Colder than Ice

by Jane Galaxy

  “Are you asking me?”

  “I don’t know! I didn’t call you to get yelled at!”

  Looking back at her players, Ashley gave a sharp sigh and set her phone down, leaving Sophie staring at the Connors Memorial Gym ceiling while listening to her friend’s distant voice lecturing players who were slacking off instead of committing to the drills.

  It had been a promising evening, and she’d learned more about Tristan just by looking at the stuff hanging on his walls than from the time they’d spent so far tiptoeing around one another, trying to figure out where they stood, whether they might get along, whether they even liked each other.

  He was a fan. Of comics. Like a fanboy. Not a very up-front or obvious one, but suddenly all of his little asides and comments while she’d been working with Prasad made sense. Tristan could call up details from issues she’d long since forgotten about and he did it in a way that wasn’t condescending or smug.

  Tristan Eccleston had a personality, had opinions and encyclopedic knowledge that she found… intriguing. It was a relief to find an actual awkward and slightly neurotic human being behind the humble-but-sophisticated branding, behind the endless half-naked gifsets on Tumblr, behind the constant kindness and eagerness to be liked and loved in equal measure.

  But he wasn’t just nice in a generic, grasping sort of way. He cared about people as if there was no other way of existing, of being himself. He was constantly looking for patterns and connections in the world, filling in gaps for everybody else. He was the sort of person who introduced himself with a handshake and the ability to remember the name of everyone on set—she’d watched him do it over the past few weeks. And he remembered those names without having to think about it. It was the sort of thing that made her vaguely wonder what he’d be like if he were just a person, not a celebrity or someone whose name other people wanted to take advantage of.

  Including his own family. True, he wanted to be liked, but that only seemed to lead to deeper and more interesting characteristics.

  It was all there, the recipe for a fascinating person—not to mention a (relatively fake) boyfriend whose facets she could understand and maybe even figure out. Good-heartedness, intelligence, shared interests… but there was something Sophie still wasn’t quite sure about. She’d never been a one-night-stand type of woman, and she still wasn’t totally on board with the idea of having sex with a famous actor when their relationship was one of convenience and using each other—even if things were going well.

  Maybe that was the trouble; she couldn’t get past the idea that deep down inside, Sophie needed to be able to trust the other person in a relationship to an almost unreasonable degree. And something about Tristan would always feel closed off. He always had his acting abilities to lean back on.

  Ashley’s microphone rustled in her earbuds, and soon her friend was back on video chat.

  “You two need to bone,” said Ash without preamble.

  Sophie cast a flat look into the camera, unwilling to pretend like she hadn’t heard her friend.

  “Come on, Soph. You’re a grown-up and you know who you are,” Ash said evenly. “What I’m seeing here is you sabotaging yourself, and you’re better than that.”

  Sophie felt her stomach clench suddenly, and her pulse jump a little. It was like this just as Ashley went into pep talk mode: the contrast between her usual brusqueness and the sudden sincerity of a genuine compliment was like hearing the most rousing, inspirational sermon.

  “Because every phone call we’ve had has been about Tristan Eccleston. You like him. Okay? Quit lying to yourself about that.”

  Sophie wished she hadn’t hit the FaceTime button on her phone. It had set a bad precedent, and now Ashley got to see her face for this.

  “You do this all the time,” Ashley was saying. “You take an objective thing, and in the back of your mind, decide that you are the problem because of your fear about engaging with that thing too closely to be normal, and you project that fear onto the objective thing, and suddenly it’s the problem. And that problem gets bigger, and pretty soon you’re coming up with excuses why you can’t be involved. If this goes wrong, you’ll be making escape plans to come back to Omaha because you can’t face him, and then it’ll be not just relationship, but career sabotage. Am I wrong?”

  Sophie didn’t answer, just kept gazing into the little screen, hot in the palm of her hand.

  Tristan had told her how much the original Imperium writer had liked her work. Just like that, not expecting something in return, but as though he had conversations with Jack Gerhig all the time about how good her work was and simply wanted to pass that along.

  “Take a step back and get out of your own head. It’s like I tell my players, when you’re overthinking things, you need to detach and get some perspective.”

  “You’re right,” said Sophie.

  “If you want to sleep with this guy—and I think you do—quit weighing the risks against the rewards and just embrace the moment. Being in LA working on the movie version of your story is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—do not go down a self-doubt spiral thinking that I’m implying that this is the only story of yours they’ll ever option, because I’m talking about the bigger picture, Soph.”

  There was a lull while Sophie thought about how to say she knew all that was true, and that Ashley had managed to articulate what she’d been thinking the past few days, when Ash looked up and hollered again. This time Sophie managed to lower her earbuds’ volume before her friend blew out her eardrums.

  “DIAZ! Those French braids look cute, you wear those to the game tomorrow night, you hear me?!” She turned back to the camera to speak in a lower voice. “I’m trying something new this year. Apparently they think it’s hilarious when I scream compliments at them.”

  “I can see where it would be very motivating.” Sophie tilted her head. “Thanks, Ash. If nothing else, I can sit and think about this.”

  “Alright, take it easy, Soph.”

  Sophie was just unplugging and winding up her earbuds when Tristan’s trailer door clicked open and swung back toward her. She couldn’t see who it was at first, and her pulse jumped and took off like a rabbit at the thought of being alone with Tristan again.

  But it was Prasad’s head that peeked around the door before finding her.

  “Ah, you’re here. Good. They want us for a production staff meeting—they’re wrapping up last bit of shooting here, and want to give everyone a rundown before we move on.”

  Sophie froze in the midst of stuffing her phone into her bag.

  “Wait, we’re not done already, are we?”

  “On the lots, sure.” Prasad grinned like he had a delicious secret waiting for her. “Next we get to do location shots.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Well, you should come to the meeting with me and find out—just kidding, I literally came over here to purposely spoil it for you, it’s London!” Prasad threw his arms out and whacked several fingers on the edge of a countertop nearby, and then smoothly pretended like he hadn’t. The trailer was very nice, and sleekly decorated, but still a very narrow space to wedge into.

  Stop picturing yourself and Tristan wedging yourselves into the trailer, Sophie.

  “Oh,” said Sophie. “So… am I staying here?”

  Prasad looked confused.

  “What? No. Why would I come all the way here to break three fingers and boast about going to Britain for a month of filming without you? That’d be weird, Sophie. Of course you’re coming with us—this whole thing is about impressing you, after all.” Prasad flopped over onto a nearby couch and attempted to get more than sixty percent of his body on some kind of cushion, which was essentially impossible given both how tall he was and how tiny the couch was.

  But there was definitely a bed behind the curtains at the front of the trailer—

  Stop. It. Sophie. Right. Now.

  Was it actually her, or was it that Ash had gotten into her head about sleeping
with Tristan? She realized Prasad was looking at her oddly in the silence, and said,

  “Right,” to cover it.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know that,” Prasad replied in a serious voice. “That’s—I mean, we’re happy to have you, of course, you’re lovely and very useful for somehow always getting the weirdest and most entertaining Uber drivers, but surely you’ve figured out that the execs want you on contract, they want all your stories, they want to make sure you’re happy and healthy and being well cared-for in the world of copyright ownership, blah blah blah.” He made his hand move like a puppet mouth.

  “I mean, I figured that if a movie studio brings me in on their dime to basically sit around and tell them if Morganna’s sword looks right, they must want something in return,” Sophie said.

  “Good,” said Prasad, looking very content—if cramped—indeed.

  The door swung open again, and this time a head with very white hair looked all around before turning, and then Tristan stepped in.

  “There you are,” he said quietly, which felt oddly significant, like he’d been anticipating that she’d be here, and was thunderstruck to see that he’d been right all along. Sophie sat up straight. She still hadn’t gotten used to him in full costume and makeup as Lucius, with the navy blue cape that hid his ice armor and just made him look like an intellectual advisor. Just like that, Lucius was real. They looked at each other for a long moment, and then Tristan seemed to realize Prasad was lounging on the furniture.

  “Ah,” said Tristan in a loud and clear voice. “You’re here.” But it didn’t have any malice behind it.

  “I am here!” Prasad cried, whacking his hand on the edge of something else as he flung his hand out. Sophie smiled and rolled her eyes.

  “You might need a doctor,” she said.

  “Just a couple of fingers, no huge loss, they make dictation software these days, I’ll be fine,” he replied.

  “Prasad, go get a sandwich or something,” Sophie said with a teasing fondness, and this time he finally did arrange himself into a standing position.

  “Fine, I’ll go and stack some meat as well.” He waved his not-damaged hand. “Turn that into something suggestive in your head, be as creative as you can, I can’t do everything around here.”

  Tristan watched his friend go before taking two steps over and sitting on the couch Prasad had just vacated. He looked pensive, as though something serious had come up.

  “Everything okay?”

  Before he answered, Tristan seemed to arrange his face the way he did sometimes, but instead of molding into Tristan Eccleston, Theater Darling and Movie Star, it was the look of someone who had unpleasant news to break.

  “The production is moving to London,” he said.

  “Prasad mentioned that,” Sophie replied, rising from her chair to go over and sit next to him. The effect of the Lucius wig up close really was striking—it really did make him look like he could lift his little finger and send out pathways of ice and snow out in front of himself.

  Even Tristan’s nose in profile was exactly the way Demetrius had designed it.

  He was a drawing come to life. Sophie suddenly felt a rush of affection toward him, mixed with something else—possessiveness, she realized. This was why so many people wanted selfies with stars; to capture them, store them forever someplace, and make sure everyone knew.

  She’d never even felt the impulse to open Instagram around him. If the two of them were going to spend time together, it was like a secret split between them, and Sophie was going to keep her half. Sharing it with anybody else would only dilute the feeling she had, sitting next to this man, her character, the one she’d imbued with not just ice powers but a great possibility for pathos.

  It was so weird to think of Lucius as a real person, and then turn around and make a big performance of dating-but-maybe-not-dating Tristan, too. This was getting confusing.

  Tristan turned, and it was his face again, not Lucius’s, tilting his head to look at her and bite his lip, and Sophie thought:

  Lucius isn’t the villain, and he needs his own story arc.

  He must have interpreted the way she was looking at his lip as worried instead of heated, because he said,

  “It’s not that I don’t care for it, but honestly—having you around will make things much smoother, I think. I just wanted to make sure that you were definitely going.”

  “Why?” She blinked. “I mean, of course I’m going, but why would I make things smoother?”

  He made the strangest face, as though he were smiling but terribly sad at the same time.

  “I won’t overthink all this,” he lifted his arms and looked down at his costume, “With the voice of authority herself watching over me.”

  And then Sophie thought:

  I’m definitely going to sleep with him.

  Chapter Ten

  “I didn’t know what kind to get, so I went with the safe option—one cheese and one with everything,” said Sophie, settling onto the floor in front of the couch with her plate. Tristan slid off the couch to lounge next to her, and on his way down grabbed two pillows, situating one at the small of her back gently, then setting the other next to himself to lean on before accepting a glass of wine from her one hand and pizza from the other.

  “Afraid we’ll turn out to be cursed if you try to cook for me?” Tristan looked over at the arc lamp in the corner and shook his head in mock sadness. “If the power goes out again, we’ll know for certain that it’s a sign.”

  “Oh, hell—if I cook for you, it’ll be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing,” Sophie said, laughing.

  “So what is this?” he said, looking down into his glass of wine and stirring it around in the air a bit. Sophie raised her eyebrows at him, but he was still busily pretending to inspect the wine.

  “A ’58 Rothschild,” she said in her sweetest hostess voice.

  “My God, with pizza?! Utterly ingenious; how much was it at auction?” he cried, obviously alert to her game.

  “Six-fifty for a liter and a half.”

  “Not bad for a ‘58,” said Tristan, and tipped the whole thing back into his mouth before she pulled the bottle from next to the couch arm and poured him another glass.

  She’d flipped the script and invited him over for a last hang before their flight to London the following afternoon. Maybe—just a little maybe—she had an ulterior motive, but Sophie wasn’t admitting that even to herself. It was easier to not think about as she went through more glasses of wine, and this was number three.

  And magically, just like that, here he was, Tristan Eccleston, in her apartment. Tristan looked so effortless, so at ease, like he belonged down here with the common folk eating greasy pizza while sprawled on the floor, instead of being the scion of an acting dynasty, an international superstar in the British theatrical and dramatic scene, and about to be a Hollywood A-lister.

  Like he was just some guy she’d swiped right on, and he’d done the same for her, and now they were indulging in too many calories and a romantic comedy she’d been meaning to watch. Tristan was paying very close attention to the movie, a love story between a young woman who lived in the same apartment building as a man with a secret identity as a luchador, and when she accidentally grabbed his laundry and found a spangled mask and wrestling briefs in her hamper, it was obvious where things were headed.

  “Mmm,” said Tristan through a mouthful of pizza. “He’s lying to her, he’s gonna break her heart.”

  “Inevitably.”

  “And there’ll be a very sad montage of the two of them looking through rainy windows feeling sorry for themselves and wishing they’d made the most of their time together before it all came crashing down,” Tristan went on, sounding like a trailer narrator.

  “But they’ll get together in the end. Guaranteed.”

  He turned to her.

  “You know, you’ve been staring at me all evening,” he remarked, not unkindly. She wasn’t sure how he’d known, with
the way he’d been so engrossed in the movie.

  “You have a nice face,” she replied, and checked her wine glass.

  “Hmm,” said Tristan. “I suppose.” But he cast one last little glance at her, as if he knew what she was thinking, and instead of feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable, Sophie was mildly surprised at how calm she felt.

  “Are you finished packing?”

  Her own suitcase stood ready by the door. Their flight wasn’t until 3:30 in the afternoon, but she wouldn’t be taking any chances. An early bedtime, followed by getting to LAX multiple hours in advance and then magically—as always—getting through security without a single problem, followed by sitting around waiting for far too long. She could picture Tristan getting to the line half an hour before the plane doors would be sealed and just breezing through as though airport inconveniences didn’t exist for the ridiculously good-looking.

  Which she supposed they didn’t, actually.

  He chuckled lightly and pulled his eyes away from the screen, apparently really invested in the lovely little romance blooming between the woman and El Pantera Más Sexy.

  “The publicity team sends an assistant over to do the packing the night before,” he said. “That’s why I’m glad you invited me over. As long as I’ve been doing this, it’s still awkward to be in the apartment while someone is folding my socks, picking out the perfect outfit for other passengers to post on Instagram, and going through my shampoo and toothpaste.”

  “Huh. So you don’t like doing it yourself?”

  “Oh, I could do it myself just fine—but someone always buys brand-new products and decides what’s fashionable enough to include. It’s a contract thing.” Tristan rolled his eyes. “Got to have the right hand luggage, so that means I need certain things in the bag, and it’s all a bit much sometimes.”

  Sophie bumped his shoulder with her own in an affectionate way.

  “Well, you’re welcome to find a safe harbor. I’m certainly not going to dictate what shoes you need to wear on a trans-Atlantic flight—I mean,” and she gestured down at herself in a chunky sweater several years old, then up to her messy ponytail. Tristan pressed his fingertip to the end of her nose and made a little popping noise like a champagne cork. Then he wrapped one long arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close to him, where it was warm and smelled light and sharp at the same time.