Page 16 of The Dramatic Life of Jonah Penrose
Holy shiiiit Dexter Ellis and Jonah Penrose last night were SO amazing. I literally can’t stop thinking about them.
#Thewoodenhorselondon #Jonahpenrose #Dexterellis #Dexah
Dexter Ellis made his long-awaited return to The Wooden Horse last night and stole the show. His Patroclus will go down as one of the best in history. Five well-deserved stars.
#Thewoodenhorse #Theatrereviews #Dexterellis
Um, does anyone else think Jonah Penrose and Dexter Ellis are actually in love because that kiss on stage last night was a bit too convincing to not be real. Right?
#Jonahpenrose #Dexterellis #Dexah
They had a bloody ship name. Jonah woke to hundreds of mentions on social media and a flurry of new followers. For the briefest of moments,he forgot about the night before and Dexter Ellis with his stupid teeth sinking into his lip, and wondered what on earth he’d done to garner such attention. His name alongside Dexter’s online seemed strange, a call back to the year before when he’d been announced as playing Achilles and the theatre circles went into meltdown. These posts, however, were a lot nicer than the ones from the previous year. They not only praised Dexter, but praised him as well, all while dragging poor Bastien in the process. He hoped Bastien hadn’t seen the posts slamming his portrayal of Patroclus; he didn’t deserve to be compared to Dexter, especially when being ill meant he could do nothing about it. Besides, Bastien was incredible in the role, and it was only the fans with permanent hard-ons for Dexter who thought otherwise.
The ship name, however, left him with a sour taste on the back of his tongue. Fucking Dexah. It sounded like an antibiotic or something you might wash contact lenses in. The posts kept piling in, comments upon comments and photographs upon photographs tagging both him and Dexter at the stage door. Dexter looked overwhelmed in the photos, his cheeks flushed, forehead damp from sweat as he clutched his bouquet close to his chest and smiled brightly at the cameras. He looked as if he’d never done stage door before, his eyes slightly too wide, almost scared; but then again, the pictures of Jonah were no better. The skin below his eyes appeared abnormally dark against his pale complexion, like he hadn’t slept for a month then crawled out of a cave to put on a sickly performance. He wiped his hand across his nose and grimaced at the shining trail of snot left on his skin and groaned.
His throat chafed like sandpaper against flesh.
Nope. No. No way. He couldn’t be sick. He dumped his phone into his bedsheets and forced himself to get up and go to the bathroom. His reflection in the mirror looked at him solemnly; if he didn’t know better, he would assume he’d been on a bender and still hadn’t gone to sleep. He should have used one of the rehydrating face masks Omari and Sherrie kept not-so-subtly leaving in his dressing room. Maybe then he wouldn’t look like a Victorian child wasting away.
Jonah forced himself into the shower, the hot water cascading acrosshis skin already healing him, and the raw feeling in his throat subsided slightly. It wasn’t the flu; he was just tired, and still slightly unnerved by the man grabbing him the night before. It shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d been grabbed before, pulled about, arms thrown around him, and even wandering hands working their way down his back to his arse, and for some reason he just stood there and took it. He never complained, never said a word to the security staff at the theatre, Evie, or the other cast members; if he kicked up a fuss, people might think of him as ungrateful, and he couldn’t be seen as anything other than bloody happy about his role and the attention that came with it. There were nights he skipped the stage door altogether, opting to slip out with his hood up and headphones already on so no one expected anything from him. He’d always inevitably receive a bevy of aggressive messages from random people who didn’t know him complaining he’d ruined their night by not stopping to take photos afterward.
Once out of the shower, he wrapped his towel around his waist and wandered back to his bedroom, where his bed looked at him and whispered intricate words of seduction to get him back in it. He contemplated the offer; he needed to go for a run then head to the dance studio for the class Omari was hounding him about on every form of social media possible, but the bed, God, the bed looked so bloody good. His phone peered at him from the blankets, the screen lit up with an unrecognized number, and he stared at it for a good few seconds before realizing someone was calling him. He grabbed it and held it to his face as droplets of water from his curls dripped across the screen. The number must belong to Dexter; who else would have the gumption to call at eight in the morning and expect someone to answer?
“Hello?”
“Yeah, hi, it’s Dexter.”
Jonah’s lip stung at the name. “It’s so early.”
“Is it? I always go for a run at five, then do Pilates. I’ve been up for hours.”
“You’re insane.”
Dexter scoffed. “A healthy mind and body are the first steps to success.”
Great. Another Omari. “But you don’t have to do those things at five in the morning, you absolute weirdo.” Dexter didn’t respond. “I thought you were going to text for your... feedback? Do you really want me to give you feedback?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t bite people when you kiss them.”
