Chapter Forty-Four
Now
Brad rang at half past five in the morning. Tristan fumbled his mobile off the nightstand and pressed it to his ear without opening his eyes. Beside him, James made a sound of muffled protest and pulled the duvet over his head.
“It’s five-thirty in the morning, Brad.”
“It’s awards season, kid. Sleep is for people whose careers aren’t about to go stratospheric.” Brad’s voice had gone full manic. He was either coked out, or genuinely excited by the prospect of inbound money. “Are you sitting down?”
“I’m lying down in bed because it’s five-thirty in the—”
“BAFTA Television nominations came out twenty minutes ago. Better Half got seven noms. Seven, Tristan. Best Drama Series. Best Actor for Birrell. Writing. Directing. The whole spread.” Brad paused for what Tristan recognised as a deliberate beat, because Brad had been performing reveals to clients for twenty years and had the pacing down to a science. “And Best Supporting Actor for you.”
Tristan jerked upright so fast that the duvet pulled off James entirely, exposing a long stretch of his bare back and an expression of betrayed outrage that, on any other morning, would have made Tristan laugh.
“Say that again.”
“Best. Supporting. Actor. BAFTA Television Awards. You, Tristan Whitlock, formerly of the Disney Channel, are now a BAFTA-nominated actor. What a fucking glow-up from your Mickey-ear-wearing days…” Brad regrouped.
“Birrell sent a bottle of champagne to my office with a note that says ‘Thanks for lending him to us.’ I’m framing the note. The champagne I already drank.”
“Brad. Wait. How is that possible? We didn’t think it was going to happen!”
“You didn’t think it was going to happen, because you’re a child star and your brain is still wired to expect the call where they tell you you’ve aged out and they’re replacing you with a cuter twelve-year-old who hasn’t hit puberty yet.
The rest of the industry saw this coming from the screener cut.
” Brad’s tone shifted to actual warmth. “You earned this, kid. You put in the work. Ben is the best thing you’ve ever done, and BAFTA saw it. ”
James’s head emerged from behind his pillow. He blinked at Tristan in the half-dark, and his gaze moved over Tristan’s face.
Tristan mouthed BAFTA nomination at him, and James rolled over, propped himself up on one elbow, and broke into a wide grin.
“—block of press, and the trades are going to want interviews, and I need you to call Birrell and make sure you’re coordinated on messaging, because if the two of you give conflicting quotes about series two before the ceremony I will personally fly to London and remove both of your—”
“Brad, I have to go.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me, I have a seven-point media strategy that I need to walk you through before—”
Tristan hung up on him.
James was already reaching for him, one arm hooking around Tristan’s waist to drag him down onto the mattress. Tristan went willingly, landing half across James’s chest, and James caught his face in both hands and kissed him.
His mouth moved warm and certain against Tristan’s, and within a minute James had rolled him onto his back and was shoving his boxers down his thighs. James fucked him slowly, keeping his mouth on Tristan’s throat.
The sex kept Tristan occupied for twelve minutes. Then his brain came back online.
Tristan tore himself away from James, who had been pressing lazy, satisfied kisses along his collarbone while Tristan stared at the ceiling. He shifted in bed until he was straddling James’s lap.
“James.”
“Mm.”
“I’m going to have to go to the BAFTAs.”
“Mm.” James was gazing at him from under heavily lidded eyes, his slack expression a visible indicator of his body redistributing blood flow back from his cock to his higher functions. “You deserve it, Tris. I’m very proud of you.”
“James. You are the president of BAFTA.”
“Yes. It’s amazing how many positions of power are granted unto me, just because I’m King. It’s nepotism at its worst.”
“We’re both going to be at the same event.”
“Mmhm. That’s quite unavoidable considering you’re one of the stars of the runaway hit this awards season.”
“We’re going to be in public, together, with cameras all around us.”
James’s thumbs rubbed slow circles on Tristan’s thighs. “Tristan, take a breath.”
“We haven’t been photographed together since the petting zoo, James. Now I’m going to be sitting in the third row while you’re up on stage like—” He gestured at the entirety of James’s bare torso, propped against the headboard with the duvet shoved to one side.
“Well, I certainly won’t be naked. Imagine what Bishop Harland would have to say about that.”
“No, James. It’ll be worse. You’ll be in formal wear, and you know what that does to me. You’ll wear that navy velvet suit, and everyone will be able to tell.”
“That I’m gay? So what? I’ve already been outed. A suit that fantastic deserves a night out.”
Tristan glared down at him. “No, you stupid fucker. That I’m in love with you.”
He spoke before he could think too much about it. He certainly hadn’t planned on speaking with that much naked conviction while sitting bare-arsed on the King of the United Kingdom.
“Every time I look at you,” Tristan said, “it’s written all over my face.
I can feel it happening. My whole expression goes completely stupid.
Brad calls it my village-idiot look. My mouth does this thing where it—” He caught himself doing it and pointed at his own face.
“See? See? This! This is what I’m talking about! I can’t control it!”
James smirked. “I think most people just call that smiling, Tris…”
“This is a genuine crisis. I’m a trained actor, James.
I have spent my entire adult life learning to control my face, and now your stupidly gorgeous face has broken my actor face.
There are going to be four thousand cameras at this ceremony, and every single one of them is going to catch me gazing at you like a lobotomised golden retriever, and then we’ll be on the cover of every paper in the country the next morning. ”
Beneath Tristan, James’s stomach jumped once, hard, with the effort of not laughing.
Tristan leaned down and gripped both of James’s shoulders, the movement pressing their bare chests together. He shook him, gently but with feeling. “James. Listen to me. We need to have a plan for this appearance.”
James’s face was completely impassive.
“Oh, you absolute—” Tristan tightened his grip and shook him harder.
“I’m trying to make sure no one has any excuse to shit on you any more than they already do, James.
Because I hate it. I hate it when people rip into you.
I wish I could go full Barnaby on anyone that even looks at you wrong.
James!” Tristan snapped, pulling back to look him dead in the eye.
James broke. He doubled up beneath Tristan as he burst out laughing, his forehead pressing against Tristan’s collarbone.
“You see?” James managed, lifting his head just enough to meet Tristan’s glare with streaming eyes. “See how good I am at pretending I don’t care about you? You were spiralling for five solid minutes, and I gave you nothing. I can act too, Tristan.”
“I’m going to smother you with a pillow.”
James wiped his eyes with the heel of one hand, still grinning. “I’ll give you complete indifference at the BAFTAs. You could walk across the stage in nothing but a BAFTA mask and I wouldn’t so much as blink.”
Tristan looked down at James’s wet eyes and wrecked hair. He stretched out flat on James’s chest, chin propped on his folded hands, and looked up at him.
“I’m a BAFTA-nominated actor,” he said, trying the words out.
“You’re a BAFTA-nominated actor.” James’s hand came up to card through his hair.
“And I’m very, very proud of you. We’re going to arrive at that ceremony in separate cars, and sit in separate sections.
Then I’ll spend the entire evening pretending I’ve never had my cock in you, and I will not let a flicker of the love I feel for you cross my face.
You might as well just be gum on the bottom of my shoe. ”
“That’ll be the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for me.”
“I know.” James kissed the top of his head. “I need to do better.”
? ? ?
Tristan’s suite at The Langham had the aggressive neutrality of every luxury hotel suite he’d ever stayed in.
His suit hung on the wardrobe door in a garment bag with the Tom Ford label showing.
Brad had arranged the fitting, approved the final alterations, and had the finished product delivered to the hotel that morning along with a handwritten note on Langham stationery that read: DO NOT improvise. — B.
Brad was in the next room on a call that had been going on since Tristan arrived. The connecting door was open and Brad’s voice carried through it in a sustained, unbroken stream that Tristan had stopped trying to follow at the twenty-minute mark.
Tristan looked at himself in the mirror.
His fringe was choosing to behave today.
His skin had held up under the shoot schedule, which was a minor miracle given the hours and the catering-truck diet of jacket potatoes and questionable lasagne that fuelled the Better Half set.
He looked ready and not at all like he was spiralling.
James was across London getting ready in his own apartments, with his valet laying out his clothes and running through the evening’s programme card by card.
He’d arrive in the state car. Tristan would arrive by private hire.
Then they’d spend four hours pretending they’d never shared a bed, or a bath, or a Sunday morning arguing about waffle batter while the light came through the kitchen window at Windsor.
Tristan buttoned his shirt and reached for the cufflinks Brad had left in a velvet box on the dresser.
They’d planned it all out, that morning in bed when Tristan’s panic had been hot and immediate and all he could think about was protecting James from one more front-page disaster.
James had agreed, because James always agreed to the terms Tristan set for their visibility, since pushing Tristan towards a public version of their relationship was how he’d lost him the first time.
He wouldn’t win tonight, Brad’s unnerving confidence notwithstanding.
But if he did, by some deranged accident of the voting committee, he would walk to that podium and not be able to look at James.
He’d have to stand there, holding the mask, and deliver his thanks to a huge audience while the person who mattered most to him sat right in front of him, not allowed to share in it, because Tristan was too scared to claim him.
And if he lost, which was the statistically more likely outcome, he would have to sit in his seat and clap for the winner.
James would be close enough that Tristan could feel him there with him, and Tristan still wouldn’t be able to reach for him.
There would be no hand on the back of his neck.
No mouth against his temple, or a private whisper into his ear saying: you were brilliant, I love you, and I’ll still listen to your acceptance speech when we’re at home, and you’re on His Royal Hardness, so Tristan could laugh and the disappointment would drop away.
Tristan had drawn the line himself, and James would respect it. Now Tristan was standing alone in a hotel room as he longed to have James’s hands on his collar, fixing the knot of his tie for him.
Barnaby had put his name to a statement so nakedly loving that it had made Tristan cry in his car.
James’s closest friends had stood in the open and said this is who we are, this is who we love, and you can deal with it or fuck off, while Tristan, who woke up with his legs tangled with James’s most mornings, couldn’t even bring himself to be seen arriving in the same car as him.
Brad appeared in the connecting doorway, his mobile still pressed to his ear, and gave Tristan a rapid once-over.
He made a circular gesture, turn around, and Tristan turned.
Brad adjusted something at the back of his collar, gave him a thumbs-up, and retreated into his call without having said a word directly to him.
James would have turned him by the shoulders, run his eyes down the full length of him, and told him he looked devastating in a voice that made it clear the suit’s long-term prospects were poor.
Then James would have pulled him in by the waist, his hands would have wandered into Tristan’s pants, and Tristan would have had to pretend to mind.
Tristan picked up his mobile, angled it and shifted his pose until the light was right, and then snapped a photo that he sent off to James.
James’s reply came in nine seconds.
That suit is a crime against my concentration. Take it off immediately. That is a sovereign command.
Then take another picture for me.
Tristan was still grinning when he went to tell Brad he was ready to head to the Royal Festival Hall.