Most importantly, staying in the area meant he now knew April hit snooze two times every morning. He’d memorized how her hazy brown eyes finally, reluctantly, blinked open in the warm glow of dawn as she stretched in bed, her hair tousled and her soft body shifting against his. He understood how the scent of her changed after one of her infrequent days on a job site, from roses in the morning to sweat and earth in the evening. He’d tasted her skin after one of those site visits, and after a lazy, shared weekend shower, and after she’d cried while reading a particularly bittersweet fic and he’d erased her tears with his mouth.
Staying meant he could spend his weekday mornings reading scripts and writing fics to post under a new name, before shopping for food and working out at the hotel gym in the afternoon. Staying meant making her dinner in the evenings. Making her laugh. Making her come.
Any mockery he might receive he considered well worth the reward.
“Can’t say I blame you for settling in,” Alex added. “Looks like a very comfortable lap.”
At that, Marcus narrowed his eyes at his friend. He hadn’t missed the swift but appreciative glance Alex had given April upon meeting her earlier that afternoon, or the way she’d blushed and almost giggled upon shaking Alex’s hand.
She hadn’t blushed and giggled when she’d met Marcus, he knew that for a fact.
Clearly he needed to find a less handsome best friend. That was the only sensible solution. Especially since said best friend was staying overnight in April’s apartment as their first joint guest, which now seemed an unwise decision.
Alex’s grin had only grown more obnoxious, and he held up his hands in feigned surrender. “No need to scowl at me like that, dude. I was stating an objective fact, not indicating any desire to climb into your lap of choice.” He snorted. “Besides, when it comes to female company, there’s no room at the inn. I’m full up.”
Excellent. “Lauren?”
As if Marcus didn’t know. Alex had been bitching nonstop about his assigned minder for weeks via text and email and occasional phone calls. At some point, Marcus expected a carrier pigeon to arrive at April’s apartment with a note strapped to its ankle reading goddammit lauren is such a fucking dour millstone. Or maybe a telegram instead: lauren says two drinks max stop which is unfair because she’s so short i could just rest my beer on her head stop.
“Who else? I’m surprised she let me visit you this weekend without requiring hourly reports as to my good behavior.” Alex flopped back against the sofa and glared in the direction of the front door. “R.J. and Ron directed her to keep watch over me anytime I’m outside my home, and the stupid woman is too stubborn to acknowledge she’s being exploited.”
That was a new line of argument. “How so?”
“Today is her first day off in weeks. And you know I don’t sleep well, so I tend to leave the house at odd hours, and I’m required to let her know when I do, which means she doesn’t sleep well, and . . .” Alex had crossed one ankle over his opposite knee, and his foot was jiggling, jiggling, jiggling. Not surprising, given his ADHD and accompanying tendency to fidget, but the movement seemed especially agitated today. “She looks tired.”
Marcus raised his eyebrows. “Does she?”
“She considers you a good influence, apparently. At least in the company of your girlfriend. That’s why she finally took time off.” More glaring into space. “She’d better be sleeping today.”
How to say this? “Um, Alex, have you considered that, uh, maybe your feeli—”
“Enough about the stubby but persistent thorn in my side,” his friend interrupted, willfully ignoring Marcus’s interjection. “Did you see the email and group chat earlier today?”
Yes. Unfortunately, yes, Marcus had seen both the email from their showrunners and the messages flying back and forth among their Gates colleagues.
Carah: yet ANOTHER fucking email about our goddamn nondisclosure agreements and warnings not to share or malign the scripts or face GRAVE REPERCUSSIONS
Carah: is it one of you bitches leaking scripts and blabbing about how this season sucks like a Hoover that gets off on dust, or
Ian: I think the finale’s great
Alex: of course you do, your character arc didn’t get brutally slaughtered
Alex: unlike the tuna population in your vicinity
Carah: hahahahaha
Summer: Con of the Gates is coming up, and the thought of answering questions about this season and what happens to Lavinia and Aeneas just
Summer: gaaaaaaaah
Peter: I heard Ron and R.J. intend to back out of their panels at the last minute, citing “prior commitments”
Carah: prior commitment to not getting their asses reamed by fans who saw those leaked scripts, maybe
Maria: but no one realizes the leaked bits are real yet
Maria: all TOO real
Peter: I know it wasn’t me or Maria showing people those scripts
Peter: was it one of the rest of you, or the crew, or . . . ?
Marcus: for the sake of our careers, hopefully the latter
Ian: how do you know it wasn’t Maria, Peter
Ian: oh, that’s right, your mouth is surgically affixed to her ass, so if she told anyone you’d know
Maria: did you watch The Human Centipede AGAIN, Ian
Peter: mercury poisoning, Maria, remember
Peter: hallucinations from all the tuna
Maria: oh, yes, very sad really
Ian: I mean you KISS her ass all the time, dipshits
Ian: there are hour-long YouTube compilations of all your interviews together, where you’re making puppy dog eyes at her and it’s EMBARRASSING
Maria: more embarrassing than watching YouTube compilations of your colleagues in your free time?
Carah: hahahahaHAHAHA
After Ian stopping replying, the rest of the discussion had largely involved the press junket for the final season’s premiere, and everyone’s upcoming con appearances. But it had left him wondering—
“Please tell me you didn’t leak those scripts,” Marcus told Alex. It wasn’t a far-fetched notion. Alex tended to make decisions in a heartbeat. Then he’d leap with both feet, shaky ground be damned, only to find himself bruised and bloodied and unable to explain afterward why he’d made the jump at all.
He wasn’t self-destructive, exactly. Just . . . impulsive.
Executive function issues, he’d drawled to Marcus after that last, fateful bar fight, aping nonchalance over FaceTime despite his swollen-shut eye and scraped cheek and shaking hands. You’re not the only one whose brain works a little differently than most.
“I didn’t leak those scripts.” Alex’s smile was a little too wide and pleased for Marcus’s comfort, despite the firm statement. “That said, I was so intrigued by the stories I’ve been beta-reading for y—”
“Shhhh,” Marcus hissed, waving a frantic hand. “Not here.” The women were talking in the other room, and it sounded as if they were running the sewing machine Mel had brought over, but they could easily overhear a conversation in the living room if they wanted to. Which would be disastrous. Utterly disastrous.
Alex’s smile vanished, but he obligingly lowered his voice to a whisper. “You still haven’t told her?”
Marcus shook his head.