FIC: There's No Replacing You, Entourage, R, 2/4
Continued from Part 1.
The next few weeks are a blur. Eric’s busy helping Vince get ready to film and with the occasional audition for Josie, but he manages to make time to see Travis just about whenever he can. They go to dinner, to lunch, to an art exhibit he’s interested in, twice to the beach and several times just back to Travis’s condo. He meets Travis’s manager, Lisa, and then, one weekend, his sister. In between, they trade text messages and long phone calls. They don’t go out with the guys, because having two movie stars in the same pack would attract headlines, but Eric does meet Travis’s friends, and they get along pretty well. Eric realizes he’s actually been wanting this - that the casual stuff has nothing on an actually building a relationship.
One afternoon, Vince and Eric have a meeting with Ari that runs long. Eric gets out his phone in the elevator, and Vince glances over. “Who’re you calling?” he asks.
Things have been tense between them, again, and Eric isn’t at all convinced that it’s rooted in jealousy, as Turtle suggests. He thinks Vince’s jealousy has waned, and they’re now back exactly where they were when Eric was with Lucas - Vince being hostile and Eric feeling hurt, bewildered, and now angry about it. But Eric’s not willing to make a big deal out of it, yet, because things are going well for him with Travis, and he’s hoping Vince will just get over it. “I’m calling Travis to let him know I’ll be late for lunch,” he says, unable to resist dropping his name.
Vince frowns. “Where are you going?”
“The London.”
He nods, and Eric hits the speed dial for Travis’s cell. As it rings, Vince puts his hand on Eric’s shoulder. “Ask if I can come along,” he says, and Eric is so surprised that Travis says hello twice before he can reply.
They have lunch just the three of them. It’s not really as awkward as Eric would have guessed, mostly because both Vince and Travis are very good actors and Eric has picked up an ability to be a Hollywood bullshitter somewhere along the way. They talk about their projects - Travis just finished filming a period piece and Vince is about a week away from Year of the Daisies - and their contacts, and Travis tells a funny story that Eric’s heard before about how Ari was almost his agent. When they finish eating, before they step into the glare of the paparazzi, Travis leans in and kisses Eric, just a quick kiss, and says, “Call me tonight, OK?”
“Yeah,” Eric says, squeezing his arm before he darts outside. Eric doesn’t look over at Vince, just watches Travis drive away.
When they’re settled in their car, Eric realizes Vince has been quiet for a long time. “Hey, you all right?” he asks.
Vince laughs, almost to himself. “You really like him,” he says. “I mean, you guys are like - you’re serious.”
Eric shrugs. “What, did you think we were just fucking around?”
“I don’t know what I thought,” Vince murmurs, and he rubs his face with both hands, then stays quiet for the rest of the trip.
At the house, Eric isn’t sure what to do. Vince gets out of the car and walks inside without a word, and Eric is of half a mind to just drive away. Or maybe drive to Travis’s place. Instead, he turns off the car and goes after Vince. “Hey,” he yells, following him into the kitchen. “What is your deal?”
“My deal?” Vince turns from the sink, holding a glass of water. “What do you mean, my deal?”
“I mean you’re fucking doing it again,” Eric says. All of the hurt and anger he’s had bottled up since Lucas comes frothing forth. “You’re treating me like I’m some alien, or like I’ve betrayed you or something, and it’s fucking messed up. If you’re unhappy with me, Vince, if you want to say something, fucking say it and stop this juvenile silent treatment shit.”
Vince scoffs. “I’m messed up? I’m - you’re the one who’s suddenly obsessed with dating Hollywood stars, E. You don’t think it looks crazy? My manager suddenly hooking up with half of the industry’s up-and-comers? First Luke, now Travis - who’s next? You going after Jake, maybe?”
“I’m embarrassing you?” Eric says, his voice almost a hiss. “That’s what you’re saying?”
“It’s kind of weird,” Vince says, his voice infuriatingly casual, “you’ve got to admit -”
Eric slams his hands on the counter. “Fuck you,” he shouts. “Fuck you, talking about who I’m -”
“You have to get how it looks -”
“- who I’m fucking when you’re banging the chick version of me,” Eric finishes, and Vince flinches. He feels like he should draw back, he knows this is crossing the line, but Eric can’t stop now. “At least I’ve been brave enough to go after who I want, I mean, Jesus, at least I’ve got the fucking gender right,” he says. “And fuck you for saying those guys are replacements. Travis is way smarter than you’ll ever be, and Luke had a bigger dick.”
Vince’s eyes are wide, his face starting to turn red. He sets the water glass down on the counter edge, says, “You think I’m - Fuck you, E, I’m straight, remember?”
“Right,” Eric says, “right, except for, what’s his name, Tommy Brennan in high school.”
Vince presses his lips together and shakes his head. “That was one -”
“And Ken Carter, after that,” Eric says. “And that guy, the sound tech, on Aquaman -”
“Fuck you, I was high,” Vince says.
“And what, you forgot he had a cock? It’s not something you just overlook.”
“You would know,” Vince sneers, and the up-and-down look he gives Eric is so ugly Eric has to grab the counter top to keep from striking him.
“Yeah, Vince, I would, because I’m a fucking faggot,” Eric growls. “That’s what you wanna say, right? That’s what you’ve been wanting to say for months. Go ahead, just get it out of your fucking system. You wanna call me a cocksucker? Go on.”
“I’m not - this isn’t about that,” Vince says.
“Right,” Eric says. “Right. You’ve been treating me like fucking scum, like a stranger, for months, and it started when I hooked up with Luke, and you want me to believe it’s got nothing to do with me being gay.”
Vince shakes his head and steps forward, holding up one hand, and he says, “You’re hooking up with some guy, it doesn’t make you gay, E. All right?”
“It’s more than hooking up,” Eric says. “You get this, right? I’m dating him, and Vince, I’m pretty into him.”
“Whatever,” Vince says. “Everybody has stupid phases. You’re not really -”
“Yes I am,” Eric yells, and he slams his hands down on the counter top and knocks Vince’s glass to the floor.
It falls and shatters, and Vince jumps and yells, “Fuck!” Water and glass spread everywhere.
Eric takes a step back. His hands are shaking, his shoulders ache. He’s angry and frightened and starting to feel some serious regret about what he’s said about Vince, what they’ve said. Vince stares at the glass for a moment, then kneels to pick up the pieces. Eric bends to help. “Vin,” he says, his voice unsteady.
“Get out,” Vince says. His voice is flat, almost robotic. He’s collecting the glass into his palm, looking at it, not Eric.
“I didn’t mean -”
“Leave, E.”
“Vince, we need to talk about this.” Vince shakes his head. “Seriously, man -”
“Just because you are,” Vince says, shards tinkling in his hand, “doesn’t mean I am.”
Eric almost falls backwards. He takes a breath, then says, “Fine,” as steadily as he can. “Fine,” he says again, and he stands. He hovers in the doorway for a second. When Vince doesn’t look up, Eric turns and walks to the driveway, where it takes him almost a full minute to get the key into the ignition before he drives away.
He forgets to call Travis but answers the phone when it rings at ten that night. He’s had a few beers, but when Shuana asks if he wants to get a drink, Eric agrees and says he’ll meet her. She gives him an address that he gives to the cabbie, and twenty minutes later, he’s in a hotel bar.
“You’re a fucking prick,” she says before he’s even taken his seat across from her.
He signals the waiter and orders a triple of Jack. “Coming from you, that means something,” he says when the guy is gone.
“You’re fucking goddamned Travis Walters, and you didn’t come to me first?” Shauna’s working on her second martini, from the glasses on the table, but Eric guesses there’s a little more behind her than that. “You, who I thought had a brain other than the one lodged in the tip of your dick.”
“Shauna -”
“I expect this shit from Vince,” she says, just as the waiter sets down Eric’s drink and a fresh one for Shauna. She holds out her hand, drains the martini, and then hands him the old glass and its friend. Once the waiter is gone, and once she swallows the liquor, without flinching, she says, “I expect to get calls saying, who the fuck is Vincent Chase fucking, I expect that, and I expect to have no goddamned good answer, OK? That is what I get paid for. What I do not get paid for -”
“Did you call me down here just to yell? Because we could’ve done that on the phone,” Eric says, taking a gulp from his glass.
“I do not get paid enough,” Shauna continues, holding the olive on its toothpick like a very small sword, “to get calls on the fucking weekend asking whether Vincent Chase’s fucking former live-in manager is fucking goddamned Travis Walters.”
“You kiss your kid with that mouth? Jesus,” Eric says, and he drains the rest of his glass just to have something to do. Motherfucking fuck, he thinks, as the liquor spreads in a warm wave across his shoulders. Motherfucking Shauna and motherfucking Travis and motherfucking jerktard Vince.
Shauna takes a deep breath and puts both of her hands on the table. “OK,” she says, her voice eerily calm. “Now, let’s have this conversation.”
Eric can’t even look up at her. His head is swirling, so he rests it in his palm. “What do you want me to say?” he asks. His words sound thick, like he’s about to cry. Fuck that, he thinks, and wipes his face.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she says. It’s the reasonableness in her voice that makes Eric shudder and put his head down on his arms, and he’s glad, he’s so glad that Shauna doesn’t try to touch him, that she just asks the waiter for a couple of glasses of water and more napkins and then sits still until Eric can pull himself together enough to drink the iced water set in front of him.
“Sweetheart,” she says, shaking her head. “Jesus Christ.”
“I just had this fight - basically this exact same fight - with Vince,” Eric says, sipping from his water glass carefully. He focuses on Shauna’s watch. It’s a nice watch, probably Tag Heuer, like the one Vince bought for his mother last Christmas. Maybe he bought Shauna one, too - but no, Eric would have known. At least, he thinks he would have. He almost has to put his head back down.
“Do you serve food here?” Shauna snaps at the waiter, who's serving the booth beside them. “You, yeah, something with crackers and some goddamned protein, all right? The fastest thing you can make.” Now Shauna reaches out, puts her hand on one of his arms. “OK, Eric, you’re fucking scaring me,” she says.
He nods, but that makes the room spin, so he just leans back and rests his head against the booth. His breath is rushed in his ears and his heart is beating a mile a minute. “I’m OK,” he says, mostly to convince himself. “I’m just - a little fucked up.”
“I got that,” she says. “You want I should call someone? Johnny Drama, he’s not doing anything tonight, I’m sure.”
“No, it’s OK,” Eric says. He makes himself open his eyes. “I’m OK. Really.”
When he sits forward again, Shauna nods, gently, and takes a drink of her own water. “OK,” she says, and Eric repeats it. “So. Do you want to talk about this?”
He shrugs. “I’m fucking goddamned Travis Walters,” he says. “You were right.”
She nods. Her eyes still say she’s a little frightened, and Eric actually laughs. “For how long?”
“About three months now.”
Then, because of the liquor, because of the unease in her eyes, because Eric just had a motherfucking world-ending fight with his best friend, he tells her the whole thing. Vince dating Anita. Vince being quiet after Lucas. Turtle and Drama and their plan. Travis and how fucking sweet he is. Vince and their fight - and he stops just short of telling her about the other guys, but when she asks, “Did you think - you have a reason to think he might be interested in men?” he nods very, very slightly.
“But it’s not like that now,” he says. “Shauna - he won’t hardly even talk to me. My best friend, and he won’t even talk to me.”
Shauna sits back and picks up one of the crispy breadsticks which arrived halfway through his story along with a bowl of hummus and a heaping basket of pita bread. None of it sounds good, but Eric makes himself eat a pita wedge, chewing slowly, methodically, while Shauna sits in quiet thought. It tastes like cardboard.
“You morons,” she says after a minute, shaking her head. Eric stays very still. “Everything was going so well.”
“But I fucked it up,” Eric says. “You should’ve seen his face today, I -”
“Nah,” she says, waving her hand. “You didn’t do shit, Eric. If he’s your friend - and he is - then you’re gonna get through this. Trust me, honey, he’s gonna get over it. He’s a good boy.”
“I accused him of being too cowardly to -”
“Let’s not say that one in public, OK?” Shauna says. When she leans in, there’s a sparkle of the usual meanness back in her eye, and Eric feels immediately, bizarrely relieved. “Look, so, it’s going to take him some time, but he’ll pull his head out and you’ll get along again.”
Eric wants to believe that, but he can’t even make himself nod. He keeps seeing Vince, hunched on the floor, not looking at him; he hears the steel in his voice.
“Are you and Travis - I mean, is it serious?”
Eric closes his eyes. Him and Travis. He knows what he wants, but they haven’t really had that talk. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe. We’re getting there.”
“And who else knows?”
“The guys,” Eric says. “His manager, his sister. I don’t know, probably some of his friends.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, and it’s not in People yet,” Shauna says, and takes a hit from her water. “You’re lucky I’m so fucking maternal these days or I’d rip your goddamned balls off for all of this, Eric.”
“Maybe we’d be better off.” He picks up a breadstick and breaks it in half, drums the ends on the table. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” she says, digging through her purse.
“Why are we at a hotel?”
Her face is absolutely deadpan serious. “Because I was hoping to get you drunk and fuck you,” she says, and Eric laughs. “Lucy just finished an interview in a suite up top.”
“Oh.” He can’t think of anything else to say; in fact, he’s starting to feel uncomfortable, remembering all the things he’s just told her. He can feel his face heating up, even as she’s checking her messages.
She snaps the phone closed. “Honey, you look like shit,” she says. “Maybe you should get a room here, relax. But if you’re gonna call Travis, ask him to come in the back way, all right? For the love of God.”
Eric tries to smile. “This is why you’re on my speed dial, I guess.”
“My picture should be on your goddamned nightstand, all the shit I’ve put up with from you,” she says, but she’s smiling, too, so Eric feels like they’re going to be OK.
While she’s paying the bill, Eric calls Travis, because he said he would. “Hey,” Travis says, voice warm and sleepy.
“Hey,” Eric says. He stands up and has to keep a hand on the table to stay on his feet. “Uh, wow, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what time it is.”
“It’s not that late,” Travis says, even though it’s nearly one. “Where are you?”
“A hotel. I’m at - Shauna just got done yelling at me.” He rests his forehead in one hand. “I’m getting yelled at a lot today.”
“Yeah? Are you drunk?”
“Yeah,” Eric says, and then he apologizes again.
“Hey, it happens,” Travis says. “Are you - you aren’t driving, are you?”
“No,” Eric says. “Shauna says I should stay here.”
“Where are you, E?” he asks again.
“The Beverly Wilshire,” he says.
“Stay put, all right? I’ll come get you.”
Eric shakes his head. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” Travis says, so Eric says OK.
By the time he gets there thirty minutes later, Eric’s sobered up enough to realize that he shouldn’t have dragged his maybe-boyfriend the movie star out of bed when he could’ve probably survived a cab ride. But when Travis arrives, he smiles at Eric, and he’s the first person who’s been happy to see him all day. Eric is ridiculously grateful. Travis puts his arm around Eric’s shoulders on the way to the car, and Eric leans into him, presses his face against Travis’s side.
“I’m glad to see you,” he says, and Travis squeezes his shoulders and steers him to the car. They don’t talk about the fight on the way back to Travis’s place - Eric decides if Travis asks, he’ll tell him everything, but he doesn’t want to rehash it all yet, not while he’s still feeling so raw about it all. Instead, he lets Travis help him to bed and curls up with him, out before the lights are even off.
In the morning, he wakes up when Travis sits next to him, sun streaming in from behind the blinds. “Fuck,” he mutters, rubbing his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Eleven,” Travis says. “I checked your Blackberry, you don’t have anything this morning, right?”
“I don’t think so.” He wouldn’t make it even if he did.
Travis rubs his shoulder. “Come out to the kitchen,” he says. “I’ll make coffee.”
Eric detours to take a shower and some Tylenol and to rinse out his mouth with some of Travis’s mouthwash. He feels a little more human when he takes a seat on a stool at the counter, and Travis hands him a cup of black coffee.
“So what was Shauna yelling at you about?” Travis asks.
Eric tips his head down, staring at his coffee. He should tell Travis the whole story, but he’s just not ready, not yet. “Uh, the usual stuff,” Eric says. “Actually, she was kind of pissed I didn’t tell her about you.”
“Publicists,” he says. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t - actually, I might be famous enough to cut a good plea bargain if I killed a publicist. What do you think?”
“You don’t have anything against managers, right?”
Travis smirks. “Nothing bad.”
“Listen, thank you for coming to get me, last night. I was pretty fucked up.”
“It’s seriously no problem,” Travis says. “It’s good to see you, even when you’re fucked up.”
Eric smiles, even though his head’s pretty sore. “Thanks, I think. It’s good to be seen. I just - I really was glad to see you last night, and to, uh. You know. Have somewhere to go.”
Travis nods. “I was thinking, actually, maybe you should leave some stuff here.”
Eric looks down at his clothes, wrinkled and bar-smelly from yesterday, and says, “You don’t mind?”
“Nah,” he says. “Makes sense, right?”
“Yeah,” Eric says, “I guess so.”
“And I’ll get you a key,” Travis says, and Eric looks up from his coffee. Travis smiles. “Big step?”
It is. Eric hasn’t ever had a key to a girl’s apartment; really, the only person who’s ever handed him his own keys was Vince. But the truth is it does make sense, because they spend a lot of time together, and Travis has a way nicer place than he does and he’s closer to almost everywhere Eric usually goes. Everywhere but Vince’s house, and, well, Eric could do with some distance. More than any of that, Eric wants to have a place to go, like this; he wants to spend more time with Travis. So he agrees to go home and get some stuff and come back the next evening, and Travis kisses him before he leaves.
The next day, he calls in sick for work for the first time ever. Ever. Not even at Sbarro’s, not even when he had pneumonia, not even when he was working the goddamned concession stand at the high school choir concerts so he could get free tickets to see Vince’s plays, has he ever called in sick. He’s not really sure how to do it, except that he can’t talk to Vince and that means he can’t call the guys. So he calls Ari.
“Do you know how much my wife loves it when other women call me in the middle of the fucking night, E?” Ari asks.
“Ari, hey, listen,” he starts, but Ari carries on.
“Shauna called here at two a.m. the other night to tell me the details of your little tete-á-tete. Needless to say, when she asked if I thought someone should check on you, that was a resounding no.”
“Yeah, well, I made it through the night, sorry, Ari,” Eric says. “But about today -”
“Today, we have the fucking meeting with Anderson to nail the fucking costume down, and you know how our boy gets about costumes, E.”
“You don’t want me there,” Eric says. “Seriously, Ari, if he sees me -”
“If he sees you,” Ari says, and Eric nearly holds the phone away from his ear, Ari sounds so venomous, “he’s going to act like the fucking professional he is, and you’re going to pretend to be the motherfucking professional you aren’t and you’re going to hold his fucking hand until we’re set on this goddamned Oscar-baiting movie.” Ari heaves a breath and so does Eric. “If you aren’t at Paramount in two hours, Eric, two fucking itty bitty hours, I don’t care what your excuse is, I don’t care if you had to stop to deliver the motherfucking next coming of Christ on the freeway, I will find you and I will kill you. I will kill you twice, resurrect you, and kill you again. Do you understand me?”
“OK, OK,” Eric says, trying for his usual tone of indifference even though his hands are fucking shaking. He hangs up and gets out of bed, starts to get ready. It’s not that he’s scared of Ari - he’s scared of Vince. He’s scared he’s going to show up in two hours and Vince is going to punch him, or fire him, or, worse, just ignore him.
“Don’t think about it,” he says to himself, shampooing his hair. This is how he got through high school, after all - this is how he’s gotten through life, until recently, spending a lot of time not thinking about it. Of course, “it” used to be just guys in general, not the fact that this one guy, his best friend, has such a problem with it, but Eric can manage all the same.
Instead, he thinks of how exactly he’s gotten himself into this. Lucas. On the set, they had such a fucking good time, it was like the guy was just one of them, like they’d all grown up together. Even Vince said that, while they were working. “This guy, it’s like he gets us, like he’s one of us, you know?” he said, and Eric agreed. Of course he agreed. And then Lucas had dropped a hint, one night, while they were in the editing trailer just the two of them, Vince and Turtle and Drama off at some raucous party that was supposed to be stocked with gorgeous South American beauties. “What, no Latin ladies for you?” he asked, and Eric shrugged and took the joint from him.
“Not really my scene,” he said. “This is fucking good shit, man.”
“Home grown.”
Eric nodded his approval, then exhaled. “What about you, this stuff could get done tomorrow.”
Lucas laughed. “Not my scene, either,” he said, taking the joint back.
“Not a party man?”
“Love to party,” Lucas said. “Just not that into the ladies part.”
“Huh,” Eric said, and instead of just saying, that’s cool, man, or something equally lame, he said, “You know, me either,” and that was how it started.
He had plenty of time to rethink it after that, plenty of time to take it back or blame it on the pot or whatever, and he planned to do it the next day. But stepping out of his trailer - his very own producer’s trailer, not Vince’s, not on this set - he looked around and thought, if not now, then when. That night when the other guys went into town to drink at the cantina, Eric stayed behind and drank with Lucas in his trailer, and that’s where he woke up the next morning, and that’s how it all went down.
And that’s how he got where he is now, sitting in his car outside the Paramount gates, fumbling with his ID and hoping the guard can’t see his hands are shaking.
She can, apparently, because she gives him a big friendly smile and says, “Knock ‘em dead,” before she waves Eric through.
He finds his way to the lot where they’re meeting so Anderson can show them the costume in context, something he’s big on. Their black Escalade is parked right in front, and Turtle’s leaning against it. He knocks on the back window as Eric pulls in. By the time he gets out of the car, Vince is standing next to Turtle, with his arms crossed and his sunglasses on. Eric clears his throat. “You ready?” he says, glad his voice is steady. Professional.
Vince shrugs, but he follows him to the door, and they walk right in and across the dusty floor of the set to where Eric can hear Ari’s voice echoing off the tin walls. “And there he is, see, right on time,” Ari says, and Eric guesses the glance at his watch is meant for him. He shrugs and crosses his own arms and stands right next to Vince as Anderson and his costuming girl unveil a series of running outfits, complete with headbands and seventies-era sneakers.
Vince snaps off his sunglasses and looks them all up and down, then looks at Eric. “What do you think, E?” he asks.
Eric tips his head to the side. His first thought is a joke, just like normal - I think your ass is gonna look hot in those - but he swallows that reaction down. “It fits with the character,” he says.
“And your ass is going to look great in those little shorts, huh? A little something for the ladies,” Ari says, and Vince rolls his eyes.
“Seriously, though,” he says, and turns to Anderson. “You gotta promise me all of America isn’t going to be seeing my cock out the bottom of these things.”
“Vince, I swear -”
“I want to see the dailies,” Eric says. “Last thing we need is a fucking NC-17 slapped on.”
“All right, all right,” Anderson concedes, “but you’ll take it?”
“Plus the beard?” Vince asks, and he nods. Vince glances at Eric.
“Also, the ending,” Eric says.
Anderson nods and slings an arm around one of the mannequins. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too,” he says. “I’m working on a rewrite. Can I get you a copy on the weekend?”
“Saturday,” Eric says, and Ari, who’s panting like a little dog, practically squeals.
“Otherwise, we’re good, right? Nothing standing in our way.”
Vince shrugs. “Let’s do this,” he says, and there are handshakes all around. And there, at least, Eric gets an answer to a question that’s been bothering him for months - he’s still good at his job. He can still do it well, even if Vince isn’t talking to him. Anita won’t be replacing him here.
Back in the sunlight, Ari looks at both of them and says, “That’s the way we handle these things, boys. I’d ask if you want to celebrate, but E, you’ve hit the bottle enough this week.” He shakes his head and walks to his car. “Paperwork tomorrow morning, you both come downtown and sign it, OK?”
“Right, right,” Eric says, and Ari gets into his car.
Vince has his glasses back on, his arms recrossed. It’s like a switch was flipped, like he’s back, now, to hating Eric or being mad or whatever. “You went drinking with Ari?”
“No,” Eric says, and decides he doesn’t have to elaborate. Right now, he’s just happy to have survived.
“Hey, you comin’ to lunch?” Turtle asks, and Eric nearly flinches.
“No,” he says, after there’s a moment’s pause where Vince doesn’t chime in. “I gotta go to the office for a while.” He walks around his car, and the guys start to pile into the suburban. “Hey, don’t forget you’ve got a haircut tomorrow, right?”
“Right, right,” Vince says, and then he gets in and shuts the door. Eric doesn’t miss the sympathetic look he gets from Turtle, but he tries not to dwell on it. He heads for his office, or starts to, but along the way he realizes there’s nothing really that pressing for him to do. So he stops by his condo and picks up a few things, then drives over to Travis’s place, and finds Travis stretched out on the couch, watching car racing, like nothing’s wrong in the world. Eric gets it, then, that for Travis nothing is - he doesn’t know about the fight, and Eric suddenly doesn’t want to tell him, not yet, not until he’s got his head on a bit straighter.
“You’re a NASCAR fan?” Eric asks.
“New role,” he says. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Yeah? The Van Sant racing thing, huh? I read that.”
Travis smiles up at him. “Jealous?”
Eric laughs and takes a seat on the couch, next to Travis’s knees. “Professionally, maybe,” he says. “But really, more like impressed. And happy for you.”
Travis slides his hand across Eric’s back, tugs gently on his shoulder. Even though he’s in business clothes, wearing a shirt that wrinkles when he looks at it funny and pants that aren’t made for lounging around, he lets himself be pulled down onto his side and settles in with Travis’s arm over his stomach. “He wants to film here, mostly,” Travis says, his breath warm on Eric’s neck.
“Now I’m even happier,” he murmurs, and Travis gives him a gentle squeeze.
They lay there for a while, watching cars speed in circles, listening to a low hum of commentary. Eric’s mind isn’t on the television, but, for the first time since he left lunch yesterday, it’s also not spinning and swirling around his fight with Vince. He feels - calm. Better. Whatever the fuck Vince is thinking, there’s nothing wrong with this.
The race ends and the announcers promise more to come, but Travis reaches out and snaps off the TV. Eric turns so he’s on his back, Travis looking down at him. Travis kisses him. “Hey,” he says. “How was your meeting this morning?”
Eric sighs. “A nightmare. I mean, it went fine, but - “
“Ari?”
“I - sort of,” Eric says, and Travis raises an eyebrow. He still doesn’t really want to get into the stupid fight with Vince. “I brought some clothes over,” Eric says, and Travis smiles.
“That’s good,” he says, “because I got you a key.”
“Can I just - can I ask you something?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s gonna sound dumb.”
“Ask anyway.”
Eric swallows. “We are dating, right? I mean, that’s what you would you call this.”
There’s a tiny flicker of a smile at the very edge of Travis’s mouth, but he looks away, down toward where his hand is resting on Eric’s stomach. “I thought so,” he says.
“Good,” Eric says.
“I kind of thought we were getting a little serious,” Travis says, still not looking at him. His fingers slip between two of the buttons on Eric’s shirt.
“Me, too,” Eric says, and it’s such a relief to say it out loud that he actually laughs. Travis looks up at him, confused for a second, but Eric kisses him and then he smiles. “I’m serious,” he says, and Travis laughs against his mouth.
“Very serious,” Travis says, almost mocking, but then he shifts so he’s on top of Eric, and things actually do get pretty serious. Afterward, they move back to Travis’s bed and Eric falls asleep for a while, then wakes when Travis shakes his shoulder. “Phone,” he says, handing Eric his cell, and Eric thanks him. The number’s unfamiliar, so he clears his throat and sits up before answering. “Eric Murphy.”
“Hi, Eric. This is Anita.”
Eric glances over at Travis, who’s pulling on his shorts. “Uh, hey, Anita,” he says, and Travis looks over. Eric shrugs. “What’s up?”
“Oh, uh, nothing, really. Not much. I just - uh, are you with Vince, right now?”
“No, I don’t know where he is,” Eric says.
“It’s just, we were supposed to meet, and I haven’t heard from him.”
Eric barely holds back a sigh. “You know, he might’ve gotten held up at the gym or something,” he says, which is nearly impossible but also plausible. “Do you have Turtle’s number? Try him, if Vince’s phone is dead.”
“Yeah, good idea,” she says. “Thanks, E.”
“Sure.” He hangs up, glances over at Travis.
Travis has pulled on his jeans. “Anita?” Eric nods. “What’s up?”
Eric shrugs, pulling on his own shorts. “Vince stood her up for lunch or something.”
“They having trouble?”
“Hell if I know,” he says. “It’s not like either of them talks to me about it.” Travis walks by the bed, and Eric grabs him by the belt loop and pulls him closer. Travis’s hands fall gently to his shoulders, then cup his neck, and Eric looks up at him. He is so fucking gorgeous, Eric thinks, and he wonders how he’s had the luck to be this close with two guys who are this beautiful.
“How are things with Vince?”
“Honestly? Pretty fucking bad,” Eric says.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Eric shrugs. “Not yet,” he says. “OK?”
“Sure,” Travis says, but there’s something a little too casual in his reply. Eric’s been around actors for fifteen years; he can tell when they’re trying too hard. But he doesn’t know what to say, exactly, to make things better, so he gets up and finds his shorts and then grabs his pants from the living room. When he’s dressed, he walks back to the kitchen, where Travis is drinking a beer.
“You wanna get some food?” Eric asks. “Early dinner?”
Travis nods, then clears his throat. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.”
“I - it’s just, look, I meant it, before, about - about things being serious, or wanting them to be, and I - I need to know, if you’re, if there’s something going on with Vince -”
Eric shakes his head. He wonders, but only for a second, if he should tell Travis about the guys’ plan, then decides against it. “I’ve got some issues with him,” he says, the fight banging around in his head. “Or, I guess, like I said, he’s got some issues with me. Maybe he’s always gonna. But - it’s got nothing to do with you and me.” Travis nods. Eric steps in close, takes the beer bottle away and then puts his arms around Travis’s waist. “I meant to tell you - thanks for the key. It - it means something. A lot.”
Travis nods. “We fit pretty well, don’t we?” he says, and Eric smiles up at him.
“Yeah, I think so,” he says, and Travis smiles back and kisses him. “Now, let me take you to dinner, all right? Just you and me.”
They have a nice dinner at a small pizza place Travis likes. It’s California pizza, nothing like back home, but Travis - though he has a place in the city - doesn’t know pizza from pizza. That’s OK, though, because he picks the wine expertly, and the whole thing is made better by a good Chianti and good company. After the check’s been paid, Eric leans on the table and looks across at Travis.
Travis smiles at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” Eric says, and he surprises himself a little when he reaches over and catches Travis’s hand. But it feels good - it feels pretty fucking right - and so he keeps hold of it, even as they leave the restaurant. In the car, he says, “I didn’t think about this, but, uh, Shauna, last night, she said people are talking -”
“Yeah,” Travis says, and he shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.”
“What’s Lisa say?”
Travis smirks. He turns to face Eric when they come to a stop. “What would you tell Vince?”
Eric feels, suddenly, pretty queasy. “I’d tell him to knock it off.”
“You’re a good manager,” Travis says. “But, lucky for us, you’re not my manager, so don’t worry about it. OK?”
His mouth is a little dry. “I don’t want to cause problems for you,” Eric says.
“You’re not,” Travis says, and he sounds pretty confident. “The press has known my story for a while.”
Eric’s instinct is to argue, because it’s what he’d do with Vince, but the truth is he’s not Travis’s manager. Travis isn’t Vince, his career isn’t Vince’s career, and Eric needs to get on board with all of that. He says, “OK, I’m not worrying,” and Travis grins.
“Good,” he says. “Since there’s nothing to worry about, you should stay over tonight.”
Eric agrees.
They settle into a pattern, after that. Eric goes to all of the pre-production meetings he’s supposed to for Vince: stuff with Ari, with Shauna, with the studio, with the director. When filming starts at the end of the week, he shows up on set whenever Vince is there or whenever he’s supposed to. He plays nice, and so does Vince, and after the meetings are over or when filming wraps, Vince and the guys go out and Eric goes to his office or to Travis’s place. He and Vince don’t really talk, and that doesn’t get any easier, but it doesn’t get any worse, either. Eric figures at this point, things are going to stay the same until after filming, because Vince doesn’t like to get his head messed around while he’s working. He misses the guys - he misses Vince - but he’s usually too busy to dwell on it.
One afternoon, Eric meets Vince and Turtle at wine bar just after lunch, where they’re supposed to be seeing Shauna. She’s running late, though, so it’s just the three of them at a table, crunching on thin breadsticks. Vince is drinking wine; Turtle has a Bloody Mary. Eric sticks to water. “Hey, where were you last night? I was tryin’ to find you,” Turtle says.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“We had tickets for the Mayhem concert,” he says. “I texted you.”
“Yeah, shit, sorry. I got it too late,” Eric says. He actually got the message right on time, but he’d been kicked back on Travis’s couch with Chinese food, watching more NASCAR, and hadn’t wanted to leave.
“Where were you? Big meeting?”
“Travis’s place,” Eric says, and Turtle raises an eyebrow.
Vince says, “How is Travis?” His voice is high, fake sweet.
“He’s good,” Eric says, but then he can’t resist asking, “How’s Anita?”
Vince shrugs, and Eric looks at Turtle. He’s looking away. “Shit,” Eric says. “You broke up with her already?”
“I didn’t break up with her,” Vince says.
“Right. You probably just stopped calling, right? Jesus Christ, Vince, grow the fuck up, would you?”
“Hey, I didn’t -”
“Boys,” Shauna interrupts them, “if we have to take this to the parking lot, someone’s gonna get hit by my car. Sit down and shut up, can you, just for a little bit?”
“I can if he can,” Vince mutters, and Eric carefully doesn’t look over.
Shauna wants to talk about an upcoming premiere. It’s an easy sell for Vince - he just has to go and be charming, take a date, get some pictures taken, talk about the movie a little. But it’s the same night as his birthday, and Shauna has an idea: a premiere after-party that also celebrates Vince.
“Aw, hell yeah,” Turtle says, rubbing his hands together.
Vince shrugs. “Why would I do it the same night?”
“We’ll get twice the press,” she says, “and, Eric, this should make you happy, Damien MacEnroe’s going to be at the premiere. Should be a cinch to get him at the party.”
Eric does like that idea. MacEnroe’s a British playwright who’s currently shopping a script Eric’s been eyeing. Vince would be perfect in the American lead, but MacEnroe is notoriously picky about who handles his scripts. He turned down Ron Howard’s plea to direct his last piece. Eric’s been wanting Ari to get him in a room for months.
“Seriously, I got this,” Turtle says.
Eric looks between Vince and Shauna. “You want to do this? It’s short notice.”
“Could be fun,” Vince says, and that seals it.
Against his better judgment, Eric turns the planning over to Turtle (with close supervision and assistance from Shauna), and focuses instead on reading up on MacEnroe and getting Ari on board. He spends a little more time with the guys as things come together, too; they meet at a hotel downtown for lunch one day before going around to check out potential venues for the party. With Turtle and Drama around, it’s easy to fall back into their old patterns, joking with each other, laughing about old shit. They stay away from current events - Travis, Anita, even Lucas - by some silent agreement, and though it pains Eric that he can’t talk about his life with his friends, he’s happy just to hang out with them all again.
He tells Travis about the scouting trip over dinner, and Travis says, “Hey, actually, I was gonna ask you - Lisa says we should bite the bullet at this movie.”
“Which bullet?” Eric asks. He tries to stay out of Travis’s career stuff, but he can’t help knowing some of it. Travis is still debating whether to sign on for the Nascar project or not, negotiating over top billing. “You gonna take the movie?”
“What? Oh, I don’t know. Probably, Lisa and Jeremy are working on that. No, I meant - you wanna walk the carpet with me?”
Eric swallows his salad, then reaches for his water. “What?”
“Do you want to be my date, to the premiere?” His smile is a little lopsided, a sure sign of nerves. “Lisa says it’s time to stop dodging the questions and just, uh, come out with it, so to speak.”
“And what do you think?”
Travis shrugs. “I’m fine with it.”
The advantage to being a manager himself is that he understands exactly what’s happening here. Lisa would never recommend this step unless she and Travis’s PR person weren’t already getting bombarded with questions about their relationship. She would also never suggest it - and neither would Travis - if they had any reason to suspect things weren’t going well. Once they do this, it can’t be undone. Their relationship will become part of Travis’s story, and if they break up, it will be news.
Eric takes a deep breath and sits back. “I don’t know what to say.”
He reaches out, catches Eric’s hand where it’s resting on his glass. “Look, I know it’s a lot, and it’s sudden, all of that, but - just think about it. Say you’ll think about it.”
He looks into Travis’s eyes, which are still that perfect blazing green, and he nods. “OK,” he says, and Travis’s grin suddenly matches the heat of his eyes. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” Travis says. He kisses Eric’s hand before he releases it.
That night, Eric stays over at Travis’s place, and when he’s resting in Travis’s arms while Travis sleeps behind him, he lets himself really think about what this could mean. He is happy with Travis. They get along well, better than Eric’s ever gotten along with any of his serious girlfriends. They spend nearly every night together, sometimes just sleeping, and Eric doesn’t quite feel like his day is complete until he’s talked it over with Travis. They’ve been spotted around town having dinner, sometimes being a little affectionate, all of that - it’s no big secret, like Shauna said. Coming out officially is a risk, and even more than that, it’s a commitment. But people take risks all the time to stick with people they love. And, well, Eric’s about ready to admit that this is what’s going on.
The next morning, he leaves Travis with a kiss and a promise that he’ll spend the day thinking, then drives over to meet the guys for coffee.
“Vince is gonna be late,” Turtle says. “He was at Anita’s place all night.”
“Yeah? How’s that going?” Eric asks.
“On-again, off-again,” Turtle says. “He’s been moody ever since you and Travis started up.”
“He’s been moody all year,” Eric says. “It’s not just Travis.”
“Right,” Turtle says, and Eric thinks they’re going to drop it, that Turtle will follow Vince’s usual lead and not even ask, but then he says, “How’s Travis doing, anyway?”
“Good,” Eric says. “Ask him yourself, he’s coming to the premiere on Friday.”
“Who’s coming to the premiere? Sorry, I’m late,” Vince says, sliding in next to Turtle. “Did you hear back from MacEnroe about the party?”
“Not yet,” Eric says, and then decides to just dive right in. “Travis is coming to the premiere.”
Vince blinks, and Eric catches a second of alarm, but he manages to get a good, blank face up pretty quickly. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Eric says, and he’s careful to meet Vince’s eyes. “Actually, he asked me to walk the carpet with him.”
“With him. As his date.”
Eric nods. “If you don’t - I mean, you don’t need me, right? We’re gonna talk to MacEnroe after.”
“Sure,” Vince says, “I don’t need you.”
There’s something so final about that sentence that Eric knows the alarm shows on his face. But there’s nothing he can say. That’s the sentence he’s been dreading since Anita made her first appearance, but right now - it’s almost a hollow ending. He knows this all by now. He just looks down at his coffee, says, “OK, then,” and is glad when Drama drops into the booth, taking the weight of making conversation off his shoulders completely.
After coffee, and a lot of nodding as Turtle talks about plans, Eric goes to his car and calls Travis. “You wanna do some shopping with me this afternoon?” he asks. “I need to get a good suit for this premiere.”
Next Part.
The next few weeks are a blur. Eric’s busy helping Vince get ready to film and with the occasional audition for Josie, but he manages to make time to see Travis just about whenever he can. They go to dinner, to lunch, to an art exhibit he’s interested in, twice to the beach and several times just back to Travis’s condo. He meets Travis’s manager, Lisa, and then, one weekend, his sister. In between, they trade text messages and long phone calls. They don’t go out with the guys, because having two movie stars in the same pack would attract headlines, but Eric does meet Travis’s friends, and they get along pretty well. Eric realizes he’s actually been wanting this - that the casual stuff has nothing on an actually building a relationship.
One afternoon, Vince and Eric have a meeting with Ari that runs long. Eric gets out his phone in the elevator, and Vince glances over. “Who’re you calling?” he asks.
Things have been tense between them, again, and Eric isn’t at all convinced that it’s rooted in jealousy, as Turtle suggests. He thinks Vince’s jealousy has waned, and they’re now back exactly where they were when Eric was with Lucas - Vince being hostile and Eric feeling hurt, bewildered, and now angry about it. But Eric’s not willing to make a big deal out of it, yet, because things are going well for him with Travis, and he’s hoping Vince will just get over it. “I’m calling Travis to let him know I’ll be late for lunch,” he says, unable to resist dropping his name.
Vince frowns. “Where are you going?”
“The London.”
He nods, and Eric hits the speed dial for Travis’s cell. As it rings, Vince puts his hand on Eric’s shoulder. “Ask if I can come along,” he says, and Eric is so surprised that Travis says hello twice before he can reply.
They have lunch just the three of them. It’s not really as awkward as Eric would have guessed, mostly because both Vince and Travis are very good actors and Eric has picked up an ability to be a Hollywood bullshitter somewhere along the way. They talk about their projects - Travis just finished filming a period piece and Vince is about a week away from Year of the Daisies - and their contacts, and Travis tells a funny story that Eric’s heard before about how Ari was almost his agent. When they finish eating, before they step into the glare of the paparazzi, Travis leans in and kisses Eric, just a quick kiss, and says, “Call me tonight, OK?”
“Yeah,” Eric says, squeezing his arm before he darts outside. Eric doesn’t look over at Vince, just watches Travis drive away.
When they’re settled in their car, Eric realizes Vince has been quiet for a long time. “Hey, you all right?” he asks.
Vince laughs, almost to himself. “You really like him,” he says. “I mean, you guys are like - you’re serious.”
Eric shrugs. “What, did you think we were just fucking around?”
“I don’t know what I thought,” Vince murmurs, and he rubs his face with both hands, then stays quiet for the rest of the trip.
At the house, Eric isn’t sure what to do. Vince gets out of the car and walks inside without a word, and Eric is of half a mind to just drive away. Or maybe drive to Travis’s place. Instead, he turns off the car and goes after Vince. “Hey,” he yells, following him into the kitchen. “What is your deal?”
“My deal?” Vince turns from the sink, holding a glass of water. “What do you mean, my deal?”
“I mean you’re fucking doing it again,” Eric says. All of the hurt and anger he’s had bottled up since Lucas comes frothing forth. “You’re treating me like I’m some alien, or like I’ve betrayed you or something, and it’s fucking messed up. If you’re unhappy with me, Vince, if you want to say something, fucking say it and stop this juvenile silent treatment shit.”
Vince scoffs. “I’m messed up? I’m - you’re the one who’s suddenly obsessed with dating Hollywood stars, E. You don’t think it looks crazy? My manager suddenly hooking up with half of the industry’s up-and-comers? First Luke, now Travis - who’s next? You going after Jake, maybe?”
“I’m embarrassing you?” Eric says, his voice almost a hiss. “That’s what you’re saying?”
“It’s kind of weird,” Vince says, his voice infuriatingly casual, “you’ve got to admit -”
Eric slams his hands on the counter. “Fuck you,” he shouts. “Fuck you, talking about who I’m -”
“You have to get how it looks -”
“- who I’m fucking when you’re banging the chick version of me,” Eric finishes, and Vince flinches. He feels like he should draw back, he knows this is crossing the line, but Eric can’t stop now. “At least I’ve been brave enough to go after who I want, I mean, Jesus, at least I’ve got the fucking gender right,” he says. “And fuck you for saying those guys are replacements. Travis is way smarter than you’ll ever be, and Luke had a bigger dick.”
Vince’s eyes are wide, his face starting to turn red. He sets the water glass down on the counter edge, says, “You think I’m - Fuck you, E, I’m straight, remember?”
“Right,” Eric says, “right, except for, what’s his name, Tommy Brennan in high school.”
Vince presses his lips together and shakes his head. “That was one -”
“And Ken Carter, after that,” Eric says. “And that guy, the sound tech, on Aquaman -”
“Fuck you, I was high,” Vince says.
“And what, you forgot he had a cock? It’s not something you just overlook.”
“You would know,” Vince sneers, and the up-and-down look he gives Eric is so ugly Eric has to grab the counter top to keep from striking him.
“Yeah, Vince, I would, because I’m a fucking faggot,” Eric growls. “That’s what you wanna say, right? That’s what you’ve been wanting to say for months. Go ahead, just get it out of your fucking system. You wanna call me a cocksucker? Go on.”
“I’m not - this isn’t about that,” Vince says.
“Right,” Eric says. “Right. You’ve been treating me like fucking scum, like a stranger, for months, and it started when I hooked up with Luke, and you want me to believe it’s got nothing to do with me being gay.”
Vince shakes his head and steps forward, holding up one hand, and he says, “You’re hooking up with some guy, it doesn’t make you gay, E. All right?”
“It’s more than hooking up,” Eric says. “You get this, right? I’m dating him, and Vince, I’m pretty into him.”
“Whatever,” Vince says. “Everybody has stupid phases. You’re not really -”
“Yes I am,” Eric yells, and he slams his hands down on the counter top and knocks Vince’s glass to the floor.
It falls and shatters, and Vince jumps and yells, “Fuck!” Water and glass spread everywhere.
Eric takes a step back. His hands are shaking, his shoulders ache. He’s angry and frightened and starting to feel some serious regret about what he’s said about Vince, what they’ve said. Vince stares at the glass for a moment, then kneels to pick up the pieces. Eric bends to help. “Vin,” he says, his voice unsteady.
“Get out,” Vince says. His voice is flat, almost robotic. He’s collecting the glass into his palm, looking at it, not Eric.
“I didn’t mean -”
“Leave, E.”
“Vince, we need to talk about this.” Vince shakes his head. “Seriously, man -”
“Just because you are,” Vince says, shards tinkling in his hand, “doesn’t mean I am.”
Eric almost falls backwards. He takes a breath, then says, “Fine,” as steadily as he can. “Fine,” he says again, and he stands. He hovers in the doorway for a second. When Vince doesn’t look up, Eric turns and walks to the driveway, where it takes him almost a full minute to get the key into the ignition before he drives away.
He forgets to call Travis but answers the phone when it rings at ten that night. He’s had a few beers, but when Shuana asks if he wants to get a drink, Eric agrees and says he’ll meet her. She gives him an address that he gives to the cabbie, and twenty minutes later, he’s in a hotel bar.
“You’re a fucking prick,” she says before he’s even taken his seat across from her.
He signals the waiter and orders a triple of Jack. “Coming from you, that means something,” he says when the guy is gone.
“You’re fucking goddamned Travis Walters, and you didn’t come to me first?” Shauna’s working on her second martini, from the glasses on the table, but Eric guesses there’s a little more behind her than that. “You, who I thought had a brain other than the one lodged in the tip of your dick.”
“Shauna -”
“I expect this shit from Vince,” she says, just as the waiter sets down Eric’s drink and a fresh one for Shauna. She holds out her hand, drains the martini, and then hands him the old glass and its friend. Once the waiter is gone, and once she swallows the liquor, without flinching, she says, “I expect to get calls saying, who the fuck is Vincent Chase fucking, I expect that, and I expect to have no goddamned good answer, OK? That is what I get paid for. What I do not get paid for -”
“Did you call me down here just to yell? Because we could’ve done that on the phone,” Eric says, taking a gulp from his glass.
“I do not get paid enough,” Shauna continues, holding the olive on its toothpick like a very small sword, “to get calls on the fucking weekend asking whether Vincent Chase’s fucking former live-in manager is fucking goddamned Travis Walters.”
“You kiss your kid with that mouth? Jesus,” Eric says, and he drains the rest of his glass just to have something to do. Motherfucking fuck, he thinks, as the liquor spreads in a warm wave across his shoulders. Motherfucking Shauna and motherfucking Travis and motherfucking jerktard Vince.
Shauna takes a deep breath and puts both of her hands on the table. “OK,” she says, her voice eerily calm. “Now, let’s have this conversation.”
Eric can’t even look up at her. His head is swirling, so he rests it in his palm. “What do you want me to say?” he asks. His words sound thick, like he’s about to cry. Fuck that, he thinks, and wipes his face.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she says. It’s the reasonableness in her voice that makes Eric shudder and put his head down on his arms, and he’s glad, he’s so glad that Shauna doesn’t try to touch him, that she just asks the waiter for a couple of glasses of water and more napkins and then sits still until Eric can pull himself together enough to drink the iced water set in front of him.
“Sweetheart,” she says, shaking her head. “Jesus Christ.”
“I just had this fight - basically this exact same fight - with Vince,” Eric says, sipping from his water glass carefully. He focuses on Shauna’s watch. It’s a nice watch, probably Tag Heuer, like the one Vince bought for his mother last Christmas. Maybe he bought Shauna one, too - but no, Eric would have known. At least, he thinks he would have. He almost has to put his head back down.
“Do you serve food here?” Shauna snaps at the waiter, who's serving the booth beside them. “You, yeah, something with crackers and some goddamned protein, all right? The fastest thing you can make.” Now Shauna reaches out, puts her hand on one of his arms. “OK, Eric, you’re fucking scaring me,” she says.
He nods, but that makes the room spin, so he just leans back and rests his head against the booth. His breath is rushed in his ears and his heart is beating a mile a minute. “I’m OK,” he says, mostly to convince himself. “I’m just - a little fucked up.”
“I got that,” she says. “You want I should call someone? Johnny Drama, he’s not doing anything tonight, I’m sure.”
“No, it’s OK,” Eric says. He makes himself open his eyes. “I’m OK. Really.”
When he sits forward again, Shauna nods, gently, and takes a drink of her own water. “OK,” she says, and Eric repeats it. “So. Do you want to talk about this?”
He shrugs. “I’m fucking goddamned Travis Walters,” he says. “You were right.”
She nods. Her eyes still say she’s a little frightened, and Eric actually laughs. “For how long?”
“About three months now.”
Then, because of the liquor, because of the unease in her eyes, because Eric just had a motherfucking world-ending fight with his best friend, he tells her the whole thing. Vince dating Anita. Vince being quiet after Lucas. Turtle and Drama and their plan. Travis and how fucking sweet he is. Vince and their fight - and he stops just short of telling her about the other guys, but when she asks, “Did you think - you have a reason to think he might be interested in men?” he nods very, very slightly.
“But it’s not like that now,” he says. “Shauna - he won’t hardly even talk to me. My best friend, and he won’t even talk to me.”
Shauna sits back and picks up one of the crispy breadsticks which arrived halfway through his story along with a bowl of hummus and a heaping basket of pita bread. None of it sounds good, but Eric makes himself eat a pita wedge, chewing slowly, methodically, while Shauna sits in quiet thought. It tastes like cardboard.
“You morons,” she says after a minute, shaking her head. Eric stays very still. “Everything was going so well.”
“But I fucked it up,” Eric says. “You should’ve seen his face today, I -”
“Nah,” she says, waving her hand. “You didn’t do shit, Eric. If he’s your friend - and he is - then you’re gonna get through this. Trust me, honey, he’s gonna get over it. He’s a good boy.”
“I accused him of being too cowardly to -”
“Let’s not say that one in public, OK?” Shauna says. When she leans in, there’s a sparkle of the usual meanness back in her eye, and Eric feels immediately, bizarrely relieved. “Look, so, it’s going to take him some time, but he’ll pull his head out and you’ll get along again.”
Eric wants to believe that, but he can’t even make himself nod. He keeps seeing Vince, hunched on the floor, not looking at him; he hears the steel in his voice.
“Are you and Travis - I mean, is it serious?”
Eric closes his eyes. Him and Travis. He knows what he wants, but they haven’t really had that talk. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe. We’re getting there.”
“And who else knows?”
“The guys,” Eric says. “His manager, his sister. I don’t know, probably some of his friends.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, and it’s not in People yet,” Shauna says, and takes a hit from her water. “You’re lucky I’m so fucking maternal these days or I’d rip your goddamned balls off for all of this, Eric.”
“Maybe we’d be better off.” He picks up a breadstick and breaks it in half, drums the ends on the table. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” she says, digging through her purse.
“Why are we at a hotel?”
Her face is absolutely deadpan serious. “Because I was hoping to get you drunk and fuck you,” she says, and Eric laughs. “Lucy just finished an interview in a suite up top.”
“Oh.” He can’t think of anything else to say; in fact, he’s starting to feel uncomfortable, remembering all the things he’s just told her. He can feel his face heating up, even as she’s checking her messages.
She snaps the phone closed. “Honey, you look like shit,” she says. “Maybe you should get a room here, relax. But if you’re gonna call Travis, ask him to come in the back way, all right? For the love of God.”
Eric tries to smile. “This is why you’re on my speed dial, I guess.”
“My picture should be on your goddamned nightstand, all the shit I’ve put up with from you,” she says, but she’s smiling, too, so Eric feels like they’re going to be OK.
While she’s paying the bill, Eric calls Travis, because he said he would. “Hey,” Travis says, voice warm and sleepy.
“Hey,” Eric says. He stands up and has to keep a hand on the table to stay on his feet. “Uh, wow, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what time it is.”
“It’s not that late,” Travis says, even though it’s nearly one. “Where are you?”
“A hotel. I’m at - Shauna just got done yelling at me.” He rests his forehead in one hand. “I’m getting yelled at a lot today.”
“Yeah? Are you drunk?”
“Yeah,” Eric says, and then he apologizes again.
“Hey, it happens,” Travis says. “Are you - you aren’t driving, are you?”
“No,” Eric says. “Shauna says I should stay here.”
“Where are you, E?” he asks again.
“The Beverly Wilshire,” he says.
“Stay put, all right? I’ll come get you.”
Eric shakes his head. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” Travis says, so Eric says OK.
By the time he gets there thirty minutes later, Eric’s sobered up enough to realize that he shouldn’t have dragged his maybe-boyfriend the movie star out of bed when he could’ve probably survived a cab ride. But when Travis arrives, he smiles at Eric, and he’s the first person who’s been happy to see him all day. Eric is ridiculously grateful. Travis puts his arm around Eric’s shoulders on the way to the car, and Eric leans into him, presses his face against Travis’s side.
“I’m glad to see you,” he says, and Travis squeezes his shoulders and steers him to the car. They don’t talk about the fight on the way back to Travis’s place - Eric decides if Travis asks, he’ll tell him everything, but he doesn’t want to rehash it all yet, not while he’s still feeling so raw about it all. Instead, he lets Travis help him to bed and curls up with him, out before the lights are even off.
In the morning, he wakes up when Travis sits next to him, sun streaming in from behind the blinds. “Fuck,” he mutters, rubbing his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Eleven,” Travis says. “I checked your Blackberry, you don’t have anything this morning, right?”
“I don’t think so.” He wouldn’t make it even if he did.
Travis rubs his shoulder. “Come out to the kitchen,” he says. “I’ll make coffee.”
Eric detours to take a shower and some Tylenol and to rinse out his mouth with some of Travis’s mouthwash. He feels a little more human when he takes a seat on a stool at the counter, and Travis hands him a cup of black coffee.
“So what was Shauna yelling at you about?” Travis asks.
Eric tips his head down, staring at his coffee. He should tell Travis the whole story, but he’s just not ready, not yet. “Uh, the usual stuff,” Eric says. “Actually, she was kind of pissed I didn’t tell her about you.”
“Publicists,” he says. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t - actually, I might be famous enough to cut a good plea bargain if I killed a publicist. What do you think?”
“You don’t have anything against managers, right?”
Travis smirks. “Nothing bad.”
“Listen, thank you for coming to get me, last night. I was pretty fucked up.”
“It’s seriously no problem,” Travis says. “It’s good to see you, even when you’re fucked up.”
Eric smiles, even though his head’s pretty sore. “Thanks, I think. It’s good to be seen. I just - I really was glad to see you last night, and to, uh. You know. Have somewhere to go.”
Travis nods. “I was thinking, actually, maybe you should leave some stuff here.”
Eric looks down at his clothes, wrinkled and bar-smelly from yesterday, and says, “You don’t mind?”
“Nah,” he says. “Makes sense, right?”
“Yeah,” Eric says, “I guess so.”
“And I’ll get you a key,” Travis says, and Eric looks up from his coffee. Travis smiles. “Big step?”
It is. Eric hasn’t ever had a key to a girl’s apartment; really, the only person who’s ever handed him his own keys was Vince. But the truth is it does make sense, because they spend a lot of time together, and Travis has a way nicer place than he does and he’s closer to almost everywhere Eric usually goes. Everywhere but Vince’s house, and, well, Eric could do with some distance. More than any of that, Eric wants to have a place to go, like this; he wants to spend more time with Travis. So he agrees to go home and get some stuff and come back the next evening, and Travis kisses him before he leaves.
The next day, he calls in sick for work for the first time ever. Ever. Not even at Sbarro’s, not even when he had pneumonia, not even when he was working the goddamned concession stand at the high school choir concerts so he could get free tickets to see Vince’s plays, has he ever called in sick. He’s not really sure how to do it, except that he can’t talk to Vince and that means he can’t call the guys. So he calls Ari.
“Do you know how much my wife loves it when other women call me in the middle of the fucking night, E?” Ari asks.
“Ari, hey, listen,” he starts, but Ari carries on.
“Shauna called here at two a.m. the other night to tell me the details of your little tete-á-tete. Needless to say, when she asked if I thought someone should check on you, that was a resounding no.”
“Yeah, well, I made it through the night, sorry, Ari,” Eric says. “But about today -”
“Today, we have the fucking meeting with Anderson to nail the fucking costume down, and you know how our boy gets about costumes, E.”
“You don’t want me there,” Eric says. “Seriously, Ari, if he sees me -”
“If he sees you,” Ari says, and Eric nearly holds the phone away from his ear, Ari sounds so venomous, “he’s going to act like the fucking professional he is, and you’re going to pretend to be the motherfucking professional you aren’t and you’re going to hold his fucking hand until we’re set on this goddamned Oscar-baiting movie.” Ari heaves a breath and so does Eric. “If you aren’t at Paramount in two hours, Eric, two fucking itty bitty hours, I don’t care what your excuse is, I don’t care if you had to stop to deliver the motherfucking next coming of Christ on the freeway, I will find you and I will kill you. I will kill you twice, resurrect you, and kill you again. Do you understand me?”
“OK, OK,” Eric says, trying for his usual tone of indifference even though his hands are fucking shaking. He hangs up and gets out of bed, starts to get ready. It’s not that he’s scared of Ari - he’s scared of Vince. He’s scared he’s going to show up in two hours and Vince is going to punch him, or fire him, or, worse, just ignore him.
“Don’t think about it,” he says to himself, shampooing his hair. This is how he got through high school, after all - this is how he’s gotten through life, until recently, spending a lot of time not thinking about it. Of course, “it” used to be just guys in general, not the fact that this one guy, his best friend, has such a problem with it, but Eric can manage all the same.
Instead, he thinks of how exactly he’s gotten himself into this. Lucas. On the set, they had such a fucking good time, it was like the guy was just one of them, like they’d all grown up together. Even Vince said that, while they were working. “This guy, it’s like he gets us, like he’s one of us, you know?” he said, and Eric agreed. Of course he agreed. And then Lucas had dropped a hint, one night, while they were in the editing trailer just the two of them, Vince and Turtle and Drama off at some raucous party that was supposed to be stocked with gorgeous South American beauties. “What, no Latin ladies for you?” he asked, and Eric shrugged and took the joint from him.
“Not really my scene,” he said. “This is fucking good shit, man.”
“Home grown.”
Eric nodded his approval, then exhaled. “What about you, this stuff could get done tomorrow.”
Lucas laughed. “Not my scene, either,” he said, taking the joint back.
“Not a party man?”
“Love to party,” Lucas said. “Just not that into the ladies part.”
“Huh,” Eric said, and instead of just saying, that’s cool, man, or something equally lame, he said, “You know, me either,” and that was how it started.
He had plenty of time to rethink it after that, plenty of time to take it back or blame it on the pot or whatever, and he planned to do it the next day. But stepping out of his trailer - his very own producer’s trailer, not Vince’s, not on this set - he looked around and thought, if not now, then when. That night when the other guys went into town to drink at the cantina, Eric stayed behind and drank with Lucas in his trailer, and that’s where he woke up the next morning, and that’s how it all went down.
And that’s how he got where he is now, sitting in his car outside the Paramount gates, fumbling with his ID and hoping the guard can’t see his hands are shaking.
She can, apparently, because she gives him a big friendly smile and says, “Knock ‘em dead,” before she waves Eric through.
He finds his way to the lot where they’re meeting so Anderson can show them the costume in context, something he’s big on. Their black Escalade is parked right in front, and Turtle’s leaning against it. He knocks on the back window as Eric pulls in. By the time he gets out of the car, Vince is standing next to Turtle, with his arms crossed and his sunglasses on. Eric clears his throat. “You ready?” he says, glad his voice is steady. Professional.
Vince shrugs, but he follows him to the door, and they walk right in and across the dusty floor of the set to where Eric can hear Ari’s voice echoing off the tin walls. “And there he is, see, right on time,” Ari says, and Eric guesses the glance at his watch is meant for him. He shrugs and crosses his own arms and stands right next to Vince as Anderson and his costuming girl unveil a series of running outfits, complete with headbands and seventies-era sneakers.
Vince snaps off his sunglasses and looks them all up and down, then looks at Eric. “What do you think, E?” he asks.
Eric tips his head to the side. His first thought is a joke, just like normal - I think your ass is gonna look hot in those - but he swallows that reaction down. “It fits with the character,” he says.
“And your ass is going to look great in those little shorts, huh? A little something for the ladies,” Ari says, and Vince rolls his eyes.
“Seriously, though,” he says, and turns to Anderson. “You gotta promise me all of America isn’t going to be seeing my cock out the bottom of these things.”
“Vince, I swear -”
“I want to see the dailies,” Eric says. “Last thing we need is a fucking NC-17 slapped on.”
“All right, all right,” Anderson concedes, “but you’ll take it?”
“Plus the beard?” Vince asks, and he nods. Vince glances at Eric.
“Also, the ending,” Eric says.
Anderson nods and slings an arm around one of the mannequins. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too,” he says. “I’m working on a rewrite. Can I get you a copy on the weekend?”
“Saturday,” Eric says, and Ari, who’s panting like a little dog, practically squeals.
“Otherwise, we’re good, right? Nothing standing in our way.”
Vince shrugs. “Let’s do this,” he says, and there are handshakes all around. And there, at least, Eric gets an answer to a question that’s been bothering him for months - he’s still good at his job. He can still do it well, even if Vince isn’t talking to him. Anita won’t be replacing him here.
Back in the sunlight, Ari looks at both of them and says, “That’s the way we handle these things, boys. I’d ask if you want to celebrate, but E, you’ve hit the bottle enough this week.” He shakes his head and walks to his car. “Paperwork tomorrow morning, you both come downtown and sign it, OK?”
“Right, right,” Eric says, and Ari gets into his car.
Vince has his glasses back on, his arms recrossed. It’s like a switch was flipped, like he’s back, now, to hating Eric or being mad or whatever. “You went drinking with Ari?”
“No,” Eric says, and decides he doesn’t have to elaborate. Right now, he’s just happy to have survived.
“Hey, you comin’ to lunch?” Turtle asks, and Eric nearly flinches.
“No,” he says, after there’s a moment’s pause where Vince doesn’t chime in. “I gotta go to the office for a while.” He walks around his car, and the guys start to pile into the suburban. “Hey, don’t forget you’ve got a haircut tomorrow, right?”
“Right, right,” Vince says, and then he gets in and shuts the door. Eric doesn’t miss the sympathetic look he gets from Turtle, but he tries not to dwell on it. He heads for his office, or starts to, but along the way he realizes there’s nothing really that pressing for him to do. So he stops by his condo and picks up a few things, then drives over to Travis’s place, and finds Travis stretched out on the couch, watching car racing, like nothing’s wrong in the world. Eric gets it, then, that for Travis nothing is - he doesn’t know about the fight, and Eric suddenly doesn’t want to tell him, not yet, not until he’s got his head on a bit straighter.
“You’re a NASCAR fan?” Eric asks.
“New role,” he says. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Yeah? The Van Sant racing thing, huh? I read that.”
Travis smiles up at him. “Jealous?”
Eric laughs and takes a seat on the couch, next to Travis’s knees. “Professionally, maybe,” he says. “But really, more like impressed. And happy for you.”
Travis slides his hand across Eric’s back, tugs gently on his shoulder. Even though he’s in business clothes, wearing a shirt that wrinkles when he looks at it funny and pants that aren’t made for lounging around, he lets himself be pulled down onto his side and settles in with Travis’s arm over his stomach. “He wants to film here, mostly,” Travis says, his breath warm on Eric’s neck.
“Now I’m even happier,” he murmurs, and Travis gives him a gentle squeeze.
They lay there for a while, watching cars speed in circles, listening to a low hum of commentary. Eric’s mind isn’t on the television, but, for the first time since he left lunch yesterday, it’s also not spinning and swirling around his fight with Vince. He feels - calm. Better. Whatever the fuck Vince is thinking, there’s nothing wrong with this.
The race ends and the announcers promise more to come, but Travis reaches out and snaps off the TV. Eric turns so he’s on his back, Travis looking down at him. Travis kisses him. “Hey,” he says. “How was your meeting this morning?”
Eric sighs. “A nightmare. I mean, it went fine, but - “
“Ari?”
“I - sort of,” Eric says, and Travis raises an eyebrow. He still doesn’t really want to get into the stupid fight with Vince. “I brought some clothes over,” Eric says, and Travis smiles.
“That’s good,” he says, “because I got you a key.”
“Can I just - can I ask you something?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s gonna sound dumb.”
“Ask anyway.”
Eric swallows. “We are dating, right? I mean, that’s what you would you call this.”
There’s a tiny flicker of a smile at the very edge of Travis’s mouth, but he looks away, down toward where his hand is resting on Eric’s stomach. “I thought so,” he says.
“Good,” Eric says.
“I kind of thought we were getting a little serious,” Travis says, still not looking at him. His fingers slip between two of the buttons on Eric’s shirt.
“Me, too,” Eric says, and it’s such a relief to say it out loud that he actually laughs. Travis looks up at him, confused for a second, but Eric kisses him and then he smiles. “I’m serious,” he says, and Travis laughs against his mouth.
“Very serious,” Travis says, almost mocking, but then he shifts so he’s on top of Eric, and things actually do get pretty serious. Afterward, they move back to Travis’s bed and Eric falls asleep for a while, then wakes when Travis shakes his shoulder. “Phone,” he says, handing Eric his cell, and Eric thanks him. The number’s unfamiliar, so he clears his throat and sits up before answering. “Eric Murphy.”
“Hi, Eric. This is Anita.”
Eric glances over at Travis, who’s pulling on his shorts. “Uh, hey, Anita,” he says, and Travis looks over. Eric shrugs. “What’s up?”
“Oh, uh, nothing, really. Not much. I just - uh, are you with Vince, right now?”
“No, I don’t know where he is,” Eric says.
“It’s just, we were supposed to meet, and I haven’t heard from him.”
Eric barely holds back a sigh. “You know, he might’ve gotten held up at the gym or something,” he says, which is nearly impossible but also plausible. “Do you have Turtle’s number? Try him, if Vince’s phone is dead.”
“Yeah, good idea,” she says. “Thanks, E.”
“Sure.” He hangs up, glances over at Travis.
Travis has pulled on his jeans. “Anita?” Eric nods. “What’s up?”
Eric shrugs, pulling on his own shorts. “Vince stood her up for lunch or something.”
“They having trouble?”
“Hell if I know,” he says. “It’s not like either of them talks to me about it.” Travis walks by the bed, and Eric grabs him by the belt loop and pulls him closer. Travis’s hands fall gently to his shoulders, then cup his neck, and Eric looks up at him. He is so fucking gorgeous, Eric thinks, and he wonders how he’s had the luck to be this close with two guys who are this beautiful.
“How are things with Vince?”
“Honestly? Pretty fucking bad,” Eric says.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Eric shrugs. “Not yet,” he says. “OK?”
“Sure,” Travis says, but there’s something a little too casual in his reply. Eric’s been around actors for fifteen years; he can tell when they’re trying too hard. But he doesn’t know what to say, exactly, to make things better, so he gets up and finds his shorts and then grabs his pants from the living room. When he’s dressed, he walks back to the kitchen, where Travis is drinking a beer.
“You wanna get some food?” Eric asks. “Early dinner?”
Travis nods, then clears his throat. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.”
“I - it’s just, look, I meant it, before, about - about things being serious, or wanting them to be, and I - I need to know, if you’re, if there’s something going on with Vince -”
Eric shakes his head. He wonders, but only for a second, if he should tell Travis about the guys’ plan, then decides against it. “I’ve got some issues with him,” he says, the fight banging around in his head. “Or, I guess, like I said, he’s got some issues with me. Maybe he’s always gonna. But - it’s got nothing to do with you and me.” Travis nods. Eric steps in close, takes the beer bottle away and then puts his arms around Travis’s waist. “I meant to tell you - thanks for the key. It - it means something. A lot.”
Travis nods. “We fit pretty well, don’t we?” he says, and Eric smiles up at him.
“Yeah, I think so,” he says, and Travis smiles back and kisses him. “Now, let me take you to dinner, all right? Just you and me.”
They have a nice dinner at a small pizza place Travis likes. It’s California pizza, nothing like back home, but Travis - though he has a place in the city - doesn’t know pizza from pizza. That’s OK, though, because he picks the wine expertly, and the whole thing is made better by a good Chianti and good company. After the check’s been paid, Eric leans on the table and looks across at Travis.
Travis smiles at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” Eric says, and he surprises himself a little when he reaches over and catches Travis’s hand. But it feels good - it feels pretty fucking right - and so he keeps hold of it, even as they leave the restaurant. In the car, he says, “I didn’t think about this, but, uh, Shauna, last night, she said people are talking -”
“Yeah,” Travis says, and he shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.”
“What’s Lisa say?”
Travis smirks. He turns to face Eric when they come to a stop. “What would you tell Vince?”
Eric feels, suddenly, pretty queasy. “I’d tell him to knock it off.”
“You’re a good manager,” Travis says. “But, lucky for us, you’re not my manager, so don’t worry about it. OK?”
His mouth is a little dry. “I don’t want to cause problems for you,” Eric says.
“You’re not,” Travis says, and he sounds pretty confident. “The press has known my story for a while.”
Eric’s instinct is to argue, because it’s what he’d do with Vince, but the truth is he’s not Travis’s manager. Travis isn’t Vince, his career isn’t Vince’s career, and Eric needs to get on board with all of that. He says, “OK, I’m not worrying,” and Travis grins.
“Good,” he says. “Since there’s nothing to worry about, you should stay over tonight.”
Eric agrees.
They settle into a pattern, after that. Eric goes to all of the pre-production meetings he’s supposed to for Vince: stuff with Ari, with Shauna, with the studio, with the director. When filming starts at the end of the week, he shows up on set whenever Vince is there or whenever he’s supposed to. He plays nice, and so does Vince, and after the meetings are over or when filming wraps, Vince and the guys go out and Eric goes to his office or to Travis’s place. He and Vince don’t really talk, and that doesn’t get any easier, but it doesn’t get any worse, either. Eric figures at this point, things are going to stay the same until after filming, because Vince doesn’t like to get his head messed around while he’s working. He misses the guys - he misses Vince - but he’s usually too busy to dwell on it.
One afternoon, Eric meets Vince and Turtle at wine bar just after lunch, where they’re supposed to be seeing Shauna. She’s running late, though, so it’s just the three of them at a table, crunching on thin breadsticks. Vince is drinking wine; Turtle has a Bloody Mary. Eric sticks to water. “Hey, where were you last night? I was tryin’ to find you,” Turtle says.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“We had tickets for the Mayhem concert,” he says. “I texted you.”
“Yeah, shit, sorry. I got it too late,” Eric says. He actually got the message right on time, but he’d been kicked back on Travis’s couch with Chinese food, watching more NASCAR, and hadn’t wanted to leave.
“Where were you? Big meeting?”
“Travis’s place,” Eric says, and Turtle raises an eyebrow.
Vince says, “How is Travis?” His voice is high, fake sweet.
“He’s good,” Eric says, but then he can’t resist asking, “How’s Anita?”
Vince shrugs, and Eric looks at Turtle. He’s looking away. “Shit,” Eric says. “You broke up with her already?”
“I didn’t break up with her,” Vince says.
“Right. You probably just stopped calling, right? Jesus Christ, Vince, grow the fuck up, would you?”
“Hey, I didn’t -”
“Boys,” Shauna interrupts them, “if we have to take this to the parking lot, someone’s gonna get hit by my car. Sit down and shut up, can you, just for a little bit?”
“I can if he can,” Vince mutters, and Eric carefully doesn’t look over.
Shauna wants to talk about an upcoming premiere. It’s an easy sell for Vince - he just has to go and be charming, take a date, get some pictures taken, talk about the movie a little. But it’s the same night as his birthday, and Shauna has an idea: a premiere after-party that also celebrates Vince.
“Aw, hell yeah,” Turtle says, rubbing his hands together.
Vince shrugs. “Why would I do it the same night?”
“We’ll get twice the press,” she says, “and, Eric, this should make you happy, Damien MacEnroe’s going to be at the premiere. Should be a cinch to get him at the party.”
Eric does like that idea. MacEnroe’s a British playwright who’s currently shopping a script Eric’s been eyeing. Vince would be perfect in the American lead, but MacEnroe is notoriously picky about who handles his scripts. He turned down Ron Howard’s plea to direct his last piece. Eric’s been wanting Ari to get him in a room for months.
“Seriously, I got this,” Turtle says.
Eric looks between Vince and Shauna. “You want to do this? It’s short notice.”
“Could be fun,” Vince says, and that seals it.
Against his better judgment, Eric turns the planning over to Turtle (with close supervision and assistance from Shauna), and focuses instead on reading up on MacEnroe and getting Ari on board. He spends a little more time with the guys as things come together, too; they meet at a hotel downtown for lunch one day before going around to check out potential venues for the party. With Turtle and Drama around, it’s easy to fall back into their old patterns, joking with each other, laughing about old shit. They stay away from current events - Travis, Anita, even Lucas - by some silent agreement, and though it pains Eric that he can’t talk about his life with his friends, he’s happy just to hang out with them all again.
He tells Travis about the scouting trip over dinner, and Travis says, “Hey, actually, I was gonna ask you - Lisa says we should bite the bullet at this movie.”
“Which bullet?” Eric asks. He tries to stay out of Travis’s career stuff, but he can’t help knowing some of it. Travis is still debating whether to sign on for the Nascar project or not, negotiating over top billing. “You gonna take the movie?”
“What? Oh, I don’t know. Probably, Lisa and Jeremy are working on that. No, I meant - you wanna walk the carpet with me?”
Eric swallows his salad, then reaches for his water. “What?”
“Do you want to be my date, to the premiere?” His smile is a little lopsided, a sure sign of nerves. “Lisa says it’s time to stop dodging the questions and just, uh, come out with it, so to speak.”
“And what do you think?”
Travis shrugs. “I’m fine with it.”
The advantage to being a manager himself is that he understands exactly what’s happening here. Lisa would never recommend this step unless she and Travis’s PR person weren’t already getting bombarded with questions about their relationship. She would also never suggest it - and neither would Travis - if they had any reason to suspect things weren’t going well. Once they do this, it can’t be undone. Their relationship will become part of Travis’s story, and if they break up, it will be news.
Eric takes a deep breath and sits back. “I don’t know what to say.”
He reaches out, catches Eric’s hand where it’s resting on his glass. “Look, I know it’s a lot, and it’s sudden, all of that, but - just think about it. Say you’ll think about it.”
He looks into Travis’s eyes, which are still that perfect blazing green, and he nods. “OK,” he says, and Travis’s grin suddenly matches the heat of his eyes. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” Travis says. He kisses Eric’s hand before he releases it.
That night, Eric stays over at Travis’s place, and when he’s resting in Travis’s arms while Travis sleeps behind him, he lets himself really think about what this could mean. He is happy with Travis. They get along well, better than Eric’s ever gotten along with any of his serious girlfriends. They spend nearly every night together, sometimes just sleeping, and Eric doesn’t quite feel like his day is complete until he’s talked it over with Travis. They’ve been spotted around town having dinner, sometimes being a little affectionate, all of that - it’s no big secret, like Shauna said. Coming out officially is a risk, and even more than that, it’s a commitment. But people take risks all the time to stick with people they love. And, well, Eric’s about ready to admit that this is what’s going on.
The next morning, he leaves Travis with a kiss and a promise that he’ll spend the day thinking, then drives over to meet the guys for coffee.
“Vince is gonna be late,” Turtle says. “He was at Anita’s place all night.”
“Yeah? How’s that going?” Eric asks.
“On-again, off-again,” Turtle says. “He’s been moody ever since you and Travis started up.”
“He’s been moody all year,” Eric says. “It’s not just Travis.”
“Right,” Turtle says, and Eric thinks they’re going to drop it, that Turtle will follow Vince’s usual lead and not even ask, but then he says, “How’s Travis doing, anyway?”
“Good,” Eric says. “Ask him yourself, he’s coming to the premiere on Friday.”
“Who’s coming to the premiere? Sorry, I’m late,” Vince says, sliding in next to Turtle. “Did you hear back from MacEnroe about the party?”
“Not yet,” Eric says, and then decides to just dive right in. “Travis is coming to the premiere.”
Vince blinks, and Eric catches a second of alarm, but he manages to get a good, blank face up pretty quickly. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Eric says, and he’s careful to meet Vince’s eyes. “Actually, he asked me to walk the carpet with him.”
“With him. As his date.”
Eric nods. “If you don’t - I mean, you don’t need me, right? We’re gonna talk to MacEnroe after.”
“Sure,” Vince says, “I don’t need you.”
There’s something so final about that sentence that Eric knows the alarm shows on his face. But there’s nothing he can say. That’s the sentence he’s been dreading since Anita made her first appearance, but right now - it’s almost a hollow ending. He knows this all by now. He just looks down at his coffee, says, “OK, then,” and is glad when Drama drops into the booth, taking the weight of making conversation off his shoulders completely.
After coffee, and a lot of nodding as Turtle talks about plans, Eric goes to his car and calls Travis. “You wanna do some shopping with me this afternoon?” he asks. “I need to get a good suit for this premiere.”
Next Part.