by Josh Lanyon
“Don’t worry about—”
“I have to,” I replied. “He’s a suspect.”
Marion pulled his hand free, shifted to mimic my sitting position so that our knees bumped together, and said, “Ethan is an asshole. But I’m telling you, if that script is already missing, it’s not because of him.”
That was the truth.
A truth stuck in the middle of lies, but a truth nonetheless.
Marion reached up, scrubbed his face with both hands, and blinked his pretty eyes a few times. “I need this show,” he said, voice low. “I can’t give up Tommy’s character. Being able to lose myself in him. He—he loves with a love that is more than love.”
“Poe.”
Marion flashed a weak smile. “There’s a dichotomy to Tommy’s character. He can be violent. Cruel, even. It’s a cathartic experience…I need.”
“Why?” I dared to question.
“Because I’m angry,” Marion said, as if it were an admission of guilt. “And Tommy O’Sullivan gives me a constructive outlet to work through some shit.”
“We all get angry.”
Marion snorted. “We didn’t all date Ethan Lefkowitz.” He stared at me, and the grim line of his kissable mouth said a lot about what my facial reaction must have been. “So even if it means running interference and taking the brunt of his anger, fine. But I won’t have this show taken away from me. I’m doing my best to keep James on for another season as it is. He’s been thinking of quitting the industry altogether. It’s important, you know?”
“What is?”
“That viewers see Tommy and Hugh together forever. It matters. To people like us. Doesn’t it?”
My shoulders dropped a bit. I slipped my hands around Marion’s wrists, petting his forearms. “It matters,” I agreed.
“I understand you’ve been hired to do a job,” he continued. “But please—don’t do anything that would jeopardize this show.”
“My ex,” I murmured.
Marion glanced up. “What about him?”
“He made me angry too.”
“Why? I mean, besides being an ex.”
I slid my hands free, reached behind me for my peacoat, and removed the folded grocery list I’d been carrying for three days. I offered it to Marion.
He unfolded the note and laughed a little. “Oh…Rory.”
“I broke up with him in a text.”
“Did he run over your mother?” Marion asked, his chuckle growing a bit stronger, more authentic.
“He broke my one rule.”
“Which is?”
“Don’t lie.”
Marion sobered again. “Even a white lie?”
“If I fuck up the pancakes but you don’t want to discourage my culinary interests, that’s one thing. But if you lie and I catch you, I can’t forgive that.”
“I’d never deter a man from pursuing the perfect pancake.” He folded the note, still staring at me. “Are you over your ex?”
“Oh yeah.” I reached out, touched Marion’s smooth cheek, traced an eyebrow. “Are you over yours?”
He tore the dipshit note into several pieces and tossed the confetti onto the tabletop. “I’m onto bigger and blonder things.”
“Have you ever been to the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building?”
Marion looked particularly confused at the sudden subject shift. “No…” he drew out, almost as if it were a question.
“Me neither,” I said. “I’ve lived here my entire life, and I’ve never gone to the top.”
“So?”
I looked at the table, picked up my beer, and took a sip. “So let’s do it.”
INT. CHAPTER EIGHT – NIGHT
Wind in our hair on the eighty-sixth floor.
Bags of honey-roasted Nuts 4 Nuts.
Shopping at Macy’s.
Too many Manhattans at dinner.
Caresses and kisses in the taxi to my apartment.
By nightfall, I was at the mercy of my own uninhibited desire. An animalistic lust so visceral, so ancient, it seemed to vibrate outward from the marrow of my bones. My entire body thrummed like a musical instrument. And every chord, every note, played only for Marion.
Coats lay scattered down the hallway in our wake.
Marion bumped into the bedroom doorframe, then the door. His arms were wrapped around my neck, mouth hard and insistent on my own. I shoved the door open with one hand and used my body to push Marion into the room. He hit the foot of the bed with the back of his legs and went down with a drunken laugh, taking me with him. I pressed my thigh against his crotch, threaded our fingers together to hold his hands above his head, and sucked hard on Marion’s neck.
He gasped, writhed, thrust up against my thigh. “Rory.”
I let up on his neck, moved my hands to the hem of his long-sleeve shirt, and yanked it to his chest. Marion sat up so I could finish pulling it over his head. I wrenched myself free from my own shirt, and then pulled Marion up and against my chest. Flesh-to-flesh.
Soft skin, flexing muscles, and the unmistakable hardness of a man’s body pressed so intimately against my own turned the flame inside me into a wildfire.
There was no stopping this.
Not until it burned me whole.
Marion shoved his hand between us, fondled me through my worn jeans, and whispered against my lips, “I want you to take me.”
I moved my hands under Marion’s ass and flipped him onto his back again. He let out another boyish laugh, and then it was a race to see who could unbutton their jeans the quickest. I leaned over to the nightstand, knocked off my alarm clock, hit the switch to the custom LED installation I’d built, and accidently set the room alight in muted, shifting-color palettes.
“Shit.” I finally grabbed the handle on the drawer, opened it, and took out a box of condoms.
“Are we fucking inside a rainbow?” Marion laughed.
“Sorry, I—”
“Keep it on.”
I found the lube and turned to look at him. The room was still dark, but the colored lights mounted to the corners of the walls and along the ceiling bathed Marion’s naked body in soft, glowing hues of alternating reds, blues, purples, and greens. He met my look, grinned, and rolled onto his stomach in blatant invitation.
I got behind Marion, leaned over him, and we passed several drunken moments probing and stretching and caressing until he was a supple, quivering mess underneath me.
“R-Rory,” he pleaded, sounding next to tears. “Not yet. Not like this.”
I removed my fingers and smoothed his ass cheek with one hand. I shushed him, murmured sweet words against his neck as I kissed and sucked his skin. Marion’s voice cracked and hitched. He arched his back and rubbed his ass against my pelvis.
I pushed back to meet him. “Think you’re ready?”
“Please,” he begged. “Be rough. I like it.”
I could do that.
Sitting up, I opened a condom and rolled it over myself. With one hand holding the base of my cock and the other firmly planted between Marion’s shoulder blades, I rocked my hips back and forth until I breached muscles and sank into his gorgeous ass.
“Jesus.” I leaned over Marion, got an arm under his chest to hold him flush against me, then shoved hard into the tight heat.
Marion cried loudly. He scrambled for purchase, grabbing at a pillow with one hand and the other reaching back, fingers digging into my hip hard enough to leave marks. “Oh God! Like that!”
I bit Marion’s earlobe and murmured, “This what you wanted?”
It’s what I’ve wanted.
“You’re so big—don’t—don’t stop.”
I grunted. “You gonna think about my cock tomorrow?”
I’ll be thinking of you.
“Yes! Holy shit. Make me feel it.” He turned his head, arched his neck, awkwardly kissed my mouth.
I sped up. The bed squeaked, and Marion’s voice was hoarse with screams. “Don’t forget who gave you this ride.�
�
I can’t not see you again. Please let there be a tomorrow for us.
My muscles burned. My breathing came out in harsh pants. I paused for a brief moment to collect myself.
“Wh-what’re you doing?” Marion protested. He ground his hips roughly against the mattress. “I’m almost there!”
I tilted my head close and kissed him again. “Say my name,” I demanded.
Marion looked utterly wild in the psychedelic lighting. His hair was in complete disarray, and his two-toned eyes black, pupils blown wide with hunger and want. “Rory,” he said obediently. “Rory, please. Let me be the best you’ve had.”
Then he flexed his muscles around my dick, and I groaned. I let go of him, pushed up onto my fists, and used the bed as leverage to screw Marion into next week. Orgasm hit me like a horse kick to the chest.
Powerfully.
Violently.
A release so good, so euphoric, it fucking hurt. An experience like nothing I’d ever had with a partner in all my life. I slid out, lifted up Marion’s ass, and reached under to help him finish.
But the bed was already wet with his cum.
***
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I opened my eyes and regretted the decision nearly immediately.
The room was still awash in neon colors.
My mouth tasted like I’d been licking a wet dog.
And my head was thudding, each pound a reminder that I was too old to abuse whiskey the way we had last night.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I rolled over to smack the clock, then remembered it was on the floor. I leaned down, blindly hit a few buttons—which, after I turned the radio on and adjusted the volume to a morning talk show, managed to turn the alarm off.
“Marilyn Monroes are delicious,” Marion murmured, his voice slurred as he spoke into a pillow.
“How many did you have?” I asked, gingerly putting a hand to my forehead.
“One bottle of champagne’s worth,” he answered, still unmoving. “Four ounces per cocktail…so six Monroes. And a dozen maraschino cherries.”
“Hedonist.”
Marion laughed a little. He rolled onto his back and looked at me. “You look like you got rode hard and put away wet.”
“I had several Manhattans.”
“I drank more than you.”
“I’m a dozen maraschino cherries older too.” I slowly sat up, swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and took a moment to gather my balance before I fell off the side of the world. “I can’t believe I remembered what apartment I lived in.”
“I’m glad this one is yours. Otherwise, whoever owns this bed would be pissed.”
I grunted and got to my feet. I felt around the floor a moment, tugged on my jeans from last night, found my glasses, and stumbled out of the room. I made a quick stop in the bathroom, relieved myself, brushed my teeth, and splashed several handfuls of cold water on my face before continuing to the kitchen. My bare chest pimpled from the coolness in the air, and I stopped long enough to adjust the thermostat on the wall.
Gary stood on the kitchen counter, looking harassed, despite the crossed eyes. He meowed loudly and paced back and forth.
“Morning, baby.” I kissed his head. “I’m sorry. Daddy had—a night out.” I fetched Gary’s food, refilled his bowl, and set it beside the water dish.
While the cat ate, coffee brewed and I blundered my way through cooking an entire frying pan full of bacon and eggs. Anything to sop up the last of the alcohol in my system, especially if John ended up calling the crew back to Kaufman today. As the food popped and sizzled, I finally heard Marion leave the bedroom, pad down the hall, and come to a stop at the kitchen doorway in nothing but boxer briefs and my T-shirt from last night, a few sizes too large for him.
“I can’t find my shirt,” he stated, running his hand through his dated and currently disheveled haircut.
It wasn’t until that moment that I understood the whole straight-guy thing—why they loved their girlfriends wearing their too-big-for-them shirts and how their ladies straddled the adorable yet positively fuckable line. Because Marion might have looked as if he was wearing a bag, but it was definitely waking certain bodily responses in me.
“You look better in that.”
He gave me a lopsided smile before glancing at the coffee pot. “Mugs?” He pointed to the cupboard above, and I nodded. Marion retrieved two, set them on the counter, then helped himself to the fridge for cream. “John hasn’t called, has he?”
I took one of the cups he offered and had a sip before saying, “I don’t think so. But if you couldn’t find your shirt, I don’t have high hopes for my phone.”
Marion chuckled. He studied the decal on his coffee mug for a beat, looked back at the magnets covering the stainless-steel fridge, then said, “You really like cats.”
“I really like cats,” I agreed. “Gary’s around here somewhere. He doesn’t like new people.”
Marion poked his head back out of the kitchen doorway. “Oh. That would be the sweet, blue-eyed baby giving me stink-eye.”
“That’s him.” I grabbed two plates from the nearby cupboard and started shoveling fried food onto them. I gave Marion one, looked over his shoulder at the table covered in my techy supplies, and cursed.
Marion set the plate on the counter. “Don’t worry about it.” He hoisted himself up, put his plate in his lap, and took a bite of crispy bacon.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m really not used to guys spending the night and staying for a breakfast that should be eaten at a table the next morning.”
“Should I have left already?”
I shook my head and put a hand on his bare thigh. “No.” I kissed his lips and licked off a flake of bacon.
Marion was staring intensely as I pulled back. “Can I ask you something? Get the serious shit out of the way before it gives me anxiety?”
“All right…”
“Do you regret last night?”
“No,” I said again. “Do you?”
Marion quickly shook his head. “But I…like you. I think a lot more than I’ve let on.” He set the plate aside, licked his lips nervously, and put his hands on my chest.
I stared at Marion’s bright, mismatched eyes. His expression was…so human. Not acting human. It wasn’t that perfect. It wasn’t choreographed or in the moment. He didn’t know the lines of this scene unfolding before us. His expression faltered, hesitated, but more than anything, there was a vulnerable hopefulness twinkling in those green and brown eyes.
“Go ahead,” I prodded.
Marion’s fingers tensed a little against my muscles. “Could we do it again? I don’t only mean the sex, but yeah, that was good. I mean—all of it. I think yesterday was the best date I’ve ever had.”
I put my hands over Marion’s and realized he could feel my heart pounding against my rib cage. I released a breath, and simultaneously, his fingers relaxed. He petted instead of digging his fingers into my flesh.
“It was the best I’ve had too,” I whispered.
INT. CHAPTER NINE – DAY
“Don’t you speak that way to me, Tommy O’Sullivan! You might blaspheme in front of the lads, but I ain’t one of them,” Marion’s costar ordered, in character as Hugh.
The entire set was silent. Engrossed. Mesmerized by Marion and James lost in a moment of intensity as longtime lovers. I stood near the back, behind the sound cart with Paul, holding my breath as I watched Tommy pace like a caged animal. His agitation and anger were palpable, and the focused conflict between the two men spread outward until every crew member on set seemed to be scratching at some unpleasant itch on their bodies.
As expected, John had been given a conditional all-clear by the NYPD that morning. Department heads phoned crew and cast in for a ten o’clock call-time, which set the production behind schedule about thirteen hours since the day before, but it was better than nothing, I figured. Marion took a taxi from my place to his for a shower and change of clot
hes, and I, having left my car at the garage in Queens the day before, took the subway into Astoria. The next time I saw Marion since closing the apartment door behind him was in this scene, literally vibrating with negative energy he released through Tommy.
It was one thing to watch such masterful acting on a screen, removed from the moment. But experienced firsthand…frankly, it was overwhelming.
Tommy pushed his suit coat back and settled his hands on his hips as he came to an abrupt stop. He stared at the floor.
Hugh stepped forward, took Tommy by the chin, and had to grab his shoulder when the gang leader physically recoiled. “Stop fightin’ me,” he whispered.
Tommy’s Adam’s apple bobbed painfully. He looked up, eyes glossy with unfallen tears of rage. “Some days I hate you,” he said in an Irish accent intentionally bastardized to convey years of living in America.
“Aye,” Hugh answered with a small nod. “But you love me in the night.” He kissed Tommy, hard and aggressive.
“Cut!” Ethan shouted. “Print that!” He stood from his chair.
Paul whistled to himself while removing his headphones. “Jesus Christ, can Marion act.”
The entire crew seemed to let out a collective breath when the two actors stepped away from one another. The assistant director announced twenty minutes for lights and camera to prep for the next angle. The technicians had a job to do, so no one questioned the directions as they descended onto the scenery. But there was most assuredly a somberness to their moods, and the complexity and seriousness of this scene weren’t helping to lighten hearts any. Orders being barked in film-set lingo had a heaviness to them. I hadn’t seen many, if any, people smiling or joking so far that day.
“The crew is taking Davey’s passing pretty hard,” I said, glancing down at Paul.
He leaned back in his chair to stare up at me. “Ah, well, a crew is like a family. Sort of like Thanksgiving. You’ve got all these competing personalities forced together, and everyone needs to get along and not upset Grandma. You’ve got that one uncle who has been drinking since noon, and there’s also the cousin who brags about everything, and sooner or later you’re going to reach over the table and sucker-punch them… But you’re still a family. Everyone’s saying Davey hanged himself in that back office.”