He learned that Lucas lived with his boyfriend, Cal, and their rescue pug, Squidward (who, naturally, had his own Instagram).He was working on his MFA in graphic design, with a goal of getting into production design. And eventually Ethan learned more about the family that he’d been avoiding. The nieces and nephews he’d never met, the milestones he’d missed. He tried not to shut it down when his guilt made it too hard to listen. He’d even called his sister for the first time since she’d forced him to hire Lucas. He hadn’t said much, but she’d been more than happy to fill the silence.
Though he’d never expected Lucas to assume the role of his main companion, right now it was the only thing forcing him to keep track of what day it was. He’d called Nora to apologize for missing his weekend with the girls, and though she’d been furious at first, she was ultimately sympathetic. He’d asked, with some trepidation, if Elle and Sydney had seen the pictures, but she’d assured him that they were (miraculously) ignorant of the whole situation. He promised to take them for an unscheduled weekend later in the month to make it up to her. Both she and Lucas had tried to pry information about Grey out of him, but he refused. He wasn’t ready to talk about her. She was already on his mind enough.
After Lucas left, disposing of their Thai containers on his way out, Ethan took advantage of the television already being up and running to scroll through his streaming options. When he saw Grey’s face pouting at him from one of the on-screen squares, he felt like he’d just been defibrillated.
It probably wasn’t a good idea to watch it in his current state. But seeing Grey’s eyes staring back at him for the first time in weeks—as lifeless and airbrushed as they were—rendered him physically incapable of doing anything but pressing “play.” He’d just meant to watch the pilot. But before he knew it, it was 3a.m.and he had watched six episodes in a row.
There was no way around it: the show was pretty bad. It wasalso completely addictive, though he doubted it would have had the same effect on him without Grey’s presence. It had been unreasonable to expect himself to go cold turkey, he rationalized. For two months, he had gotten regular infusions of her company, taking for granted how much he had come to depend on it. Watching her show was like methadone: not as good as the real thing, but better than nothing at all.
As he watched, he felt like someone was reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart every time she made an expression he recognized. The chilly hauteur when she felt insulted, the little smile and blush when she received a compliment, her wary eyes when she was sizing up a new situation. His heart ached even more for the expressions he didn’t see, the ones that had been for him alone: the way the corners of her mouth twitched after she’d made a joke she knew he’d like. The unvarnished empathy in her eyes when he’d opened up to her. The way her face flushed right before she came.
He’d tried to pace himself, but by the time Lucas showed up with a pizza box for their next date with Ken Burns, Ethan was halfway through the fourth season. He’d been so absorbed with watching Grey perform an emergency tracheotomy on one of her classmates that he hadn’t heard the front door open. A subtle throat-clearing noise, combined with the aroma of freshly baked dough, alerted him to Lucas’s presence a little too late. Ethan scrambled to pause.
“Lucas! I didn’t hear you come in. I was just…um…”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. Ethan realized there was no way to spin it, and quickly exited out of the episode and navigated to the last place they had left off inThe Vietnam War. Thankfully, Lucas said nothing, just turned around and set the pizza on the kitchen island. Ethan made a mental note to give him a raise.
“Sorry I’m late. Audrey asked me to stop by and pick this upfor you.” Lucas tossed a manila folder onto the couch next to him before going back to the island to grab a slice. Ethan flipped it over to read Audrey’s inscription on the back, in her neat, precise handwriting:
E—
This won’t go to press for a few more weeks, but I thought you might like to see it now.
xxx
Audrey
Intrigued, he bent back the metal prongs, opened the flap, and slid out the heavy stack of paper inside. Even though he’d been bingeing on Grey for the past week, the top page still felt like a punch in the gut.
It was a glossy black-and-white headshot. Bare face, bare shoulders, the harsh lights of the studio narrowing her pupils to pinpricks. She stared directly into the camera, stunning, defiant, hair framing her face in delicate tendrils. He’d been watching her in Lucy LaVey drag for so long that he’d almost forgotten how much of a separation there was between her and the character. This picture, though, was one-hundred-proof Grey.
He was careful not to spend too long staring at it as Lucas made his way over to the couch with a heaping plate of pizza. He flipped to the next page, which was all text. It wasn’t until his eyes fell on Sugar Clarke’s byline that he realized: this was the profile they were supposed to have done together. Classic Audrey.
Ethan glanced up at Lucas.
“Do you mind?”
Lucas shrugged. “Take your time.” He pulled out his phone and started scrolling.
Ethan settled back into the couch and began to read.
You Don’t Know Grey Brooks
Then again, maybe you do. Maybe you were one of the million people who tuned in regularly toPoison Paradise,the prime-time teen cable drama on which she played bright-eyed good-girl Lucy LaVey for six years. Maybe you saw her running for her life fetchingly in the sleeper horror hitDon’t Forget to Screamfour (or was it five?) summers ago. Maybe you recognize her from her stint as a child actress, back when she was still Emily Brooks, during which she made guest appearances on just about every soap opera and procedural ever to shoot in New York City.
Or maybe, like most of us, you first became aware of her earlier this year, when she began stepping out regularly on the arm of Ethan Atkins.
The first time I meet Brooks, we’re sitting on the roof of Lexington House, the luxe West Hollywood members-only club to which neither of us belongs, sipping iced jasmine rose tea. Brooks is twenty-seven; by the time you read this, she’ll be twenty-eight. Depending on the way the light hits her face, she looks both younger and older than her age, girlish and world-weary all at once. She’s beautiful, of course—the girl next door, but in the most Hollywood sense of the term. Still a fantasy, but with the crucial illusion of attainability.
She’s ill at ease but trying to hide it. It could be the unfamiliarity of the atmosphere. It could be (as she tells me) her nerves at being profiled by a major outlet for the first time, despite a career that’s already spanned more than two-thirds of her short life. But when I bring up Atkins, she flinches.
It doesn’t take a leap of imagination to figure out why. Full disclosure: until two weeks ago, this story was intended to be a joint profile of both Atkins and Brooks. That is, until a racy seriesof photos of the two of them in flagrante began to circulate, sending the most spotted couple in town back underground, the current status of their relationship a red-letter question.
When I tell her we don’t need to talk about Atkins if she doesn’t want to, she smiles wryly.
“It’s fine. Whether I talk about him or not, you’re still going to put his name on the cover anyway, right?”
Still, she declines to respond when I ask for details about how they met, or whether or not they’re still together. When I bring up the unconfirmed rumor that her offer of a role in the hotly anticipated adaptation ofGolden Citywas rescinded as a result of the pictures, the look on her face says it all.
