Page 62 of Footlights and Forever

I felt his lips against my skin, and it should have made me feel better, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of lead in my stomach. It might have been said in the heat of the moment, but did he really think that I was jealous of his success and that I was the type of person to intentionally ruin his big night? I was the guy who had hidden my relationship with him for so long, even when he hadn’t wanted to, just so that he could keep his fucking social status in the school. I was the one who’d put up with the shit that his friends had put me through, just so that he didn’t lose them. I was the guy who’d spent the whole of my college life playing second fiddle to his fucking model fuck housemates, and then had forgiven him when he’d made out with another guy right in front of me. I was also the guy who’d put his life on hold, to work in a coffee shop and pay the bills While this motherfucker went on audition after audition. Spewing all this pent-up frustration would lead to nothing good, so I pushed it deep, deep down.

“Why did you have to leave, anyway?” It hadn’t even occurred to me in the last few minutes of talking that I was still in the dark about what was so important that he had to abandon me in the city? Was I making myself sound like a damsel in distress? Maybe a bit.

A slow easy smile spread across Austin’s face. I guess all the horrible shit we said to each other was just going to be forgotten and maybe turned into a stress ulcer much later. Sitting back on his chair, he pulled his cup of coffee closer to him before taking a small sip. “Well it’s kind of big news, really.”

“Tell me.”

Ten minutes later my mouth was still agape. “This is so fucking excellent, Austin. I’m so proud of you!”

“Thanks babe,” he laughed. “I’m kinda proud of me too.”

“So they are going to let you finish the stage run before they start shooting?” This was all so mind blowing. One minute he was on a Broadway stage, and then the next, a global streaming star. Who cared if I was getting a bit ahead of myself, this was such a massive opportunity for him.

“Yeah, they are.” His shoulders suddenly tensed up. “There’s something else I haven’t told you. It’s kind of a potential issue with this whole thing.”

“Tell me,” I said once more.

“Well, they are planning to greenlight the show for a minimum of three seasons. The director also wants to expand our contracts so if need be, we can act in other shows and movies that the network is producing.” Even better, Austin might get to appear on more than one show.

“Dylan, what it means is that a lot of my time will be taken up with work, and I won’t have much time for travel.”

Why would I care about travelling?“I don’t understand.”

“Dylan the offices for FilmFlix are in New York.” I nodded because I knew this. I had submitted my resume there on morethan one occasion. “But the sound stages and studios are in Hollywood.”

My brain refused to process what he was saying for fear of what he might be trying to say. “You mean...”

“Yeah, in a couple of months, I have to move to Hollywood.”

Well shit.

Chapter 22

“Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.” –Joan Crawford

Dylan

Four Months Later

A car door slammed in the distance, and I startled awake, bolting upright and automatically reaching for a baseball bat that I had taken to keeping by my bedside. An intruder had broken into a house down the street, While the residents had been home. The burglar had tied up a couple in their beds as he raided their home. It had also happened only three nights after Austin had moved the last of his stuff out of our home and loaded it onto a U-Haul, ready to be shipped to his new apartment in Hollywood.

We’d talked and talked for days after that first conversation. We had gone back and forth about what would be best for the both of us. I’d said that I would quit my job and try to get work in California, or maybe do some freelance work. Austin hadn’t been very amenable to that. He knew how hard I had worked to get tothe position I am in, and how in today’s landscape, how difficult it was for a TV or film writer to get a steady paycheck.

He had said that he would turn down the studio’s offer and maybe consider renewing his part on the stage show when it came back around next season, and try to get on with another show during the break. That had also been a nonstarter for me. I couldn’t be the reason that Austin missed out on what might be the opportunity of a lifetime.

We’d both agreed that we didn’t want to split up. We were still so deeply in love with each other, and we both refused to let something like distance play a factor in whether we would still be together. It was only a five-hour red eye to get from New York to California after all, and only a three-hour time difference. We were convinced that it would not affect us.

We’d come to learn quickly, however, that it would affect us. It had only been a month since we had been apart, and things were not great. For that first week, we’d made sure to video chat every evening. After we’d done that consistently for nine days, small things had popped up, which meant we couldn’t. Austin’s production schedule, my work pattern. Commuting to and from the city, which took time. So, every night had become every other night, which became twice a week.

It had all led up to earlier that evening, after I’d finally walked through the front door after a very long day. Some scenes just weren’t working well, and the writers had been called down to the studio floor to workshop the scenes as the filming crew were doing their thing. The director was a tyrant, and since I wasn’t doing much in the way of ideas as a lowly assistant, he’d figured that meant that I was up for grabs as his lackey. I’d spent my day grabbing what seemed like hundreds of coffees, conferring with wardrobe for last-minute changes to costumes, or in one scene, an entire wardrobe change for the cast. I’d done more lunch runs than I could count, which made little sense since there wascatering on set, and I’d been asked to just stand in video village just in case.

I’d finally been allowed to go home as production wrapped for the day, but had been forewarned by my supervisor that it would be more of the same the next day. I’d pushed through the front door of my house close to eleven pm and lamented that I would barely have time for a shower before crawling into bed for a measly five hours’ sleep before I would need to be up again and making the commute back to the city.

My butt had barely touched the couch when my cell began to ring. On the screen, I saw Austin was requesting to video chat. I groaned with a mixture of frustration and exhaustion. I loved my boyfriend, but he had the worst timing.

My thumb hovered over the button to answer, but I couldn’t bring myself to push it. The last time we’d spoken a few days ago, it had been ten minutes of an awkward back and forth, trying to figure what to say to each other. It wasn’t like Austin bored me, but we had been together for so long that sometimes there was just nothing much more to say to each other. We had lived in each other’s pockets since high school. Spending that much time together, you were bound to run out of interesting stories to tell each other.

A warning sound in the back of mind screamed at me that this wasn’t normal. Couples shouldn’t run out of things to talk about, and if that happened, then maybe there were deeper problems than both of you wanted to admit. Resolving to not let that happen between me and Austin, I smiled into the camera and clicked the button to answer.

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