My heart plummets. Everyone looks up before heads turn and gazes rest on me for a brief second. We all know what he means. Dave clenches his jaw. “Just read your line, Gray.”
“It’s a waste of time,” he says. “I’m not going to do a table read with someone who can’t even figure out his character. That impacts how I end up playing my role. Don’t punish me because you decided to choose Hollywood’s flavor of the week.”
Julie, who plays the main antagonist as Quinn’s girlfriend, whispers loudly enough for us all to hear. “Don’t be a fucking asshole, Gray.”
“Am I an asshole for saying the truth?” He shrugs. “Fine. Okay.”
Heat grows in my throat. I cry easily. That’s always been my biggest problem, my dad used to say. I cry whenever I see cute toddlers hugging puppies. I cry whenever someone is cruel to another person and I’m too angry to speak. I cry whenever I hear a beautiful song. I sure as hell cry whenever my feelings are hurt—when I’ve been humiliated in a room filled with people I look up to and admire. Easily crying has its uses, especially on the stage and in front of the camera, but the tears only add to the humiliation now.
Dave’s mouth hangs open. “Okay,” he says loudly. “Let’s take five.”
Chairs roll back, people begin to chat about their weekends, recent industry announcements, LA traffic, anything but what just happened. I rub my eye as I get up to find a bathroom, walking away from the table before anyone can stop me. I just need a second to look at myself in the mirror, splash some water on my face, and get myself together.
Someone follows me out of the swinging doors of the conference room. I expect it to be Dave, but when a hand touches my elbow, I turn around to see Julie.
“Hey,” she says, “are you okay? Gray can be such a dick sometimes.”
It takes me a second to process the fact that Julie Rodriguez is talking to me. She played the lead role in one of my favorite Disney Channel shows growing up. She’s stunning in person, even with her hair pulled up in a messy bun and bags under her eyes.
Even though I feel humiliated, I still struggle to not be starstruck. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say. “He’s—you know, he’s right. That was an awful read.”
“We’ve all been there. And this is your first lead role, right?” When I nod, she pats my arm. “You’ll be fine. Don’t let him get into your head. Everyone’s really excited that you’re a part of the cast, Matt.”
I thank her—and I mean really, truly thank her—and she gives me a reassuring smile before she walks back into the room. Logan Gray might not be happy to share this film with me, but I can’t let him scare me away. Not when a role like this has been my dream—everything I’ve worked toward for so many years. I take a deep breath, and I force myself to walk into the room again.
Inside Hollywood Blog
There have been reports that the stars of the upcoming film ‘Write Anything,’ Matthew Cole and Logan Gray, have been at odds before principal photography has even begun. This would be understandable, after the disastrous and awkward interview Gray gave on the red carpet of the premiere of ‘Hawkseye Down,’ claiming that his then-recently cast costar has “zero talent.” If the two romantic leads to one of Hollywood’s biggest summer blockbusters hate each other as much as the rumors suggest, we’re willing to bet that ‘Write Anything’ is likely to fail before it’s even begun.
Logan
I sit in the second-floor lounge with a massive headache. Nothing’s helped. Not pills, not sleep, not sex. I’m just starting to wonder if getting punched in the face gave me permanent brain damage when Willow appears beside me. She sits down on the old-fashioned red velvet seat, crosses her legs, and stirs a straw in her favorite martini I’d ordered so that it would be here by the time she arrived.
“Did you call me here to break up?” she asks, picking up the glass and taking a sip.
“Yeah,” I say, leaning back. “Three months. That’s what we agreed, right?”
She sighs. “It was fun while it lasted.” She’d been the one to come up with the idea, a few months ago after we met in some club and she followed me back to mine. This kind of shit is usually set up by PR and involves a fuck ton of NDAs, but I guess she wanted to go around the bureaucratic rope. Easier to just deal with me.
Something else is clearly on her mind. She glances up. “We could release a publicity statement, as usual, saying things didn’t work out as planned, thank you for the support, blah, blah, blah.”
“Or…？”
“Or we could try something new. Something fresh. Ariana Grande released an entire song and album once.”
“You’re a musician now?”
She ignores me. “I was on your phone the other night.”
She pauses, maybe expecting annoyance. I am annoyed, but I don’t see the point in saying anything about it. We’re about to break up this publicity stunt of a relationship anyway.
“I noticed you had some photos,” she says. “A video.”
I know which one she means. Willow and I agreed to treat this like a monogamous relationship. Polyamory and open relationships aren’t widely accepted by the public yet. I wasn’t supposed to date anyone else, wasn’t supposed to have sex with anyone else, but about a month in an old friend, an actor named Briggs, visited from Sydney and stayed in town for a weekend, and, well, one thing led to another. Briggs took a quick video for the memory and texted it to me, and I forgot it was still on my phone.
Willow isn’t as angry as someone might be to find out their boyfriend was cheating on them, but then again, I wasn’t her real boyfriend. She continues. “I wondered if it might be interesting to…I don’t know, release the video. One last publicity stunt.”
“You want me to post my homemade porno?”
She must sense my agitation. “It’s not a big deal, right?”
“It’s a little dramatic, isn’t it? A little into attention whore territory, even for you?”
Now she’s pissed. “You’re as much a part of this as I am.”
Willow’s right, I know. I didn’t really want to go along with this bullshit at first, but she was fun and I was bored. Besides, the act did its job. Sure, she just wanted to use me, but this boosted my profile, too. Now, I’m the bad boy boyfriend of innocent Willow Grace—not just the drugged-up asshole no one wants to work with in Hollywood.
“We agreed to do this fake shit,” I say, “but going through my phone…asking me to post my private video…”
She at least has the decency to look a little ashamed, though in a city like this, it’s hard to know what to believe. She raises her chin. “I’m sorry if it was a bit much, but we need a believable reason to break up, and this would be a way to go out in style. The headlines, the gossip sites—they’d go absolutely mad, Gray. And everyone would get a good reminder of how fucking hot you are.” She pauses when I don’t answer. She must feel how upset I am, even if I’m not showing it. “I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal. This isn’t your first—you know, film.” She takes another sip.