Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
How do you be gay?
I can already hear his sarcastic answer: You have sex with men.
I’ll get right on that.
Fuck, I’m beginning to think that might be the answer. It’s not like I hate or despise the male form. I’ve admired a guy’s physical body or face from afar plenty of times—Jordan included in that. There’s no denying he’s an attractive man. I’ve just never had the desire to have sex with a guy. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t.
Ugh. I throw my phone beside me and crash out before I overthink this all over again.
Like Mason said, things will get better soon.
They don’t.
From the moment I get on set the next day, it’s as bad as the last two. It’s a late start because the scenes we’re shooting are at night, but it’s well past nine before we get anything usable done, and even then, it’s only snippets of the scene. It’s not flowing.
Ben yells cut so many times it begins to sound like he’s choking on his spit.
“He really hates me,” I mutter to Jordan when a break is called. “Why did he even hire me for this role?”
Jordan averts his gaze, and a look of guilt flashes across his face.
“He didn’t want me to do this movie, did he?”
Jordan’s sympathetic eyes tell me everything I need to know. “Okay, so I might have convinced him to hire you. He wanted someone with more experience and diversity than an action hero, but I told him you were the right choice for what he wanted.”
“Dude, you have way too much faith in me. This whole movie is doomed.”
He grips my shoulders. “No, you’ve got this. We just need to …” His obvious struggle to come up with a solution says it all.
“Have a brain transplant?”
“Well, yeah, technically. You’re acting, so you’re not supposed to be yourself.”
Frustration bubbles inside me. “I know that, but I think it’s difficult because the only queer guys I’ve been around have been closeted for years. Or newly discovering.”
“What about me?”
I scoff. “I have no idea what makes you tick. With this project, there’s political aspects, doing the role justice, all the while trying not to offend a community that has so much negative shit thrown their way. It’s too much to focus on and—”
“All right, I know your problem, and I have an idea.” Jordan leaves and approaches Ben, who’s yelling at a poor intern.
I want to yell at him to stop, but that will cause more of a scene.
When Jordan smiles at him, Ben instantly takes a deep breath, though his scowl doesn’t leave his face.
I can’t hear them from here, but Jordan jumps up and down and flails his arms animatedly, and a second later, he plants a kiss on Ben’s cheek and comes back to me with a gleam in his eye.
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
“What? We didn’t get the scenes done.”
“And we won’t unless you get out of your head and into someone else’s, so let’s go.”
I follow him but can’t help noticing how many of the staff and crew are watching as we walk off set.
“I feel like a kid cutting class,” I whisper.
Jordan laughs. “Did you drive here?”
“Nah, I’ve got a car service.”
“Give your guy the night off.”
“Where are we going?”
“To get some insight.”
“Hooray for vagueness being vague.” But I’m willing to do anything to get this movie off the ground before I get fired, so I text my driver.
It’s not too late for Ben to replace me, and while part of me hopes for that, I don’t want to be known as the actor who got fired from my only serious role. That reputation follows you everywhere.
Jordan leads me to the lot, and the lights flash on … a Prius?
“This is your car?”
“The environment is important, Blake,” he deadpans.
“I figured you for a Lambo or Porsche type.”
“If I had my way, yeah, you’re probably right. But my agent’s PR person wants it to look like I care about things.”
I snort. “When you don’t?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Jordan Brooks is so hard to figure out. He’s flirty and charismatic, but he doesn’t give anything away about himself. Like, ever. Maybe he’s been trained to be that way. The less he gives, the less there is to take out of context.
Ever since I’ve met him and we’ve hung out a couple of times, it’s been fun but all very surface-level stuff. He doesn’t exactly scream closed off, just not very deep. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it might be contributing to why I can’t bounce off him in scenes.
On the other hand, it’s not really him I need to be connecting with—it’s his character. If I were a good actor, I should be able to pull all that from the script, but I’m starting to think maybe my acting skills are one-note. I had criticism from playing Coby Godspeed—of course I did because opinions are like assholes: everyone has one—but the feedback was mostly positive, along with the box office numbers, so I assumed I must be a decent actor.