Rainbow Blues (24 page)

“Cut! James, this scene is supposed to be heartwrenching, not joyous. Don’t fucking smile while you’re saying your lines.”

“Sorry.”

This time, keeping his focus was a hundred times more difficult, because he had a call to make to Matthew, the entertainment lawyer, and an idea he wanted to float past him.

C
LENCHING
HIS
phone tight in his hand, Jimmy stabbed at the display to call Damian, while double-checking to make sure the bathroom door was locked. Too fucking bad for anyone who needed to take a leak right now.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up.” He needed to get this sorted now, because this was fucking ridiculous.

“Well, if it isn’t our famous movie star,” Damian sang into the phone. “Calling to crawl back to the small stage?”

If Jimmy wasn’t so fucking angry, he might have teased Damian back. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Wait, what?” Damian’s voice got all serious. “What’s going on?”

“I need help, Dame. I need to you call Matthew. Urgently. I’ve tried the one number I have, but I’m just getting his voice mail. You’re friends with him, so you must have another number.”

“What’s wrong? Do you need me to fly out?”

Jimmy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to prevent his tears from spilling over. Damian was his best friend, and one he knew wouldn’t be making a play for Luke while Jimmy was out of town.

“No. But I need some advice about this contract. You remember how they want me here to do PR for the film after the shoot wraps?”

“Yeah, it seemed a bit early.”

Jimmy shrugged, even though Damian couldn’t see him. “They also didn’t want me to tell any interviewers that I have a partner, which seemed weird at the time, but I didn’t think too much of it.”

“Uh-oh. This doesn’t sound good.”

Damian knew how much he loved Luke, and how much he hated keeping things under wraps.

“Exactly. They want to publicize a romance between me and Aaron.”

“I’m sorry, they want you to date Aaron Young? I mean, I like Luke, but Aaron Young.” Damian’s tone was teasing.

“Damian.” Jimmy couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice. “It’s all fake. Publicity for the movie.”

“Okay. So what?”

“So I hate this. I hate acting for film, I hate the strict diets, I hate lying. I miss the live audience, the feel of being on stage. Hell, I even miss those bratty kids at school and teaching. But most of all, I miss being with Luke. This isn’t what I want to do with my life. I want to come home.”

“You’re sure? You do this and you’ll be burning bridges you might not be able to rebuild.”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” Dreams could change, and he’d been blind not to realize his had changed the minute he met Luke.

“You might still have to do PR, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a way you could wiggle out of a fake romance. Especially if you don’t care if you ever have another movie role.”

Jimmy snorted. “You can repeat that in as many variations as you want, but I’m not changing my mind.”

There was a rumor of another, much bigger role that might be coming his way, but Jimmy didn’t care, not one fucking bit. He wasn’t doing this again, and he wouldn’t miss it for a second. As soon as he got some legal advice, he’d be getting on the first plane back to Luke. He’d fly back to do additional promotion as necessary, but there was no way he’d need to stay in LA for two months solid for regular promotion.

“Do it fast, okay?”

“I’m on it.”

“You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”

Damian laughed. “No. I could have told you you’d hate film acting, but I knew you needed to try. Besides, Hollywood’s loss is my gain. We’re doing
The Mousetrap
next. I’m saving you the detective’s role.”

Jimmy sagged against the door. “Thanks.”

A knock on the door had him whispering into the phone. “Gotta go. Get me that lawyer, quick.”

He breathed a moment, trying to compose himself. It was selfish of him to have locked the door to a public bathroom with multiple stalls, but he’d needed some time away from everyone. He had a trailer on set, but he never felt comfortable in it.

“Hey, sorry about that,” Jimmy said as he opened the door, not really paying attention to the person on the other side. Until he was pushed back into the bathroom by Aaron, and the door locked again.

“What the hell?” Aaron wasn’t trying to get a bathroom blow job, was he? He’d gotten the sense early on that Aaron was attracted to him, and while Aaron was good-looking, he wasn’t Luke, and Jimmy would never cheat. As soon as he’d explained to Aaron he was involved with someone, Aaron had never pushed the boundaries, not even once. In fact, Aaron had been the only bright spot about Hollywood, becoming a true friend over the past two months.

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

Aaron gripped his shoulders. “James, I know that proposition surprised the shit out of you. I thought for a minute you were going to deck Missy.”

He’d wanted to, but Jimmy wasn’t much of a fighter. Even with the weight of righteous anger behind him, he figured a tough as nails PR person could break him in two, no matter that Missy Wong was a girl half his size.

“You can’t really expect me to go along with that nonsense, can you?”

Aaron snorted and let him go to start pacing. “Of course not. I don’t intend to go along with it either.”

Stupidly, he felt a bit hurt, which Aaron saw and laughed.

“Don’t get me wrong. Another time, another place, we might have made something happen. But I can see how much you love your partner. And I came out to find that same kind of love for myself. Not to make a mockery of it with a fake relationship for a publicity push.”

“They can’t… can’t make us, can they?” Jimmy hoped someone would have warned him if his contract had locked him into something this ridiculous.

“I’ve already got a call into my agent. I can’t say anything about the contract you signed, but my guess is that they’re going to try and class this as some sort of ‘miscellaneous’ public relations obligation. Without my cooperation, a decent agent or lawyer should be able to get you out of it, although they are going to try and push that agenda on us and hope we’ll just cave.”

“I’m not caving. I’ve called a lawyer, and I’m going home as soon as he says I can.” At the moment, he didn’t even care if he got paid for this movie or not. He and Luke would muddle through somehow until he went back to teaching after his unpaid leave of absence.

“Going home? You can’t let this change your mind about Hollywood! I have it on good authority they want you to play Aquaman.”

Jimmy raised his eyebrows. “Aquaman? Surely I’m too old to play a role like that, even if I wanted to.”

“You know you look great for your age, and the dieting and exercise is a total pain in the ass, but you’re sleek, toned, and getting buff. You’d make a great Aquaman. You could have Luke move out here. Construction jobs are everywhere.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I made up my mind to go home before this even came up. I love acting on stage, and I hate acting for film. If I loved it, yeah, I’d consider asking Luke to move, but I don’t, so there’s no point in disrupting our lives any more, you know?”

“I wish I could convince you otherwise, but I’m happy you know what you want to do with your life. Today’s the last day we’re on set, which means we can both drink. Wanna head out for some celebratory drinking and eating of fatty, bad-for-us food?” Aaron grinned like a little kid ready to sneak cookies from the cookie jar.

“I don’t know. What about the call I’ve got into my lawyer?”

Aaron shrugged. “Well, it’s already six, and you don’t need bail. My guess is that the earliest you’ll hear from any lawyer would be tomorrow. Besides, we might get called back to do a few more takes, once they’ve taken a look at the stuff from today, so you can’t leave tonight. C’mon. Come out and celebrate. You just made your first movie! Even if you never do another one, how can you not celebrate this?”

Aaron made some good points. Jimmy had done something most people only dreamed of doing. “Okay, let’s do it.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of here before those PR bull dogs attack again.”

The knowledge that he was so close to going home to Luke buoyed up Jimmy’s mood so much that he was ready to celebrate. Ready to celebrate that this hell of a production was over. Ready to celebrate returning to his real life. And during his epiphany on set, when the director had verbally smacked him around for looking happy, he’d also realized he had a perfect idea for an “out of the blue” gift for Luke.

“If you don’t mind, I need to make a stop somewhere. Pick something up. If we can’t do it without you being recognized, I’ll go on my own.”

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Let’s go.”

“After you.” Jimmy held out a hand, and Aaron unlocked the bathroom door. He took a glance outside before stepping out and beckoning Jimmy to follow.

T
HE
ALERT
notification went off on Luke’s phone, and he pulled it out, almost dreading what he would find. As soon as Jimmy had left, he’d set up the alert to notify him if Jimmy’s name was posted on the Internet. There would be interviews or something with Jimmy, and Luke wanted to see them right away. He was so fucking proud of his partner.

The pride didn’t go away, but each article he’d been alerted to had chipped away at his heart. Because each article was filled with pictures of Jimmy having a good time without him, if they weren’t the ones of him kissing Aaron Young on set. And although Jimmy had said he missed Luke and was miserable with all the restrictions, every picture Luke saw featured Jimmy smiling. Smiling and beautiful. In expensive restaurants and exclusive clubs. Hollywood clearly agreed with Jimmy, and it was getting harder and harder to believe that their short separation was ever going to end. How could Luke possibly compare with all that Hollywood had to offer?

More and more, those stories had prompted him to go drinking with his friends, trying to forget the love of his life was a continent away, hanging out with celebrities and spending most of his days and sometimes his evenings, with the young, sexy Aaron Young. Reluctantly, Luke pulled up the alert and clicked through to the story.

A New Romance for Aaron Young?

Inside sources on the
Walking Wounded
set say Aaron Young and his costar, Hollywood newcomer James Alexander, have gotten pretty cozy with each other. These photos, leaked from the closed set, show a lot of chemistry between the two men, and they were even seen drinking and laughing together at Crave.

With his breath rattling in his chest, Luke scrolled down. The shot of Jimmy and Aaron, mostly naked and standing next to each other, he’d seen before, as he had the one of them kissing. Those were, according to Jimmy, stills from the set that shouldn’t have been leaked out. This was the first time he’d seen the bloggers take the romance angle, and just thinking about Jimmy and Aaron together sent stabbing pains through his gut.

He scrolled down further. The cramping in his gut intensified, and he had trouble catching his breath. The next picture showed the two of them coming out of a men’s room together. Jimmy had already told him there was very little deviation from the play, and Luke had seen the play enough times to know there was no men’s room scene. He’d also been out long enough to know two guys in the bathroom together could very easily mean the budding romance, or at least budding lust, between Jimmy and Aaron might well be true. True to the point they may have already gotten off together in some random men’s room at the studio.

Jimmy wouldn’t do that to him. Jimmy hated cheating. But that didn’t stop the insidious fear from taking root in his heart.

Like a rubbernecker unable to drive past an accident without slowing down, Luke scrolled down. The picture of Jimmy happy and smiling, Aaron’s arm slung around his neck, made him feel as if his heart had been ripped from his chest.

He slid down the wall and forced himself to read the words below the image.

Aaron Young shocked the entertainment world by coming out earlier this year. Rumors abound that James Alexander is the front runner to play Aquaman in the upcoming movie, which should catapult him into the stratosphere of A-list actors. Undoubtedly, we’ll see more of this superstar couple in the upcoming months.

Aquaman. Jimmy was going to play Aquaman? Luke tried to wrap his mind around it. Jimmy was going to be a movie star. A famous movie star. Not that Luke had any doubts. Jimmy was such a good actor, and Luke was so proud. With a boyfriend like Aaron Young, Jimmy could go far. Luke would only be holding him back.

He’d been a fool to think this movie was a one-off. Jimmy was meant for better things than sharing a house with a middle-aged construction manager.

Tears ran unchecked down his face as the realization tore his soul in two. He was going to have to let Jimmy go. He couldn’t selfishly hang on to Jimmy, not when the best thing for Jimmy’s dream would be for them to break up. Even if Jimmy still loved him, or thought he did, staying together would only make things more painful when Jimmy realized Luke was nothing more than a useless reminder of his former life.