to play to it—refused to be anyone but himself.
“How long have you been working here? Did you grow up in Litchfield?”
Finally, Melissa turned her attention to Jeremy. Rather than answer his questions, however, she breathed, “Do you get to work with him? Aren’t you in that…that…film with him?”
“I do,” Jeremy answered, carefully. “I am.”
Remembering the article Greg showed him—the one that made his life an internal living hell until yesterday when something uglier reared its head—he wondered if Melissa knew about it. Whether she’d blow his chance to tell Kit first. Suddenly, he couldn’t get her out of there fast enough. An eerie sensation of ice crackling over his skin, forming a barrier between himself and Melissa, shoved him into asking, “Do you have a pen?”
A hoarse snort jerked from Kit’s chest, and Jeremy shot him a shut up glare.
Melissa handed over the pen as if in a daze. Both he and Kit signed her check pad. A bell dinged at the counter, and she slid from the booth, still in a daze. Jeremy grabbed her wrist before she completely left the booth, and she turned to him with a vacant stare, so zombielike it made him shudder.
“Hey, do you think you could keep our breakfast here a secret until we leave?” He tried to appeal to her human side. “We have a pretty rough schedule, and it’s our only day off. You know how it is, I’m sure.”
Acting Out Page 17