Spoiler Alert

by Olivia Dade

  His current location also offered a certain amount of extra protection from paparazzi, who would travel north from LA for exclusive pics of a television star with his new girlfriend, but only grudgingly and for short periods of time.

  Most importantly, staying in the area meant he now knew April hit snooze two times every morning. He’d memorized how her hazy brown eyes finally, reluctantly, blinked open in the warm glow of dawn as she stretched in bed, her hair tousled and her soft body shifting against his. He understood how the scent of her changed after one of her infrequent days on a job site, from roses in the morning to sweat and earth in the evening. He’d tasted her skin after one of those site visits, and after a lazy, shared weekend shower, and after she’d cried while reading a particularly bittersweet fic and he’d erased her tears with his mouth.

  Staying meant he could spend his weekday mornings reading scripts and writing fics to post under a new name, before shopping for food and working out at the hotel gym in the afternoon. Staying meant making her dinner in the evenings. Making her laugh. Making her come.

  Any mockery he might receive he considered well worth the reward.

  “Can’t say I blame you for settling in,” Alex added. “Looks like a very comfortable lap.”

  At that, Marcus narrowed his eyes at his friend. He hadn’t missed the swift but appreciative glance Alex had given April upon meeting her earlier that afternoon, or the way she’d blushed and almost giggled upon shaking Alex’s hand.

  She hadn’t blushed and giggled when she’d met Marcus, he knew that for a fact.

  Clearly he needed to find a less handsome best friend. That was the only sensible solution. Especially since said best friend was staying overnight in April’s apartment as their first joint guest, which now seemed an unwise decision.

  Alex’s grin had only grown more obnoxious, and he held up his hands in feigned surrender. “No need to scowl at me like that, dude. I was stating an objective fact, not indicating any desire to climb into your lap of choice.” He snorted. “Besides, when it comes to female company, there’s no room at the inn. I’m full up.”

  Excellent. “Lauren?”

  As if Marcus didn’t know. Alex had been bitching nonstop about his assigned minder for weeks via text and email and occasional phone calls. At some point, Marcus expected a carrier pigeon to arrive at April’s apartment with a note strapped to its ankle reading goddammit lauren is such a fucking dour millstone. Or maybe a telegram instead: lauren says two drinks max stop which is unfair because she’s so short i could just rest my beer on her head stop.

  “Who else? I’m surprised she let me visit you this weekend without requiring hourly reports as to my good behavior.” Alex flopped back against the sofa and glared in the direction of the front door. “R.J. and Ron directed her to keep watch over me anytime I’m outside my home, and the stupid woman is too stubborn to acknowledge she’s being exploited.”

  That was a new line of argument. “How so?”

  “Today is her first day off in weeks. And you know I don’t sleep well, so I tend to leave the house at odd hours, and I’m required to let her know when I do, which means she doesn’t sleep well, and . . .” Alex had crossed one ankle over his opposite knee, and his foot was jiggling, jiggling, jiggling. Not surprising, given his ADHD and accompanying tendency to fidget, but the movement seemed especially agitated today. “She looks tired.”

  Marcus raised his eyebrows. “Does she?”

  “She considers you a good influence, apparently. At least in the company of your girlfriend. That’s why she finally took time off.” More glaring into space. “She’d better be sleeping today.”

  How to say this? “Um, Alex, have you considered that, uh, maybe your feeli—”

  “Enough about the stubby but persistent thorn in my side,” his friend interrupted, willfully ignoring Marcus’s interjection. “Did you see the email and group chat earlier today?”

  Yes. Unfortunately, yes, Marcus had seen both the email from their showrunners and the messages flying back and forth among their Gates colleagues.

  Carah: yet ANOTHER fucking email about our goddamn nondisclosure agreements and warnings not to share or malign the scripts or face GRAVE REPERCUSSIONS

  Carah: is it one of you bitches leaking scripts and blabbing about how this season sucks like a Hoover that gets off on dust, or

  Ian: I think the finale’s great

  Alex: of course you do, your character arc didn’t get brutally slaughtered

  Alex: unlike the tuna population in your vicinity

  Carah: hahahahaha

  Summer: Con of the Gates is coming up, and the thought of answering questions about this season and what happens to Lavinia and Aeneas just

  Summer: gaaaaaaaah

  Peter: I heard Ron and R.J. intend to back out of their panels at the last minute, citing “prior commitments”

  Carah: prior commitment to not getting their asses reamed by fans who saw those leaked scripts, maybe

  Maria: but no one realizes the leaked bits are real yet

  Maria: all TOO real

  Peter: I know it wasn’t me or Maria showing people those scripts

  Peter: was it one of the rest of you, or the crew, or . . . ?

  Marcus: for the sake of our careers, hopefully the latter

  Ian: how do you know it wasn’t Maria, Peter

  Ian: oh, that’s right, your mouth is surgically affixed to her ass, so if she told anyone you’d know

  Maria: did you watch The Human Centipede AGAIN, Ian

  Peter: mercury poisoning, Maria, remember

  Peter: hallucinations from all the tuna

  Maria: oh, yes, very sad really

  Ian: I mean you KISS her ass all the time, dipshits

  Ian: there are hour-long YouTube compilations of all your interviews together, where you’re making puppy dog eyes at her and it’s EMBARRASSING

  Maria: more embarrassing than watching YouTube compilations of your colleagues in your free time?

  Carah: hahahahaHAHAHA

  After Ian stopping replying, the rest of the discussion had largely involved the press junket for the final season’s premiere, and everyone’s upcoming con appearances. But it had left him wondering—

  “Please tell me you didn’t leak those scripts,” Marcus told Alex. It wasn’t a far-fetched notion. Alex tended to make decisions in a heartbeat. Then he’d leap with both feet, shaky ground be damned, only to find himself bruised and bloodied and unable to explain afterward why he’d made the jump at all.

  He wasn’t self-destructive, exactly. Just . . . impulsive.

  Executive function issues, he’d drawled to Marcus after that last, fateful bar fight, aping nonchalance over FaceTime despite his swollen-shut eye and scraped cheek and shaking hands. You’re not the only one whose brain works a little differently than most.

  “I didn’t leak those scripts.” Alex’s smile was a little too wide and pleased for Marcus’s comfort, despite the firm statement. “That said, I was so intrigued by the stories I’ve been beta-reading for y—”

  “Shhhh,” Marcus hissed, waving a frantic hand. “Not here.” The women were talking in the other room, and it sounded as if they were running the sewing machine Mel had brought over, but they could easily overhear a conversation in the living room if they wanted to. Which would be disastrous. Utterly disastrous.

  Alex’s smile vanished, but he obligingly lowered his voice to a whisper. “You still haven’t told her?”

  Marcus shook his head.

  “You don’t trust her?” his friend mouthed.

  In the month he’d spent in her home and her bed, there had been no revealing blind items in blogs, no new intimate details about him or his life in the tabloids, no tell-all interviews on entertainment television shows. Her coworker Mel, for all the woman’s enthusiasm about Gates, didn’t seem to know a thing about him other than the basics: his name, a few of his roles, his status as a onetime local. All April had told her, accordin
g to Mel, was that he was kind.

  Given the circumstances, given the way he’d doubted April and concealed crucial information from her, he’d had to fight a wince at that description.

  No, Marcus hadn’t spotted a single sign that she would ever betray him to anyone. Which he should have known from the moment he found out she was Ulsie, but he hadn’t had sufficient faith in his own instincts or her, and now he was paying for it.

  Leaning closer to Alex, he spoke in a bare whisper. “I do trust April.”

  “Then why haven’t you told her?” His friend’s brow furrowed. “If you’re serious about her—”

  “Of course I’m serious about her,” he snapped, as quietly as he could. “But if she found out I kept something so important from her this whole time . . .” She has trust issues, April had written about Lavinia. Major trust issues. “I don’t know if she’d forgive me. I’m not willing to risk it.”

  A lie of omission wasn’t quite as heinous as an outright falsehood, he’d repeatedly informed himself. Plus, he’d basically stopped corresponding with her as Book!AeneasWouldNever as soon as they’d begun dating, so it wasn’t much of a lie, and surely no one would blame him for—

  “Dude.” Mouth pinched, Alex shot him a chiding look. “Dude. I don’t blame you for tossing aside my advice last time, but—dude.”

  “I know. Just . . .” Shoulders slumped, he sighed. “Just tell me what you were going to say, but leave out the beta-reading, okay?”

  After one last tight-lipped stare of disapproval, the other man obliged.

  “I was reading Gates fanfiction the other night, since you told me about April’s online alter ego on AO3,” he said with a hint too much sarcasm, “and I was intrigued. So I read a few Cupid/Psyche fics too. They were amazing. A vast improvement over the actual scripts, honestly, especially this last season.”

  Oh, God. Marcus thrust a forefinger in the direction of April’s guest room, where her coworker—whom neither of them knew well—could probably hear every damning word his friend had just uttered.

  Rolling his eyes, Alex waved off the silent rebuke. “They’re playing some sort of horrible folk music now as they sew. They can’t hear anything.”

  When Marcus listened closely, he heard the acoustic guitar and off-key wailing too. It was awful, in an objective sense. But also good, in that the music drowned out Alex.

  “What kind of stories did you read?” Marcus asked. “Out of morbid curiosity.”

  His friend winked. “Only ones rated E, for explicit.”

  Of course. Of course.

  Alex’s head tilted, and his brow creased. “I’m not entirely certain why so many fans seem convinced I’m a bottom and in desperate need of getting pegged by Psyche, but . . .” He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe they’re right. So I wrote my own Cupid-getting-pegged fic, only with an original character as my pegger-in-chief, because I thought it would be creepy to involve our coworkers, even tangentially. My pen name is CupidUnleashed.”

  Marcus pinched his forehead and groaned.

  “I chose only the best tags. Porn without Plot. Smuttity Smut Smut. Half-Human Disaster Cupid. Bottoms Up. The Peg That Was Promised.” Elbows akimbo, Alex leaned back and rested his head on his linked hands. “So far, I’ve received over a hundred comments and four hundred kudos. Someone named SoftestBoiCupid dubbed me ‘the Bottom Whisperer,’ and I think it was a compliment.”

  Okay, now Marcus was jealous as well as worried. None of his fics had reached anywhere close to a hundred comments. Probably due to a critical lack of pegging.

  “In between all the lube and mutual orgasms, I included lots of pointed commentary about how Cupid had changed too much over the years to ever abandon anyone he truly loved, no matter what Venus and Jupiter told him to do.” Alex grinned. “It was very satisfying, on a variety of levels. I think my next fic will be a modern AU where Cupid is starring in a popular television show, one which the incompetent, overprivileged showrunners irretrievably fuck up in the final seasons, and he meets a woman who helps him get over his resulting depression by—”

  Marcus sighed. “Pegging him.”

  “—pegging him.” Somehow, his friend’s smile gleamed even more brightly. “How did you guess?”

  Marcus rolled his eyes. “I’m glad you enjoyed writing your story, but Alex, you need to be careful. If anyone found out—”

  “Lauren knows.”

  Marcus’s groan was so heartfelt, it actually hurt his throat.

  “She caught me working on it one day, and I told her if she wouldn’t let me have fun in real life, I could at least have a good time in fiction. She must have read the story once it posted, because she said she hoped Cupid’s partner used less lube next time.” Alex pursed his lips in thought. “For such a humorless harpy, it was quite a good comeback. I was impressed.”

  “Alex.” Jesus fucking Christ, his friend’s career was done.

  “Don’t worry.” Alex waved a dismissive hand. “She won’t say anything to anyone.”

  Gulping air, Marcus forced himself to speak slowly. Precisely. “You told me part of her job was to report to Ron and R.J. about what you do off set, especially anything objectionable. Writing fanfiction critical of your character arc is more than objectionable. It’s grounds for firing you, and potentially actionable in a legal sense. Believe me, I know.”

  When it came to his own fanfic transgressions, the email earlier that day had only strung his nerves that much tighter. The prospect of imminent doom didn’t appear to inspire so much as a single fidgety twitch in his best friend, however.

  “Well, she caught me a week ago, and I haven’t heard a peep from Ron and R.J.” Still sprawled back against the couch cushions, Alex shrugged. “I didn’t think that was the sort of thing she’d report. Guess I was right.”

  The drone of terrible folk music and the buzz of the sewing machine stopped, and both men looked toward the guest room. Moments later, Mel and April emerged, smiling.

  “I think we almost have it done. Just a few more pieces to attach, and one more fitting. We’re leaving the sewing machine here, but it shouldn’t get in your way, Alex.” Mel bumped shoulders with April. “Then it’s time for My Chemical Folkmance’s new costumes, exclusively designed by April Whittier.”

  April snorted. “Tim Gunn taught me well.”

  “I’d be happy to talk to one of the show’s costume designers, if you two wanted some insider tips or tricks for cosplaying Lavinia.” Arms crossed, Alex drummed his fingers against his biceps as he glanced toward Marcus. “Who do you think is the best bet? Marilyn? Geeta?”

  April smiled at her guest. “Thanks, Alex, but Marcus already offered to talk to someone for me. I told him I didn’t want to cheat.”

  So far, she’d refused to show Marcus her sketches or her costume-in-progress, saying she wanted to surprise him when it was done. Secretly, he hoped the outfit was tight. Very tight. But he hadn’t said so, because she would look gorgeous either way, and he wasn’t a complete jackass.

  He turned to Mel. “We’re going to grab dinner soon. Do you want to join us?”

  By now, she and Pablo had visited the apartment several times for sewing purposes, and Marcus had met the rest of April’s closest colleagues at least once, after joining them for lunch at a restaurant near their office. To their credit, they’d treated him pretty much as he’d have expected them to treat any boyfriend of April’s, despite the occasional cell photos taken of them by other customers as they ate.

  He liked her coworkers, and he liked the way April seemed comfortable in their presence, still herself in every essential way. Plainspoken. Practical. Confident. A couple of weeks ago, she’d even stopped looking surprised every time they texted her about socializing outside of the office.

  In her colleagues’ company, he hadn’t said much, to be honest. Mostly, he’d eaten his lettuce wraps and listened. But every word he had uttered had been his and his alone, rather than lines from a character he’d scripted long ago.


  It was a self-administered, low-stakes test of sorts. One measuring his nerve, his willingness to grow and change.

  He wanted to be a man she could respect, not just privately but in public too.

  More importantly, he wanted to be himself whenever cameras weren’t rolling.

  It would take time. Effort. But so had everything else he’d achieved over almost four decades, and no matter what he’d been told as a child, he wasn’t and had never been lazy. Just unsure, or not quite brave enough to do what was necessary.

  “Thanks for the invitation. I wish I could say yes.” Mel wrapped one of her many, many scarves more securely around her neck. “Saturdays are my date nights with Heidi, though. Another time?”

  The assumption: he wasn’t going anywhere, so they would have plenty of occasions to eat dinner together in the future.

  He smiled at her, pleased. “Of course.”

  Once they’d all said their goodbyes to Mel and she’d disappeared into the dusk, April headed toward the master bedroom to gather her purse and a sweater while Marcus finger-combed his hair in the entryway mirror above the console.

  “Should have played Narcissus instead of Aeneas,” Alex muttered.

  Marcus raised a middle finger in his direction.

  When April reappeared in the living room, Alex beamed at her and proffered his elbow with a courtly flourish. “To your chariot, my lady?”

  “Uh . . .” Her cheeks turned rosy, and she made a weird choking noise as she accepted his arm. “Okay. Thanks.”

  Marcus glared at his best friend, who merely raised a cocky brow in return.

  “Tell me, April,” Alex was saying as they exited her apartment. “Would you say that Cupid is a bottom? Because I’m very intrigued by the fanfic community’s interpretation of the character, especially his proclivity for being pegged.”

  And there it was. She was giggling again, even as she blushed harder. Giggling, and the back of Alex’s stupid head should have caught fire from the force of Marcus’s scowl.

  “Oh, he’s definitely a bottom. A bratty one, I’d say.” She sounded breathless but thoughtful. “Or maybe a switch?”