28. James #2
Will’s shoulders relaxed, even as his eyes rolled. He popped the orange slice in his mouth without cleaning it first, which I took as a win. “Okay, thanks.”
We were ten minutes late to dinner because Theo refused to leave the house until Miles gave him the thumbs-up on his outfit. After all, what if Ryan popped downstairs for a nightcap? Robert was already there waiting for us, and it wasn’t until he smiled that I saw the family resemblance.
Robert Chapman was delicate and aquiline, impeccably groomed and very distinguished.
Will was none of these things. He was trim like his father, but as solid as stone, and I wasn’t sure it was possible to tame his thick black hair.
And yet, they both had smiles that made you second-guess every assumption you’d ever made about them.
On impulse, I pulled Will’s chair out for him, and he rolled his eyes so spectacularly that I feared they would get stuck in his head.
“Ryan tells me you’re quite the songwriter,” Robert said to Theo after the waiter left with our dinner orders.
Theo blushed as he helped himself to more bread. “I don’t know about that.”
“How is the movie coming along?” I asked, setting my hand on Will’s and lacing our fingers together. Even the back of his hand was sweaty. “Is Will, here, behaving himself?”
Robert smiled at his son. “Oh, yes. I think William has surprised everyone, even himself. It’s one thing to be eighteen and innocent and play eighteen and innocent. It’s another thing to play such a sober, masculine part that’s far more internal than external.”
Will yanked his hand away and reached for his wine glass.
What kind of backhanded compliment was that?
Was Robert really suggesting Will hadn’t been acting in The Beautiful, that he’d merely been playing a version of himself?
Ridiculous. Will was nothing like Chase.
Chase was fragile, an open wound, all crocodile tears and sensuality.
Will, on the other hand, was stoic and solid.
His heart was anywhere but on his sleeve.
A couple of nights ago, when Will was off with his father, I decided to watch The Beautiful all the way through.
Normally, depressing arthouse movies weren’t my thing, but as Will’s fake boyfriend, I figured I should probably watch his movie in case it came up in conversation.
And maybe, if I was being honest, I’d missed having him around, and this was the next best thing.
Two hours after hitting play, my stomach was in knots and my eyes burned with the threat of tears. No wonder Will had won the Golden Globe over Derek. He was astonishing. There wasn’t a false note in his heartbreaking performance.
“I suppose they don’t let gay guys play straight roles very often,” I said, my skin prickling with annoyance.
Like me, Will wasn’t particularly feminine.
Even if he was, the guy was an empty vessel.
Watching Will transform into Travis had been one of the creepiest, most amazing things I’d ever seen.
Robert continued swirling his wine, which he wielded like a prop, never once taking a sip. “They should, but it’s rare.”
The meal was phenomenal, and Robert got a kick out of discussing the subtlety of flavors with Theo. I was pretty sure they were just making shit up like wine snobs, but whatever.
Robert had played a murderous French chef once and knew all about preparing fine cuisine.
At the end of the meal, he insisted Theo go up to his suite and bring down the very knife he’d used in the film.
Apparently, he took a souvenir from every project.
The fact that he brought them with him on location was odd, but everything about Robert Chapman was odd.
He was impossibly thin, and even though he was handsome, it was hard to imagine him with the buxom bombshell, Donna Wells.
She was powerful and domineering while he was delicate and soft-spoken.
You had to lean in to hear what he was saying, which was probably the point.
He commanded your full attention through subtle manipulation.
Robert pulled a key from his pocket and handed it to his son. “William can show you where to find it. You know where I keep my souvenirs, right?”
“Now?” Will asked.
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Jesus Christ, fine.” Will was obviously not excited to go on a vanity errand for his father, but he went anyway, leaving me alone with the acting legend.
The second they were out of the dining room, everything about Robert Chapman changed. It was like someone swapped out the soundtrack. He steepled his long fingers and stared at me with such coldness that I felt my skin tighten. “Tell me, when did you stop going by Jimmy and start going by James?”
Shit. I met his stare as panic sizzled in my veins. I was going to get fired, wasn’t I? I’d probably lose my job at the agency, too.
“We don’t have much time before they come back,” Robert said, letting his steepled fingers knit together.
“So let me cut to the chase. I know who you are. I know you snuck Esther Kim into my son’s bachelor party.
I know you worked as a paparazzo yourself once upon a time, among other things.
And I know to what lengths you’re willing to go to see your late brother’s work succeed.
” He nodded toward Will’s empty chair when he said “lengths.”
I didn’t know what to say, but I had to say something. “I—”
“Don’t interrupt. I’m not finished. The reason you weren’t invited to participate in the filming is that I have cancer.
I’m dying. This is my final movie, and I don’t have long.
I probably won’t even be around to see the final cut.
” His face sobered, the mask of anger replaced by one of fear.
He was dying? “We wanted to keep my illness under wraps for as long as possible, at least until after the wedding.”
“Does Will know?”
Robert looked momentarily taken aback, as if he hadn’t expected me to ask that question. But he recovered quickly. “He does, but I’m not planning to tell Andy until after the wedding.”
“I’m so sor—”
“Here’s what I propose.” Robert’s eyes darted to check the doorway before settling back on me, his expression one of angry efficiency. “I’ll keep my mouth shut and allow you to join us on the set, and in exchange, you’ll do me a favor.”
There was a reason I’d given up my career as a private investigator.
Sure, it paid more than being a paparazzo, but not nearly as much as stripping.
I’d had plenty of jobs over the years—waiter, farm hand, plumber’s assistant—and despised them all.
I briefly considered becoming a cop or a firefighter at one point, but didn’t want to give up smoking weed, so I followed my best friend, Esther, into the paparazzi business.
The money was decent—well, sometimes—but long dry spells left me subsisting on rice and beans and brief stints as a stripper.
So, I tried my hand at PI work, figuring it was basically the same skill set as being a paparazzo without the social stigma.
And I wasn’t entirely wrong. Instead of everyone dismissing me as an immoral slimeball, I was regarded as a vigilante badass. But it wasn’t worth the ulcers.
So, I started stripping full-time. I worked a few Magic Mike–type shows, then landed a gig at a celebrity bachelorette party.
That’s where I met Aiden, who’d successfully parlayed his stripping gig into a job with a domestic staffing agency.
Knowing I couldn’t strip forever, I followed in his footsteps.
Now, here I was again, my hands sweating in a pair of rubber gloves, my stomach churning with acid.
I slipped out of Tony Wallingford’s room at the inn and down the long hallway to the stairs. I’d installed two monitoring devices, a voice-activated pen recorder and a USB charger with a hidden camera.
Robert wouldn’t tell me what he was after, but he’d promised to fill me in should I unearth something incriminating against Derek Hall’s manager.
Spying on Tony Wallingford wasn’t the only string attached to Robert Chapman’s little deal, which felt more like blackmail than a mutually beneficial arrangement. He also wanted me to break up with Will the moment filming wrapped.
“I know what people think of my son,” Robert had said. “That he deserves every bit of bad luck that comes his way just because of one drunken mistake. But I will not allow you to break his heart just to satisfy your own curiosity.”
I could’ve told Robert the truth, that breaking up at the end of the summer had been the plan all along, that I hadn’t seduced Will just to get onto the movie set, but I didn’t want him to ask for something else, and I didn’t want to embarrass Will in front of his father. So I kept my mouth shut and agreed.
I tried to tell Robert I was a shitty PI, hoping he’d hire a professional instead, but he was undaunted.
“No, I need someone I can trust,” he said, “someone who can be both on and off the set with his eyes and ears open, someone who won’t raise suspicion.”
“Why though? What’s Tony done?” I asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, and if you do, I’ll make sure you’re generously compensated.”
Now, I sat in my car and checked the feed on my phone.
It was working. The USB plug I’d swapped out was near the ground by the bed, so I wouldn’t get much beyond Tony’s feet, but I’d still get decent audio.
The pen recorder, my backup, didn’t have a transmitter, so I’d have to collect it periodically and download the audio files.
Okay. I exhaled and pulled the bowl from my pocket. I was going to need more weed soon at the rate I was going, but on the bright side, today marked a whole week of watching them film Travis’s movie.