There’s a knock on the door. I take a breath and splash some water on my face. Another knock. I turn around and open the door with a smile that instantly drops. It’s Logan. His mouth is open, like he’s going to speak but he’s unsure of what he’s going to say. He leans in and kisses me instead, and I tug him closer by the waist. He pushes me against the wall, slamming the door shut behind him, and grinds a leg in between mine so that I gasp into his mouth.
He pulls away again.
“What the hell?” I say, but it’s more like a whisper.
“Sorry. I was just trying to make sure you’re okay.”
“That’s a hell of a way of asking.”
“Are you okay?”
“Why?” I ask. “You don’t care.”
He shuts his mouth.
“We’re not actually friends, remember?” I tell him. “We can’t forget that we’re faking everything.”
“Keep your voice down,” he mutters.
Even with the door shut, I know that he’s right, but I can’t stop my rising anger. Maybe that’s a good thing. “You’re confusing the hell out of me,” I tell him.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“What was that?” I ask him. “Why are you treating me like shit?”
“I don’t—” He pauses. He stops and breathes for a long time. And I stand there, watching him and waiting. It’s fine. I can be patient. He tries again. “I don’t think you’d actually want to have any sort of connection with me,” he says, “if you knew the real me.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” I tell him. “That’s up to me, right? And from what you’ve shown me, when you’re being real and vulnerable…I wouldn’t mind being friends with you, Logan. The real you. Not this person you pretend to be. Trying to hurt me on purpose? It was messed up of you to do that.”
He swallows visibly. “You have no idea who I am.”
“Then show me.”
His gaze drops. He seems so defeated. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I shouldn’t want to get to know him more, when he’s already proven to me what he’s capable of—the kind of cruelty that knocks the wind out of me, that leaves me feeling so unsettled and insecure. But I’m sure he’s feeling the same way. Is it wrong, that I want to help him? Is it bad, that I want to kiss him again?
“You’re not the monster you think you are,” I tell him. He won’t look at me. “If you don’t want to be friends, then—all right, fine. That’s your decision. But if you do want to try to have some kind of relationship outside of the acting and pretending to be boyfriends, then I’m here for it. But I’ve got a boundary, too. You can’t treat me like that again. Not like you did the other day. Okay?”
He glances up. He looks like a puppy that knows he’s done something wrong. “I do,” he says. “Want to be friends, I mean.”
When he says friends, I’m not sure which kind he means: the kind who sit together, chatting and laughing and sharing vulnerabilities? The sort who end up in bed together at the end of the night? Both?
He clenches his jaw. “We did the important job,” he says. “The red carpet. Do you want to leave? We can go somewhere else.”
The way he’s watching me, I get what he’s suggesting, what he’s offering. I stop myself from pressing against him again. “Where? The hotel?”
“We can get a ride to my apartment. It’s closer.”
I take a breath. This feels like such a bad idea. A part of me even wonders if this is why he apologized—to make me trust him enough to sleep with him before he drops me again. But I want to believe in him more than that. And besides—I’m on the edge of desperation, too.
“Yeah. All right.”
Logan
We slip out without either of our publicists noticing and find the driver through the back exit, into the garage where he’s smoking beside the car. When we’re dropped off at my apartment, I ask Matt to wait outside for a second while I grab a garbage bag and throw away all the shit that’s disgusting, the forgotten food on the countertops and empty takeout containers. I stuff the dishes into the dishwasher and throw all my clothes into the laundry basket. I even sweep and wipe off the sticky surfaces. I open the windows and spray some air freshener. I don’t know why I’m so nervous.
Get it together, Gray. This isn’t some high school crush coming over for movie night. I never even had that experience. I’ve only ever acted the role. My first film was when I was seven years old. The son of a real estate broker who kills himself. I walked into the office and found his body. Actually won an award for that one, even though I didn’t watch the movie itself until I was about twelve. From there, I was cemented as one of Hollywood’s child stars. My roles weren’t as heavy after that. I was cast in action-adventure films for kids, had a couple of stints for shows on the Disney Channel as the cute love interest.
My biggest role, the one that made me a household name, was for my film as a teenage rock star in a boy band. My character never actually came out in the movie, but it was heavily implied that I was in love with the band’s lead singer, another guy, before the ending gave me some throwaway kiss scene with a girl who’d been a groupie. It pissed me off that no one was brave enough to have an openly gay character on movie screens, so I came out myself. I was sixteen. Shit was pretty fucked up before, but I think that’s the moment everything really started to spiral downhill.
I buzz Mattie in and he knocks on the door a minute later, bright smile on his face, like usual, as if we didn’t spend all of yesterday dry humping each other and an entire evening fighting. Like we’d never had a problem where I treated him like trash because that smile of his scares me too much. I remember when I purposefully tried to piss him off in his hotel room while we were running lines, just to get some sort of reaction that wasn’t…this. I refused to believe he’s always this happy. Glad I’ve started to see some other emotion from him, too.
“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.