Chapter 7
seven
. . .
Four hours of sleep after a night out with alcohol involved was not nearly enough.
Drew woke to his alarm blaring and his head pounding.
He’d actually managed to climb into bed the right way around instead of just flopping on the duvet, like Jessica had, but that didn’t make him feel better as sleep was yanked away from him.
It took all of three seconds to decide he was stuck in the weirdest hangover he’d ever had. Yes, he had a headache, but it was manageable. More concerning was the tight knot in his gut that spread its tendrils through his entire body and the hyperawareness of his lips.
He’d kissed Lee. Right in the middle of that ballroom floor, with dozens of people around them, some of them with their cell phones out and pointed.
He’d grabbed the man around the waist and pressed their bodies together as he’d devoured Lee’s mouth like they’d been directed by a rogue intimacy coordinator with a kissing fetish.
It had felt so good.
More than buzzed from vodka cocktails good.
Or maybe he just remembered it that way because he felt so washed out now.
Jessica moaned on the bed next to him and rolled over, slapping the bed like she was searching for the cell phone to turn off the alarm. Drew jolted and squirmed over the realization that he’d been so caught up in memories of kissing Lee that he hadn’t even turned off his blaring alarm.
He did that immediately, then muscled himself up from being sprawled on his stomach to sit. He rubbed his face with one hand and blearily stared at his phone, hoping it would reassure him and explain away everything he was feeling.
“God, your alarm is loud,” Jessica groaned, sitting up and looking around the room, like she wasn’t sure where she was.
She focused on Drew, then scooted closer to him with a pitiful sound and leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. Drew sighed and slipped his arm around her waist to comfort her.
Or maybe he needed that comfort and reassurance for himself.
He’d kissed Lee, unprompted, and he hadn’t hated it.
He really hadn’t hated it.
“Shit!” Jessica jerked to sit straight, her eyes suddenly wide. “What time is it?”
Drew glanced at his phone again, embarrassed that he hadn’t even noticed the time, his thoughts were so scattered. “Just after six,” he told her.
“Shit, shit, shit! My flight is in four hours and I haven’t packed yet.”
Jessica jumped out of bed, jostling the whole thing enough to remind Drew that a mild hangover headache was still a headache.
As Jessica dashed into the en suite and turned on the shower, Drew dragged himself out of bed and headed to the kitchen in his underwear to see if there were any painkillers in the apartment.
He ran into Abby in the main room, dressed for travel, suitcases already stacked by the door, looking chipper and put together, a book in hand, of course.
“Morning, sunshine,” Abby greeted him with a knowing grin, putting down her book and getting up from the couch to approach him.
Drew wasn’t ready for his friend’s cheerfulness or teasing. “You’re not allowed to look at me with that shit-eating grin so early in the morning,” he said slogging into the kitchen area and opening drawers and cabinets until he found a box of Tylenol or paracetamol or whatever it was in the UK.
“I’m surprised you’re not feeling on top of the world after that display last night,” Abby said, following him into the kitchen and leaning against the counter. “Did you have fun?”
The question was facetious, and Drew answered it with a flat look as he found a glass to get water from the sink so he could take a pill.
“At least you accomplished what you set out to accomplish,” Abby went on, her expression slightly more sympathetic.
“Did I?” Drew asked after swallowing the pill and half a glass of water.
Abby pulled out her phone, tapped a few things, then showed it to him.
If anything was going to wake Drew up, it was the slew of pictures on social media.
They were all there, just like he knew they would be.
Pictures of him at Nikky’s concert with Lee right next to him.
Pictures of the two of them at the afterparty.
And yep, pictures of the two of them sucking face on the dance floor.
“They’re not bad pictures, really,” Abby said, sliding in to stand by Drew’s side, watching as he scrolled. “You two look cute.”
They did. Some of the pics were decent and not grainy or blurred. He was smiling and having a great time in all of them. Lee looked overwhelmed but happy, too. And the pics of the two of them kissing….
He stopped scrolling on one pic that had to have been taken from about five feet away from where they had been dancing.
He had his eyes closed and his hand on the side of Lee’s face as they sucked each other’s tonsils.
He didn’t remember being so grabby with Lee, but he did remember how that kiss made him feel.
Happy. Invigorated.
Horny.
He sucked in a breath and handed the phone back to Abby, who was watching him with uncanny perception. “What are all the comments saying?” he asked, pretending that was more important than the uncomfortable feelings ricocheting around his insides.
Abby took the phone and scrolled a bit more. “Comments are mixed, of course. You’ve got everything from the people who are saying ‘I knew it’ and they love it to the haters who think you’re cheating on Nikky, or Joe, or even Jessica.”
Drew’s stomach lurched hard. It wasn’t cheating on Jessica if the whole thing had been her idea in the first place.
He packed that guilty thought away as Abby went on with, “Then you have the people who think you were just drunk and goofing off. And, of course, the people who think the whole thing is AI.”
Drew huffed a humorless laugh and moved to the coffee maker to get that going. “So it’s pretty much what we thought it would be.”
“Pretty much,” Abby said.
Drew wrestled with the avalanche of feelings all the social media posts and pics had given him.
This was exactly what was supposed to happen after a night out with Lee.
Pics had been taken and posted, rumors were swirling, and all those accusations of queerbaiting would probably flare up for a few days before dying down entirely as everyone decided he was gay after all.
Or bi. Because that was a thing.
He needed coffee, and he needed it now.
“Do you want to call Avery later or should I?” Abby asked as Drew stood frozen solid, staring at the single-cup coffee machine as it growled away and dribbled mediocre coffee into a mug.
He was late pulling himself out of his swirling thoughts to ask, “What?”
“Avery. Your agent,” Abby reminded him with a smirk. “The one who will be fielding questions about your sexuality and dating life all day today. Probably.”
The sinking feeling in Drew’s gut got worse. This was going to be a bigger deal than he’d thought it would be. They really should have thought the whole thing through before jumping into a media firestorm.
But it didn’t have to be all that. What he did on his own time was no one else’s business but his own.
If he wanted to be friends with a hot, funny, interesting romance writer with cute glasses, then he was allowed to.
And if he wanted to dance and grind with said romance writer and kiss him like the secrets of the universe were down his throat—
“I’ll call Avery later,” he interrupted his thoughts, turning to Abby with a hungover smile. “I’m sure I’ll have a lot of downtime on set today, and you’ll be on a long-haul flight back to L.A.”
“That I will be,” Abby said, stepping over and kissing Drew’s cheek as he added milk and sugar to his coffee.
Drew’s eyebrows shot up. Abby only kissed him like that if something really big was going on.
“It’ll be okay,” she said when Drew turned to stare at her. “You can handle this. You’re a big, strong, gorgeous, famous celebrity.”
That made Drew laugh, which broke the tension of the moment and had Drew settling. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said, then took his first glorious sip of coffee.
Two minutes later, Jessica burst into the room, dragging her half-packed suitcase with her. She’d cleaned up, but was definitely hungover. Drew didn’t envy her flying all the way back to L.A. in her current state and helped her with the packing and coffee, being the best friend he could be.
“Friend” feeling like the operative word.
“It’ll all be worth it,” she said once Drew walked the two of them down to the apartment’s entrance, where a car was waiting to take them to Heathrow. “Booking this film was worth it. I have a real chance of making it now, thanks to you.”
She lifted onto her toes to kiss Drew goodbye. Like a good boyfriend, Drew tried to kiss her back, but Jessica turned away and dove into the back of the car before he could.
“You’ve got this,” Abby reminded him, giving him a long hug before she, too, climbed into the car. “Call me if you need anything at any time,” she said before shutting the door.
Drew waved as the car pulled away, then felt as lonely and abandoned as he’d ever felt as the car turned the corner, leaving him on his own.
He took a deep, shaky breath before heading back into the apartment.
A car from the studio would be there to pick him and some of the other actors who were housed there up in just a few minutes to take them to set.
It would be a relief to lose himself in filming for the day.
He’d never been so glad to have a job that forced him to work long hours on weekends in his life.
The distraction worked for a while, but the problem with even the busiest of filming days was that there was a lot of downtime.
And downtime opened up a heck of a lot of space for intrusive thoughts and feelings to rush in.
That was made even worse as he scrolled through social media, seeking out whatever he could about him and Lee.