Chapter 20 A Rush of Reality #3
He does this thing, Sage has noticed. Transforms in the span of two steady breaths, shifting from Theo to Theo Sharpe right before her eyes. He sits a little straighter, smiles in a way that’s a bit more practiced, a smirk more than a grin, closes it off so you can’t read the emotions behind it.
But they’re in his eyes.
They’re always in his eyes.
It’s fascinating to watch, but Sage’s favorite part is when he comes back to himself. When his shoulders drop and his jaw loosens and his smile goes big and wide and easy. When he closes the door on the outside world and lets himself just be.
When he puts down Theo Sharpe and becomes Theo again.
The car slows, and Sage feels her heart leap in anticipation.
She’ll be brought through a secondary entrance of the venue, and Theo will join her after he walks the red carpet and poses for the paparazzi who are strictly contained to a single area along the main entrance.
He looks at her, his fingers toying with the cuff link again. “I’ll meet you inside in just a bit,” he says. The car stops, and Theo glances to the window behind her. “Ready?”
She’s not. But beneath that calm mask he’s plastered on his face, there’s worry. She sees it written clearly in his stare. So she says yes and goes to lean across the seat to give him one last kiss, but the door at her back swings open, stopping her in her tracks.
That was foolish of her.
They’d discussed this—being careful tonight, cameras or no.
Taking it slow.
Trying it out. A test.
She moves back. Gives him a closed-lip smile. “See you in there,” she says softly. And then she’s out of the car and she’s being whisked through a side door, an assistant leading her through a security check and a maze of halls she doesn’t really keep track of because the place is a labyrinth.
They end up in a ballroom of sorts, the space dimly lit with blues and pinks and purples. The assistant takes her coat and disappears, and Sage takes it all in.
There’s a champagne tower on a table and waitstaff in white sequin jackets passing out hors d’oeuvres and a table full of silent auction items that she can’t actually see through the throng of people already milling about.
She feels a little uncomfortable, a little out of her element, but she swipes a glass of champagne, sends up a prayer of thanks that the tower doesn’t come tumbling down, and weaves through some truly beautiful people to get to the auction table, where she spends her time pretending to mull over what to bid on when really every single item is more than her entire advance for Nights.
Theo finds her frowning at a picture of a bungalow in the Maldives.
“That looks nice,” he says as if it’s an outfit he’s fond of and not a 200,000-pound vacation. He’s standing just behind her, the heat of him brushing against her back, and Sage has to actively try to keep herself from leaning back against him.
“You’d look good in the Maldives,” he muses.
“Sounds like a ploy to get me to wear fewer clothes.” She tilts her head so she can catch his smile. It’s still the one he uses for the cameras, but she likes it anyway, so it doesn’t matter. “How was it?”
Theo shrugs as she turns to face him properly. He has a coupe of champagne in his hand, and he takes a sip before he answers. “Honestly, you’ve done one red carpet, you’ve done them all.”
“Ah, yes, of course,” she teases, just to see that fond exasperation cross his face as he rolls his eyes. His fingers skim against hers, a quick touch, there and gone in an instant.
“Shall we?” He gestures ahead of him, ever the gentleman, and Sage lets the movement pull her from the edges of the room and into the thick of it all.
It’s a lot of small talk and greeting people she can’t remember the names of and fixed smiles that make her cheeks hurt, but honestly, she’s having such a nice time watching Theo that it’s not difficult to bear.
He’s enigmatic and suave and funny and engaging, and he might still have his public face on, but he’s still so captivating that Sage has a hard time paying attention to much else.
He catches her staring once, and his smile slips—becomes a little softer around the edges, a little shier, a little wider—before he recovers and throws himself back into the conversation with a fervor she’s only seen when he’s obsessing about things like directorial vision and emotional recall capabilities and outer tactics.
He introduces her as his friend who’s in town, makes sure she’s included, makes sure to bring up Nights and any other parallel she can latch on to, and she finds herself keeping up easily as the conversations shift between work and the mundane.
It’s like any other networking event, she realizes, and it’s strange that she didn’t think of it like that before, but it is.
And that simple realization has her wondering what it would be like—to not just follow the gesture of his arm but hold his hand.
To kiss him in a room full of strangers and not worry who might be watching or what they might think.
To not dart through a side entrance or back door.
To make one stop at a venue instead of two.
Maybe it’s the champagne and the lights and the rush of being in a crowd she doesn’t know, but she doesn’t … well, she doesn’t think it would be impossible. Doesn’t think that Archie had it totally right.
They could figure it out.
They could do this.
“Theo Sharpe,” a voice drawls, cutting through her reverie. There’s a sudden itch at the back of Sage’s mind, but she doesn’t realize what it is—doesn’t know it’s because she recognizes that voice—until she turns around and sees Jaylen Hammel standing before them in a wine-red tuxedo.
The last time Sage saw the studio exec, he was shredding her dreams while sipping an overpriced merlot. He’s lost that pitying look, and maybe it’s because it takes him a moment to even register who she is.
There’s a pause, but then his eyes light up in recognition as he says, “Sage!” just as Theo says, “Jaylen.”
Theo cuts her a glance. “You two know each other?”
“We do, we do,” Jaylen answers jovially, as if they’re the best of friends. He bumps his cheek against Sage’s in an air-kiss before giving Theo’s hand a firm shake. “I didn’t realize you two know each other.”
Clearly, Jaylen had not been caught up on his gossip blogs over Comic Con. Or maybe he had, because he slides his hands into his pockets, grinning at Theo like the cat that caught the canary. “Honestly, though, this makes so much sense,” he says.
Sage’s stomach clenches, and Theo …
Theo shifts his body away from her, as if it might stop the assumptions Jaylen is already forming.
“Good holiday?” Theo redirects, slowly mirroring Jaylen’s relaxed posture. But there’s a rigidity in the space between his shoulders.
“Oh yeah, it was great,” Jaylen says affably. “Would have been better if I knew what it would take for you to come on board with us, though,” he adds with a wink. “I would have thought you’d want to see that movie made, Theo, unless you’re planning on shopping it somewh—”
Theo interrupts him with a laugh, and it’s so unlike the warm, bright sound Sage knows. It’s tight, and higher pitched, and riddled with tension.
“I’m figuring some stuff out,” he sidesteps. “Besides, I’m still on holiday for a bit.”
Jaylen holds up his hands in a gesture of innocence.
“Hey man, I get it. No mixing business and pleasure, right?” he says with another wink.
His gaze darts between them, and and there’s a new itching at the back of Sage’s mind that’s becoming more of a burn, like her body is catching on faster than her thoughts can.
“I do have some new material I think you’d be great for, though. I’ve passed it along to your agent and your dad.”
“Yeah, he’s sent it on,” Theo mutters.
“Excellent!” Jaylen grins. “Do let me know if you’re entangled with anyone on this one before you let me down, eh? Remember, man, you’re a priority for us.”
It shouldn’t take Sage so long to put the pieces together. But her brain is humming, and there’s that feeling she gets sometimes, like someone’s cracked an egg over her head and the yolk is slowly dripping down her skull, and it’s making it hard for her to breathe, let alone think.
The studio had an actor in mind. But then they’d pulled a complete one-eighty seemingly out of nowhere …
… at around the same time Theo was arguing with his dad about his next role.
This can’t be happening.
Surely this can’t be happening.
“Excellent,” Theo says through a stuck grin.
Jaylen claps him on the shoulder. “Sage,” he says with a nod. “Can’t wait to read the sequel. I know it’ll be brilliant.” He looks between them again and huffs out a laugh.
And then he’s gone, disappearing in a crowd of glitter and sparkles and jewel tones.
For a long moment, they simply stand there, Theo with a frozen look on his face and Sage trying not to bend to the screaming in her head.
She thinks she might be sick.
“It was you,” she breathes. “You were the actor they wanted for Nights.”
She grips her glass tighter so she doesn’t drop it.
That crease between Theo’s brows deepens, and for a brief moment, Sage thinks maybe she’s completely misread the situation.
She wants to have completely misread the situation, because if she did, then it means Theo hasn’t been keeping this from her for months, hasn’t been encouraging her and helping her with her sequel all while privately thinking her art wasn’t actually worth it, hasn’t been practically lying to her, and—
And.
It’s in his eyes.
It’s always in his eyes.
“It was me,” he confirms, his voice strained.
It’s not even midnight yet—they still have an hour and change to go. But with those three simple words, Sage’s fantasy bursts, leaving nothing but cold reality in its wake.
It’s 11:45 and they’re back in Theo’s flat.