Page 1 of In Frame
Prologue: Bachelor Party
Las Vegas glittered. Neon fizzed. Beacons beamed. Thumping music and casino fountains and cacophonous good-time noise burst across the night. A party in the tourist heart of the desert. A dance between the glitz and the gutters.
Leo Whyte watched a hurtling cab fly down the street, and the bob of someone’s marvelous purple-feathered headdress as they strutted the sidewalk, and the sudden quick laughter of a couple spontaneously kissing under a streetlight. He ended up smiling. People. He’d always liked them.
He looked back athispeople, outside the trendy upscale experimental cocktail bar. They were waiting for the limo, which had had to dodge some traffic; Colby and Jillian had built extra time into the schedule, though, so that was fine. They’d expected some difficulty maneuvering a small cluster of mildly tipsy celebrities around, although so far that hadn’t been too bad.
A few pictures had been snapped, a few photographers stalking them outside restaurants and hotels. A few autographs when someone recognized adorable box-office favorite Colby Kent or the mountain-range shoulders belonging to Jason Mirelli. But mostly Las Vegas shrugged and took them in, just another piece of sparkle in the perpetual show.
Andy Connors, whose actual stag night—no, bachelor party; they were in America, Leo mentally corrected—it was, was excitedly talking to Jillian and Colby about the experimental cocktail menu they’d all literally just consumed, while also texting his fiancé Adrian just to say hi. Jill was laughing, magenta-tipped hair up in its usual ponytail, hand reaching out to steady Andy’s arm. Andy’s freckles glowed: with drinks, with the night, with excitement about getting married.
On Andy’s other side, Jason Mirelli occupied most of the universe just by existing. Built to bench-press smallbuildings, Jason’s action-hero arms had gone around his other half, who was still too thin and currently pink-cheeked and animatedly explaining something about medieval mead and herbal infusions to the group.
Colby Kent, even when tipsily leaning on his shield-wall partner, remained the heart of everybody’s orbit: the person who’d plan a festive weekend with a loving general’s insight into Andy’s interests, the movie star who knew the names of not just the personal assistants on set but also their little sisters, the kind of prince they’d all follow not because he could wave a sword around the best but because he’d jump in front of a blow for any of them.
They all knew he would, and an unspoken understanding had run from person to person that very first day they’d all been on set together. Colby, with those bruises lacing his past, would never get hurt again. Not if they could help it.
That film had beenSteadfast. It’d been glorious, overflowing with Regency-era gay romance and ballroom waltzes and decadent sex scenes in libraries and cannon-thunder from Napoleonic Wars sea-battles. That film had given them each other to know, all of them. Colby and Jason most of all, obviously so, being in love.
Leo put his hands into his tailored trouser-pockets, and smiled a bit more.Hispeople. His friends. More or less, that was, of course.
He hadn’t expected to be invited, tonight.
He thought of Colby and Jason and Andy and Jill as friends, but he hadn’t thought they reciprocated. Leo Whyte, notorious on-set prankster, made of jokes, was fun to have around, a lighthearted decently-talented breath of air on a production. Cheerful and blond and colorful and frivolous. Likely to cover a trailer door with duct tape or sneakily swap real rum in for colored water during a take. Weightless andunserious.
Everyone’s friend. No-one’s closest friend.
He knew his role. He’d accepted that. He could make Colby giggle even if Jason was running late, and he could proclaim outrageous truths without batting an eye, and he could be counted on to liven up a party with astonishing suggestions, like the time he’d turned a boring press event in New York into an on-the-spot kitten adoption spectacle with a couple of well-chosen phone calls.
Leo Whyte could conjure up kittens or penis-shaped confetti or charity-supporting worldwide scavenger hunts at the drop of a hat. He was not the person anyone would call for emotional confidences, secret-sharing, soul-searching depths.
He did know that. He didn’t even mind, not really. He knew what he was good at. What he was goodfor.
Vegas lights kissed his face, and slid onward, shifting and changing in the night.
For Colby and Jason, he’d wanted to help. He’d wanted Colby to be happy.
He’d tried buying Colby all of Jason’s action-hero filmography, early on during the filming, and then unsubtly leaving them alone together and encouraging Jason to walk Colby back to a hotel room. He’d gleefully let them announce their newfound coupledom on his social media live feeds, since Colby in some ways actually lived in the nineteenth century and refused to join any of said social media possibilities.
He’d been so genuinely thrilled for them. He truly was.
“Leo,” Colby said, looking over. “You’re being rather quiet.”
“Me? I’m wondering whether anyone’s ever tried to swim in that fountain, and whether someone would care if I did. You could put on a whole water ballet under those lights. I could learn a water ballet routine. Would you join me?”
“I suspect the casino owners would frown on that.” Colby tipped his head consideringly; blue eyes sparkled. “Though perhaps they’d allow us to try if I asked.” This was, Leo judged, likely true. Colby Kent had a lot of influence, personal and parental, for various reasons related to both acting stardom and the family he didn’t speak to much. “And I do like swimming…though not at the moment, I think; I’m not sober enough to practice retired-lifeguard rescue techniques on anyone.”
Jason—also not entirely sober, and in giant protective mother-hen mode, given how infrequently Colby dared crowds and strangers—bent to cup Colby’s face, to get those wide eyes glancing up and focusing on Jason himself. “Knew you should’ve eaten more before that last gin and pistachio and crystallized honey mead thing…”
“Oh, but that was excellent! I’m so glad we tried it. I know Andy’s favorite was the one with the mint foam and elderflower drops—”
Andy gave a mildly lopsided thumbs-up. “Sent Adrian a picture. He says hi to you all!”
“Tell him and his half of the party hello on our behalf,” Colby said. “Leo, which was your favorite? Mine might’ve been that early cocktail with the cheddar cube and the dark chocolate liqueur.”
“That’s because you’re a very strange person,” Leo pointed out. He knew exactly what Colby was doing, namely making him feel included. It was and wasn’t working. “That one was the definition of bizarre. I liked the one served in the ice cups. With the egg white and vodka and little gold bits. Where’re we going next?”
He did adore Colby. He adored them all. Not in question.
