“Mm,” I agreed, pulling him in for another kiss. “I do,” I added, kissing him again, pausing to drag my teeth over his lower lip. “In a minute.”
* * *
Seth droppedme straight into one of the loosening up exercises we’d done in high school drama together, pairing me with Spike and leaving us to make faces at each other until one of us was laughing too hard to continue.
At this rate, it looked like it’d be me. My stomach hurt from laughing, and my face hurt from grinning.
I loved this. I loved the freedom of it, I loved being reminded of why I’d wanted to be an actor, what it used to feel like before I was washed out and jaded and exhausted.
And every time I glanced over at where Ward was patiently watching with a smile on his face, I felt a little wave of warm fuzziness wash over me, like someone had just draped a fleecy blanket on my shoulders.
“Okay, okay, you definitely win,” I said between gasps for air, letting myself fall to the soft grass we were working on, beside the theatre with the caved-in roof.
I looked over at it and felt a pang of something. All of mine and Seth’s school plays had been there.
Ward had always been out here after, waiting for me on the low brick wall he was sitting on now. As soon as I was out of costume and makeup I’d come out here to meet him. At first with his dad, and then when he was old enough to drive, alone. Waiting to take me home. After every full dress rehearsal and every performance, he’d been right there waiting for me.
He’d been right here waiting for me the whole time.
“You okay?” Spike asked, offering his hand.
I took it and heaved myself up, groaning more than I would have liked in front of all these kids who could get up off the groundwithoutdoing that. Not that any of them so much as looked at me.
They were all having fun, too.
“Nothing a mid-afternoon nap won’t cure,” I joked, although I wasn’t entirely sure I was joking. This was exhausting.
But it was exhausting in the best way, and I didn’t want it to stop.
Besides, Seth was still going strong, and he was a couple of months older than me.
And if I was being honest with myself, I felt younger right now than I had done in years. Iwasonly twenty-seven. That really wasn’t old.
Showbiz just made me feel like there was an expiration date stamped on the back of my head, constantly ticking down.
“Hey, uh.” Spike scratched the back of his neck. “I was wondering. You’re like, gay-gay, right?”
“If you mean exclusively attracted to men, yeah, I’m gay-gay,” I said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with any variation on that.”
“No, obviously, just… me too,” Spike said. “And like. After Kendra told me who you were yesterday I went home and looked you up, watched some clips on YouTube.”
“You guys still know about YouTube? Isn’t it all TikTok for you?”
Spike rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna show you how to use TikTok one day, Mr.—uh, Ryder,” he corrected himself.
“I’d like that,” I said, and I meant it. It seemed like the kind of thing that could’ve been really good for these kids, too, if they could figure out how to work it. I figured I was in the last generation of actors who’d be able to use the traditional route into the business.
That probably wasn’t a bad thing. If they could make the jump faster without having to be around in person, maybe they wouldn’t have to work so hard that they had more blister than foot most days.
“But, uh, it sounded like you had a question?” I said, remembering where this conversation had started. “Other than exactly how gay I am, I mean.”
“Yeah, it’s just… you’ve been in all these straight people movies. They’re like,painfullystraight.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
“No argument from me,” I said.
“Why?” Spike asked.
