Spoiler Alert

by Olivia Dade

  Control the narrative, though . . .

  That was the third time he’d said something surprisingly incisive. At this point, she either had to conclude that someone had given him a Smart-Sounding Phrase of the Day calendar, or acknowledge that he wasn’t quite so dim after all. Not nearly as dim as he’d been pretending to be, anyway.

  Time to dig deeper. Take more samples.

  When their main course arrived moments later—yum—she smiled at him and picked up her fork and sharp-bladed knife. Her pair of chicken thighs lay in the middle of the plate, their skin crisp and browned and perfect. So perfect, in fact, a random observer might never realize there was something more than chicken beneath that surface.

  With a precise cut, she halved a deboned thigh, exposing the stuffing beneath that pristine skin. Then she carved a slice and took the time to taste it thoroughly.

  The dish was complex. Deeply savory, with tart and sweet notes and unexpected texture from those toasted pine nuts. Exactly what she’d wanted, although she’d had doubts about the wisdom of ordering something as unexceptional and boring as chicken thighs at such a fancy restaurant.

  But she wasn’t bored. Not in the slightest. Not anymore.

  “I would love for you to tell me more about your work on Gods of the Gates.” As he winced apologetically, she held up a hand. “I know you can’t say anything about the final season, and I’m not asking. I’m more interested in behind-the-scenes stuff, anyway. Your daily routine and what your actual job has entailed all this time. How you train for sword fights, whether you already knew how to ride a horse when you joined the cast, things like that.”

  This time, when he pushed his hair back from his forehead, the motion didn’t look quite so studied. Not paired with that crinkled brow.

  “I’d bore you to tears, I’m afraid.” His smile was still bright, still genial, but now a wee bit tighter. “Why don’t we talk about my exercise routine instead? Or maybe I can tell you about working with Summer Diaz and Carah Brown?”

  He’d addressed those topics numerous times, in countless articles and blog posts, and she didn’t care to discuss either one. The exercise stuff would, in fact, bore her to tears, and when it came to his costars, the man was a font of good-natured platitudes.

  I’m lucky to work alongside such talented colleagues, and ones nearly as pretty as I am.

  They’re true professionals, and as beautiful inside as outside. Like me!

  The show couldn’t have found more lovely, gifted actors to play Lavinia and Dido. Or Aeneas, for that matter.

  No, she wanted to tackle topics that didn’t allow for generic, surface-only answers.

  “I won’t be bored, I promise.” Another neat slice of the chicken thigh, and she paused with her forkful of food just above her plate. “Did you ride horses before being cast on the show?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  He was pushing a tiny cube of apricot around his plate with his own fork. Studying the circles it made with unusual focus as she chewed and waited for words that weren’t coming.

  She swallowed before digging deeper. “Do you like riding?”

  “Yes.” Instead of elaborating, he shoved a hasty bite of food into his mouth.

  All right, no more yes or no questions. “What do you like about it?”

  He pointed to his full mouth, and she nodded in understanding and waited. And waited. And waited.

  His chewing had become extraordinarily thorough in the last minute or so. But if he was hoping she’d say something more or change the topic while he endlessly chewed his mouthful of polenta—polenta, which didn’t actually require chewing—he was doomed to disappointment.

  His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and she smiled encouragingly at him.

  “Um . . .” His chest hitched in a tiny sigh, one so discreet she’d have missed it if she hadn’t been watching him so closely. “I like being outdoors. And, uh, I’m pretty athletic, so things like riding suit me. Fit my talents, I guess.”

  Suddenly, he straightened in his chair. Flipped his hair back from his face with a practiced snap of his head. “To help strengthen my thighs, I had certain exercises my trainer suggested I do. I can tell you about those.”

  Nope.

  “I imagine you had to practice a lot, even if you’re naturally athletic and exercise the right way.” Barreling right past his attempted conversational misdirection, she continued pressing. “Did someone from the show teach you swordplay, or did you learn how to use a sword on your own?”

  At that, he met her eyes again. Finally. “You want to hear about the crew?”

  “Sure.” That might prove as revelatory as any other topic, she figured.

  His mouth pursed, he gave a little nod.

  “Okay.” Putting down his cutlery, he leaned forward. “Um . . . okay. Any skill with the sword I have, I owe to them.”

  “How?” she asked.

  Once more, she waited. And this time, the dam broke.

  “From the moment I was cast, they started teaching me how to handle my sword and shield in a way that would look second nature, as if I’d been doing it my whole life.” This time, she didn’t need to ask him to elaborate. He just did, without prompting. “How to walk, how to sit, how to stand at attention. And if I look capable on-screen while fighting, that’s due to them too.”

  No credit for himself. Interesting. “In what way?”

  He barely hesitated. “The fight coordinators and choreographers and the stunt coordinators worked like hell to make sure each battle scene not only looked impressive, but fit each character’s personality and history and the specific goals and mindset they’d have for that particular fight. Then they’d run us through the sequences again and again, until we knew exactly what to do and when to do it.”

  In other words: Yes, with their help and guidance, he’d practiced a lot.

  He was very skilled at erasing his own efforts from the narrative, though. Especially for a man whose vanity was legendary.

  “Some of those big battle sequences, they’d start preparing us months ahead,” he added. “Up to a year, in a few cases. Always looking ahead, always striving to make each scene convincing and spectacular and memorable.”

  His blue-gray eyes were bright and intent on hers, willing her to understand the greatness of the Gods of the Gates crew, the extent of their hard work. He was gesturing with his broad hands now, punctuating his points with little waves and slashes.

  It was like watching a ghost become corporeal once more. Life, where only a shadow once existed. Fascinating and disorienting, all at once.

  She thought over what he’d told her. “So if they take each character’s history into account, someone like Cyprian shouldn’t fight as capably as, say, Aeneas. Because Cyprian wouldn’t be as battle-hardened and wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn swordplay in the same way.”

  “Exactly. Sometimes they’d have to tell one of us to dial back the skill a few notches.” He grinned at her, and it crinkled at the corners of those eyes in a very distracting way. “Between takes, the director would come around and ask each of us what we were fighting for in that scene. What our goal was. What had happened to us prior to that scene that would inform the moment for our character. So a battle might involve hundreds of people, but for the main actors, that scene, that fight, would also be specific. Different for everyone.”

  His face was mobile with passion. So much passion and intensity and . . . intelligence.

  She crossed her legs under the table. Uncrossed them.

  “And that’s not even getting into all the work done by the weapons master, the sword master, the horse master, the VFX and SFX people . . .” He shook his head, his golden hair glowing in the candlelight, and she couldn’t look away. “The show has over a thousand crew members, and they’re all amazing, April. The hardest-working, most talented people I’ve ever met.”

  That didn’t sound like a platitude. It sounded like a bone-deep truth.

  For the f
irst time that night, April excused herself to the restroom. Once there, she used the facilities, washed her hands, and didn’t leave immediately.

  Instead, she dabbed more cold water on her wrists. The back of her neck. Only two of the many places she was suddenly much too hot, even though she knew better. She did.

  She stared at herself in the mirror. Red hair. Freckles. Brown eyes behind contact lenses. Round breasts, round belly, round thighs. All normal.

  Not normal: the rosy flush on her cheeks, and the slight ache between those thighs.

  Because she suddenly wanted him. Marcus. Caster. Hyphen. Rupp. The dim, vain man who was, apparently, neither vain nor dim. Or at least not as vain and dim as he pretended.

  He was still gorgeous, however. Still famous.

  And only having dinner with her tonight out of kindness, not desire for her company or her body or anything else specific to her.

  Well, shit.

  GODS OF THE GATES: SEASON 1, EPISODE 3

  EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE CAVE – DUSK

  JUNO waits inside the entrance, half in shadows, expression calm and righteous. When LEDA ventures within, Juno makes no sudden movements, aware that the woman her husband has wronged—yet another woman he has violated—has no reason to trust her, and may fear the vengeance of a possessive wife.

  JUNO

  Trust my good will, if you can. I no longer find relief in petty jealousy, and am no longer foolish enough to blame a mortal maiden for the rapaciousness of an all-powerful god.

  LEDA

  I would not have betrayed you, mother Juno. Not if resistance were in my power.

  EUROPA glides through the entrance, armed, shaking with fear.

  EUROPA

  Whatever tortures you may choose to inflict upon me, you can do no worse than the man you call husband.

  JUNO

  I no longer call him husband. And if we make common cause, none of us need call him king of the gods for long.

  GODS OF THE GATES: SEASON 6, EPISODE 2

  INT. AENEAS AND LAVINIA’S HOME – NIGHT

  LAVINIA waits by the fire. She’s pissed. He’s been fucking Anna, Dido’s sister. She knows it. AENEAS enters the house.

  LAVINIA

  Where you have been, my husband?

  AENEAS

  That is not your concern.

  Whatever. He doesn’t need this shit. When Lavinia cries, he walks away.

  6

  WHILE APRIL VISITED THE BATHROOM, MARCUS REGROUPED.

  Somehow, she’d gotten him talking about things he actually wanted to talk about. Worse, doing so in the same way he might with Alex, the one person he trusted without hesitation. Alex, who definitely wouldn’t contact a blogger and say, I think Marcus Caster-Rupp has been fucking with everyone this whole time as some kind of big joke.

  His public persona wasn’t a joke. It never had been. But unless he controlled the narrative—as he’d advised her to do earlier that night—his behavior could easily be construed that way. If he chose to shed his persona, it had to be on his terms, and only on his terms. For the sake of his career, but also his own troubled conscience.

  When April got back from the bathroom, Well-Groomed Golden Retriever was going to make his triumphant return to the stage, ready to perform his few hard-won tricks. Or maybe he’d simply turn the conversation to her life, her job, and let her do all the talking for the rest of the evening.

  In the meantime, he got out his phone and checked his messages. Not those on the Lavineas server, since he wanted time and privacy to read any DMs from Ulsie. But by now, reactions to the showrunners’ ominous message several days before should be all over the cast’s private group chat. And . . . sure enough.

  Carah: for the record, I’m not saying a goddamn word to anyone about this season

  Carah: saving that for my fucking MEMOIRS, bitches

  Ian: whoever hid my tuna, it’s not funny

  Carah: hahahahahaha

  Ian: give it back, assholes, Jupiter needs protein for this last week of shooting

  Summer: I don’t know why we need a new reminder about the confidentiality clause in our contracts each season

  Summer: it’s a little insulting

  Summer: @Carah: looking forward to reading that, hon

  Alex: no one wants your pocket tuna, Ian, you probably just ate it without realizing

  Maria: THIS

  Alex: I mean, it was like your twelfth serving of fish today, so

  Peter: yeah, probably not very memorable, all things considered

  Maria: do you know the symptoms of mercury poisoning, and do they involve referring to yourself in the third person as a god

  At that point, the conversation derailed because of Ian’s extended, defensive seafood-related rant, as per usual. The man could use a few more carbs, as well as a bit more distance between himself and his role. At least enough so that he could cease referring to himself as Jupiter when the cameras weren’t rolling.

  As Marcus slipped his phone back into his jacket pocket, he spotted another cell’s camera pointed in his direction. Not the same one as earlier, though. This time, a woman from the table behind April was taking the opportunity to get an unobstructed, flash-free shot of him during his date’s absence. When he looked around, at least a couple of other customers were eyeing him speculatively, leaning close to their dinner companions and whispering.

  But at least they were all amateurs, rather than actual paparazzi. He’d half expected to be greeted that night by a shouting handful of people with enormous cameras clustered outside the restaurant entrance, as had happened on so many of his other dates.

  Not because the paparazzi had followed him to those restaurants. Because his dates had told the media beforehand where to go.

  It was unforgivably stupid. Naive. He knew it. But each time, blinking against the harsh strobe of the flashes, overwhelmed amid the roar of voices calling his name and telling him to look over here, the realization that his date hadn’t wanted him, really, but rather the dubious perks of his odd, transient fame—

  Each time, he’d floated outside himself for a moment. Disoriented. Lost.

  Tonight, he’d walked into the restaurant undisturbed, illuminated only by the lingering glow of sunset and streetlights just flickering to life. Even though, if April had alerted them, countless reporters would have raced to cover the much-anticipated date.

  STAR MEETS STAN, one blogger had termed the momentous occasion.

  Before April had even arrived, then, he’d already considered their date more enjoyable than most he’d had since being cast on Gods of the Gates. Her eventual entrance into the restaurant hadn’t shaken that assessment, either. This might be an evening spent together out of necessity, rather than any real attachment on either side, but he could still appreciate her company, the opportunity to admire her across the table for an hour or two, and the convenience of her location near San Francisco and his parents.

  When their dinner ended, they’d take a few pics to post on Twitter and prove her haters wrong. Afterward, once they went their separate ways, all the buzz would slowly diminish. Until their meal together became simply a footnote in his Wikipedia entry, a reminder of that time he went on a date with a fan of his show, because he might be dim, but he was also kind.

  That was how everyone was interpreting this dinner. As a sympathetic gesture, rather than an expression of real attraction.

  They weren’t wrong, obviously. But the easy assumption that of course he couldn’t be attracted to April, of course he couldn’t truly want to date her, pricked some raw spot within him. Made him bristle a bit. After that ugly thread the other day, he couldn’t avoid knowing why everyone had made their assumptions. And if he understood, April did too.

  The irony: they weren’t entirely right, either.

  Yes, he would have asked out anyone in her position. A troll living under a bridge. A beauty queen. Whomever.

  But April was no troll. By candlelight, her hair was a gleaming sheet of co
pper flowing just past her shoulders, her eyes dark and sparked by fire. She hadn’t covered her freckles with whatever makeup she was wearing, and he was trying very hard not to count each adorable speckle on her nose and the tops of her round cheeks. Much as he’d forced himself not to stare for longer than a heartbeat at her body, lush and faithfully outlined by that green dress she wore.

  Those braying fanboys weren’t just cruel. They were fools.

  April Whittier was a goddess. And as the son of Lawrence Caster and Debra Rupp, as a man who played a demigod himself, he would know.

  As she circled other tables on her way back to theirs, her confident stride matched her up-tilted chin. Maybe she didn’t notice the stares, the way at least one cell phone camera followed her progress. Maybe she didn’t care. Or maybe she was pretending not to care.

  Either way, she impressed the hell out of him, just as she’d been doing all night.

  She was bright. Funny. Incisive. Practical. A good listener, even when he was saying too much, too honestly. Her direct manner, her humor, the intelligent, plainspoken way she expressed herself, reminded him of Ulsie somehow.

  No, looking at and listening to her throughout the remainder of their meal wouldn’t prove a hardship.

  Once she’d seated herself, he offered the amiable smile that had graced five straight years of photo spreads in the annual “World’s Hottest Men” magazine issue. “You’ve heard about my job. Tell me more about what you do.”

  “I’m a geologist,” she said before taking another healthy bite of her chicken.

  How far did he want to take the dunce routine? Pretty far, he supposed, given his earlier slipups.

  “So you make maps?” he asked.

  Her lips twitched, but somehow she didn’t seem to be laughing at him. More with him. Which was infinitely more alarming.

  “That would be a geographer. Or, rather, a cartographer.” Neatly, she sliced off a manageable bite of her green beans. “I sometimes consult maps for my work, but I’m a geologist. In the simplest of terms, I study rocks.”