Chapter 22
Cal
Cal had difficulty sleeping when he got home from the beach. For one thing, he couldn’t shake the sensation of the waves buffeting his body, as they had all morning. Even as he laid still on his bed, he felt as though he was rising and falling.
But the other reason was that he couldn’t get Jesse out of his head.
After spending the day admiring the other man basking in the sunlight, looking around with wonder, and laughing at Henrietta’s antics, Jesse kept playing in his head like an unforgettable melody.
The way he and Jesse had opened up to each other, alone, on the private beach in twilight had been unlike anything he’d experienced in a very long time.
He had told the other man things he hadn’t told anybody: about his family in northern California, his parents and siblings in their modest but comfortable home by the Redwoods, and how he was too busy these days to see any of them.
He described how he had first figured out what his magic was and how, from a young age, that magic had come with responsibility—calming his younger siblings during temper tantrums, easing family squabbles, and keeping arguments from getting too heated on his high school football team.
He talked about his first few years in Hollywood, how nervous he’d been when he started out and how Edie had shown him the ropes. He talked about his acting classes when he’d signed with Powell Productions, as well as the elocution and deportment lessons.
“I haven’t always talked like this,” he explained. “This accent was hard-earned. And now it’s so drilled into me, I can’t remember how to talk without it.”
He admitted a secret that few knew: that his ears had been surgically pinned back early in his career. “The studio thought I would look better that way, and I’ve never been good at saying no.”
Jesse was quiet for a long moment after that admission. “I can see how it’s been so hard for you to be yourself,” he said at last. “With the studio deciding how you’d look, walk, and talk, it would be hard for anyone to keep those two selves separate.”
Cal was still ruminating on that.
And of course, he hadn’t been monologuing at his co-star.
Jesse had confided in him, too. There had been more discussion about his childhood and his life in Atlanta.
Cal found himself wishing, impractically, that he’d known Jesse then.
The young man could have used a friend in his corner years ago. As it was, he’d made do on his own.
It’d been the easiest thing in the world to slide their hands together as they walked. It felt so natural, so right.
Cal sighed heavily and turned on his stomach, bunching his pillow under his cheek. Cuddling close in the back of the Cadillac had felt uniquely right, too. And Cal had absolutely no idea what to do about that.
Now that he was away from the sunshine and the fireworks and the freedom of being away from Los Angeles, reality was closing in.
What would their dynamic be like back on set?
He had a hard time believing it would be as easy as it’d been in Santa Monica.
Would Jesse expect the same level of open affection? Would he be embarrassed by it?
The more Cal thought about it, the more he realized that he was falling in love with his co-star, and falling hard. Did Jesse want the same things he did? He had no desire to make the same mistakes he’d made with Edie. The prospect of failing Jesse like he had her made him feel ill.
If the studio got wise to the fact that they’d caught feelings for each other, there would be a publicity field day. And with that came all of the pressure to prove that they were a perfect couple, just like with Edie.
He turned on one side and then the other, struggling to get comfortable.
Everything with Jesse felt so easy, almost impossibly so.
He liked to imagine that falling in love and having a relationship would be just as easy as becoming friends and working together had been.
Was it too much to hope for? Past experience suggested it was.
But then he thought of how Jesse had squeezed his hand and how well Jesse fit nestled under his arm.
He thought of the way Jesse always bounced his calming magic back to him, how he’d admitted to liking Cal’s movies while still giving Cal the space to be himself.
He thought of how Jesse had cried on his shoulder and what it felt like to lift Jesse when they were dancing.
Jesse trusted him. Perhaps it was time to trust himself, too.