Then he’d asked me to kiss it better, and I had, and we’d run off again, laughing.
Dad’s hand landed on my shoulder as I wrapped the hot pink band aid around my index finger. I looked up at him in the mirror, and only then noticed the look on my own face.
“Let’s take the day off,” he said. “You and I haven’t talked in a while.”
25
Ryder
“Hey there, stranger,”a familiar voice said as I approached the address I’d been given for this audition.
Allison.
I turned around to look at her in surprise, and she beamed at me like I hadn’t been the center of a big scene at her birthday party.
Or at least like she didn’t mind that I had, which might have been closer to the truth.
“Thought I might see you here,” she added.
“You did?” I asked, blinking at her. “Are you… here for…?”
“The top-secret hush-hush auditions? Obviously, who do you think threw your hat in the ring?”
“Astrid,” I said honestly. “It was you?”
Allison shrugged. “You were looking for work. I already had wind of this. You were fun to work with last time,” she said.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said.
She’d been doing me a favor. A favor I hadn’t earned or expected at all.
Itwasa favor. It was. This was what I wanted. For my career to finally take off.
Definitely what I wanted.
It had to be, right?
“Uh, thank you, obviously,” I added after a beat. “Other than thank you, I mean.”
“Hey, I haven’t forgotten you standing up for me to that asshole director,” she said. “I was on the verge of going home to Kansas that day and never coming back. Figured I owed you one.”
I’d forgotten all about it until she mentioned it.
Maybe Ward was right about my habit of standing up for people, after all. People I liked, at least. And Ididlike Allison. She was about the only person here who hadn’t been cruel to me after the sex tape incident.
“Besides, still think you’re cute,” she teased. “Just don’t tell my girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?”
Girlfriend?
“I’m not ready for the world to know yet. But I figure I can trust you,” she said. “Maybe I always thought I could trust you.”
“You can,” I promised, my heart opening up in a way I wasn’t used to. “Secret’s safe.”
Allison was like me. Like Seth’s kids. I knew without having to think about it that we needed to stick together, and that, I guessed, was the real reason Allison had helped me get this audition.
Because no matter how good I was, my leading man days were over. Gay men didn’t get to be the lead in the big movies. Not ever, unless they didn’t come out until they retired.
