Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
D ancing with Charlie had been everything that Jared could have imagined and then some, which meant that it was very dangerous. It had been a long time since he’d felt that physically close to someone, and the fact that it was Charlie Garrett of all people…well, that was a complication, but he pushed it away for the moment.
Then the homophobe had come up to them, had shoved Jared just a bit too hard, and everything had turned to shit when Charlie decided to take a swing at him, leading to a stampede toward the exits, to say nothing of the people who’d caught the whole thing on camera.
Oh come on people, calm down, it’s just a little physical altercation, not a bomb threat, Jared thought.
Even though he’d been short with Charlie right after the punch, truth be told he was more than a little impressed with him right then. That guy had been making a nuisance of himself, and he’d basically been asking for it. Then he thought about the impact this would almost certainly have on the film festival, and his mind started racing with thoughts about how Rebecca was going to respond to this. He’d had one job–to keep Charlie Garrett out of trouble–and insead he’d led him right into it.
At least he was doing it for something worthwhile, though. That was the part that made Jared feel conflicted. It also made him wonder whether there was something more to Charlie Garrett than he’d been willing to let himself acknowledge. Beneath the movie star good looks and charm and gloss, he thought he saw something else, some shadow, perhaps, of the lonely little boy that he’d once been, growing up in a holler with a family who didn’t really understand him and didn’t seem to want to.
“Well, your boyfriend certainly put his foot in it, didn’t he?” Paul said, disrupting his troubled thoughts.
Of all the people to be in the bar tonight, why did it have to be him?
“Paul, do you mind?” he asked, turning to face his ex. “I know you don’t have any reason to do me any favors, but please, knock off the recording?”
Unsurprisingly, Paul didn’t even stop what he was doing as Jared was talking. He only stopped once the homophobe got to his feet and left the bar, and Jared had no doubt that he was sending this video to his own social media followers.
“You don’t have to be such an asshole all the time, you know,” he said, “even though I know it’s kind of your brand.”
Paul raised one immaculately-sculpted eyebrow, as if he found all of this immensely funny. Which he almost certainly did, because he was that kind of gay.
“It’s so like you to want to make everything about you,” he said in that lazy drawl that Jared had once found incredibly sexy but which was now excruciating. “First you drag this two-bit TV star here so everyone will look at you, and then you act like a whiny little girl whenever it all goes south.” He clicked his tongue. “It’s all so tediously predictable.”
“You know, Charlie’s not the only one who can throw a punch,” he grated out, even though they both knew it was an empty threat.
“Oh Jared, don’t ever change,” Paul said. “Enjoy your time with your new boyfriend, and I’ll enjoy the social media clout this will give me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even get an article out of it. That way at least one of us will end up being a success as a writer.”
Just this once Jared decided to take the high road.
“Just try to be less of an asshole,” he said and turned back to Charlie, who looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
How did this guy ever make it in an industry like Hollywood? Jared thought. He always seems so innocent.
“Charlie, we’ve got to get you out of here,” he said.
“That guy…he’s, uh, not going to press charges. He thinks I’ve already done enough damage without that.”
Jared snorted. “Yeah, I would say that’s a bit of an understatement.”
Somehow, they managed to get out of the Stonewall without causing any more difficulties or scenes, and even though the hotel was close enough to walk, he still decided to drive Charlie there.
Better safe than sorry, he thought wryly.
When they got to the hotel, Charlie turned to Jared.
“Do you…do you want to come up for a little bit?” he asked, voice quivering with vulnerability.
In for a penny, in for a pound, Jared thought, and nodded. “Sure, why not?”
They walked slowly through the lobby, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible.The young woman working at the front desk gave them both a knowing–and, unless Jared was mistaken, slightly disapproving look–as they made their way to the elevator.
“I think she thinks that I’m your trick,” Jared whispered.
“That’s not such a bad thing, is it?” Charlie asked with a very obvious wink.
Jared didn’t have anything smart to say, so he didn’t say anything.
The elevator ride up to Charlie’s floor was uneventful, and neither of them looked at each other.
I feel like I’m trapped in one of those awful movies that Charlie’s always starring in, Jared thought. It’s like a meet cute, except we’ve already met, and this isn’t cute.
“It almost feels like we’re in the middle of Trapped in Love Charlie said, seeming to read his mind. “Though I don’t suppose a sophisticated cinephile like you would have seen it.”
In fact, he had seen it, though he would never admit to Charlie that he’d deliberately sought it out. He did have to admit that Charlie…wasn’t bad, though the movie itself was so trite and saccharine that he had trouble sitting through it.
“I’ve…I’ve actually watched it. Once.”
Charlie turned to look at him then, his trademark smile more of a smirk now. “I thought you’d already decided that none of my movies were worth watching?”
Jared felt trapped, but there was nothing for it.
“You were good, by the way,” he said. “Better than you had a right to be given how…predictable…the rest of the movie ended up being.”
“It is a romantic comedy, you know that, right? One of the things that people like about the genre is that it follows a certain set of rules that everyone knows and adheres to. That way, viewers don’t have to contend with any unfortunate surprises.”
“And don’t you think that your viewers deserve something a little bit better than that?”
Jared regretted the words as soon as he’d said them, but Charlie just took them in stride, shrugging nonchalantly.
“You’re probably right, but in the TV business you have to go where the people are. And people want certain things from romance, and it’s my job to give it to them.”
Jared was going to say something to that, but at just that moment the elevator doors dinged and they stepped out into the hallway and walked toward his room. Of course, the organizers of the festival had put out a lot of money to make sure that the famous Charlie Garrett was put up in the finest room that the hotel had to offer, and Jared tried not to be jealous about that. After all, for all that he had lived in Huntington for years–and stayed at the hotel for a few helpings of afternoon delight–he’d certainly never had enough money, and never hooked up with anyone with enough money, to be able to come to this part of it.
The furnishings were simple but elegant, and with every step he took Jared began to feel more and more out of place.
Charlie, with that instinct he seemed to have for sensing when other people were uncomfortable, reached out and put an arm around Jared, who had to fight the urge to pull away.
“I know you’re probably a little nervous being in a hotel like this one, but trust me, you get used to the fancy stuff pretty quickly. At least, I did.”
“And what makes you think that I haven’t been in a fancy hotel like this one before?”
Charlie sighed but didn’t take his arm away, and Jared wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “Do you have to be so prickly about everything?”
“I think I do, when people make assumptions about me that they have no business making.”
“You got me there,” Charlie said. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have assumed that.” He paused. “But I’m also right, aren’t I?”
“You’re a real smartass, you know that?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You can take it however you want.”
By this point they’d reached Charlie’s room and come to a stop, neither of them quite ready to take the plunge.
Jared turned to Charlie, getting out from under his arm in the process, and raised an eyebrow. “So…are we going to stand here in the hallway all night, or are we going to go inside?”
“Come on in and be my guest,” Charlie said.
“Okay, Lumiere.”
“See, this is why we’re great geriatric millennial gays. We both understand a reference to the original Beauty and the Beast when we hear it.”
“There is only one true Beauty and the Beast, ” Jared said primly as he stepped into Charlie’s room. “And anyone who says otherwise is guilty of Disney heresy.”
“What’s the punishment for Disney heresy?” Charlie asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. “Are you forced to watch The Black Cauldron ?”
“You take that back,” Jared said. “ The Black Cauldron is a misunderstood masterpiece, and I won’t hear another word against it.”
“ The Black Cauldron might have been a masterpiece before Katzenberg got his hands on it and literally cut up the footage that would have made it one of the great animated films of the 1980s. Unfortunately, as it is, it’s just sort of a testament to how some people just can’t resist the urge to destroy good art.”
“You know, Charlie Garrett, I’m starting to think that you might have the makings of a film critic.”
“When you’ve acted in enough of them, you start to understand a bit of how the business side of it works,” he responded.
Despite himself, Jared found himself enjoying this playful little bit of banter. Strangely enough, Charlie didn’t make him feel stupid or uneducated or childish just because he still liked Disney movies.
Now that they were in his room, Charlie was doing everything he could to make Jared feel comfortable. Jared wasn’t sure where to sit, so he just sort of slumped in the nearest chair.
“I think we both know that this is going to be all over the news tomorrow,” Charlie said, pouring them both a glass of wine. “I…I really don’t know how I could let myself lose control like that.”
Jared quirked an eyebrow at him. “I must say that it’s not the type of behavior that I would have expected from Charlie Garrett. I don’t think that punching a homophobe, no matter how much he probably deserved it, is going to go over very well with middle America.”
Charlie sighed and, sitting his own glass on the nightstand, threw himself on the bed, his arms outstretched. His shirt rode up a bit, revealing his tight stomach and his nature trail. Jared couldn’t help but think of what it would be like to run his hands along it, following it down lower, lower, lower…
Keep your mind out of the gutter, Jared, he reprimanded himself.
“Don’t tell anyone I said this,” he said, “but I’m actually kind of impressed by what you did tonight. I don’t condone violence, and I know it’s going to cause all kinds of complications, but that guy did follow you all the way to the Stonewall, knowing that he was going to force you into a fight. And, well, he did also shove me, so part of me thinks that he had it coming. Y’know what I mean?”
He was flailing, and he knew it, but he really did want to make Charlie feel better about what had happened.
Charlie, for his part, seemed to appreciate it.
“Thank you for that, Jared,” he said, pushing himself up to his elbows and holding him in a disconcertingly direct gaze. “You know, you might seem like a bit of an asshole at first, but deep down it seems like you’re not so bad after all.”
“I…guess I’ll take that as a compliment.” He laughed a little. “And you have every right to call me an asshole. I wasn’t very nice to you when we first met, was I?”
“It was just a few hours ago, you know. Not like, a thousand years ago.”
“You really are a very exasperating person, do you know that?”
Charlie flashed a smile. “I get that a lot, particularly from Sheri.” At the mention of his publicist’s name a shadow passed across his face, and the air seemed to go out of the room. “She’s really not going to be happy when she finds out about tonight.”
Jared sighed. “I don’t think that Rebecca is going to be very happy with me either. She specifically told me that my job was to help keep you out of trouble, and that’s exactly what I didn’t do. And I can just imagine how the City Council is going to react to all of this. They weren’t very friendly to the idea of having a gay movie festival in the town to begin with, and this…well, it’s not going to be pretty.”
Charlie levered himself off of the bed and came over, a genuinely concerned look in his beautiful blue eyes. “I’m really sorry, Jared,” he said. “I hope you know that I didn’t mean to cause you any kind of trouble.”
For a split second Jared thought that Charlie was going to kiss him, and then the moment passed, and they were both just awkwardly looking at each other.
“It sure seems like Rebecca has a strong hold on your career,” Charlie said at last. “I know how that feels. Sheri has something similar to me. I know that she’s hard on me because she wants the best for me and my career, but sometimes I get the feeling she looks at me like someone she’s babysitting. It’s not the best feeling in the world. And then she recruited you to do the same thing.”
“I mean, sure, when looked at in a certain light it does seem like I was asked to be your babysitter,” Jared said, feeling like he was groping his way blindly forward. “But I’ve actually sort of enjoyed it.”
Now why did I say that?
Once again there was a moment of tension between them when everything–from a kiss to something else–was on the table, and then there came a knock at the door.
Damn it, Jared thought. Of course someone would have to show up just before the good stuff happened.
“Um…should I get it or should you?” he asked Charlie.
Charlie sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I guess I should get it. It’s almost certainly Sheri.”
Before Charlie could get to his feet, however, there came the familiar beep of a key card, and then Sheri was striding into the room. Her heels click-click-clicked ominously on the floor.
It was her face, though, which made his stomach turn to ice. If looks could kill, both he and Charlie would be dead.
“You,” she said, fixing him in her hard gaze, “out.” She jerked her head, and he seemed to be moving before he even realized that was what he was doing. He tried to give Charlie a reassuring look, but the actor’s eyes were fixed on Sheri.
This isn’t going to be good for either of us, he thought as he scuttled toward the door like a particularly awkward crab. I just hope that Charlie doesn’t let his temper get the better of him this time.
Judging from how terrified Charlie looked, however, he didn’t think that was very likely.
Jared opened the door as quickly as he could–managing to knock the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the floor in the process–and then he was outside, leaning against it. He briefly thought about eavesdropping, but immediately decided against it. It wouldn’t just be a violation of Charlie’s privacy; he also knew that it wasn’t going to be long before he was getting his own earful from Rebecca.
In fact, as soon as he looked down at his phone he could see that she’d sent him a text.
MEET ME IN THE HOTEL BAR. NOW.
Great. I love it when she uses all caps.
However, there was no getting out of what was to come and so, a few minutes later, he was sitting across from Rebecca who, despite the late hour, looked immaculately put-together. She shook her head and took a long sip of her martini.
“I swear, Jared, sometimes I just don’t know about you. I gave you one job, and you managed to not only not keep Charlie out of trouble, you let him get into a fistfight. What were you thinking?”
Jared shrugged, because that was basically the only thing he could think of to do.
That wasn’t going to be good enough for Rebecca, however.
“You’re going to have to do better than just the patented Jared shrug,” she said. “You really messed up, J, and now we’re all going to have to pitch in to dig Charlie out of the shit.”
He knew it was serious when she referred to him only as “J.” It was one of those things she liked to do when she was really upset with him.
“I don’t know what I was supposed to do,” he said defensively. “He was just defending me, you know. Seriously. The guy was asking for it, Rebecca. He’d been harassing Charlie all day, and then he came to the bar and was pulling the same shit. He even shoved me and…well, I guess that was just too much for Charlie.” He tried to hide how much pleasure he got out of the idea of Charlie defending him, but he didn’t think he was entirely successful.
She sighed and took an even longer sip. “If it’s the guy I’m thinking of, I’m not surprised that things ended up this way. He’s always making an ass of himself. I kind of suspect that Councilman Rhodes puts him up to it.”
“Are you really suggesting that Rhodes is some sort of secret manipulator? The man has the intelligence of a sack of potatoes.”
“Don’t underestimate him, Jared. That’s your problem,” she said, wagging the toothpick at him, “you always think you’re the smartest person in the room, and that makes you careless.”
“You got me there,” he said. “But in my defense, it’s not always easy to be the smartest person in the room.”
“I really don’t think you’re taking this with the seriousness it deserves,” she said. “Charlie’s career could be on the line here.”
She was acting as if he didn’t know that.
“What are we going to do then?”
Rebecca rolled her eyes.
“How is it that I always end up getting called in to get gays out of the scrapes that they get into? What I want you to do right now is go home and get some sleep. Leave the rest to me and Sheri.”
Jared didn’t like the sound of that, but he really had no options at the moment. So, he did as she said and went home.
I have a feeling this is all going to get much more complicated, he thought as he snuggled into bed, faintly wishing that Charlie was there. I just know it.