3. Will
WILL
Iwalked several paces behind Ryan and tried to ignore the pang of jealousy in my chest. I used to strut through crowded parties like a prince, too.
Now people glared at me like an unattended package left on the subway.
My very existence seemed to inspire a see-something, say-something mentality in people.
You’d think, with all the concerned looks I was getting, I was luring Ryan Ashbury into a windowless van, not trailing after him at a respectful distance.
Ryan closed the door behind us, and the party noise dimmed to a low roar.
The hardwood floors in the studio gleamed in the bright lights, and my own reflection glared back at me from the wall of mirrors, asking, Why are you wearing that ridiculous shirt?
And why does Enrique have a dance studio in his apartment?
Ryan leaned an elbow against the wooden barre and lifted his gaze to meet mine. “There’s something I need to tell you, and I want you to hear it from me first. I got a call from my agent this morning, and—”
Before he could finish, Andy and Enrique burst into the studio as if pursued by wasps. Enrique slammed the door behind him and leaned against it. “Will, you’re not going to believe who is on his way up here right now to see you.”
“It’s Derek,” Andy said, spoiling the surprise. “He says Dad sent him.”
They continued talking—something about Derek’s manager, Tony, wanting to speak to me first—but I wasn’t listening. Derek is at the party? A cold sweat broke out all over me.
Derek Hall and I were two sides of the same coin, like Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. We hadn’t seen each other in a decade, but you couldn’t mention one name without the other.
I was seventeen when I was cast opposite Derek in the small indie film The Beautiful. He was the twenty-eight-year-old shirtless hunk on the cover of GQ, and I was the scrawny, awkward child of two famous movie stars.
“But if you really want to go through with it,” Enrique was saying when I tuned back in, “you’re more than welcome to talk to Tony in here. It will at least give you some privacy.”
Ugh, Tony Wallingford. On paper, he was Derek’s manager, but in reality, he was so much more: agent, publicist, gay father figure.
He’d been the first to call me out on my crush.
“Listen, William,” he’d said early in the shoot.
“You’re eighteen now, so I’m going to speak to you like an adult.
It’s no secret you’ve developed certain feelings for Derek, which is understandable.
You’re gay, and Derek is Derek. It’s actually for this very reason I wanted them to cast another straight actor in the role of Chase.
But here we are. Now, Derek would never say anything to you directly, but I know him better than anyone, and I can tell how uncomfortable you’re making him.
Your crush is creating a hostile work environment. ”
“So, what should we do?” Andy asked, placing his hands on my shoulders and shaking me back to the present.
“I . . . I . . .” I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t find the words. Derek was on his way up to see me.
I closed my eyes and was back on the set, about to kiss Derek for the first time.
“I’m not going to fuck you again,” Derek said, “not until you kiss me.”
“I told you, I don’t do that.”
“Good, Will,” our director said. “Now, take two steps back and feel for the doorknob behind you. Yes, like that. Now, Derek, close the distance in one big stride and cup Will’s face in your palms.”
Derek’s touch was gentle, warm, confident.
“Resist, Will. Look at the ground. Make Derek force your face up.”
Even though my body was liquid with desire, I set my jaw and kept my gaze fixed on the floor.
“Now, sink to your knees, Derek. But don’t look at his crotch.
This isn’t sexual. You just want your eyes to be in line with his.
Good, just like that. Now, slowly rise again, forcing Will to lift his head to maintain eye contact.
You’re moving him, not with force, but with the intensity of your stare.
Excellent. Now, Will, absentmindedly lick your lips.
Yes, just like that. Okay, now, Derek, let two beats pass.
One. Two. Then, before Will can change his mind, kiss him. ”
Derek’s lips smashed into mine, hot and wet, and it was better than anything I could’ve imagined: the prick of his stubble, the sour taste of his breath, the hulking mass of his body towering over me.
“No, Will, don’t melt like that. Make him work for it. Just stand there. Make him think he’s kissing a statue.”
I scrunched my eyes closed tighter, trying to banish the memory. When I opened them again, I was back in the brightly lit studio.
“Maybe I should call Dad and ask him what this is all about,” Andy said. “Maybe he thinks this will help, show that bygones are bygones and all that. I mean, hasn’t Dad been hinting at some big surprise for months now? Maybe this is it.”
I nodded my head in what I hoped passed for comprehension, but the past kept interrupting the present.
“I think we broke Will,” Enrique said. “Should I get him some whiskey?”
“What? Why?” Andy asked. “He’s not a frozen corpse on Mt. Everest.”
“I’ll get him some whiskey.” Enrique opened the door to flag down a caterer.
Yes, whiskey. That was what I needed. But no, it wasn’t safe. I’d been drinking whiskey the night I attacked Derek.
Everything would’ve been fine if Derek had won the Golden Globe, or if I’d been nominated in supporting, like I’d been campaigning for.
“Are you sure you don’t hate me? I really didn’t want to win. I wanted you to win,” I’d told Derek at the after-party, sipping the whiskey he’d procured for me, my fourth of the night.
“Of course I don’t hate you. How could anyone hate you? Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ve got some wine decanting in my room upstairs, and there’s something I want to ask you.”
I could remember little bits of the trip up to Derek’s room—the feel of his hand on the small of my back, the ding of the elevator reaching his floor—but once the door closed behind us, my alcohol-addled brain stopped recording.
My next conscious memory was waking up in my hotel room surrounded by police officers.
“Dad’s not answering.” Andy, who’d broken his own no-cellphone rule, put his phone back in his pocket.
I tried to pull myself out of my head and meet his gaze, but all the freckles made me dizzy.
“But it makes sense, doesn’t it? This way you can put the Derek stuff behind you and focus on the movie. ”
“Andy, can I talk to you for a sec?” Ryan dragged Andy out of the room and left me alone with Enrique and a head full of painful memories.
The police had handcuffed me seconds after I opened my eyes, saying I’d attacked Derek. They’d dragged me to the station through a swarm of press, and I’d spent one night in jail before being released.
There hadn’t been enough evidence to charge me.
The hotel security footage had gone mysteriously missing—no doubt my mother’s doing—and Derek had suffered a traumatic brain injury and couldn’t remember who’d attacked him, just that it couldn’t have been me because I’d already left his room.
Naturally, the media had had a field day, spinning tales of dual amnesia like a bad soap opera.
There was one reliable data point, though. An elderly couple across the hall had overheard Derek screaming at me, saying words I couldn’t fathom Derek ever saying. “Look at you. You’re just a pathetic fuckboy.”
My parents, not wanting to be seen with me, had sent me to rehab.
From there, on my small TV in my small, barren room, I’d watched the world tear me apart like a carcass on the savannah.
Then, on Oscar night, after watching Derek accept Best Actor and seeing the camera pan from the white scar slicing his eyebrow in two to my father standing and applauding, I’d broken down and called Miles.
“Can you come get me? I don’t want to be here anymore. ”
Hands landed on my shoulders, and Enrique’s dark brown eyes bored into me, pulling me back to reality. “Should I maybe go get Miles?”
I couldn’t speak. What would I say to Derek? What would he say to me?
“I’ll go get Miles.” Enrique left, but I wasn’t alone for long. The hot caterer from earlier came in with a bottle of bourbon and a tray of crystal tumblers.
Wait, I can’t see Derek. He has a restraining order against me.
“Are you okay?” the caterer asked, pouring three fingers of bourbon into a glass. “Your eyes are kinda doing this twitchy thing.”
I took the glass without thinking and downed the amber liquid in one gulp.
Andy and Dad were right. I had no prayer of a comeback without Derek’s approval. But why hadn’t Dad warned me?
“I found Miles,” Enrique said a few minutes later, and before I could blink, my face was pressed into my best friend’s chest.
“Derek’s here,” I mouthed into the hollow between Miles’s pecs.
“I heard. It’s going to be okay, though, I promise. He’s probably just here to congratulate you.”
I pulled free of Miles’s embrace and caught the caterer’s green eyes staring at me. They weren’t just green. They were kind, too. He smiled, and something in me—probably mirror neurons—made me smile back.
“Can I have another?” I asked, holding out my empty glass.
The caterer refilled my drink without judgment just as the door opened and Tony Wallingford strode into the room.