Stars in Your Eyes(36)

“Thanks for inviting me over,” he says. His suit’s jacket is over his arm. He looks around in awe. “Jesus. You live here? Well, I mean, that makes sense. Your dad’s Jameson Gray.”

My father’s name shutters something in me. “I’ve been pretty successful on my own, too, you know.” I say that, even though I’ve blown all my money and I do live here because of my dad.

He winces. “Sorry.”

I shrug, reaching out a hand for his jacket so I can toss it on the back of a chair with mine. “I guess it’s true that I had a step up over other people.” I won’t be one of those celebrities born with a silver spoon in their ass but tells the world they’re self-made. “Something to drink? Wait—you only drink water, right?”

He laughs. “That’s not what being sober means.”

“I’ve got cranberry juice, lemon juice—some orange juice…” All chasers and mixers.

He raises an eyebrow at me. “Just water, thanks.”

I grab him a glass and we spread out on the gray sofa’s sectional. I try not to think about how, almost two months ago now, Briggs came over and we had a three-day spree of nonstop cocaine and sex, starting right here on this couch. Mattie’s completely unaware as he sits down comfortably, still gazing around at the apartment. The place is a little much. It has a minimalist style of white shining walls, stark furniture, a ceiling that’s two stories tall. The living room and kitchen are overlooked by the loft that acts as my bedroom.

My dad bought the apartment for me when I moved out of his place, the day I turned twenty. That’s when I first went to rehab. I’d thought I was lucky then. Even when I was being a rebellious piece of shit, my dad was willing to support me. I should’ve realized that giving me a place to stay, where he still controlled all the money and the bills, was just another way to have power over me.

“Did you want to go over lines?” Matt asks, shyly, as if he doesn’t know why he’s here.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

He hesitates. Takes a sip of water. “What were you planning?”

“I’m not going to fuck you, Matt.” Well, maybe that’s not completely true.

He snorts. “You really don’t care about tact, do you?”

“Not at all.”

“Fine. Why’d you ask me over?”

I shrug. “To talk. Apparently we’re friends now. Isn’t this what friends do?”

He laughs. “Haven’t you ever had friends before, Logan?”

Clearly he means it as a joke, but…“No.”

Mattie frowns. “Really?”

Briggs is a friend, when he wants to be, but he’s only interested when he wants sex. I don’t know if that counts as a friendship. Any friend I had as a kid, working movies and shows, wasn’t really normal. They were my colleagues. Julie was the closest to being a friend, once, since we shared episodes here and there over at Disney. Now, the only time we speak is when we’re in a scene together.

“I’m not sure how to do this,” I tell him. This is what I’m supposed to do, right? Be vulnerable and shit?

He’s watching me closely. “I’ve fallen out of touch with my old friends from high school,” he says, “and now I’m this outsider trying to break into the industry, and…I don’t know. I empathize. It can be lonely out here. LA really does fit that stereotype.”

“Yeah. Maybe that’s why I like to act like a piece of shit. At least I know what to expect.”

I was joking—sort of—but he doesn’t laugh. “Have you always felt like you had to have this guard up to protect yourself?”

No, I wasn’t always this way. Everything started to change when I came out as bisexual. Angry messages from parents saying I wasn’t child-friendly anymore. Castmates giving me the cold shoulder. There was the seedier side, too. I was only sixteen, but forty-and fifty-and sixty-year-old producers and actors would invite me over to their homes, pretending they wanted to be a mentor.

“It isn’t easy to be out in this industry.” It was hard to feel safe. Hard to feel like I could be myself. “What’s the point in being vulnerable and showing your true self when you know you’re only going to be hated anyway?” I ask him.

He’s honest. “I don’t know.”

“I accepted the role I was given. If everyone’s going to hate me no matter what I do, then fine. I’ll give them a reason to hate me.” I shrug. “It was what people wanted. I just gave them what they wanted.”

“That isn’t fair to yourself, though.”

“Yeah, well.” God, I could use a drink. I’d feel a little self-conscious drinking in front of Matt, though, with his sober holiness and everything. “What about you? Why do you keep a guard up?”

“My dad. All of that shame I feel. But I want to change. I want to be comfortable sharing the real me, and being loved for the real me. That’s what I deserve.” He meets my eye, even if it’s a little shyly. “That’s what you deserve, too.”

I want to believe him. I really do.

He bites his lip. “Can I ask you something?” I nod. “How do you—” He stops himself and laughs a little. “This is a weird question, but how do you not give a fuck?”