Page 39 of In Frame
An upper-floor window flew open in white-sashed amazement. Colby’s head popped out, hair standing up in a waythat suggested the recent presence of a large hand petting dark brown waves. “Leo? You haven’t learned to teleport, have you? Can you teach me? I’d love to be able to escape when—oh, dear, are you quite all right?”
“I don’t know!” Leo yelled up. “I might need your help!” He tried to make the words jocular, cavalier, lacking teeth; he was entirely fine, only wanting a bit of assistance, nothing for Colby to fret over. No impositions.
“Anything we can do,” Colby announced instantly, “yes, of course, come on up, straight away,” and vanished from the window.
A yes. Just like that. With sincerity. Leo, standing in front of Colby’s building with sunshine laying golden bars across his shoulders, took a second to understand the shift of weight. A hint at lightness, an astonishment of comprehension.
He’d mentioned needing help. Colby had offered.
Maybe it could be just that simple. Maybe he’d only ever needed to ask.
He took stairs two at a time, not wanting to wait for the lift. His toes felt lighter. Must be some gold sneaking in there too.
Colby’s flat lounged over the two topmost floors—the lower flat was currently occupied by a couple of those security-guard foothills, Sara and Leslie, whowerein fact a couple and adored Colby Kent—and stretched out across historic building-supports with tranquil equanimity. Leo had just lifted a hand to knock when the door flew wide; Jason, occupying most of the world simply by existing, invited, “Hey, Leo, come on in.” His voice dusted antique English neighborhoods with laid-back California sun, and his shoulders filled up every available inch, as usual. “Colby’s getting dressed.”
“I’m dressed!” Colby flew down the last few stairs and landed in the embrace of one of Jason’s arms. He was indeeddressed, in neat grey trousers and a pale pink shirt under a too-large rainbow-patterned knit cardigan, and managed to transform this collection of color into the next fashion trend just by glowing at the world. His hair fluffed up in defiance of the hand attempting to smooth it. “Leo, you said you needed help, we’re here, what can we do?”
“You said you were decent,” Leo pointed out, kicking shoes off in the entryway. “Not naked. Was naked happening? Because I can come back later.” He would. Colby and Jason had had a hard enough time falling into each other’s orbit; Colby even now did not always have good days, and they’d have the clamor of the press round later too. “Unless there’s collective mutual naked, in which case I’m comfortable if you are. Though that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Colby and Jason looked at each other, then at him, and trailed him out to the living room, which folded tall built-in bookshelves and sweeping windows and long blue curtains around them. Colby and Jason decorated like interior designers with a joint unconcealed love of fantasy maps and steampunk lamps and literature about elves and airships; the flat mingled classic elegance and whimsical accents and Colby’s rather apologetic upper-class knowledge of wine into Jason’s Wizards & Wyverns game manuals and general tidiness, along with some takeaway menus for reallygoodItalian places stuck to a pin-board, and a second refrigerator just for holding unusual craft beer and home-brewed mead.
Leo flopped down on their sofa, which embraced its purpose enthusiastically, and announced, “I’m having a moment of distress. Support me.”
“Oh dear.” Colby perched on a sofa-arm, over decorative brass studs and navy-blue curves. Jason took the chair next to him. “Distress about what? I know you’re marvelous with press, so it can’t be this afternoon’s obligations, unless it is, if there’ssomething you don’t want to have to talk about. And I know it can’t be our movie; you’re splendid in it, which you know, and the premiere went excellently. Except—did it, for you? You left so promptly. And you weren’t at any of the after-parties. Not that we made more than a brief appearance either, but I did talk to Jill this morning. Were you feeling all right?”
Colby Kent, Leo considered with affection, would never use one word when twenty would do. “I don’t know. Yes. No. Absolutely yes. Orgasmically all right. But then that’s the problem. Maybe I’m not.”
“Er…” Colby slid down from the sofa-arm to a cushion, inching closer. Jason watched him with the eyes of a royal bodyguard on the brink of hauling his prince back from peril. “You went home with—with someone, is that it? And now you’re here…oh, Leo. Are you hurt? Do you need us to call someone? Or would you like to talk? You don’t seem terribly upset…”
“I’m not hurt! I’m fine.” Mostly to make Colby feel better, he melodramatically flung the back of a wrist against his forehead, tipped his head back, and intoned, “I’m simply overwrought, darling,” which made Colby laugh and Jason snort. Leo dropped the hand and sat up more and said, “The person I went home with was a Sam. I mean a man. I mean Sam. I mean my Sam.”
“Oh,” Colby said. “Your…your photographer.” That was polite; they all recalled first meeting Sam and Sam’s camera. “He did come to the premiere, then. Did he likeSteadfast?”
“Loved it. You, the writing, the setting, the art design…me, obviously…”
“No,” Jason put in, low and firm. “Not obvious. Not that you’re not fantastic, you are, but you say it like you don’t think it matters.”
Leo shrugged at him. “It’s your movie. You and Colby.”
Jason got a small line between dark thick eyebrows. “Leo,you know it wouldn’t be the same without you, right?”
“Mypointis,” Leo said, “I had all sorts of sex with a very male person, for the first time ever, last night—and also this morning—and I’m suddenly having a lot of emotions, and you two have definitely also had the sex with men, including whatever you were doing that meant Colby needed to get dressed, and you know about this type of thing, and please help.”
“Er,” Colby said again, “what is it, precisely, you’d like our help…with?”
“I don’t know! Me, life, being a celebrity and being gay, apparently. Got any sex tips?”
Jason rumbled, “Yes. Go back to the being gay part.”
“That’s the first time I’ve said that.” Leo stared at their rug. Plush and shaggy and blue with little white flecks, it stared back. He wiggled green-striped sock-toes in it.
Maybe if he kept looking at his toes he wouldn’t have to think. He liked not thinking. “Out loud, I mean. To anyone. I’m not even sure Iam. I suppose what I’m asking is…well, you know I’ve dated women, and I enjoyed that…as far as I’m aware they also enjoyed that, I get on with all my exes, we’re on good terms…and now there’s this…am I in fact gay now? Or some sort of…bisexual sort of word?”
Colby and Jason traded glances. Jason raised eyebrows Leo’s direction. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I kinda already thought you were. Bi, I mean. With the flirting, the comments…and I know Jill’s casting preferences forSteadfastwere, well…us, for one…and you got all annoyed when I said you weren’t Colby’s type, that time. Unless those were all just you making jokes.”
“Ialways thought those were just me making jokes! Or…maybe not. I mean, I do like Matt Grant’s mouth, that was true when I said it, it’s a delicious-looking mouth. And Colby’s adorable, so whowouldn’t—”
“Thank you for that.”
