Page 1 of Bad Reputation

Chapter 1

INT. CROWDED FAN-CONVENTION HALL

Cole James had a lot of regrets. Enough to field a Little League team. Enough to pack a Costco-size case. Enough to fill a keg ... which made sense because several of those regrets featured kegs. But behind a signing table at Aughties Con, Cole would’ve put playing his doppelgänger, Cody Rhodes, onCentral Squareat the top of the list.

Sure, the part had made Cole famous in a star-of-a-soapy-teen-drama way. The kind of famous that landed you on the cover ofUs Weeklyand at the People’s Choice Awards. The kind that had him in demand for fan conventions two decades later.

But Cody was the Halloween costume that Cole could never get off. Their names even sounded the same.

Take right now. The woman at the head of the autograph line stumbled forward. She was about Cole’s age, in her early forties. From her Team Cody shirt to her reluctant giggles, she was clearly psyched to meet him and mortified to be so clearly psyched.

Sympathy mixed with the coffee in Cole’s gut. That morning, he’d gotten on the elevator with Park Chan-wook, one of his dream directors to work with, and Cole had nearly forgotten his own name. Celebrity was a hell of a drug.

With the smile the fan expected, Cole extended his hand. “Hey, how are you doing? I’m Cole.”

The woman blinked, hard.

“It’s nice to meet you ...?” He trailed off, hoping she’d supply her name. It was so much better when they gave Cole their names. It made this feel more like a conversation and not an appointment, which, okay, itwas.

The woman was still doing an ice-sculpture impression—and the people behind her in line were growing impatient.

“I’d love to sign that for you.” Cole pointed to the poster she was clutching.

Without speaking, the woman pushed a poster fromCentral Square’s second season at him. Ah, the year when MIT had kicked Cody out because they thought he was running his sometime girlfriend Madison’s cheating ring. Falling on that grenade won him her eternal love ... until he lost it by sleeping with her best friend. Again. Things had ended with a cliff-hanger when Cody fell asleep while his joint lit his duvet on fire. In those twenty-two episodes, Cody had made somebadchoices.

Life imitated art, he supposed.

Cole held up a sparkly gold gel pen. “Should I sign as Cole or as Cody?”

At that, she regained the power of speech. “Oh, please sign as Cody.”

Of course. It was always Cody.

Because no matter how many times the character had kissed the wrong girl at a party, fought with his grandfather about his inheritance, or gotten sucked into a Lithuanian crime syndicate, fans forgave him. They got Team Cody tattoos and had his vow to Madison—through thick and thin, baby—engraved in their wedding bands. Through all ninety-two episodes of banana-pants drama, they loved Cody Rhodes. And for almost twenty years now, they had shared that same devotion with Cole.

“Of course.” With a smile, Cole wroteCody Rhodesacross the tight black T-shirt he wore on the poster. The color had varied, but it had always been tight. The shirt was almost as much of a draw as the biceps under it. “Thanks for coming out today.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

Cole’s career would’ve withered if that hadn’t been true. He hadn’t been much of an actor in hisCentral Squaredays—he wasn’t much of an actor now—but things had come easily to him then. And the combination of stardom and being twenty had been corrosive.

Showing up to work drunk after all-night parties in hotel rooms? Yeah, he’d done that a few times—and he’d had to live with his terrible performances, tabloid coverage, and pissed-off coworkers. His first agent talking him into investing in an RPG adaptation that had gonewayover budget and bombed? That was a rite of passage for jackasses. Being so clueless and self-obsessed that he’d missed the showrunner being garbage to the female writers? He’d discovered that afterCentral Squarehad gone off the air, when Cole had been broke, unemployed, and without an agent at twenty-four. Exactly where he deserved to be.

Two things had gotten him through: the enduring popularity of Cody Rhodes, and Drew Bowen, the agent who’d agreed to sign Cole when he’d been lying in the gutter. Everything that had come afterward, Cole owed to them ... and Cody wasn’t even real.

The fan gave Cole a sheepish grin. “These things must be awful for you.”

“Nah. I really enjoy them.”

Cole had stayed in the business because making television and movies was fun. Filming was about relationships, about people. Cons were for the last and most important link in the chain: the fans.

“Who else are you here to see?”

No one else fromCentral Squarewas at Aughties Con, as far as Cole knew. Lexi Harper, Cole’s longtime on-screen love interest, was doing some play on Broadway. His on-screen bestie, Glenn Stokes, was filming a fantasy movie in Poland. He texted Cole sometimes tocomplain about the Dodgers. And Ben Hayes, who’d played Cody’s rival for Madison’s affections, wasn’t acting anymore. The last Cole had heard, Ben was flipping houses—and not even on television.

“Just ... you,” the woman admitted. “It’s been almost two decades, and I know the show was cheesy. But all through college and my first marriage, and my babies who wouldn’t sleep, and awful coworkers, and quarantine,Central Squarewas there for me.”

This was something Cole heard over and over again, and for the kazillionth time, he was walloped by guilt that he’d been such a prick on the show. He’d been so casual, so thoughtless about work that meant a lot to so many people.Trashy television—trashy according to who?

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