Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Newcomb looked him up and down with a wrinkle of his nose, a curl of his lip. “Are you done posturing in front of your boyfriend?”
Cillian made a soft, mortified sound. Brendan just bared his teeth in a smile. “I’m done posturing in front of you, and now I’m stealing my boyfriend. We can take a break.” And while Newcomb stared at him with an irritable hiss, Brendan turned, flinging a hand up. “Director called break,” he shouted over the echoing, cavernous area of the studio lot, before bending to catch Cillian’s wrist. “Come on, boyfriend.”
That had been a little too satisfying.
But Brendan wouldn’t give Newcomb the gratification of turning back to savor the look on that weasel’s face.
Yelping, Cillian stumbled after him, the sound nearly drowned beneath the sounds of people setting things down, breaking apart into social groups, chattering, completely ignoring Newcomb’s protests of, I didn’t—but I never said—stop right there!
“You really do just…do whatever you want, don’t you?” Cillian said rather dazedly at his back.
“Usually,” Brendan answered, and pulled Cillian around the edge of a massive white stage panel standing upright in its wooden frame.
The moment they were out of sight, Brendan let Cillian go—and pointed toward a stack of crates piled against the back of the panel.
“Sit. Breathe. Unclench your jaw before you break your veneers. And tell me what’s going on with you.”
“I…what isn’t?” Cillian dropped down heavily enough to make the crates rattle, lean thighs lazily spread, his well-worn military jacket falling off one shoulder to bare articulated, sleek collarbones arrowing inward from firm shoulders framed in a loose tank top. Moaning softly, he buried his face in his hands, then scrubbed them back through his hair, making it stand up through his fingers in chocolate brown tufts. “I’m really fucking it up out there.”
“You’re not doing great, but I’ve seen worse.” Brendan sank down to sit on the edge of the largest crate next to Cillian and leaned back on one hand, watching him sidelong. “So. Is it jitters, Newcomb, or me?”
“You left off D: All of the Above.” Cillian let out a bitter laugh, tilting his head back, staring up at the crisscrossing steel bars and the intricate tangles of rigging over their heads; the bright overhead spots reflected back in strange, white-gold discs against the milky brown of his eyes. “I’ve never frozen up on a set before, but every time I get on this lot all my calm just goes pouring out of my head, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m terrified of Newcomb, terrified of you, or just terrified of fucking up in Ultra 4K HD.”
“Just think—some of us are from the days when you only had the option to fuck up in 420p.” God, the kid really was just falling apart, wasn’t he? Brendan nudged Cillian’s side with his elbow. “Listen. We all trip on our faces in the public eye at some time. Bad performance, bad choice of script…it’s hard to completely fail your career from one rotten film when now the worse they are, the more they trend for the camp value. Google and you’ll find me in a commercial for a local noodle mart. In a bright orange Hawaiian shirt, staring at the camera like the Men in Black just flashed me and completely forgetting my lines. It’s a meme at this point. Once you accept that everyone bombs, everyone’s got that old stinker they wish they could delete off IMDB, it gets easier not to care, and easier to give it your best. Besides.” Brendan leaned closer, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Nothing you do could ever be worse than Sean Connery in Zardoz.”
A snickering snort escaped Cillian; he clapped a hand over his mouth. “Bet I could work those red thigh-highs, though. How long ago was the Hawaiian Shirt Incident?”
“Had to be at least…I don’t know, twenty, twenty-five years ago. Old enough that before YouTube, the only copy existed on CD-ROM in a TV broadcast station back room somewhere in Sausalito.” Brendan lifted a hand, gesturing toward the expansive lot, the complex set pieces under construction all around. “And yet here I am. Playing the father-in-law to the breakout star of the year. It’s my greatest career satisfaction yet.”
“I’m starting to see why Mr. Anderson is planning to kill you.”
Brendan blinked. “Drake’s planning to kill me? Again? Does he know he’s not in my will?”
“Again, he says.” But Cillian was smiling faintly; his lips were no longer so swollen, although the marks of his bruises weren’t so quick to fade. He must have gone to see Candace this morning on his own, when his injuries were once again expertly painted over to near invisibility. “…thanks. That calmed me down a bit. And before you tell me…I know. I know I don’t have to be afraid of him. He can’t risk the public backlash. It’s just…instinct. Someone hurts you once, you flinch away before it can happen again.”