Chapter 12
twelve
. . .
The handful of days after the night Lee and Drew spent together were awkward at best. If it had been any other guy and any other relationship, Lee would have fallen all over himself to spend as much time with Drew as possible.
He would have completely embarrassed himself by texting and calling Drew more than he should have, and Drew would probably have wanted to take a step back.
At least, that’s how things had gone in the past.
It was probably best for both of them that Drew was insanely busy on set and Lee was trying to meet a self-imposed deadline for getting his next book finished. Their text conversations were a boon, though, and exactly what Lee needed.
“I need to know something for research purposes.”
He sent the text message in the middle of the day on Saturday knowing Drew would be on set despite it being the weekend.
He was surprised when Drew sent his reply almost at once.
“I am a well of knowledge.”
Lee grinned at his phone. He could hear Drew’s dry tone and see the glint of teasing intelligence in his eyes. His mouth twitched into a wry grin of his own and his heart sped up as he went for broke.
“I’m writing a character with a high-profile job. He’s pining for the other guy, but they haven’t been able to spend much time together. Do you think he would rub one out in the shower while thinking about him, and if so, would it be slow and sensual or quick and dirty?”
He hit send, amazed at his own audacity. He was sexting with Drew Oberlin in the middle of a cloudy Saturday.
Lee’s gut clenched when three dots appeared in reply.
“Slow and sensual, of course. With long strokes and special attention paid to the tip. While holding his balls.”
Lee laughed, even as his dick pressed against the front of his jeans. He and Drew definitely needed to spend some quality time together.
Except there was the little problem of the fact that Drew hadn’t really come right out and said he wanted to take their fake relationship into real territory.
And the much bigger problem of the fact that Jessica had returned to London.
“Thank you for your expert input.”
Lee sent his reply and would have set his phone down and gone back to work, certain Drew was probably busy as well. But three dots stopped him.
“I’m willing to explore giving you my input any time.”
Lee caught his breath. A major part of him still had a hard time believing any of this was happening. He couldn’t believe that he and Drew might actually mean something to each other.
It was as wonderful as it was surreal.
“We need to get together to discuss that and do some deeper research. Very deep research.”
He couldn’t believe he sent that reply as well, or that Drew responded with a kissy emoji. That was even headier than if he’d sent a string of eggplants and splashes.
All of it would have been great if it wasn’t for the inherent complications of their romance.
“I saw a rumor that Jessica Nightingale is back in London, visiting your boyfriend,” Diana said an hour or so later, when the two of them started a chat that was meant to encourage both of them to concentrate on writing while online with each other.
“Yep,” Lee replied with a sigh.
“And?” Diana prompted him.
“And I don’t completely know what’s going on right now with the two of them,” Lee admitted.
“Social media is whispering that the two of them might actually be together after all and that Drew dating you is just a front,” Diana said, one eyebrow arched in the chat window at the top corner of Lee’s screen.
Lee’s gut tightened, because that was the original point of the whole thing.
But now, everything had evolved, and the even bigger secret that he felt it was his duty to hide was Drew’s true sexuality.
He felt a much greater responsibility to let Drew come out for real in his own time, when he was ready, than he did for protecting a fake relationship.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said with a sigh. “Everything is really complicated right now.”
“Yeesh. That doesn’t sound good,” Diana said.
“All I know is that Drew and I get along well. Really well. I don’t want to be a complete fool by saying it, but yeah, I think we could really have something.”
“Boy, I wouldn’t want to be in your position,” Diana said with a humorless laugh. “This whole thing is going to get really weird, I can feel it.”
“It might already be really weird,” Lee admitted, wishing it wasn’t true.
Things got even weirder half an hour later, when Lee’s phone rang, showing an unknown American number. Figuring it was either Drew on a different phone or maybe even Jessica, he answered with a casual, “Hello.”
“Hello, Lee Cresswell?” an unfamiliar male voice greeted him.
“Yes, this is he,” Lee said, leaning back in his chair and glancing at Diana in their chat window.
Diana glanced up in interest as the man on the phone said, “This is Jerry Turnbridge from Turnbridge Literary Agency.”
Lee’s eyes popped wide. “Jerry Turnbridge?” he said aloud for Diana’s sake. Diana’s jaw dropped. “Hello. Wow. What a pleasure to talk to you.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Jerry said. He got right into things with, “I didn’t want to disturb you on the weekend, but I also didn’t want to wait to talk to you either.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. I’m sure you’re aware that there’s been an increase in interest for your books here in the publishing world in the last month or so.”
That was an understatement, and Lee was under no illusion about why.
Drew’s fans had caught on to his books and started buying them in droves.
He was suddenly all over the online bestseller lists, something which his bank account greatly appreciated.
There had been email inquiries from a ton of agents, too, but none as big a deal as Jerry Turnbridge, and none of them had called him.
“I have noticed,” Lee said, trying to play it cool, but completely geeking out on the inside. He cleared his throat and tried to imagine how Drew would have handled the conversation. “What can I do for you, Mr. Turnbridge?”
“Jerry, please,” the man said. “And I’d love to discuss what I could do for you. Are you considering offering any of your published works for acquisition by a major publishing house or are you writing anything that we might be able to shop around?”
Lee was stunned into silence for a moment.
Landing an agent like Jerry Turnbridge was a dream come true for any author.
It was what Dan had always said he wanted for him.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” he said honestly.
“I’ve been too busy writing lately and, um—” The last thing he wanted to do was drop Drew’s name by saying he’d been too busy hanging out with his celebrity boyfriend.
Fortunately, Jerry seemed to get the point. “I’ve noticed a lot of pictures of you online in the last few weeks,” he said with a genial laugh.
“They’re sort of unavoidable,” Lee admitted sheepishly.
On his screen, Diana gaped at him like she would have given anything for him to put his call on speaker. He definitely couldn’t do that.
“Listen,” Jerry went on. “I’d love to talk more formally about bringing you on with the Turnbridge Literary Agency team. I think we could come up with some exciting ideas and projects for you that could take your career to the next level.”
It was Lee’s turn to gape the same way Diana was. “You want to sign me to Turnbridge Literary Agency?” he asked aloud for Diana’s benefit.
All the way over on the other side of the ocean, Diana slapped a hand to her mouth, then flapped her hands in excitement.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Jerry went on. “Here are a few ideas I have for you.”
Lee spent the next fifteen minutes listening to one of the biggest agents in the literary world laying out a plan to both republish most of his backlist with incredible distribution deals and to secure him a high-profile publisher for his books going forward.
The picture painted was so amazing and vivid that by the time they ended the call, Lee’s head was spinning.
“So are you going to do it?” Diana asked, then immediately said, “You’d be crazy not to take a deal like that.”
“I don’t know,” Lee said, sitting back in his computer chair, stunned. “I mean, I should, right? But part of me feels like I should talk to Drew about this first, since it’s his clout that is actually getting me the deal.”
“Yeah, yeah, I can see how that might be important,” Diana played along, nodding sagely. She then stared right into her camera and said, “But you’re the one who wrote the damn books. And they’re amazing books! This is the break that all of us dream of.”
It was. He couldn’t argue with that. But something held him back from leaping headfirst into a major contract.
He liked what he did in the here and now, liked self-publishing, and now that he had the exposure that most authors only dreamed of, did he really want to turn his agency over to someone else?
The question was still nagging at him an hour later, when he got a call from Drew.
“You’re calling me in person?” he asked, teasing Drew a bit when he knew text conversations were the best way for the two of them to communicate when Drew was on set.
“Yeah, Jessica wants to know if you want to go out to dinner with us tonight,” Drew answered.
His voice was tense and borderline fake, which told Lee Jessica was likely nearby.
It also told him that whatever the situation was between the two of them at the moment, it wasn’t good and Drew was struggling with it.
“Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there,” Lee said, certain the protectiveness welling up in him was obvious in his voice.
“Is that Lee?” Jessica said in the background. Two seconds later, her voice was loud, like she’d grabbed the phone from Drew. “Hey, Lee. How’s it going?”
Lee was so taken aback by her overly friendly tone that he answered, “Fine, thanks,” as if the two of them had a perfectly normal relationship and he wasn’t thirsty for her boyfriend.