Chapter 11
MAX
A WEEK LATER
“ N ow, Dylan. I need it harder,” I bit out.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t. Now hurry up, I can’t stand it anymore. Please.” My whimpering voice was full of neediness, but I didn’t care.
“All right. How does this feel?” he asked.
I shuddered as his deep drawl teased my ear and his hands touched me just where I needed them. Fuck, yes, right there. Right fucking there.
“Oh God, so good,” I whispered appreciatively as Dylan slowly massaged me.
Or my cramped foot, to be precise.
We’d traveled further up the coast this week and docked near Cannes.
Since the weather was hot and steamy, I’d gone for a swim this morning to cool off.
About five minutes in, my right foot seized up and I began to flounder—like a flounder—flapping my arms as I tried to tread water with one foot. News flash: it didn’t work.
Cue my Hollywood hero to the rescue.
Like a scene straight out of a movie, Dylan dove into the water and raced towards me.
He wrapped his arms around my chest and swam me over to the ship, yelling for Charlie, who ran down from the upper deck to help get us get back on board.
Dylan’s face was pure panic when we finally made it back, so to assure him I was fine, I put him to work massaging my foot.
Misdirection is always useful—both when writing mysteries and in real life.
“Harder, Dylan, the cramp hasn’t eased yet.”
My foot was twisted into a permanent pretzel.
Dylan dug his fingers in deeper, and the knot began to loosen.
A sense of bliss wash over me, not unlike the prelude to a good orgasm.
A loud moan escaped my lips despite my best efforts to remain unaffected.
Between Dylan’s warm, practiced touch and the rush of blood that finally eased my cramp, a thousand points of pleasure washed over me, spreading to the rest of my body.
“God, yes. More Dylan, more,” I groaned until I heard a raspy chuckle. I opened them to find Dylan smiling at me with that wicked dimple on display. I wanted to lean over and playfully nip it, then kiss it and claim it as mine. Obviously, the cramp had moved to my brain…
“I mean, that feels good,” I said quickly.
“I’m glad. You scared the crap outta me,” he replied as his heated palm squeezed my foot none too gently. “Don’t do it again.”
The firm command combined with his touch did something funny to my stomach, not to mention my dick.
“Yes, sir,” I replied cheekily, and he pulled my foot in tighter to his lap, the warmth of his body seeping into mine. I looked around but Charlie was at the other end of the ship, tying up lines, and he wasn’t paying us any attention.
Dylan shook his head as he continued to take care of my foot, rubbing slowly, and I let myself enjoy his soothing ministrations.
“This reminds me of high school football, all those gruelling practices and injuries. Hot tubs, ice baths, massage therapy. Shit, is it any wonder I chose acting over sports for a career?”
“Did you play in college?”
“Nah, I wasn’t good enough. I cheered on all the games though and got to know some of the players.
Had a big crush on one of them,” he whispered, his full lips pursed in his trademark pout.
“Thank God I excelled in drama class. Once I’d set my mind to something, I was fierce in my determination.
Stubborn as an ornery mule. I was gonna see my name up on billboards and in lights and damn if it didn’t come true. ”
Dylan’s tenacious spirit couldn’t be denied. Especially after everything he’d been through.
“You mentioned that college was also the time when you discovered more about your sexuality.”
Dylan nodded and moved his hand up to my ankle and around my calf, higher and higher, until he reached the sensitive spot under my knee.
I didn’t have a cramp there, but I didn’t say or do anything to stop him.
The pleasure was so intense, my eyes almost rolled back in my head.
I don’t know if Dylan realized what his hands were doing to me, but I was going to enjoy it while it lasted.
“Yeah. I mean, I’d noticed how attractive guys were in high school, but I kept that locked down tight.
California was a big change from Texas, but even still, I kept my desires on the down low.
I mean, actors are coming out more now, but twenty years ago it wasn’t that common.
Even though I wanted to date men just as much as women, I just didn’t allow myself to go there. ”
“And you had a secret relationship with another drama student?”
“I wouldn’t call it that. He and I fooled around a few times is all.
It wasn’t anything romantic. Like I told you, we were both ambitious, so we knew the deal.
After a few weeks of late-night make out sessions, I worried he’d started to develop feelings, so I told him I was done and began dating a girl I met at a frat party. After that, I only saw him in class.”
“Is this man working in Hollywood now?”
Dylan stopped massaging my leg and gave a quick nod. “He’s a working actor and that’s all I’m gonna say. I’d prefer to keep him out of the book. I don’t want anyone to start looking into my classmates and trying to make connections that aren’t there.”
“Dylan, as soon as you tell the world you’re bisexual, the media will start digging. Not to say that they’ll find who it is exactly, but assumptions will be made.”
He let go of my foot and placed it gently on the deck. I felt the loss of his touch without question.
“I guess I didn’t think that through.”
“We can state that you met this person at a school event rather than in class. That way it leads them off the trail, or I can leave it out entirely,” I replied and placed a comforting hand on his knee.
He jolted in response. When I realized what I’d done, I pulled my hand back, but Dylan placed his over mine.
Now it was my turn to jump. The shock of pleasure had me wanting more.
“Feels like I’m lying again, Max.”
“You’re not. You’re protecting this person’s privacy. I don’t see any issue with that.”
He nodded. “I think I should be vague and just say I had feelings for men that I couldn’t explore at the time. It’s safer that way.”
“We can certainly do that.”
I didn’t want to push the issue. This was Dylan’s book, so he controlled the narrative.
I reluctantly pulled my hand away from his and stood up. Taking a tentative step, I walked around the deck. “What happened after you graduated? Did you get an acting role right away?”
Dylan laughed and shook his head. “No. When I moved to L.A., I worked as a waiter for the breakfast and lunch crowd and went to auditions every afternoon. After a year, I got a spot in a commercial. A year after that, I was offered a TV show appearance and that led to an audition for a movie role. Three years after I moved to L.A., at 24, I hit the big screen. I’d reached my dream.
Or so I thought.” He paused and looked at me. “What were you doing at 24?”
“I was in graduate school, working on my Ph.D. Dante and I got engaged. Like you, it was a year full of promise and hope.”
Looking back, I was so eager to do what Dante wanted, I would have done anything he’d asked. I wasn’t sure marriage was the right answer for us since we were both young, but he wanted it and I wanted him.
“Sounds nice. Do you miss married life?” Dylan asked, then his face fell. “Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“You spill your guts and I do the same, remember?” I paused and smiled at him. “There are things about married life that I miss. Long talks late at night. Someone to hug when it feels like everything is falling apart. The comfort of waking up in strong arms.”
I missed those intimacies, but the strain of living in a broken relationship was far more consuming. I was pretty sure most ended up the way my marriage did. The pragmatic side of me didn’t believe in happily ever after. I wrote mystery novels after all, not romance.
“You like being in a relationship?” Dylan asked.
“I liked parts of it, but in my experience the bad outweighed the good. Dante was the only long-term relationship I’ve ever had. And after that, well, let’s just say I’m fine on my own from now on.”
For the most part, I was. Would I want to let someone else near my heart only to have them tear it apart a second time? I didn’t know if I’d ever be that brave again.
Dylan stood with his hands on the railing, peering out at the sea. His t-shirt and shorts were dry now with the morning sun burning brightly on us.
“I liked having someone special, but it never worked out for me either. I met my first wife, Erin, at a film premiere when I was twenty-seven. She was an up-and-coming actress and we had mutual friends. She was outgoing, fun and always made the socializing aspect of Hollywood life easier for me. We eloped in Vegas six months after we met, but it was a big mistake. Once we started living together, I got to see the real her. Turns out all she wanted to do was party. She’d come in and out at all hours.
She’d go missing for days at a time with no word.
I came home one day, just shy of a year after we’d been married, to find her sniffing coke off some guy’s stomach while another guy was fucking her. ”
“Oh fuck,” I blurted out.
“Yeah. Between the drugs and her cheating, I ended up kicking her out. She was very angry with me, and the divorce got messy. She argued that I was to blame, said I didn’t pay her enough attention, and I was one to talk with my drinking.
On that last point, she wasn’t wrong. But still, Erin didn’t waste any time divulging our personal crap to the tabloids.
Unfortunately, most of what she said was outright lies.
You can still find the articles if you need them for reference, but don’t believe everything you read. ”
I made a mental note to do that, even though it felt like I was violating his privacy. What was it about Dylan that drew out all my protective instincts? I glanced at his profile as he continued to stare out at the water, the wind ruffling his thick hair and blowing it into his eyes.
“After my first divorce, I hooked up here and there. I always had a woman on speed dial to attend events and stuff, since I was never comfortable on my own. Not until I got enough booze in me,” he admitted.
“Is that when your issue with alcohol worsened? After the divorce?”
“When the press started hounding me, yeah. For a long time, I was what you’d call a functional alcoholic.
I’d drink every day, but I’d still show up to work.
I did my job, paid my bills. But the divorce details went public at the same time Long Road Home released, and the paparazzi tracked my every move.
The pressure of being hunted all the time got to me.
I needed a quick drink in the morning to steady my nerves before I left the house, where reporters were waiting.
Then a couple of drinks at lunch to relax before the next scene.
And a drink or two as soon as I’d get home to wind down, and on and on.
The more anxious I got, the more I drank.
The more I drank, the bigger the hangover, the greater the anxiety. Round and round we go.”
“When did you realize how bad your addiction was?” I asked gently.
“Not for a long time. Like I told you, I wasn’t a mean drunk, so who was I hurting, right?
Until I started showing up on set slurring my words, or worse, passing out.
Or I missed showing up at all.” Dylan’s voice cracked, and his head fell forward.
He gripped the railing so hard I thought he might snap it in two.
I placed a hand on his back between his shoulder blades and felt the heated muscle jump under my fingertips.
“We can take a break,” I offered, but Dylan shook his head.
“I started blacking out,” he continued. “There were days I couldn’t remember where I’d been or who I’d talked to.
Some mornings I’d wake up in a shitty motel with no idea how I got there.
But I still thought I had everything under control, you know?
Until Warren received complaints about my on-set behavior.
I was twenty-nine when I entered rehab for the first time, but getting sober was more about placating Warren than healing myself.
Even though my personal life was also a wreck.
The desires I had for men kept cropping up, even though I’d never let myself act on them.
I tried drinking my feelings away, but that made things worse. ”
Dylan stopped and turned to face me, and my knees all but gave out when I saw the devastation in his gaze.
“I got out of rehab ten months later, was sober for almost a year, then relapsed. Met my second wife, Bianca, also an actress, at my next stint in rehab when I was thirty-two. We were opposites in terms of temperament, feeding off one another and so did our addictions—me to alcohol, her to prescription pills. Soon we were both caught up in the cycle again. Then, a year later, she met someone else, got sober, and divorced me. Oddly enough, I still had enough lucid moments to audition and get new gigs here and there.” He paused and ran a hand through his hair.
“I made my last film when I was thirty-five. After taping finished, I went on a bender for two days straight. I was found by a hotel maid in a pool of my own vomit and blood and rushed to the hospital. When I finally came to, the doctor told me I had suffered acute alcohol poisoning. I had fatty liver, and if I didn’t quit, it was likely my body would quit on me.
I’ve never been so sick in my entire life and that’s when it finally clicked.
I entered rehab again and I’ve been sober ever since. ”
I stepped closer to Dylan, but he took a step back, turning away from me. “That enough material to keep you writing for a while, Doc?” he said over his shoulder as he walked away. “I need to make a phone call.”
I had enough material to write the next several chapters, but work was the last thing on my mind.
Before I had a chance to reply, Dylan disappeared into the lounge, closing the door behind him.
Not with a bang this time, but without making any sound at all.
Something urged me to go after him even though my professional side told me to leave well enough alone.
For the first time in years, my emotions got the better of me.
And this time, I let them.