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?”
I snort, and his grin grows. “Not give a fuck?”
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“I mean—shit, I think the first step is realizing that people are going to think what they want to think, no matter what you do. I had to learn that the hard way, I guess. No matter what I do or say, people will always treat me the way they want to treat me.”
Matt nods. “What’s that saying? What people think of you are reflections of themselves, right?”
“So, fuck it. I would rather be myself, free, than caged and treated like shit anyway.”
Something shifts in his gaze. “I want to join you there,” he tells me. “Feeling free. Sometimes I think it’s about taking the jump and just doing it, not being scared about what happens next.”
Is he flirting with me again? I think he might be. There’s some heat in his eyes, and I have to admit, it’s hard to get the expressions and sounds he was making on set out of my head. “Maybe I didn’t invite you over just to talk.”
He hesitates, then stands up. Mattie seems so shy and innocent, but he has more of a take-charge attitude than I would’ve expected. Even those scenes earlier…I mean, fuck. It was like a different version of him came out.
Matt takes his time as he straddles me, one leg on either side, and sits in my lap. “This okay?” he asks.
“We made out for the cast and crew. Why wouldn’t it be?” He blushes, but he waits, watching. Forcing me to speak. “Yeah. This is okay.”
He kisses me. The scenes we did earlier were torture. I think most people would assume I’d get off on it, but working on set in front of everyone, only for my body to take over? Not fun. I can’t force my body not to be turned on. It’s easier when I’m not attracted to the person I’m working with. It’s better for concentration. But Matt—the way he surprised me every time he grabbed me…
His voice is low, hoarse. “How do you like to be touched?”
“What?”
“Do you like to be touched soft? Hard?”
Never would’ve expected words like that out of golden boy’s mouth. “Rougher.”
Fingers yank my hair, pulling my head back. My groan is embarrassing, only because it’s for innocent little Mattie. Not so innocent after all, I guess.
“Like that?” he asks, but the smile in his voice lets me know exactly what he’s doing.
“Yeah. Like that.”
He grinds into me and kisses my neck. “I really wanted to do this earlier,” he says, voice heavier.
My hands slip into his waistband, but he pulls back. I stare up at him. Watch as the heat in his gaze cools with hesitation. He bites his lip. Something I’d like to be doing, too. “Are we—I just want to make sure we…”
I tilt my head to the side, waiting.
He sighs. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea. What if it gets too confusing, like you said?”
“Actors hook up all the time, Matt.”
“Right, but not all actors are in relationships as a publicity stunt.”
“You think we’re going to start to believe we’re really in a relationship if we fuck?”
“Maybe?”
I’m not about to force him into something he doesn’t want. I’m disappointed, sure, but I shrug. “All right. Let’s stop.”
He’s still on my lap. Watching me with a gaze that lets me know how much he wants to keep going. My smirk grows.