Ellery Mountain 3 - The Carpenter and the Actor (10 page)

Jason answered his cell on the third ring. Kieran was up a ladder and it was his job to hold the ladder steady. This he did with a combination of legs, one arm and his body weight, leaving the other hand free to reach for his phone. He’d spoken to his agent, Abigail, yesterday and she’d had nothing new to tell him during their weekly phone call, so that left a friend or his mom. No one else had his super private, needs only cell number. Which reminded him—he should give the number to Kieran.

His mom’s voice was immediately in panic mode and he had to shift to get a better signal whilst still ensuring Kieran was safe.
“Calm down, Mom, start again.” Kieran glanced down at him, probably picking up the tone in Jason’s voice. He began to climb back down and was on ground level in an instant.
“Your photo,” his mom said. “It’s on the Internet, on that A to Z site—”
“
TMZ
, you mean?” Jason offered the solution even as his heart sank. He’d guessed it was only a matter of time before someone went off and posted photos. He’d been lucky to get this far.
His mom continued. “You’re being taken from a bar by a policeman, Jason. Is this real? Are you okay? What happened?”
Great, now he felt like a chastised kid. What was worse was that his indiscretions were being made public. He’d felt comfortable in Ellery, pulled in by Norma-Jean at the salon and her son, sure that no one was going to tell anyone he was here. The lure of spreading gossip was clearly too much for people. He knew that inside.
“It was on the twenty-third, Mom.”
“Oh, baby,” she said. “You should have called.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kieran looked concerned and he laid a hand on Jason’s arm in reassurance, but that wasn’t what Jason needed. He didn’t deserve concern and pity. What he had needed was a couple of weeks where he could get drunk, wallow in memories, get some hangovers and start to come to terms with his own guilt. And that was what had happened.
“By tomorrow there will be something else on the site, sweetheart.” At least his mom had moved from panicked concerned parent to an understanding one.
The minute his mom was off the phone he dialled his agent. Abigail was happy to report that his posted disgrace had already been superseded by a story focusing on Brad Pitt agreeing with Leonardo DiCaprio over elephants. Kieran remained next to him and suddenly Jason felt claustrophobic. With a smile to reassure Kieran, Jason wandered away from him and back into the garden as he discussed schedules with Abigail.
“Are you coming straight back to filming?” she asked as they ended the call.
“I’m thinking…” He stopped to consider what he was actually thinking. “Look, I’ll be honest with you, Abbi, I’ve met someone, and of course I’m coming back for filming, but I’m also confused about what I should be doing at my age.”
“You’re thirty-four,” she said with a laugh.
“He’s only twenty-five. I feel old.”
“Who?” she asked, interested. “What’s his name?”
“Kieran. His name is Kieran Dexter.”
“Is it serious? Is he coming to LA with you?” Abigail didn’t have any kind of tone other than pure interest. Jason was out, his career had done fine so far. If anything, his career was enhanced by him being gay. He just had never had a boyfriend that he wanted to show the world.
“No. He’s not the type for LA. He has friends here, he’s a carpenter. A good guy. Normal.”
“Jase, I was the first person to say you needed to decompress. A no-strings affair is probably the best thing you could have done. If it’s serious enough for you to be considering the next thing you do, then do you think we should be talking about him some more? Like, did you get him to sign a non-disclosure agreement?”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Jason laughed. “He won’t go blabbing to everyone. I promise you.”
“Your call,” Abigail said.
“I’ll let you know when I’m booked to fly back,” he said. They finished the call and Jason sighed noisily.
“Blabbing what?” Kieran said quietly behind him. Jason turned to face his lover and smiled. The smile hid a sudden guilty feeling at being found discussing Kieran with someone else.
“My agent. Said there’s a photo of me doing the rounds,” Jason said.
“A photo of what?”
“Drunk. In a police station. Nothing we have to worry about.” He shrugged. There was no point in hiding what they’d been talking about. “Then I told her about you and she asked if I’d got you to sign a non-disclosure.”
Kieran didn’t answer immediately. He seemed to be considering what to say. “You told her about us, and her first instinct was for you to get me to sign something to say…what? That I won’t tell anyone I slept with you? I should imagine the whole town knows, so I would think about creating a cover story or something.” Kieran’s flat tone should have been a warning, but Jason’s head was full of the photo out there and his mom’s reaction.
“A cover story? I don’t need one,” he said simply. “I say nothing, that is always the best defence.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you okay, Kieran?”
“Do you say nothing about your other exes as well?”
That was when Jason realised he had stepped over some imaginary line somewhere.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “You know I don’t have exes. You wouldn’t be my ex, you’d be my…” What would Kieran be? His part-time lover? The guy Jason ran to when life in Tinsel Town got to be too much? It wasn’t fair on Kieran to make this any more permanent that it was. Hell, it wasn’t fair on either of them, but Kieran should be free to find someone else. Jason’s stomach twisted at the thought of someone else laying their hands on Kieran. Memories of sitting in the café and making a deal for no-strings sex for two weeks had morphed into something more. It scared him.
“Your
what
?” Kieran prompted.
“I don’t know.” Jason sat on the small wall that enclosed the garden. “These past two weeks have been special. Hot. Fun. I’ve loved spending time with you and your friends. I’ll miss having my hair cut at Norma-Jean’s and talking to her son. Did you know he’s being picked up by the same modelling agency I worked for? Mikey is a good guy. But I’m getting off track here. Whether it should last longer than two weeks? How could we ever reconcile you and me, LA and Ellery?”
“Jason, stop.” Kieran held up his hands. “I’m not asking for more than the two weeks. I just want you to know I won’t say a word to anyone.”
“I know you won’t,” Jason protested. Kieran’s casual dismissal of extending the two weeks had cut deep. But who was to blame for that? It had been his own stupid idea to put a time limit on possibly the best relationship he had ever experienced.
“Good.” Kieran stretched his arms above his head then let them fall loosely to his sides. “I’m thirsty. Let’s quit for lunch. I’m meeting the guys at the diner for a house discussion. You coming?”
Jason desperately wanted more time with Kieran’s friends, but something in Kieran’s tone had him thinking that Kieran needed some space. Hell, Jason needed some space—he had decisions to think on. Who had sent the photo to
TMZ
? Did it even matter anyway? Did he care? Would Kieran want to stick around with him when his public life took up too much time? What about when his private life got posted up on the net?
“I have calls to make,” Jason lied. “Can you drop me at the cabin and pick me up later to help you here?”
Kieran nodded and with no other words they travelled from Daniel’s centre back up to the cabins. After a brief kiss, Jason was inside his cabin leaning against the closed front door and wondering at what point the whole morning had disintegrated into hell.
Probably right around the time he’d found himself sad to be thinking about leaving Kieran.
This holiday sex-only fling was getting to the point where it either ended or continued. Shame he was too much of a coward to talk to Kieran.
‘I’m not asking for more than the two weeks.
’ That is what he had said. He’d stood there impassive with no expression of regret and said in plain English that he wasn’t wanting more.
Message received and understood
. Then he dismissed the thought immediately. Maybe he wasn’t the only one guarding his heart and refusing to admit that the last two weeks had meant something. Banging his head against the door didn’t help. He closed his eyes and sank down to the floor. He had thinking to do.

Finn was the only one at the table, staring out of the window and sipping what Kieran knew would be hot coffee. Kieran slid into the vacant chair opposite him. He attempted to look like nothing had happened.

So much for attempting a casual look in front of his oldest friend. “Nothing too awful,” he said quickly.
“And by not too awful you mean what?”
“Jason’s leaving the day after tomorrow. His agent called, says he should get me to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and I told him that I wasn’t going to tell anyone anything. Then I said I wasn’t asking him for any more than the two weeks anyway so he wasn’t to worry.”
Finn placed his mug very deliberately onto the table. Kieran recognised the move as one to give him time to think.
“Is that true?” Finn asked softly.
“What? I won’t tell anyone anything. You know I won’t.” Kieran deliberately avoided answering the question Finn really wanted an answer to.
“Kieran James Dexter,” Finn said warningly.
“Okay, so I lied. I’m going to miss him when he goes. He’s a good guy and I want to get to know him better.” Finn was the only person he would ever admit that to. That was when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw Daniel behind him. Groaning inwardly, he knew his lunchtime would be ruined by questions.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said simply. Daniel had a box and some plans, but it wasn’t what he turned to when he sat down next to Kieran.
“I know what it is like to have someone go,” he began. “I didn’t want Luke to leave and I wish I could have found the words to tell him to stay. I was too proud to ask him.”
“But he’s happy here. He was born to be a teacher, and the work he’s doing with Finn and the kids on the DARE programme. What would a Hollywood actor do in Ellery?”
“He doesn’t have to stay in Ellery,” Finn said.
“I couldn’t leave Ellery,” Kieran said quickly.
“Maybe both of you have to compromise,” Daniel suggested.
“Commuting is a thought,” Finn added.
“You’re not getting this, guys. We haven’t even discussed carrying this whole thing on after the two weeks.”
“By thing you mean the love affair.”
Kieran winced at the word love. He’d never really been in love before, not kneetrembling, chest-hurting love. Except, the last few days he’d seen something in another man that he’d never thought he would. Longer. Forever.
No one fell in love in two weeks, did they
?
“Love is a strange concept,” Finn said gently. “Two weeks can be enough time, or too little.”
Kieran had obviously said the last bit out loud. Not a great start to the whole idea of keeping things to himself.
“I never wanted Luke to go. I fell for him so quickly, but I didn’t realise. Well, at least not quickly enough to form a plan to get him to stay. Then he decided himself.”
“I can’t do that to him. He’s a star, he’s West Coast.”
“Would you be happy being the guy he came and found when he needed? On filming breaks, in his downtime?” Finn asked the questions that Kieran had in his own head.
“Like a fuck buddy? No. I want more with him.” There. He’d said it. “I think I might have fallen in love. I think… No, I know I want a lot more than two weeks, and I want to work at it and learn more about him.”
“So do I.”
Kieran froze. No one had said Jason was standing behind him. He twisted in his seat.
“I left you at the cabin,” Kieran said. Where was his overflowing brain? He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Daniel’s mom gave me a lift down here,” Jason said. He shrugged. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Kieran stood up. “Okay.”
“Is there somewhere we can walk?” he said. Then he looked at Daniel, “I’m sorry about the meeting, this won’t take long.”
Kieran led his lover to the door and a split-second decision had them heading down to the river. The walk was short and the river was probably a lot more private than the park at this time of the day.
“Is everything okay?” Kieran said quickly as soon as they stopped walking. “Is it the photo? Causing problems?”
“Not the photo,” Jason started. “I wanted to talk about us and I wanted some privacy. Did you mean it when you said you weren’t asking for any more than the two weeks?”
Kieran walked a little farther, down to the water’s edge, his thoughts in no order to begin talking.
“Because… I was hoping I could maybe talk you into more time.”
Hope bloomed in Kieran’s chest. He would take anything Jason gave him—and how pathetic was that? For an instant he thought about throwing himself at Jason and saying yes to whatever Jason had to offer. Only the instinct of self-preservation stopped him. He’d done what Jason wanted—had two weeks of hot, unrestrained sex. That was enough.
“Why? Did filming get put back?”
“No. But… Look… I see you here and I know you are happy. I see that, I understand your family is here. Outside of the show, I have no one in LA that I meet socially. We film eight days on, eight off.” He stopped talking and dug his hands into his pockets. “I could commute,” Jason blurted.
“From LA to Tennessee?”
“We’d have at least six days in there somewhere, twice a month? Me and you. I could get a place here. I’d probably need to, because I’d need somewhere with some security. I have fans that can be a bit over-enthusiastic. What do you think?”
Kieran narrowed his gaze and scuffed at the grass under his boots. He’d never heard anyone else babble like he did. It was kind of cute.
“Kieran? Am I wrong? I heard you say in the diner that you wanted more. Were you talking about us?” Insecurity laced Jason’s words and Kieran hated that he couldn’t immediately jump in and reassure the man who had stolen his heart.
“Two weeks,” Kieran said gently. “It’s only been two weeks.”
Jason stepped closer and held out his hands. Kieran took hold of them instinctively. He wanted to touch Jason—he was addicted to the touch of the man.
“So it’s too soon to say that I want longer with you, that I even think I’m falling in love for the first time in my life?”
“Maybe,” Kieran said thoughtfully. “You’re all the way over on the West Coast, I’m here—”
“Email, Skype, texting, commuting. We could see if it works?” Jason sounded a little desperate, and it was that hint of needing something from Kieran that pushed him over the edge of procrastination into actually doing.
He tugged Jason closer. “Yes.”
It was all he needed to say. The kiss sealed the deal.