FIC: People Do It All the Time (2/4)
Eric’s crabby for a couple of days - he really did pull his groin, and seems to believe this is entirely Vince’s fault. Vince finds the whole thing hilarious, particularly when they have a meeting with Ari, who manages ten different jokes at Eric’s expense when they see him on Monday.
“All right, but, seriously, I have the next project,” Ari says, pulling two bound scripts off his desk.
Eric sits forward, and Vince’s stomach twists, but he doesn’t react. The offers haven’t been so great since he came out, with the exception of In the Ring. Vince knows they’re still on thin ice, a bit, and while he’s not that worried - things always work out - it makes Eric twitchy. But Ari’s been crowing for a week about some big mystery project, so Vince picks up his script and checks out the name. Wolf Gang. It’s a script Eric was hyped on a few months ago, based on a true story out of the New Yorker about a German-American internment camp during World War II. “I thought this was dead,” he says.
“Yeah, what gives, Ari? You said no one was gonna touch this.”
“All it takes is one guy,” Ari says, rubbing his hands together. “One magic touch, and suddenly -”
“And suddenly you’re the King Midas of Hollywood? Jesus, Ari, come -”
“Not my touch,” Ari says.
“Then who?”
Ari spreads his hands, like he’s bracing himself against the air and the coming shock. “Clint Eastwood.”
Vince’s jaw drops. He coughs. “No way.”
Eric lets out a shocked little laugh. “Eastwood? Ari, you aren’t fucking us around?”
Ari shakes his head, and he’s smiling so broadly Vince knows it’s for real. “How far down the list?” Eric asks.
“Nope, top billing,” Ari says, and Vince sits back hard against the couch. “He wants you, pal. He saw your work with Cameron, he saw some footage out of Lynch, he wants you.”
Eric swallows so hard Vince can hear it. He looks over. “Did I tell you things would work out?” he says, and Eric laughs, then in one smooth move grabs his face and kisses him. Vince smiles and hears Ari curse.
“You’re the luckiest bastard I know,” Eric says, grinning.
“No, E, that’s you,” Ari says. “Can we talk business now or do you want to try and blind me with the gay a little more?”
They get the details on the Eastwood movie - the studio has agreed to pick it up because with Eastwood, it seems possible to film in sixty-five days - and then stagger out into the hall. “That’s the exact word,” Vince says as they hit the elevator.
“What’s that?”
“Staggered. I feel, like, whoa.”
Eric raises an eyebrow. “You, Mr. Casual, you’re really feeling it, huh?”
Vince looks at him, grabs him by both shoulders and squeezes. “I am,” he says. He leans in, puts his mouth right at Eric’s ear. “And you, my friend, are gonna be really feeling it as soon as we get home.”
Eric snorts. “Easy on the merchandise, huh?” he says. “You already broke me once this week.”
Vince snickers about that as the valet runs for their car. “You have the Midas touch, E. You really do. Everything you pick -”
“Almost everything,” Eric says, and Vince rubs his neck. They don’t talk about past mistakes. “Christ, this is great. We should celebrate.”
“I thought I already made my plans clear for that.”
“You did,” Eric says, “but maybe first you should let me take you to dinner.”
Vince raises an eyebrow. The valet pulls up with their car, and he stares across at Eric as he walks around. Once inside, he says, “A real dinner? Like - a date?”
“Like a date, yeah, I guess,” Eric says. “I’ll even pay.” He puts the car in gear, glances over at Vince. “I’m really gonna get a complex if you say no.”
“I - of course,” Vince says. “Wow, an Eastwood movie and free dinner. This really is a good day, huh?”
Eric laughs. “It’s a great day.”
After their dinner date, they call the guys to join them for a celebratory drink, which turns into a few rounds of celebratory drinks, and then they all end up back at Vince and Eric’s place. In fact, they turn the rest of the weekend into a celebration. Sunday night, still nursing hangovers from Saturday’s celebration, they stick to a few beers and pot, and though Johnny cuts out early, Turtle stays over so he can drive Vince around the next day while Eric has meetings.
When Vince wakes up in the morning, Eric isn’t next to him, but the bed is still warm. He goes to the bathroom, then wanders out to the kitchen, where he finds Eric, half asleep, making coffee. Vince slides past him, his hand trailing along Eric’s waist, and he pauses to kiss his neck. He loves Eric like this, casual, easy, still in his boxers and undershirt, completely unwound. It doesn’t hurt that they had pretty spectacular sex the night before. “Hey,” he says, softly, pausing close to him.
Eric smiles. “Yo,” he says. His voice is still sleepy, too. “Coffee?”
“God, please,” Vince says, and he leans back on the island. “When is your meeting?”
“Canceled,” Eric says. “They sent a message this morning. I was just gonna get some reading done.”
“Mm.” Vince knows there’s a little backlog of scripts waiting, but he’s thinking about just putting his arms around Eric and taking him back to bed when Turtle stumbles into the kitchen.
“Coffee?” he asks, sitting down on the other side of the island.
“E’s on it,” Vince says, watching Eric mess with the coffee basket. He takes the whole thing to the trash and dumps it out, then carries the basket to the sink. Vince can tell he’s still sleep-fogged, because he doesn’t bitch at Turtle about leaving the old coffee in the machine, just washes it out and carries it back like he’s on autopilot. He pauses to yawn, then settles the basket back in and looks around.
“Hand me a new pod, baby, can you?” Eric says.
Vince does, then looks up and sees Turtle staring at him. “Baby?” Turtle says.
“What?” Eric says, getting the coffee started. He slumps next to Vince, and Vince rests his hand in the middle of Eric’s back and rubs. Going back to bed is sounding better and better.
“You called him ‘baby,’” Turtle says.
“I did?” Eric looks up at Vince, and Vince nods, then shrugs. He’s a little sorry Turtle’s brought it up, because now Eric will get all analytical about it. “I - huh. I didn’t realize.”
Vince shrugs, again, and Turtle says, “Just don’t move on to honey-pie or sweetie-pants something.” He gets up to get mugs from the cabinet, and Vince tucks his head down close to Eric’s. He still smells like their bed, lemony laundry soap and sex, but Vince can almost hear him thinking.
“I’m still tired,” Vince says, trying to stop the wheels turning. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“I just made coffee,” Eric says, but the hand that was behind Vince on the counter slides over to his hip.
“We can make more later,” Vince says, putting one hand on Eric’s abs. “If you don’t have to be up, I don’t have to. C’mon.”
Eric goes willingly, no surprise, and back in the bedroom Vince takes off his own T-shirt and then snuggles up close to him on the bed. Eric smoothes his hand down Vince’s back, rubs up, down, up, and Vince leans up to kiss him and rocks against Eric’s thigh. “Hm?” Eric says, but he slides his hand into Vince’s sweats all the same, and doesn’t complain when Vince eases off his shorts and rocks against him so they both come before they fall asleep again.
Later, when they’re sitting by the pool, Vince working on his tan, Eric working on his reading, Eric looks up and says, “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“By what?” Vince asks. He’s warm and a little sun-dazed.
“Calling you baby,” Eric says. “I mean, I guess I always called my girlfriends that.”
Vince groans. “E, don’t overthink, all right? It’s fine.”
“Have I done it before?”
Vince shrugs. Mostly just when they’re having sex, though a few times it’s been a casual aside - a hey, baby, when Vince calls in the middle of the afternoon, for instance. Vince sort of likes it. “Yeah, a little,” he says, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. He rolls his head around. His shoulders are starting to feel a little toasty. “Am I burning?”
Eric reaches over, presses one hand to Vince’s shoulder for a moment. “Nah,” he says, but the hand lingers on his back. “You look about done, though.”
“Yeah.” Vince rolls over to his back, and Eric’s hand travels with him, so it’s resting on his chest, his fingers about an inch from Vince’s nipple. “You going in, too?” Vince asks, wiggling just a little to move Eric’s hand out of neutral territory.
Eric snorts. “No way,” he says. “I’m done, I’m worn out. Last night and this morning and that’s all you get from me, all right? I’m not seventeen anymore.”
“Mm.” Vince closes his eyes. “You were hot at seventeen.”
Eric’s hand moves away, just for a second, then falls again, like a little slap on Vince’s shoulder. Vince cracks one eye open. “You can’t make me jealous of myself,” Eric says, “but nice try. Go inside and put a shirt on.”
“All right,” Vince says. He sits up, stretches his arms up over his head and leans into that stretch, feeling the sun and muscle heat in his arms. It’d be a nice show for the neighbors, if they had any neighbors close enough to see them. He hopes Eric’s watching, but when he opens his eyes, Eric has his sunglasses on, reviewing the script again. Vince brings his arms down slowly and rubs his shoulder. “Yo, hand me that towel?” Eric does it without looking up or over, which makes Vince smirk. He drapes the towel around his shoulders, pats at the thin line of sweat near his hairline as he stands. Eric doesn’t move, not even when Vince steps closer, so Vince drops his hand onto Eric’s shoulder and kisses him, just quick, on the mouth.
“Thanks, baby,” he says and then dodges away into the house.
They don’t talk about it, but over the next week, Vince can tell Eric’s being more careful. He’s watching what he says. So Vince keeps digging at Eric, just a little, just to see what will happen.
They go to lunch on Thursday at Mimi’s. Vince has to meet the guys there, because he had a fitting early in the morning - early enough that Turtle didn’t want to drive him and even Eric slept in, so the studio sent a car. When he gets to the restaurant, Eric’s standing at the front, tapping on his Blackberry. “Hey, babe,” Vince says, tapping his shoulder.
Eric smirks. “You can can the names, Turtle’s not even here.”
“Mm.” The hostess leads them to a booth, and Vince slides in next to Eric instead of taking the facing seat.
Eric sets his Blackberry down. “You expecting anyone else?”
“Nope,” Vince says, leaning back in the booth, making certain his arm is pressed against Eric’s arm, his thigh against Eric’s thigh. “What?” he says, his best innocent act.
Eric rolls his eyes. But he also plays along, or, at least, he doesn’t crawl under the table to make sure he’s on the other side, decorously outside of Vince’s grasp. He turns back to his Blackberry while Vince makes up his mind about food.
“Sloan says hi,” Eric says, finally putting the Blackberry away.
“Yeah? How’s she? We should get together again.”
Eric raises an eyebrow, and Vince clarifies, “For dinner or something. That was fun.”
“She’s in Italy for a while. But I’ll tell her.”
“You guys talk pretty regularly?”
He shrugs. “Not really. I guess, maybe an e-mail a week or so, just how things are going. Her business has really taken off, they’ve got some really hot places.”
“We should go,” Vince says, putting his arm along the back of the booth. “What are you having?” he asks, and listens very carefully so that when the waiter comes, he orders for both of them. Eric kicks him under the table, so Vince gives the waiter a big, winning smile. “Bring two spoons for the soup, can you? He always wants a taste.”
After he leaves, Vince turns to look at Eric, who’s staring across the table and tearing up a piece of bread. “What is your deal?” Eric asks.
“What do you mean?” Eric pauses in his tearing to glance at Vince, a pure Eric glance of skepticism, you’ve-gotta-be-shitting-me. “I like this dating stuff,” Vince says. “We never got to do that, you know? It’s supposed to be fun.”
“Fun.” Vince watches him struggling not to respond quickly and bitterly; instead, after a moment of awkward silence, he watches Eric make himself relax a little. He still sits ramrod straight in the booth and keeps both of his hands on top of the table anytime anyone comes by, but he doesn’t pull away or make a face when Vince snags his wrist and brings a bite of bread up to his own mouth, and he even thanks the waiter for the extra spoon. It’s not perfect, but it’s something, Vince thinks, and he grins a little when Eric puts a hand on his back, low, to lead him out of the restaurant.
Outside it’s warm and bright, so Eric has the top down in his car, and Vince leans his seat back a little as they drive. “You really feel like you missed out?” Eric says, and it takes Vince a second to track back the conversation.
“I dunno,” Vince says. “I mean, I guess - I think it would’ve been nice to do some of that stuff. You were always so big on it, you did that with all your girls, but I never did, really.” He shrugs.
“More charm than romance, huh?”
“Something like that,” Vince says. “And, you know, it’s kinda fun.”
“What, winding me up?”
Vince smiles and turns his head to look at Eric’s profile. “That, too,” he says. He slides his sunglasses up. “It’d be nice if I could take you out, show you off, a little, without you getting all weird about it.”
“Weird?” It’s Vince’s turn to do the eye-roll, to offer the sigh. Eric smirks. “All right, maybe a little weird. I guess it’s all kind of different for me. Like, people look at you and they look at me, and… I dunno, Vince.”
“And they say, there’s two guys who got it good.”
Eric shakes his head. “Half of ‘em, they look at me, they say, ‘There’s one lucky bastard.’ And that’s the nice ones, Vince. Most people, they think I’m fucking you for the fame and money.” Vince reaches over, rests his hand on Eric’s shoulder. He’s heard little rumblings like that, too. People think he’s dumb and Eric’s goldigging. People, Vince thinks, can go to hell.
“So fuck ‘em,” Vince says. “You want me to give all my money away or something, start doing small theater?”
Eric snorts. “I’d leave you,” he says, and Vince laughs. “Seriously, though, can you understand why I’m not so hot on everyone knowing everything about us?”
“I guess,” Vince says. “But at some point, E, you’ve just gotta do what you want. People are gonna talk forever.”
He nods, but Vince isn’t sure he’s gotten through. Still, he knows the way Eric works. Sometimes the idea just needs to rest a while, work its way back through his head. He squeezes Eric’s shoulder. “And in the meantime,” he says, “I promise never to blow you in public.”
Eric laughs. “There’s a load off.”
“I also promise that if you get us home by 3:30, I will blow you in the privacy of our own home.”
He feels Eric’s shoulder twitch, just a quick spasm, and watches him fighting a grin. “Why 3:30?” he asks, taking a corner a little sharply.
“Because Oprah’s on at four,” he says, and Eric glances over and nearly hits a bicyclist. Vince waits until they’re back in their lane, then says, “Clooney and Soderbergh are on, live from the set.”
“I worry about how much of a girl you’re becoming,” Eric says, but he drives fast the rest of the way and curses when they hit construction.
Vince gives him credit for trying, after he makes sure the TiVo is set to record Oprah.
Filming starts for Wolf Gang about ten weeks after the meeting with Ari. It’s almost all soundstage work, towns set up to look like the 40s, everything in browns and grays. Vince doesn’t mind, because the wardrobe is comfortable and he doesn’t have to travel too much. He does have to spend a lot o time on set, though. Eastwood films fast, which means fewer weeks on set overall, but when he’s there, he’s working, scene after scene after scene. The experience is intense, and when Vince isn’t working, he’s exhausted. Some nights he just sleeps in his trailer. Eric’s more comfortable about PDA and all that, but something about walking out of Vince’s trailer in the mornings seems to bother him - “it kind of undermines my authority here,” he says, and though Vince points out that it’s not like everyone doesn’t know they’re fucking, Eric won’t budge. So when he stays on set, he sleeps alone, which isn’t great, but he’s usually too tired to care. When things wrap early on a Friday, five weeks in, Vince gets a car from the studio to the house, tired of sleeping alone.
There’s an unfamiliar Mercedes parked out front, next to Eric’s car, and Vince rolls his eyes. Of course, the day he’s done early Eric’s got business. He pushes in to the house and follows the sound of conversation into the kitchen. Sloan and Eric are sitting at the table, across from each other, Sloan’s hands clasped in front of her and Eric’s just drawing back. When Eric looks up, there’s nothing but guilt in his eyes.
“Vince,” he says, his voice throaty.
“Uh, hey,” Vince says, and he plasters on the same cool calm mask he’s been using to get through scenes for the last two days. “Hey, Sloan.”
“Hi,” she says. Her voice sounds too high, and on closer inspection Vince can see she’s been crying. He swallows and turns to the fridge, a hundred ideas of exactly what he’s just walked in on spinning through his head. She wants him back, he thinks, she hasn’t stopped thinking about him. He looks at the bottles in the fridge and nothing sounds good at all, particularly over the hum of another idea: she’s here to end the affair.
He turns back to the table with a beer in one hand. “Everything OK?” he makes himself ask.
Eric’s looking between him and Sloan like someone’s gonna throw a punch. “Not really,” he says after a minute.
Vince tries to take a drink, but he hasn’t opened the bottle. It’s a twist off and the bite of the cap in his palm is good, refreshing. He turns it sharp side in, holds it so he can squeeze it if he needs to siphon pain away from his face. “So what’s up?” he asks, leaning back against the counter.
“Well,” Eric starts, “see, Sloan’s - she’s just stopped by, uh, she wanted to talk, and we were -”
“I’m pregnant,” Sloan says, and Vince squeezes the bottlecap by mistake and nearly drops his beer.
“What?”
She nods. “Four months,” she says, and Vince can do that math pretty easily.
“You mean, we,” he starts, and he points from her to himself and back. And then Sloan looks at Eric, and Eric clears his throat and seems to be speaking to the floor.
“It could be either one of us,” he says.
Vince sets the beer down on the counter. “But that night - I mean, unless I’ve got anatomy completely fucked up -” and then he looks at Eric and understands that there’s something else that’s happened here. “OK,” he says. “Huh.”
“Vince -” Eric starts, but Vince waves him quiet. One thing at a time.
He looks at Sloan. “So what now?” he asks.
She shrugs, and wipes her eyes delicately. “I waited until - I wanted to be sure about what I was going to do.”
“And since you’re here, I think I can guess,” Vince says. She nods, and he presses the bottlecap into the tender center of his palm with two fingers. “Wow. Uh,” but he can’t think of anything else to say.
“Look,” Sloan says, and she puts her hands flat on the table and stands up. Vince looks for a difference in her body, but he can’t see anything. “I’ll let you talk. I’m back in town - I’m going to stay put now, for a while.” She looks at Eric, but he’s still staring at the floor. There’s a tenderness in her eyes that makes Vince’s stomach turn. He doesn’t move as she walks out, even though it means she has to brush up next to him to get to the door.
When the front door closes, he turns to the counter, picks up his beer, and drinks it as fast as he can. The label comes back sticky and red, and he looks down and sees his hand is bleeding in two arcs. He stares at this and hears Eric’s chair slide, then Eric’s feet move. Eric stands across the island from him.
“What the -”
“Tell me what happened,” Vince says, still looking down at his hand.
Eric clears his throat. “We ought to get something on that,” he says, and then Vince looks up. He’s through acting; he lets everything show, and Eric flinches. “Uh, in the morning,” he says, “you were still asleep, and - when we woke up, she was next to me. It was like habit, I guess, I just -”
“You fucked her,” Vince says, and Eric nods. “While I was right there next to you.” He takes a second to think about what that means - that Eric was so quiet about it that Vince didn’t wake up, that he was that sneaky. That they both were. “You fucking asshole,” he hisses.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Eric says, and Vince shakes his head. He pushes past Eric and walks out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bedroom, and he hears Eric following him. In the bathroom, he turns on the water and puts his bleeding hand under the tap, and it hurts, suddenly, all of the numbness is gone. He grabs his wrist and bends close to the sink.
“Hey,” Eric says, and his hand lands on Vince’s shoulder.
Vince shakes him off. “Don’t fucking touch me.” His hand is burning. It’s on fire. It’s the worst pain he’s ever felt. He rubs one wrist over his eyes.
Eric hands him a towel. “Let’s go,” he says. “You need to go to the doctor, get stitches or something.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” The water swirls pink in the sink. He grits his teeth. “Was it just that once?”
“Of course it was just - Jesus, you think I would cheat on you?”
“I think you did,” Vince says.
Eric walks out, and Vince keeps staring at his hand. Only one of the cuts is really still bleeding, and he pulls his hand up and inspects it. The cut is deepest at the base of his palm. Dark blood wells in thick drops, the skin too far separated to be soothed. He grabs the hand towel and soaks it with cold water and then presses it to the cut, walks out into the bedroom, and sits on the bed with his hand in his lap. He can hear Eric talking to someone in the hall. Maybe Sloan’s back. Maybe she knows exactly what she wants, maybe she’s here to get it. “She can fucking have you!” he yells.
Eric ducks his head in, and he’s on his phone. “Yeah, thanks,” he says, and snaps it closed. “Vince -” he starts, and Vince so doesn’t want to hear whatever’s about to come from Eric’s mouth that he takes his own cell phone out of his pocket and hurls it at him. He was an okay baseball player, once upon a time, but not with his left hand; the phone connects with the doorjamb and breaks apart, one of the pieces flying back at Vince. Eric flinches back into the hall.
“Jesus,” he says, walking back in. “You’re a fucking danger to yourself.”
“Right now, I’m more of a danger to you, trust me,” Vince says. His hand hurts every time he breathes. “Get the fuck out.”
Eric crosses his arms. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Vince wishes for something else to throw. Maybe the cordless phone. Maybe the nightstand. “Don’t you have to meet Sloan somewhere?”
“Why would - I called Dr. Meyer,” Eric says, “that’s who was on the phone. To come over and look at your hand.”
“It’s fine,” Vince says. “I’m fine. You go.”
“Would you just fucking listen to me, just for a second?”
Vince wraps the towel more tightly around his hand, which hurts. “So talk,” he says.
Eric walks in and sits next to him, but not close. They both seem to be staring at the towel. Eric reaches over, and Vince backs away but Eric grunts, frustration, businesslike, and takes Vince’s wrist into his hand. He unwraps the towel and looks at the cut, then finds a clean spot on the towel and rewraps his hand, expertly, tightly. It’s never a surprise to Vince when Eric can do something well.
“You should keep it elevated,” Eric says.
“I’m not going to bleed to death from a half-inch cut,” Vince says, but he crosses the arm over his chest, his fingers holding his shoulder. “Are you done?”
“I was going to tell you,” Eric says, and Vince snorts. “Seriously, you know me.”
“I thought I did,” Vince says. He grits it out. He’s pretty sure that was a line from Queens Boulevard, because it tastes familiar.
“But it - I don’t know. It didn’t seem like a big deal. I mean, you guys did it.”
“While you were fucking me,” Vince says, “or don’t you remember? It was a threesome, E, not a duet. Not special couple’s time.”
Eric sighs. “The next morning, you - I was going to - and you were kind of weird about the whole thing. Remember? You were feeling possessive. I thought I’d just wait, I’d mention it later. But, I don’t know. It just, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“It’s a really big deal now,” Vince says. “It’s possibly the hugest deal of our lives. So, good call on that.” He closes his eyes. “Fuck,” he says. “Fucking fuck, E.”
“Don’t make this into a fight,” Eric says.
“Don’t -” Vince squeezes his own shoulder. “You fall in love with everyone you sleep with,” he says. “Everyone. Name me one person -”
“I’m not in love with Sloan,” Eric says. He gets up from the bed, and when Vince opens his eyes he’s pacing. “Jesus Christ, are we really having this conversation?”
“You think about her,” Vince says, “you think about her and you liked fucking her and you want to do it again.”
“Vince -”
“You would rather be fucking her than me,” Vince says.
“Right now, I’d rather be fucking anyone,” Eric yells.
Vince flinches. “Don’t let me stop you,” he says, and it takes work to keep his voice steady. “Not that I have so far.”
Eric stops in front of him. His eyes are wide and wild, both of his hands are in the air. For a moment, Vince thinks maybe Eric’s going to hit him; maybe Eric’s going to strangle him. Maybe Eric’s going to grab him. And then Eric clenches his hands and turns away, and Vince is staring at the slope of his shoulders. His own chest is pounding, every beat sending a flare of pain into his hand. He can’t say anything. There’s nothing to say.
When Eric turns around, his face is completely blank, completely cold. “If you still want me to leave,” he says, his voice reasonable and even and so fucking businesslike, “then I’m gonna call Drama to come hang with you until the doctor shows up.”
Vince blinks. Something about Eric’s tone makes Vince want to apologize, to reach out. He doesn’t want to deal with the doctor alone. But he can act brave and resolute. “Call him,” he says.
Eric nods, slowly, then leaves the room. Vince lays back on the bed, keeping his arm up, and blows out a smooth stream of air. “Fuck,” he whispers to thin air. “How did this happen?”
The doctor asks him the same question, but he doesn’t have a good answer. The cut requires two thin stitches. Dr. Meyer wants to take him to his clinic to treat it, but Vince isn’t going anywhere, he makes that clear, so he gets a shot in the ball of his hand and then a couple of pills that make his head spin and droop. After Meyer leaves he curls up in his bed and falls first into a gray-green fog, then finally into something like sleep. Eric is long gone.
He wakes up to the sound of the house phone ringing. His hand hurts and his head hurts and his mouth is like tar. The clock says it’s eight o’clock, which means he slept 10 hours. He stumbles into the bathroom, brushes his teeth and swallows a pill, then goes out to the kitchen.
“Morning,” Johnny says. “Wondered when you were getting up.”
Vince nods and sits across from him. He rubs his face and then winces because his hand hurts. “I’m gonna be late,” he mutters. Call today is at nine. “Fuck, I feel like shit.”
“I’ll make you some eggs,” Johnny says, getting up from the table. “You just need some protein, bro.”
“Maybe,” Vince says, and then he rests his head on his arm. “Where’s E?”
“He’s, uh, I think he had some business or something,” Johnny says. “You guys having some kind of fight?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Vince says. “Has he been here today?”
“No,” Johnny says, “but he called. A minute ago.”
Vince’s throat feels dry. He expected Eric to be here, back. Eric doesn’t usually run from a fight. “Should I call him back?”
“Nah, he was just, uh, he wanted to let you know Turtle’s going to pick you up for work.”
Vince closes his eyes. Eric usually drives him in, because he likes to be on set when the first team is working. He likes to be on set when Vince is working, really, and Vince likes that, too. It’s nice, he feels watched over. “He’s with Turtle?” he asks. Are they dividing up friends already?
“I think he just talked to him this morning. He had him running some errands or something. Getting you a new phone?”
Johnny shoves eggs back and forth in the pan and Vince doesn’t have the heart to tell him that food doesn’t sound good at all. Nothing really sounds good. “I’m gonna take a shower,” Vince says.
He goes back to the bedroom. It’s a mess, blankets tangled, blood on his pillow, pieces of his cell phone still scattered on the floor. Looking at it, Vince feels sad and lonely and ashamed. He’s not this guy. They aren’t this couple. Eric doesn’t cheat and Sloan’s a good girl, and they didn’t have any rules going in. He picks up the house phone from the bedside stand. He’ll call Eric and Eric will come home, and they’ll figure this out. He’s not mad, anymore, he just wants things to be OK. After all, they’ve got a lot to talk about. He never can remember Eric’s cell phone number, just knows the speed dial for it on his cell, so he hits *69 to dial the last number back, rubbing his hurt palm up and down his thigh.
“Hello?”
It takes him a minute to catch his breath. “Sloan?”
“Vince?”
Vince closes his eyes. He puts everything he can into keeping his voice light, steady. “Is E there?”
“He just left,” she says. “Vince, he -”
“That’s fine,” Vince says, “thanks.” He hangs up and stares at the phone, then stands up and walks back to the kitchen. Johnny looks at him with one eyebrow raised.
“You OK?”
“He spent the night with Sloan,” Vince says. He sets the phone down on the counter and notices the false surprise on Johnny’s face. “Knock it off, you knew.”
“He called,” Johnny says. “I saw the number on the caller ID.”
“Christ,” Vince says. His legs feel unsteady. He grabs the counter. “Oh Jesus Christ, he really is fucking her.”
“Come on, it’s E,” Johnny says. “Sit down, all right?”
Vince takes his seat again at the table, just doing what he’s told. “I - I didn’t think -” he says, and Johnny says, “Of course you didn’t.”
Johnny sets his plate down with such tenderness that Vince feels like something’s breaking behind his ribs. “It’s gonna be all right, man,” he says. “I’m sure there’s an explanation.” Johnny sits next to him and puts his hand on Vince’s shoulder, and Vince knows that should help, that he should feel a little less hollow. Instead all he’s thinking of are the past few weeks, when he hasn’t been home every night, when Eric could have been anywhere. “Come on, eat something and I’ll drive you over,” Johnny says. “You can talk to him on set.”
Vince nods. He manages a few mouthfuls of egg and whatever Johnny gives him to drink. It feels like grade school again, Johnny convincing him to go to school after some particularly disastrous run-in with the neighborhood bullies. Johnny used to walk him to school, when he didn’t have a gig to get to, and Vince used to feel so safe standing next to his tall, swaggering brother. And then Eric would be waiting at the steps or by their classroom, and Vince never had to worry.
“Gonna be all right, bro, you’ll see,” Johnny says. “Just a big misunderstanding, I’ll bet you.”
Vince showers and gets dressed, carefully, because his hand is starting to really throb again. When he gets to the set, he finds out the director already knows about his hand, and a medic is waiting in his trailer to evaluate him. He’s torn out one of the stitches.
“Do you want something for the pain?” the medic asks.
“Not while I’m working,” Vince says.
She stitches the cut closed while Vince grits his teeth and looks away. It hurts in a cold, clear way that brings tears to his eyes. He curses, and Johnny says, “Jesus,” and then walks out of the trailer. Vince bites his lip and the medic apologizes and pats the back of his hand.
“Did your doctor give you any post care instructions?” she asks, and Vince shrugs. That’s an Eric detail, he wants to tell her.
“I was awfully tired,” he says instead, and doesn’t have to work very hard to pull up an exhausted smile. “Can you tell me what to do?”
“Sure,” she says, and lists a few suggestions about medication and temperature and working while wrapping white gauze around his palm, over the loop of his thumb. “Just be careful how much strain you put on it. Keep the bandage on, that should help.”
“Thank you,” he says sincerely, even though he’s not concentrating at all. “I appreciate it.” The trailer door opens and Vince looks up, hopes it’s Johnny again, someone, anyone who can take notes about this. It’s Eric.
“What happened?” he asks, and Vince realizes he’s talking to the medic.
“Just tore a stitch out,” she says, her voice cheery. She secures the bandage. “Don’t worry, he’s gonna be fine.” Oh, Vince thinks, watching her beam at Eric. Sometimes he forgets that everyone recognizes Eric now, and not just as his manager. It’s suddenly very important to him that no one gets that they’re fighting.
He puts on the best silly-me smile he’s got. “Think I caught it on something.” He waves his now-bandaged hand. “All better.”
“Good,” Eric says. His voice is still formal and stiff, and he stands back by the door while the medic gathers up her kit. She gives Eric the same care instructions - “don’t get it wet, try not to let him flex his fingers out too much,” - and then hurries outside.
Vince drops his smile.
“How’s your hand?” Eric asks.
“It hurts,” Vince says.
Eric nods. He’s looking at the table or Vince’s hand or the newspaper, Vince can’t tell. “You get your phone from Turtle?” His tone is flat; he could be a crew member, he could be a messenger. He could be reading lines.
“Not yet,” Vince says. “Speaking of phones, here’s a funny thing. I talked to Sloan this morning.”
Eric looks up and rolls his eyes. “We’re gonna do this again now?” he asks. “Right here?”
“You spent the night with her!” Vince says. “You left last night and went right over to her place, is that it?”
“I went to the fucking bar,” Eric says. “And she called to see what had happened - she was worried about us, of all things - and when she offered I went over there. I slept on her couch. Unless you think it would’ve been better for me to check into a hotel, so we could be reading about that on TMZ this morning.”
“You should have come home to me,” Vince says.
“Christ, now I’m supposed to read minds?” Eric snaps. “You were pretty clear about where you wanted me.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too,” Vince says. “I thought I was pretty clear about not wanting you at fucking Sloan’s place.”
“She’s alone, OK? She’s pregnant and she’s alone,” Eric says. “Get a fucking grip, man, you and me, we aren’t the only thing happening right now.”
“Goddammit, Eric!” Vince yells, and he throws his hands down on the tabletop and then jerks back, his hand blazing.
Eric’s next to him in a flash, his hands on Vince’s arm. He turns his hand over for Eric to look at and he rests his head on the table. Eric’s touch is sturdy. “Maybe you should go home, today,” Eric says. “Do they have you on anything for this?”
“Pills,” Vince says, not even sure if he brought them along. “But not while I’m working.”
“I’m going to talk to the AD,” Eric says. “They already moved some stuff around, maybe Eastwood can film around you today.”
“I’m fine,” Vince mutters, pulling his hand back from Eric. He’s tired and he doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want to sit and think. He can work, at least he can do that. That’s within his control. “It’s - it’s a little cut. E, I’m fine, I just -” and he looks over. Having Eric this close makes him want to fight or apologize. It makes him want to tear his stitches out with his teeth. “Maybe you could leave?”
Eric looks like he’s been struck by something, but he gets it together fast, then he nods. “If that’s what you want,” he says. Vince nods, and Eric backs away. He stops at the doorway. “I didn’t sleep with her.”
Vince can’t look at him. “Not right now, OK?”
Eric walks out, again, and that’s the worst thing Vince has been through all morning.