25. Holy shit
Holy shit
TWO MONTHS LATER…
“Hunter. This is a non-negotiable.” Margo’s stern face stared at me from my laptop. “This is what you’ve been waiting for. This is your moment. And they require you to be there.”
“Margo, it’s not a good time.”
“They’re holding it at TIFF, so it’s not exactly a huge inconvenience,” Margo argued back. “They’ve booked you a first-class ticket, but you could hop in a car and drive home in six hours if you had to.”
“I thought only indie flicks that needed distribution went to Film Festivals,” Hunter said, not willing to commit to going to the premiere of Platonic Planet but sick of repeating his refusal. He and Margo had been arguing about this for fifteen minutes already.
“Well, yes, mostly. This is actually TIFF adjacent, meaning it’s being held in Toronto during the filming fest weekend, because Eugenie has another film in the festival, but it’s not technically attached,” Margo explained.
“And there’ll be another premiere in Los Angeles, but I’m not even going to try and get you there for that one, so it has to be this one.
Hunter, it’s your biggest film yet and if you don’t look like you support it—”
“She just got out of the hospital after a complication. I can’t just abandon her.”
There was a knock on his closed bedroom door. “I’m in a meeting! Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just have to leave soon.” It was his dad.
Hunter turned back to Margo on his screen. “I just can’t. I’m sorry. Believe me, I would love to be there.”
“I can’t take no for an answer, Hunter. If I have to fly out there and stay with your mom for forty-eight hours so you can make this happen, I will,” Margo threatened, and Hunter honestly thought she meant it.
But he couldn’t leave his mom with his agent.
Or anyone. What if something happened to her while he was off playing movie star?
There was another knock. “Dad, I—”
The door opened, and his dad poked his head inside.
He looked tired because he was. They both were.
Hunter’s mom was six weeks post-op and in the throes of chemo treatments.
The surgery went well, but the chemo was hell.
She was on a break because she’d developed a hell of a fever and had been hospitalized for two days.
She got home just that morning. His dad was around all the time, checking on Hunter and visiting his mom in the hospital during her treatments.
He was amazing, but he looked as exhausted as Hunter felt.
“Hi. I’m Greg Law,” he said as he stepped inside Hunter’s room and stared at the screen. “You must be Margo. Nice to finally meet the woman who is making my son’s dreams come true.”
“Dad, this is a business meeting. You can’t—”
“I’m just guiding him. He’s making it happen. Talented kid you’ve got,” Margo replied with a friendly smile.
“He’ll be at the film premiere,” Greg announced. “Don’t worry.”
Margo sighed in relief as Hunter gawked angrily at his dad. “No. I won’t!”
Greg turned his hazel eyes on his son and frowned. “How about I tell your mom about this and see what she thinks you should do?”
Hunter glared. Of course, his mother would want him to go.
She didn’t even want him to stay for her diagnosis, let alone be here for the last six weeks.
But he wasn’t abandoning her. She picked him when he was a baby, and no one wanted him, and he would always pick her.
Greg glanced at Margo again on the screen. “He’ll be there.”
“Great. I’ll send him the flight info and the hotel booking. He’s staying at the Four Seasons.”
Greg’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows shot up. “Fancy! You really have made it, son.”
Hunter just kept glaring. Margo ignored him the same way Greg did. “Nice meeting you, Greg. I have to go now. Bye, Hunter.”
Once his screen went black, Hunter rose up from his desk chair and turned to face his dad. Before he could say a word, his dad put a hand on his shoulder and spoke. “Hunter, you have to go. You worked for this moment. I can stay the weekend with her. It’ll be fine. I promise.”
“You have your own family, and Giselle is probably already furious about the time you’re spending with us,” Hunter replied.
Greg smiled, but it wasn’t a happy one. “Giselle asked for a divorce about three weeks ago, so her opinion on this doesn’t matter. And Frank is off to college in the fall. He’s never home anyway, and he definitely doesn’t care if I am.”
Wow. Hunter blinked as he absorbed all that new, not-so-great information. “Dad, that’s… a lot.”
“Yeah. But it’s fine.” Greg shrugged. “Now back to the topic at hand. Let me help out with your mom while you go enjoy this moment. She’d want you to.”
“I…” Hunter exhaled in defeat. “Yeah. Okay. But I’ll be back in forty-eight hours.”
“And you should tell Margo you’ll go to the Los Angeles event too,” Greg said as he walked out of the room, leaving Hunter’s door open. “Because it’s your job and she wouldn’t want you to skip work when it’s so hard to find it in your field.”
He made it sound like getting acting digs was something you hunted down like easter eggs.
If only it were that easy. But his dad was right.
It was part of his job to promote the movies he worked on.
And he was proud of this film, even if it didn’t live up to the buzz it was getting.
He couldn’t imagine it would be a huge deal, but he hoped it would make enough of an impact on the industry that, when casting agents saw it in his demo reel, it would sway them a little.
If it didn’t, he may never have another big premiere, so he really should go to this.
“Okay, fine. Yeah. I’ll tell Margo I can do both.
But if she gets sick again or something else goes wrong, I’m canceling. ”
Greg nodded. “She won’t. It’ll be fine.”
Friday evening, Hunter held his breath as the final scene of Platonic Planet faded to black.
There was a beat—a single quick beat—of silence, and then the applause was deafening.
Mikayla, sitting beside him, grabbed his hand.
People all around them started standing up.
But not because they were leaving. They kept applauding. It was a standing ovation. Holy shit.
Eugenie leaned over from her seat next to Mikayla. She was smiling, and her eyes were gleaming. “Stand up! This is for you two!”
She waved her hand at them. Mikayla looked at him, her eyes reflecting the same amazement Hunter knew was on his own face. He squeezed her hand, and together they stood. The crowd roared. Holy shit. They liked it! They liked him!
The applause went on for so long that Hunter was uncomfortable. Makayla leaned into him, laughing. “This is insane!”
He nodded and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Holy shit.”
It was the only thought that ran through his head. Finally, it all died down, and people began to slowly filter out of the cinema. Eugenie stood up and grabbed them both in a hug. “Your lives will never be the same, and neither will mine. Thank you.”
They made their way to the after-party, and Hunter spent the entire night being praised by strangers, reporters, and everyone who was at the event.
By the time he made it back to his hotel room at three in the morning, he was exhausted, but way too amped up to sleep.
Hunter Facetimed Colby, who was back in Los Angeles, so it was only midnight there. He answered immediately.
Music blared around him, and he looked sweaty and tipsy. His hair was growing like wild. It was still a golden brown, but the ends were long enough now to try and curl. It was cute, Hunter thought and smiled. “Where are you?”
“Chateau Marmont,” Colby replied. His eyes darted to something. “Shit. Hold on.”
The phone went black, but he could still hear the music.
As the music became more distant, Hunter wrapped his head around the fact that Colby was in the exclusive hotel with a renowned lounge and restaurant that had no issue refusing entry to anyone who wasn’t someone.
Then Hunter heard a door click and footsteps echoing on tile, and then Colby’s face came into view.
Behind him was black wallpaper with glittering tropical images in vibrant colors.
“I snuck into one of the bathrooms. You aren’t supposed to use your phone in the restaurant.
Protects the privacy of the customers. Don’t want to be the douche that thinks he’s above the rules his first time here. ”
“You’re at Chateau Marmont? Do you realize how cool you have to be to get in there?” Hunter asked as he drank in Colby’s face. God, he missed him so fucking much.
“Yeah, well, I kinda think I only got in because I’m with Hannah and Burke,” Colby explained. “We wanna release a song together, and we’re convincing the label. Actually, we convinced them. They’re in.”
Hunter bit his tongue. It wasn’t his place to question this move, but internally he wondered why Colby was aligning himself with yet another artist instead of pushing his solo stuff. He was so good. He didn’t need anyone else. “Cool. That’s great!”
“It is. This song is really something, Hunter. I love it more than anything I’ve written before,” Colby explained, but then he quickly changed the subject. “How was the movie premiere?”
“It was… insane. We got a standing ovation. I’ve never had so many people give me compliments in my fucking life,” Hunter gushed. “I know that’s not a guarantee the average person is gonna watch it or like it, but it felt like a good omen. And it was so incredible.”
“Hold on…” Colby started typing on his phone, Hunter could tell. His eyes widened suddenly, which gave Hunter an even better look at the gray-blue color he’d been missing. “Hunter, there’s like a bunch of articles already calling you a breakout star!”
“Who?”
“Fucking everyone, Hunter!” Colby smiled. “It’s crazy.”
Shit. Hunter reached for his laptop and opened it, trying to type with one hand as he held his phone in the other. It took a minute, but he googled his own name and read the headlines.
Platonic Planet premieres in Toronto and Wow, We’ve Found Our New Superstar.
New Film, New Sexy Star: Hunter Law.
Hunter Law is the New Best Thing.
Newcomer Hunter Law Holds His Own in Star-Studded Cast
Holy shit.
“Is this real life?” Hunter gasped as he leaned back into the fluffy hotel pillows propped against the fancy headboard.
“It is! You’re doing it, Hunter,” Colby said, and his voice dropped an octave. “You did it.”
Their eyes locked through the screen. “You did too.”
“Seems that way,” Colby agreed. “But I don’t want to jinx it.”
Hunter smiled. Colby smiled. “I’m kind of freaking out.”
“Of course you are.” Colby laughed, and his dimple appeared, making Hunter’s heart flip in his chest.
Hunter laughed. “What if it doesn’t last? The hype? Or what if people change their minds and decide I suck? Or what if the hype lasts, but I never get any more good roles? What if I’m typecast? Or considered one-and-done?”
“Dude, take a deep breath and just enjoy the ride. This is huge,” Colby replied and licked his bottom lip absently, but it snagged Hunter’s attention like it was the most interesting thing on the planet. “This is what we dreamed of.”
Hunter nodded. “I might be coming home.”
“To… LA?”
Hunter nodded. “They’re doing another thing there, and I wasn’t going to go but my dad wants me to and… I mean, after this… it would be weird if I didn’t go, right?”
Colby’s smile softened in a way that made Hunter’s insides feel like a melting chocolate chip cookie. “If you think I’m going to say anything other than come home, you’d be wrong.”
There was banging. “Just a sec!” Colby called out and sighed. “I have to go. People never let me fuck around with you in bathrooms. Why is that?”
Hunter’s stomach swooped. “Because the universe likes to cock block us.”
Colby locked eyes with him again. He looked shocked, but then he smiled and shook his head. “Keep me posted on when you’ll be back.”
“Will do. Have a good rest of your night, rock star.”
“You too, movie star.”
Colby hung up.