Chapter 19
nineteen
. . .
In the nine months since Cooked had exploded, rocketing Drew to fame, there had only been a tiny handful of times where he’d wished nobody had watched the show and that his life had never changed.
The days after Lee had left his apartment—who was he kidding, he’d thrown Lee out—brought some of the worst regret he’d ever had.
“Um, hey, Drew,” Carla, one of the PAs on the set of Sleuth approached him as he left his dressing room.
They’d been doing night shoots for what felt like forever, and now he had a rare day where he was done before noon.
He’d changed out of his costume, scrubbed make-up off his face, and dressed in street clothes, prepared to leave so he could hole up in his apartment, probably sleeping and wishing he’d never been born.
“Hi,” Drew said, stopping to smile at her and to be as gracious and personable as he could be, whether he felt like it or not.
Carla clearly appreciated his efforts, though she looked strained as she walked all the way over to him. She chewed her lip for a second before saying, “I just want to make you aware that there’s a bit of a crowd right outside the studio gates, and they’ve been asking about you.”
It took everything Drew had not to grimace or roll his eyes or throw a fit.
Every day. His life had been like this every day since Jessica had made her big revelation.
The press wouldn’t leave him alone. Social media was a minefield that Abby had given him strict orders not to look at.
Avery was fielding calls all over the place from people asking for statements, and reassuring production companies and sponsors they’d started working out deals with who were trying to backtrack on promises, or at least asking questions.
Whatever Jessica had intended to happen with her revenge posts, she stood a very real chance of damaging his career.
“Thanks, Carla,” Drew sighed, forging ahead anyhow.
“The studio has several quieter entrances, if you’d like to leave that way,” Carla went on, following him. “I know it’s not really my job, but I could find your driver and ask him to pick you up by one of the service exits.”
He debated how much of a cop out it would be for him to sneak away from the studio instead of walking boldly out the front gates. Sneaking out implied he had something to be ashamed of, and he didn’t feel that way at all.
He had things to be angry about, reasons to feel betrayal, and enough exhaustion over the way the world saw him, good and bad, that he could have turned into one of those celebrities who trashed their hotel rooms, but no, he didn’t have anything to be ashamed about.
“No, that’s fine,” he said, walking on and pulling his phone out of his back pocket. “But thanks for warning me. I appreciate it.”
Carla smiled sadly. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re faking it with Lee Cresswell. I’ve seen the two of you together myself, and that’s true love.”
Drew tried to smile, but the L word only closed his throat up and made him feel terrible.
Love. It was the last thing he’d thought he’d find in London.
It was something he’d never considered important.
Sure, he loved a lot of people. He loved his family, his friends.
He loved Nikky and Abby, and he even loved Jessica, despite the fact that he was too hurt by her actions to want to even think about her at the moment.
And he loved Lee. He couldn’t help it. Meeting Lee was like winning a prize he hadn’t known he was in the running for.
He’d discovered things about himself with Lee that he never would have dreamed were there, and he valued that more than he could say.
Lee himself was a revelation. They could talk for hours, kiss for hours, too. And more.
The greatest fear Drew faced wasn’t whether his star would fall hard. It wasn’t that the job offers would dry up and people would get tired of him. He would always find a way to practice his craft and to be creative, even if he ended up teaching theater classes in his own hometown.
But he didn’t know what he would do if he lost Lee for good.
Even if he’d been the one who had asked Lee to go.
“Early dismissal,” Ali greeted him with a kind smile when Drew slumped into the back of the car. “Lucky you.”
“It’s been a brutal week,” Drew sighed, rubbing his face with both hands once he was settled.
“It definitely has,” Ali agreed. “I’ll get you home safely so you can sleep.”
Drew was so grateful he felt teary, which was an indicator of just how bad things were.
Had he made a mistake asking Lee for space? Lee wasn’t the one to blame for the shitstorm he was in now. That blame landed squarely on Jessica’s shoulders. But the idea that Lee could stab him in the back by signing a deal to write about him was gross.
And it was just a rumor. A rumor he was letting get in the way of maybe the best thing that had happened to him in a long time.
God only knew how rumors had affected his career and the course of his life.
His phone buzzed in his hand. He’d been staring at its blank screen since getting into the car, seeing nothing. A jolt of relief hit him when Abby’s name popped up along with a text.
“Is today a better day?”
Texting wasn’t going to be enough. Drew dialed Abby, despite the fact that it was the middle of the night where she was.
“What are you doing up?” he asked as soon as Abby answered.
“I’m pulling an all-nighter working on damage control,” she said.
Drew felt sick. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to deal with all this.”
“I’m your manager. Jessica’s, too, for my sins,” Abby answered. “But more importantly, I’m your best friend since forever.”
“You are,” Drew agreed with a tired smile.
“And I’ve got news for you,” Abby went on.
Drew perked up. “News?”
“I had a long talk with Jessica yesterday.”
Those words made Drew’s stomach flip. A wealth of emotions hit him all at once, causing him to go numb. “Did you?” he asked, jaw clenched.
“She’s sorry.”
“Great. She’s sorry.”
“No, Drew, I mean it.” Abby sounded serious. “She’s genuinely sorry. She acted impulsively, and without telling me, I might add. But she didn’t expect things to get as bad for you as they’ve gotten.”
“I want to say that’s nice, but from where I’m sitting, it kind of feels like too little too late,” Drew said, exhaustion pressing down on him.
“I agree,” Abby said. “But it’s a start. You know she’s not a bad person.”
Drew wasn’t sure he knew that anymore, but he said, “I know,” anyhow.
There was a slight pause before Abby said, “How are things with you and Lee?”
Drew had told Abby everything, of course. He’d been telling Abby everything for so long that it felt like a betrayal not to be clear with her from the start.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly, honesty making him feel bad. “He keeps texting to make sure I’m okay. I don’t know how to tell him I’m not, that I miss him, that I just want to be with him.”
Even as he said that, his phone beeped, indicating he had an incoming call. He looked at it briefly, his heart dropping to his stomach when he saw Lee was calling.
He couldn’t answer. Not with Abby on the line. It was a choice between a comfort he knew would make him feel better and an unknown that might send him spiraling even more.
He let the call go to voicemail.
“You love him, don’t you,” Abby said, nothing but sympathy in her voice.
“Yeah,” Drew said on a long exhale. “I think I do. And I have no idea what to do about it. How am I supposed to maintain a healthy relationship when he’s in London and I’m running all over the place filming?”
“If you’re lucky, with deliberateness and planning,” Abby said with just a hint of teasing.
The comment made Drew smile faintly. “I don’t know how to be in love with a man,” he confessed quietly.
“Is there a different way of being in love?” Abby asked. “I thought it was just a matter of opening your heart and doing the hard work to be together.”
“Sure, simple,” Drew huffed, his smile growing. It dropped again when he said, “What if I can’t get over the whole book deal thing?”
“Do you know for sure that he’s writing a book about you? That doesn’t sound like Lee at all.”
“I don’t think it does either, but how well do I really know Lee anyhow?”
“You tell me,” Abby said. “Or maybe tell him. And while you’re at it, tell him you love him and see how your feelings go.”
“Way easier said than done.”
“You won’t know that until you try,”
Drew sighed. Abby was probably right.
His phone beeped again, indicating Lee had left him a voice message. Drew’s gut clenched again. It was a long message.
“I’ve got to go, Abs,” he said. “But I love you and appreciate you more than you can ever know.”
“Right back atcha. And I’ll keep working over here to make things better.”
“No,” Drew told her. “Go to bed. Work on it in the morning.”
They said their goodbyes, but after hanging up, Drew waited to listen to Lee’s voicemail. He didn’t want to fall apart in the back of a car if whatever Lee had taken so long to say was bad, and he didn’t want to have a whole other kind of emotional meltdown if the things he said were good.
In the end, he waited not only until he was home, but until he’d showered and changed into something more comfortable, then made himself lunch.
Not that he felt much like eating, but he’d picked up the cliché British tea-drinking habit in the last several weeks, and he had to admit a good cuppa made him feel better.
Only then did he listen to Lee’s message, and he was glad he was sitting down with tea when he did.
“I miss you. I just want to be with you. I worry about you all the time.”
Drew’s throat closed up at those words, at the heavy emotion in Lee’s voice as he spoke.
He nearly choked when Lee said he’d cut ties with his agent and that he wasn’t going to write the book after all.
Drew knew enough about the way the creative world worked to know that could be huge, and not in the good way.
Lee had made a sacrifice for him without knowing if things were okay between them or if they ever would be again.