by Witt, L. A.
But where was Levi?
Carter scanned the room. A few people noticed him—they did double takes and subtly murmured behind their hands to get others to turn and look at him. Well, shit. There was no pretending he hadn’t been here. Might as well not chicken out at this point, assuming he could find—
There.
Carter couldn’t see much of Levi, but the man’s voice was unmistakable. He sat low in a third-row seat, invisible except for when he gestured at the actors onstage. His presence, though. God. Carter could feel him. The second he heard Levi’s voice, the hairs on his neck stood up just like when the man had appeared on the set this afternoon.
Like Carter, the actresses onstage were focused on Levi, watching him intently as he gave instructions.
“Marti, you’re getting there, but I still don’t quite believe you. I need the people in the back row”—he gestured over his head, making Carter’s heart skip—“to feel how hard this news is hitting Sadie.”
The middle-aged woman nodded. “Okay.”
“All right,” Levi said. “Start at the top of page four.”
The actors all flipped back a couple of pages, and began going through the lines again. Carter took a seat in the back row. It wasn’t a play he had ever heard of. Might’ve been written by one of the locals, or maybe it was an obscure show the company had found God knew where.
After a few more attempts and more guidance from Levi, the woman finally breathed some life into her lines.
“Good, good!” Levi rose, unaware he was taking Carter’s heart rate with him. “That’s perfect, Marti. Carry that through the whole scene and you’re golden.”
The woman smiled, her cheeks coloring under the overhead spotlights.
Levi took his seat again. “Let’s run through the entire scene one last time, and then we’ll call it a night.”
Carter’s heart went into his throat. This was it. While the actresses did their final run-through for the evening, he tried to find the nerve that had brought him this far in the first place. He’d known when he moved here that Levi lived in the area, and he’d desperately wanted to connect with him ever since, but he’d never known how to cross paths with him until now. Did that make it right? Did that make this not creepy?
But then, if the guys on the set knew Levi was working here, it was probably no big secret. The theater was public, so it wasn’t like Carter was chasing him down at his house, which was likely secluded and tucked far away from town for a reason. As long as Carter took “no” for an answer and didn’t push, then he wasn’t being a stalker.
Whatever helps you sleep at night, man.
The actresses wrapped up their scene, and Levi dismissed the entire crew after a brief pep talk. Carter rose, ready to pull him aside as he came up the aisle, but a paint-and-plaster-splattered tech beat him to the punch, cornering Levi with some paperwork. They slowly made their way toward the door, faces buried in a stack of file folders.
“The lifts haven’t been used in years.” The tech gestured at something on a form in front of Levi as they passed Carter. “If we want to raise and drop the sets the way you’re asking, we’ll have to completely refit it, and it’s going to blow our budget.”
“Fuck,” Levi muttered. “All right, get some estimates and get it done.” He handed the papers back to the tech. “Let’s keep it reasonable, but I’ll pay it out of my pocket if it goes over budget. The theater needs an upgrade anyway.”
Carter didn’t hear the response because they disappeared through the lobby door. He started to follow them, but a pretty brunette suddenly materialized beside him.
“Excuse me, are you . . .” She blushed. “Are you Carter Samuels?”
He smiled. “Yeah, I am.”
“Really? Would you mind—” She gestured with her phone.
“Sure.”
He’d gotten pretty damned good at taking selfies with fans, so he took her phone, and they posed for a quick picture. Though he was eager to catch up with Levi—what if he left?—he gave her a chance to make sure the shot turned out, and waited until she’d hurried off to show the other cast members before he slipped out to the lobby.
Fortunately, Levi hadn’t left yet. The tech he’d been talking to earlier was gone, but a small group of actors were listening intently as he spoke, though Carter couldn’t hear what was being said.
While Levi talked with his cast members, Carter hung back and tried not to notice that they’d noticed him. Two other women—one of the actresses he’d watched earlier and another who he guessed was a tech because of the dust on her jeans and T-shirt—asked for a photo and an autograph, and he was as gracious as possible. He even appeared, he hoped, calm and cool—thank God for a few trips down the red carpet and four appearances on Comic-Con panels. Those had taught him well how to hide his nerves.
While he posed and chatted with them, his heart pounded and his tongue threatened to stick to the roof of his mouth. He wasn’t sure if waiting made it better or worse. It gave him time to get used to being in the same room with Levi before he had to actually speak to him, but it also gave him more time to get worked up and nervous.
The women left, and suddenly Carter was alone with his thoughts and those ever-present nerves.
How do you talk to someone who doesn’t know he shaped who you are?
Carter took a few deep breaths. This was definitely a bad idea. He should’ve waited to see if Levi accepted the role on the show. At least then it wouldn’t seem creepy or weird for them to be in the same place at the same time. In the same room. Breathing the same air.
Fuck. What the hell is wrong with me?
Movement caught his eye; in Carter’s moment of distraction, Levi had left his conversation and was disappearing into the night.
Carter hurried after him, catching the door just before it closed. “Hey, Mr. Pritchard.”
Levi stopped dead in his tracks, looked around, and then faced Carter. His eyebrows jumped. “Uh, yes?”
Calling on every bit of confidence he had to banish the fresh onslaught of stage fright, Carter stepped closer and extended his hand. “Carter Samuels. I work on—”
“Yeah, I know who you are.” Levi hesitated, but then shook Carter’s hand. “I watch the show.”
“Oh. You . . .” Carter suddenly couldn’t remember how to shake hands. “You do?”
Levi nodded. He gently freed his hand. “And I also, uh, saw you on the set today.”
You saw me? You noticed me?
“Right. Yeah.” Carter shifted his weight. “Look, I’m not gonna go all fanboy on you, but I’ve, uh, kind of been wanting to meet you since I moved here.”
Levi held Carter’s gaze, but drew back a little, and Carter couldn’t decide if the guy was uncomfortable, embarrassed, amused, creeped out . . .
Carter cleared his throat. “I wanted to pick your brain. One professional to another.” Now that he’d said it, he suddenly felt like a school bus driver asking Mario Andretti for driving tips. One professional to another? Yeah. Right.
“Pick my brain?” Levi’s eyebrows rose. “About?”
“Your technique.” Carter swallowed. “I’ve always admired you. The things you do with a character are just—” So much for not going all fanboy on him. Lowering his gaze, Carter added, “If you’ll let me buy you a drink, I’d love to just ask about how you do it.”
Levi laughed bitterly. “You’d be better off talking to a stuntman. I just do what they do, except with lines.” He started to walk away.
“I don’t mean your action roles.”
Levi stopped midstep. “What?”
Carter chewed his lip. “I mean films like Broken Day and Stir.”
“You’ve . . .” Levi turned around. “You’ve heard of those two?”
“Heard of them?” Carter laughed nervously. “I have them on DVD. My copy of Tin Horse was stolen, but I—”
“Tin Horse?” Levi stared at him, eyes wide. Moving slowly, almost cautiously, he came back toward Carter
. “You had a copy of Tin Horse?”
Carter nodded. “I’ve been looking for another one for three years. It’s . . . it’s my favorite of all your films.” It’s one of my favorite films ever.
“Mine too. I haven’t heard someone else mention it in ages.” Levi paused and cleared his throat. “All right, let’s go get a drink. This one’s on me.”
“Really? I can pay, it’s—”
“No, no.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’m the one who was about to storm off like a dick. Consider it an apology in a glass.”
Carter laughed. “Okay. Second round’s on me, though.”
“Deal.”
Holy shit, he’s really taking me up on it? I’m having a drink with—
Right. Not going all fanboy.
“So if you’ve heard of those titles, you must be into indie films.”
“My mom calls it a mild obsession.”
Levi chuckled. “Is ‘mild’ an attempt to be gentle?”
“Maybe . . .”
They glanced at each other and laughed. Something electric shot down Carter’s spine. He’d worked around enough actors—even a couple of Oscar winners—that he’d long since gotten over any inclination to get starstruck.
But . . . Levi Pritchard.
Levi Pritchard was walking with him. Talking with him. Sharing a laugh with him. They were going to sit down and have a drink and talk shop and— Okay, so apparently he was still capable of getting starstruck.
There was a tavern three doors down from the theater, and only a few heads turned when Levi and Carter walked in. Most of the locals knew each other, but largely ignored the “foreigners” as he’d heard a few of them refer to the cast and crew.
A hostess showed them to a booth in the corner, and they ordered drinks—a light beer for Carter and a Coke for Levi. Carter wasn’t particularly hungry since his stomach was full of butterflies, but he perused the menu anyway. Or tried to. His gaze kept drifting from the words and pictures to the man on the other side of the table. Jesus fuck. Was he really sitting across from Levi Pritchard? The man who’d inspired him to be an actor in the first place?
He gave up on the menu, and let himself look at Levi. The overhead light picked out details and imposed heavy shadows on his face, including a faint, silvery line spiking upward from his cheek to his temple. Where the scar met his hairline, a few stark white hairs crisscrossed with the darker ones. Carter didn’t remember ever seeing that scar before, and God knew he’d looked closely at a few of Levi’s pictures.
Levi’s eyes flicked up, and Carter quickly shifted his to the menu in front of him. The skin on the back of his neck prickled. He wondered if Levi was scrutinizing him the way he’d been doing, but he was afraid to look.
Their server appeared. “What can I get you gentlemen?”
“Um, let’s see . . .” Carter scanned the menu and realized he hadn’t read a single word of it. “You go ahead. I’m still deciding.”
Levi ordered a plate of nachos, and Carter quickly decided on steak fries. When the waitress left, their eyes met briefly, and they both cleared their throats and looked away.
From the corner of his eye, Carter watched Levi poking at ice cubes in his soda with his straw, and he struggled to kick-start a conversation.
Levi beat him to the punch, though. “By the way, I’m sorry again for almost storming off like that. Isn’t very often I run into people who know me as anything other than Chad Eastwick.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Carter waved a hand. “I can, uh, relate a bit.”
Levi laughed. “Yeah, I suppose you can, can’t you?”
Groaning, Carter rolled his eyes. “I will be Gabriel Hanford until the end of fucking time.”
“Just be glad he has some depth.”
“I am, believe me.”
Levi was quiet for a moment. Then he met Carter’s eyes through his lashes. “So I’m curious. How did you stumble across my old stuff?”
“Buddy of mine saw Broken Day at Sundance. We found a—” His cheeks burned. “Okay, it was a bootlegged copy. But I did buy a legal copy as soon as I found one!”
Levi chuckled. “It’s all right. To be honest, I can’t begrudge a bootleg on one of those films. At least that means someone put in the effort to get their hands on it.”
“It was worth the effort. Great movie.”
“Thanks.”
Silence threatened to settle in, so Carter asked, “How did you even go from roles like that to the action movies?”
Levi sniffed. “Because someone in a suit thought I looked good with a gun and a few smears of fake blood.”
Oh, he wasn’t wrong there . . .
Carter cocked his head.
Levi rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “My agent talked me into taking the role in the Eastwick films because he said it would get me on the radars of people who counted.” Rolling his eyes, he added, “Do a few Die Hard roles, and sooner or later, you’ll get cast in The Sixth Sense.”
“So they say,” Carter muttered.
“Right?” Levi watched him. “You have plans for after Wolf’s Landing? I mean, other kinds of roles you want to play?”
“I want to try everything, but I’m worried it’s going to be tortured detectives from here on out. At least for a while.”
“You never know. Your character’s got some depth and versatility.” Levi snorted. “I have yet to see a critic say you’re a stuntman with lines.”
You’ve noticed what critics say about me?
Mouth suddenly dry, Carter reached for his beer. Which was also dry. Fuck. He cleared his throat. “I guess I’m just afraid I’ll be typecast as Gabriel forever.”
“Could be worse.” Levi smirked. “You could be Chad fucking Eastwick for the rest of your life.”
Carter laughed. “That role put you on the map, though, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. And as far as most people are concerned, it’s all I’ve ever done.”
“Hooray for being typecast.” Carter lifted his beer bottle.
Levi raised his glass slightly, then took a drink.
The waitress arrived with their plates. After she’d gone, and they’d both nibbled at their appetizers, Carter quietly asked, “So, is it true you’re considering the role in Wolf’s Landing?”
Levi bristled. Carter almost retracted the question, but Levi sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I know Finn’s bent on convincing me—”
“Oh, fuck, I hate that guy!”
Levi laughed. Like, really laughed. “Do you?”
Carter groaned. “Fucking slimeball.”
“Ah, so you’ve had the pleasure.”
“Mm-hmm. And he’s trying to talk you into signing on for the show?”
Levi nodded.
“But you’re on the fence?”
“Yep.” Levi tugged a chip free from his nachos. “People like Finn are the biggest reason I left Hollywood. Roles like Max Fuhrman are the biggest reason I’d consider going back.”
“Wow. Tough position to be in.”
“Yeah, you could say that.” Levi laughed, bitterly this time, and then crunched on the chip.
For a long moment, they were both quiet, munching on their food and sipping their drinks. Carter wasn’t sure how to keep himself from blurting out, “I really hope you take the role because I’m dying to work with you,” so he just focused on his steak fries.
“Listen, um . . .” Levi muffled a cough. “I still have a few copies of Tin Horse. If you want to grab coffee or something, I could bring a copy.”
“Really?”
Levi lifted his head, and his smile made Carter’s pulse soar. “For someone who actually appreciates that film? You bet.”
“Awesome.” Carter grinned. “Thank you.”
“Thank you.” Levi held Carter’s gaze for a second, but then broke eye contact again. “Just, you know, let me know when and where. Your schedule is probably crazier than mine.”
Carter took out his phone. “F
ortunately, there’s an app for that.”
“Must be nice.”
“It’s a lifesaver.” Carter pulled up the shooting schedule. “Actually, I’m pretty free tomorrow. We’re doing a few reshoots in the morning, but . . .” He scrolled through the entire day’s schedule. “Yeah, I’m free.”
Levi smiled, which buzzed Carter more than the beer had. “Why don’t we meet up for coffee, then? There’s a place over on Sandy Bluff Road.” He pointed over his shoulder. “Annette’s.”
“Sounds great. What time?”
He shrugged. “Whenever. I don’t have a schedule.”
Carter glanced at the app again. “Two thirty?”
“Two thirty. I’ll be there.” Levi’s smile broadened a little. “And I’ll bring Tin Horse.”
“Great. See you then.”
Chapter 5
Levi didn’t want to be sold on the role of Max Fuhrman. He didn’t want Anna to be right. He didn’t want to be the studio-prescribed helping of heterosexuality on an otherwise queer show. And he really didn’t want to give in to Finn’s arm-twisting.
Being out so late with Carter had given him an excuse not to read the scripts until today. All morning, though, he’d given them a wide berth, eyeing them warily every time he passed the kitchen island where he’d put them before last night’s rehearsal. He circled like a reluctant shark, knowing he’d eventually do it, but talking himself out of it time and again.
Finally, he snatched them off the counter, settled on the couch between the cats, and opened the first episode.
And damn it, three pages into the script, he couldn’t have turned it down if he tried. For the first time in years, the thought of signing a contract actually gave him that rush it had when he’d started out.
This was the role he’d been begging for before he’d left LA. The kind of role that reminded him how much he loved—and missed—acting. Even when it had been two-bit action hero roles where the dialogue was a bunch of corny one-liners that must’ve been dreamed up by failed comic book writers, he’d enjoyed it.