Fall Apart Page 8

  Molly scanned the shirts, folded and bagged them while Damon basically turned into a piece of veal. Alarik slid a credit card across the counter and after Molly slipped the receipt in the bag, he shook her hand and tossed a casual wave Damon’s way. Without another word, he left the store.

  Wait a minute! Where was he going?

  For a beat or two, Damon considered racing after him, then he remembered his mom and he knew she’d ask him to look in on Jess. Dammit! Priorities!

  Molly smacked him on the shoulder and he jerked his gaze away from the door. “Ow! Jesus.”

  “Stop staring. That bloke isn’t gay,” she announced, jerking her thumb in the direction Alarik had gone. “Go visit your sister and say something supportive. You’ve got the watch.”

  “She won’t buy it; she knows I think Gav is a penis—and what makes you think that guy wasn’t gay?”

  Molly snatched the clipboard from his hand and looked the numbers over with a darkening expression. “I know he’s not gay because I can tell. You didn’t finish the clearance inventory.”

  Damon grumbled to himself. “You didn’t know I was gay.”

  “That’s not my fault.” She whispered some numbers to herself as she tallied columns and glanced back up at him. “You did such a good job pretending not to be gay that you managed to convince your poor, old mom, but now I have a sense about these things. That man—not gay.”

  “I’m having lunch with him.” Or, I was…

  “What?”

  Damon did his best cool guy saunter toward the door and leaned his back against it so he could see her reaction. “He asked me to lunch. I met him at the wedding and he drove all the way to Ventura to ask me out in the nicest way I’ve ever been asked. He’s an old friend of Mandy’s.”

  He started to push the door open with a hip when she pointed at him with her most serious mom point. “Hold it right there!”

  “Can’t. Gotta go support Jess,” he called out. “You said.”

  “Damon!”

  He waved, shoved the door out of his way, and turned around right into Alarik whose hands came up to grip his shoulders. “Hello again,” Alarik laughed. “Looking for a hug?”

  “Sorry,” Damon whispered. “My mom is a force to be reckoned with.”

  “As is her son.”

  Damon started to tug himself from Alarik’s grasp, but the other man only tightened his hold.

  “I overheard what your mother was saying to you; I understand if this isn’t a good time.” His hands gave a gentle squeeze. “I shouldn’t have invited myself down here to take over your day.”

  Even though Damon had been reconsidering the wisdom of a date and continued contact with a Molly Whisperer, he didn’t like the idea of Alarik hopping back in his car and driving away, especially after going out of his way in pursuit of a date.

  Be honest, he said to himself, this man isn’t the usual character you’re going to find shuffling around Ventura and he’s asking you to spend time with him. Your ego couldn’t be in better hands…

  “I’m glad you came here.” Damon forced himself to say the words while looking directly into Alarik’s eyes. There was a distinct vulnerability in close eye contact, almost more in their gazes meeting than in the open honesty of his words.

  “Do you know that when you look at me that way, I am nearly overcome by the desire to say inappropriate things to you?”

  Damon felt a smile breaking on his face and sure enough, the flush of heat followed. Damn genetics. “Really? You seem pretty talented at saying the perfect things, actually. How’d you get so good at this?”

  Alarik squeezed his shoulders again and let his hands fall, and Damon wanted to stammer a loop of Put them back, Put them back until he was being squeezed again. Instead, Alarik took another step away.

  “Is that how I seem? ‘Good’ at this?” He debated that a moment before giving a one shoulder shrug. “Perhaps I simply know what I want nowadays.” His lips tilted upward, and God, Damon loved the way they did that. “I know a lot of people who aren’t straightforward when it counts. I’ve been guilty of it myself from time to time, and I don’t want to be guilty of it with you.”

  Damon stared at Alarik, baffled. He wasn’t the type to put himself down and think he wasn’t good enough to be with a particular person, but Alarik probably didn’t suffer from a lack of admirers. The fact that Damon was the intended recipient of such concentrated attention was turning him into a useless mass of muscle, blood and bone. An alien war could’ve been waging around him, complete with Will Smith jumping on tabletops and shooting wildly, and all he’d hear was Alarik saying he knew what he wanted. Was it to be with him? Or was it just to have sex with him?

  You only met him yesterday, he cursed to himself, and now you’re scared of his intentions? If you don’t want something to happen with him, don’t let it happen. Stop making everything so difficult.

  Damon thought of Todd and how he’d changed since his college love skewered his heart and grilled it over an open flame. He thought of the mess his own love life had been after Kenny and the manipulated screw sessions with Andrew, and he wondered if he wasn’t letting those things fuck over his future—forget the fact that this wasn’t really a future. It was lunch.

  “There you go again, giving me that look,” Alarik whispered and Damon saw the heat in the other man’s eyes in the quick moment before Alarik slipped a pair of sunglasses on that he’d pulled from his pocket.

  Desire…and Alarik was trying to hide it.

  Where was that crash cart? Charge! Clear! Kaa-chooog!... We have a heartbeat.

  “What look?” Damon answered huskily, his voice hitching as he immediately forgot about maintaining his composure. What if his mother walked out and witnessed this fraught moment?

  Alarik gave a low groan and glanced away, his fingers combing through his hair again. He wasn’t going to answer. He removed his jacket roughly and then grunted in embarrassment as he folded it over his arm. “Forgive me, but if you could see your face, you’d know what I was up against.”

  “Is this you leaving? I thought you were taking me to lunch.”

  “Am I?” Alarik gave him a sideways glance.

  “I’m begging you.”

  Damon was vaguely aware of the folks seated at the tables in front of the coffee shop, but they turned into mist as Alarik slowly and purposefully closed the distance between them, his hand reaching up to grasp Damon’s chin. He could see his reflection in the other man’s sunglasses. He looked weak-kneed and turned on, and his fucking fifteen freckles were standing out at high alert. Alarik still hadn’t spoken, but his breathing was quick, his sensuous mouth tight.

  “Look at you,” he finally whispered, then seemed to realize what he’d said and done and stepped away. “Mr. Wright,” he tut-tutted. “You make it easy to forget how to be a gentleman.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Zane slouched into his desk chair and closed his eyes as his manager’s voice cut in and out over the phone. “Jenny,” he moaned, “I can’t hear half of what you’re saying and I’m betting Mark is out on the couch stuck watching Beaches because he can’t find the remote. I want to go put his feet in my lap, turn on a movie that has some explosions in it, and eat some damn junk food without my trainer finding out. Can we please discuss this another time?”

  “Did you even read the article? Did you see what he said?” Jenny was boiling and he realized it was going to be a few more minutes before he could escape. “He’s making out like you’re on your way out the door! Like it or not, he has a following and they’re vocal. I mean, this is Pershall we’re talking about here.”

  “No, it’s Pershall that you are talking about,” he sighed. “I don’t care what he says. The truth is in the scope of our respective work.”

  “You cannot be as collected about this as you sound.”

  “I am. He’s good looking, he’s popular, and if he dialed back on the God’s Gift attitude, he might be able to hone what little talen
t he has into something that won’t fizzle out in three years. He’s still pissed about losing Sacrifice to me and he’s disgusted that he was only offered that legal thriller after I turned it down. Pershall wants to resurrect McConaughey’s performance from A Time To Kill and he’s going to miss it by a mile. Let him have the gun so he can shoot his own foot off. I’m not worried about Brad Pershall.”

  Jenny laughed reluctantly. “If I were with you, I’d smack you.”

  “May I please go take care of my lonely, sick husband during this rare moment that we are home at the same time and have nowhere to go?”

  “Look over those scripts I sent you…” Her voice went higher on the last few words as a warning.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  On his way to the den, Zane stopped off in the kitchen for soup and crackers for Mark, and a bag of tortilla chips for himself. He was craving tacos; maybe he’d make some for dinner. Tucking three scripts under his arm, he carefully navigated his way through the house and froze on the steps leading down into the den. Mark was stretched out on the couch with a blanket up to his chin and his hair a floppy, cowlicked mess. The tip of his nose was red. Sensing Zane’s eyes on him, he looked up sleepily.

  “Buckland’s Hill is on cable.” He still sounded congested.

  “Please don’t make me watch that,” Zane pleaded. “It’s a little too much of me to stomach.”

  Mark’s answering look was pitiful. “I’m sick and it’s one of the only things that will make me feel better.”

  “Why not a new movie?”

  Mark coughed convincingly and reached for a tissue, moaning. “I thought I was improving, but maybe the fever is coming back.” He coughed again, feebly, and then snuck a glance.

  “Fine,” Zane caved, “but I’m reading through scripts as long as it’s on.”

  Mark’s eyes dropped to the soup tray and his turn for the worse did another about face. “You brought me food,” he said happily.

  “Sickness and health, baby.”

  “Come sit down, it’s almost my favorite part of the show.” Mark slowly sat up, adjusting pillows and blankets and making room on the couch for Zane to slide in next to him.

  Flicking his eyes toward the screen, Zane swallowed his discomfort as his character, a U.S. Marshall decked out in western regalia, sauntered on screen. “This is your favorite part?” he asked dryly.

  “No,” Mark shifted again. “Right…there! That’s my favorite part.”

  Zane set the tray down over Mark’s lap and turned his head to watch the scene, laughing when he saw what his husband was talking about: his backside walking toward his co-star who’d been bucked off a horse. “The chaps?”

  “Actually, it’s what’s wearing the chaps… Where’s the remote?—I wanna see that again.”

  Zane stood up and shook his hips back and forth like he was in a music video. “I don’t know if gym shorts do the trick, but you’ve got it right here…in the flesh. You can even grab it if you want. That’s allowed.”

  Mark laughed up at him and ended up coughing as he swatted Zane’s ass out of the way. “You win; you choose what to watch. This movie can’t compete with ‘in the flesh.’”

  “And in your bed, don’t forget that part,” Zane pointed out.

  Mark grabbed a handful of crackers and crushed them over his soup until it turned to the consistency of stew. His feet wiggled right into Zane’s lap and he made a contented noise as he settled in to eat. The whole production was endearing.

  “Is everything okay with Jenny? She kept you on the phone for a while.”

  Zane watched as Mark blew on a spoonful of soup, his lips pursing in an incredibly distracting way. The second they got the all clear signal from this bout with the flu, it was no holds barred.

  “There’s a new interview out with Brad Pershall and she thinks it has incendiary potential,” he admitted, clicking through the channels. “She thinks he’s trying to drum up a Hollywood feud.”

  “Didn’t he already lose that feud? Twice?”

  “There’s no feud,” Zane grumbled.

  Mark broke a cracker in half and popped one of the pieces in his mouth, thinking that over. “There’s a little bit of a feud.”

  A long pause followed, filled only with the sound of a spoon against a glass bowl. “Maybe a little one,” Zane conceded. “Pershall implied he’s going to ‘dethrone’ me.”

  “Want me to find him?” Mark asked. “Punch him in the nose? Break his legs? For you, I’d do this.”

  Zane chuckled and it quickly grew to an all out laugh at Mark’s offended expression. “Mark, you can’t bend past forty-five degrees without your sinuses exploding, and you want to pick a fight? I heard Pershall is all crazy for Krav-Maga; you’ll get creamed.”

  Soup dribbled down Mark’s chin and he fumbled around for a napkin. “I’m full of kung fu,” he said sloppily.

  “Well, you’re full of something…” Mark dug his heel down into Zane’s leg until he yelped. “By that, I meant I love you.”

  Mark gave a loud slurp in answer. Zane finally settled on watching Legends Of The Fall because he knew it was one of Mark’s favorites and because he’d be too busy trying to hide how often it made him cry to notice how much script reading was going on at the other end of the sofa.

  Zane didn’t know what was bothering him so much lately, but as he flipped the first script open he felt the discomfort scratching at the back of his mind. It was as if the next movie he made was a declaration of war—like he was making a statement about the man that he was and not backing down. He’d thought that Sacrifice was that film, but it turned out it was the last step before the fork in the road. He’d finished up production on Blood Red Banner, the second Mercenary movie, in June, but that wasn’t because he’d been thrilled by the script, it was because he was contractually obligated. So, what now?

  Making movies wasn’t like running into burning buildings to save people, he understood that; it wasn’t heroic. But Zane remembered when he was young and trying to figure his life out, how great it was to escape into a movie for a few hours. Now, he had his dream job and his work served the same purpose for his fans; the films were a way to forget and he wanted to work on projects that were worth the time spent watching them. He didn’t want fleas like Pershall making people itch for attention’s sake.

  Zane wasn’t worried about Brad from an acting standpoint. He simply had no patience for the way one article was about to waste his time. He’d sit down for interviews and instead of talking about work or life, he’d be talking about Pershall’s work and life, and whether or not he saw Details magazine this month. There’d be rumors about the two of them being at odds and just addressing those rumors would enlarge the non-story. Where days ago the radar had been clear, suddenly there’d be shit everywhere.

  It was a junior varsity stunt.

  Truth be told, he’d only met Pershall twice and they didn’t exactly speak. It was a handshake, head nod kind of thing. The first time, Pershall seemed star struck when Zane noticed him. The second time was after nearly a year had passed and suddenly, the guy was surrounded by an entourage that was so over the top Zane had laughed. Usually actors had their “handlers” and Zane was one who preferred a couple of very close advisors to a herd of kinsmen. They were actors, not goddamn feudal landowners. Pershall moved around like he was nobility.

  Zane didn’t have a grudge against him, but if he kept popping up like this, getting in the way of his work, he’d whip one up quick.

  His eyes flicked up to the TV screen, saw that it was one of the many sad parts of the movie, and then shifted to Mark. The spoon was halfway to the other man’s mouth and slowly began to lower back to the bowl at the same time that Mark’s eyes began to blink rapidly. Zane grinned and reached for the first script, a military/action flick entitled, Unit, Corps, God, Country. He was supposed to get a feel for the character of Captain Avery.

  It was meh. The scenes were choppy and uncomfortable and he couldn’t tell if it w
as on purpose or due to a rush job. He read ten pages and tossed it aside, knowing it was more about abs, pecs, and arms than Unit, Corps, God, or Country.

  The second script was a drama and Zane had heard that Sophia Kirkland accepted the starring female role. She was a lot of fun to work with, but he didn’t know if the job was for him. Her part was that of a well-bred politician’s wife who discovers a string of extra-marital affairs involving her husband. There was murder and mayhem and intrigue and evil political machinations, but it wasn’t ringing Zane’s bell. He set it aside with the first script. It was a no-go.

  Zane let out a long exhale as he picked up the third entitled, Nowhere, Idaho, and for the first time in a long time, he couldn’t put a script down.

  ***

  From a very young age, Alarik was taught at the school of his aunt and uncle’s supper table. Their home in London invited a near constant flow of guests, many of them dignitaries, and he became used to seeing important strangers across the table for breakfasts, luncheons, teas, and dinners. His aunt had made it a game for him to come out of his shell and interact with men and women that a child his age would normally have no purpose meeting. For the larger parties, he was to decide on a topic, run it by his aunt and uncle, and then pursue that subject with three different guests. When he climbed into bed afterwards, he reported on what he learned.

  It was his aunt and uncle’s typical genius at work. Turning a shy child into a young man strong enough to form his own opinions and express them good-naturedly. They had three standards when it came to interacting with anyone: eye contact, attentiveness, and calm.

  So far, Alarik was doing a bang-up job with searching for eye contact, and he was practically memorizing the words Damon was saying, but no matter his internal struggle, he wasn’t able to remain calm. He was hiding it as best he could, but he was shifty and on edge in a way completely unfamiliar to him. Reminding himself that Damon was just a man (For God’s sake!) was pointless.