Chapter17
Cassius
Adam is not at the studio when I go to pick him up. One of the backstage crew tells me he left the set early, something about needing a drink. He turned twenty-one a couple weeks ago, and I treated him to a weekend at Huntington Beach where we both learned to surf—he was far better at it than me. We’ve been out drinking several times since becoming a thing, but he’s never gone out on his own. And why didn’t he call me? I pop my head inside the few bars within walking distance, but there is no Adam.
I call his phone precisely once and it goes to voicemail. My two texts get no response, and his location isn’t showing up on my Snap Map either. The little shit must have turned off his phone. Then I start to worry something bad might have happened to him. He’s not the most street-savvy individual. Has he been abducted? Lured into some creep’s white van with promises of keto cupcakes and seitan skewers?
Back at home I bang on Elliot’s door and wait. The music is loud and grating, so I try again. My fist thunders against the wood and rattles the doorframe before Elliot finally deigns to answer. Dressed in stained briefs and a ratty robe, he cracks the door two inches and says, “I’m working. What do you want?”
The smell of something burning is strong. Sage? Weed? Meth? What the hell does his creative process entail? “You’d better not be summoning any demons,” I warn.
He looks me up and down and says, “Looks like it worked.” He laughs at his own joke while the distinct smell of marijuana tickles my nose.
“Have you heard from Adam?”
“Uh oh, lost track of your boyfriend already?” he gloats.
“Is that a no?”
“Adam visits me regularly now,” he says with a nutty smile, clearly out of his gourd. “He and my muse have an inescapable bond. They make love every night in my subconscious and impregnate my psyche with the most wonderful inspirations.”
“Great. Let me know if you hear from him, okay?”
“I surely won’t,” he says and slams the door—mydoor—in my face. Ungrateful ass.
I tear up the terrazzo of my foyer with my pacing, worried about my stupid, senseless boyfriend. Where could he be and why hasn’t he called? And then the most disconcerting thought assaults me: is he cheating on me? I will castrate him! I will sew his asshole shut so tight that he’ll have to shit through his nose. My mind conjures all sorts of pornographic visions of Adam with other men until my watch interrupts my loathsome reverie to alert me that my pulse is racing. I need to calm the hell down.
It’s nearing 2 a.m. when I finally get a call from him.
“Adam?” I demand, breathless. I haven’t felt this kind of panic since my mother ran off to Vegas without telling me, since the time Lana Del Rey was playing a live set at Sayers, and I fell down a bottomless K-hole where I thought I’d lost Lucia to the Queen of Hearts. (She’d gone to the bathroom.)
“Is this Cassius Peacock?” a stranger’s voice asks.
“Yes.”
“Your boyfriend’s here at the bar, been here for a while now. He’s had a pretty rough day and we’re closing for the night. I asked if there was someone I could call, and he told me to call you.”
Yes, Adam, that’s exactly right. Call me, your boyfriend.
“Is he alone?” I ask the man who I assume is the bartender.
“Yeah. A couple women tried to pick him up, but he sent them away.”
My very good boy.
“I’ll come collect him directly. What is the name of your establishment?”
The man relays it to me, and I plug it into my GPS. It’s a small dive bar on the complete opposite side of town from the show’s studio, but it’s near Elliot’s old residence, so I can only assume that’s how Adam knows it.
“Cassius,” Adam exclaims drunkenly when he sees me stride into the dimly lit bar. Most of the patrons have left already, and only the hardcore drunks remain. And my sloppy boyfriend. He throws his arms wide and attempts to run at me, but only makes it a few steps before stumbling and nearly crashing face-first onto the floor. I catch his broad frame and set him back down on the barstool. I’ll need help if I’m meant to carry him out.
“I had theworstday,” he says with a thick Tennessee drawl. “The worstdays. Maddox Kepler is such anasshole.”
Maddox is the costar who’s been giving him trouble. He sounds like someone who needs fixing. I take a closer look at Adam’s beautiful face and notice his jaw is swollen. I turn his head toward the light to get a better look. Definitely bruised. “Did he hit you?” I ask, my vision blurring to a miasma of rage.
“He made it look like an accident, but it wasn’t. He did it on purpose because he hates me because I asked him if he sucked dick for a part, and I think he did, but he’s not going to admit it, and he laughed at me when I had to cut my hair, and coughed whenever I had a line, and now he’s going to murder me in episode four. I haven’t even gotten one closeup, and I’ve been practicing my smolder for weeks.” He gives it to me then, his smolder, and it looks a little clownish due to his extreme level of intoxication. He frowns at my nonplussed expression. “Billy said it looked good.”
“Who the hell is Billy?” I ask.
