As some of you have already figured out, Logan and I have started seeing each other, and we are excited to announce that we are officially partners. I’ll be the first to admit that it was a pretty rough start between us, but spending time together on and off set has given me a chance to meet a different version of Logan that he rarely shows anyone else. I’m excited and honored that he’s chosen to give me a chance, and I can’t wait to see where our new relationship takes us.
God, Dave, can you be any cornier? But that’s the point of all of this. Give the people what they want. When Matt posts the message, his socials explode. His phone starts to ring. He groans and rubs a hand through his hair.
“It’s my sister,” he tells me.
“I can leave, if you want to answer it.”
“No, it’s all right. I’ll call her back later.” He sends her to voicemail and closes the laptop.
“Don’t you want to see what everyone’s saying?”
“Not really. It doesn’t matter anyway, right? It doesn’t change what we’ve got to do.” He leans back in his seat, but I think he’s putting on a show of looking comfortable more than anything. “Do you ever feel…I don’t know, guilty?”
“About lying to people?” I snort. “No, I don’t. Half of the industry is lying. People only care if they’re making money.”
“I don’t know if I want to be that way, too.”
“Then you should find a different industry.” He frowns. Maybe I’m being a little short with him. I try again. “This is innocent in comparison to half of the shit people pull, you know? Don’t worry about it. You haven’t sold your soul just yet.”
Matt seems to consider this for a second, before he says, “Sorry, I should’ve asked. Do you want something to drink?”
“Still only have water?”
“Yep.”
Unsurprising. I sigh. “Sure.”
He fiddles around in the kitchenette area before he comes back over, offering me a glass. He sips from his own and pulls at the end of his shirt.
“I’m glad we’ve gotten to a better place,” he says. “It’s never a lot of fun, working with someone you don’t get along with.”
Are we in a better place? I glance up at him. The smile he offers me. It reminds me of the way he looked at me outside the coffee shop, when we were holding hands. The way he started looking at me as we sat together over tacos. That’s the kind of smile that’s reserved for people you care about. For friends and family and people you love. Matt and I aren’t any of the above. He shouldn’t be smiling at me like that.
He’s probably mixing up reality with this act. That happens a lot. It’s the reason so many actors fall in love on set and then break up the second filming is done. He’s becoming too comfortable. Deciding that he cares about me when he doesn’t even know me. So, what? He figured out I like to be an asshole on purpose, and suddenly he’s my friend now? If he knew the real me, he’d leave me in a heartbeat.
“We’re not friends,” I tell him.
He sucks in a quick breath, smile falling instantly.
“I don’t want you to think that we are. We’re working together on a film. We’re in this fake relationship. But that’s it.”
He still doesn’t answer. He blinks. Gives that well, fuck expression.
“Anyway. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, you know? This—these feelings we’re pretending to have for each other. Don’t forget it’s all fake. It’s just a role.”
“Okay.”
“I think you’re starting to forget. Or mix things up, you know?”
He nods slowly. I think he’s embarrassed. Not my problem.
I shouldn’t have come over. That just confuses shit even more. I stand up and put the glass down on the counter. “Thanks for the water.”
“Yeah. No problem.”
Neither of us says anything else when I leave, slamming the door.
Video begins:
YouTube personality star Shaina Lively sits in front of bright yellow lights in her usual office space. Her eyes are wide and panicked.
“Y’all! I don’t know what to do with the news that—oh, my God, I think I’m going to be sick! Matthew Cole and Logan Gray are in a relationship?! Please, God. Please, say it ain’t so.”
She seems near tears as she looks off camera, face scrunching up and eyes shining.
“Mattie is an angel. He’s the sweetest soul to ever walk this earth, and he’s Logan Gray’s boyfriend?! Gray is the literal worst. He cheats on everyone, probably because he’s bi! No offense to my bisexual viewers.”
Shaina reaches out of frame and grabs a glass of water and drinks all of it in a few gulps. She lets out a sharp breath.
“And now it’s like watching a car wreck in slow motion. Obviously Gray is going to break Mattie’s heart, and Mattie—poor Mattie doesn’t deserve any of this!”
She lets out a gasp and a sniffle, wiping her eyes.
“I’m sorry. It’s just so sad. I can’t do this…Excuse me.”
Video ends.
Happily Ever After: A Memoir
by Matthew Cole
My first boyfriend wasn’t really a boyfriend, only because we never used that label with each other. We were both sixteen, and he was a friend of a friend, the sort who would sit with your group at the cafeteria table and whose name you knew, even if you barely spoke to each other. My school was small enough that it was impossible to not run into classmates several times a day in the halls and by our lockers. I’d caught him looking at me a few times as I switched textbooks in between periods, and I’d caught myself looking at him a few times, too.
I wasn’t out yet, and neither was he, but there was an energy that drew us together, long, silent conversations with our feelings and thoughts alone. We sat beside each other during lunch without speaking out loud and read beside each other in the library without saying hello and walked home together for several blocks while only mentioning homework or the pop quiz we’d had that day and mainly staying quiet as we sweated together in that Georgian heat.
There were openly gay people at our school, but they dealt with enough bullying that it made me even more certain I didn’t want to tell anyone, not yet. But this boy—he made me wonder if it might be worth it all, the world finding out about these feelings I’d had for so long. Our first kiss wasn’t very romantic. It’d happened because of another silent conversation. He only spoke to ask if I wanted to hang out. I ended up at his house after school to drink in the woods behind his backyard. It was my first time drinking beer, too, and close to being my last, before I decided I just didn’t like the taste or feeling of alcohol.
But the alcohol was needed that day for the liquid courage—for both of us, I think. We didn’t say anything as we drank one beer and then another. He leaned in to kiss me first, and I wasn’t surprised, even though I pretended I was. We kissed and kissed and kissed for what felt like hours in the woods, though it was probably only a few minutes. I went back many more times after that. We still didn’t speak at school, but I would go to his house, and eventually, he would come to mine on the days my parents had late hours at work and when my sister had to stay after school for one of her many clubs.