Page 15 of Knot Just for Show

Absolutely nothing. No good auditions, no callbacks for shitty auditions, no one ringing up Len to tell him they had so much as an inkling of a part that might be good for yours truly.

I had been happy to nab a few afternoon’s worth of pickup stunt guy work in the background of an Amos Benett war movie when all of the sudden Len starts blowing up my phone.

“Ted, have you seen Rudy all over TiPToP!?” he shouts at me through the receiver.

“No, I haven’t. You know how much I fuckin’ hate that app Lenny!” I groan and pinch the bridge of my nose. As much as I love him, my goddamn agent won’t get off my ass about the micro-video platform. Everyone has to use it to be relevant nowadays, even me. Doesn’t mean I actually post as much as Len would like me to, though.

“Well, he’s making a fucking fortune in ad revenue, swimming in shitloads of sponsors and brand partnerships—not to mention he’s getting booked for like five of these other reality shows almost immediately, not to mention the two rom-coms he’s been cast in over the past week.” Len practically shouts at me.

“Wait a minute,” I stop dead in my pacing track around my kitchen island. “Rudy Chen booked tworom-comsthis week!?” I bark incredulously.

Rudy and I are both alphas who’ve worked together in the industry for years now. We’ve booked similar gigs throughout our young careers, as both of us fall into the same Venn-diagram-overlap of Hunky/Beefcake/Martial Artist/Stuntman. Neither of us has ever gotten close to aleading-manrole before. Always the bad guy, the stoic buddy of the plucky hero, or–most frequently, man flying through the nearest window/wall/huddle of other disposable bad guys.

“I am telling you Ted, we get you on one of these reality dating shows—show off that fucking eight-pack of yours, then get you dropping thirst traps on TiPToP like Rudy? You’re gonna makebank! You’ll be booking shit you never even dreamed of booking. It sounds crazy, but it’s true!” Len continues excitedly.

“Oh yeah? Well, let’s have a sit down and look at some possibilities. I have no problem dating beautiful women for the sake of my career,” I laugh, catching my reflection in the high shine polish of the huge refrigerator, giving one bicep a little flex as I keep the phone pressed to the side of my head with the other hand.

“They tend to cast absolute babes on these joints too Ted,” Len adds with a laugh.

“Don’t need to tell me twice. I’m down to put in some apps.” I turn, giving the fridge’s reflection the opposite profile, running a hand through my cropped black hair.

“Alright, I gotta run. I’ll call you after this meeting, but I’m thinking Vito’s—probably a little after six,” Len hurries me along.

“See ya Len.” I hang up on him, and immediately look Rudy up on TiPToP.

Sure enough, I’m inundated with posts—by fans, anti-fans, and Rudy himself.

There are supercuts of him taking off his shirt to showcase his ripped physique on the reality showHot Mess, fan edits of him in their favorite outfits or poses, and of course, Rudy’s own curated selfies and video snippets of himself in various states of undress dubbed over by popular song clips and sound effects.

As much as I hate to admit it, his success is readily apparent. While I hadn’t anticipated selling out quite this hard, I can’t pretend that I’m not willing to trade what scraps of my modesty, professional integrity, and false pride I have in order to make bank.

If rent rates and paying for my own private health insurance weren’t expensive enough, I know that my moms have been struggling with the bills back home. While they won’t come right out and say it because of their own foolish pride, they’re barely scraping by on the checks I’ve been regularly sending them. If they were to get smaller, things would start to get dire pretty quickly, let alone if they were to disappear entirely.

Len thinks I can turn some quick coin this way and book more jobs, sponsors, and brand partnerships from dating some babes on a cheesy reality show? I’m happy to part the television producers from their money.

After a whirlwind few weeks, my phone conversation with Len feels like a faraway memory.

While I had been anticipating booking a show likeHot Mess,orMaking the Pack, I somehow found myself signed up for the third season of the incredibly popularBuild-A-Pack-Blind.

I nearly lost my shit when I found out that I wouldn’t even get to hook up with one of the other baddies in the cast until after we had decided to make some sort of commitment to one another as a pack, but Len assured me that dudes who don’t even move pastthe ‘bubble’ portion of the program can still end up being wildly popular. In fact, two guys on the sameHot Messseason as Rudy had actually been cast from the run-off ofBuild-A-Pack-Blindseason one.

So, I packed my bags and shipped off to the ‘bubbles’ to begin this totally wack ‘experience’.

I’ve already hit the gym once in an effort to keep my sanity cooped up in this bogus place. I hadn’t realized I’d be under such regimented control for the first portion of the filming.

After I got back to my room, showered and changed, some dweeb named Timmy came to collect me from my glorified extended stay hotel room and brought me to this incredibly underwhelming date ‘bubble’ outfitted with a muted orange loveseat and a glass coffee table in front of a backlit pane of frosted glass.

Shortly after I took a seat on the stiff couch, they brought in my first date—a confident self-proclaimed ‘baddie’ with a slight valley girl accent—somewhat ironically named Brittney.

Though it had been a coy admission, she had let slip that she was somewhat of a model and influencer on the outside world.

Score.

Probably an omega babe, even if her conversation skills were…not particularly sparkling. We talked a little about working in LA, about the demands of working in our different industries without exactly giving away details about our physical appearance or designation. She asked so many questions about my workout routine that even I was getting bored with talking about my cardio regimen, lifting, dojo hours, and protein shakes by the time that Tim came to collect me for my second date of the day.

“Helloooo,” I call, like a cartoon character, calling into an echoing cave as I close the door to the date ‘bubble’ behind me and toss my notebook and pen onto the sofa, making a directpath to the glass table and clearing it out of the way to gain access to more floor space.

“Hello?” A voice replies from the other side of the partition, deeper and huskier than the sweet and bubbly Brittney.

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