Page 44 of Comfort Read

“I see,” Kit says, slotting this information in among the other pieces of information he’s managed to gather about Sage. This area of his mind would impress any conspiracy theorist who happened to be able to view it: It’s the work of an obsessive, tangles of red string connecting apparently disparate anecdotes and notes like Dodges any questions I ask about his past and Doesn’t like to talk about his work unless he brings it up himself, written in a crazed hand.

Taking a calculated risk, Kit tries: “Would this have been around when you started cancelling your contracts, then?”

The look Sage slants him is a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “It might have been, yeah.”

“I see,” Kit says again. “And you’re absolutely sure—I mean, completely, one thousand percent certain—that we don’t have time for you to tell me anything else? I’m just saying, I’ll do a better job acting like your boyfriend if I know the whole story. Haven’t you ever seen a movie with, like, a fake marriage for a green card or whatever? That’s how they get you: looking for the weak points, where your stories aren’t straight.”

This time the look Sage gives him is all amusement. “This isn’t a green card interview, Kit. It probably won’t come up. Wayne and Nick always had some… let’s call it bad blood, and Wayne usually tries to steer clear of awkward topics. I’m sure I’m just being paranoid, and Wayne won’t even mention him.” He glances out the window as the car makes a sharp right, and sighs as they begin down a long, winding driveway. “Anyway, we’re here, so the moment for storytelling has passed.”

“Well,” Kit says in a wheedling tone, thinking longingly of the sweet, sweet information the full story might provide. “Maybe you could tell me after, on the way back? Once we’ve totally nailed this, been the best fake boyfriends ever, avoided the firing squad, and secured the green light for your first Lanterns of Aeryath movie? Just, you know. In case curiosity kills Kits, as well as cats.”

Sage laughs, a real one this time. Then his smile shrinks down; he bites his lip, either not knowing or not caring that his doing so sends a jolt straight through Kit’s nervous system, and shakes his head. “Maybe, but to be honest, I have something else I think I’d like to talk to you about on the way back. Kind of depends on how this goes, but I don’t want to make any promises.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s common wisdom not to send people into high-stakes situations on the heels of a mysterious cliffhanger,” Kit informs him loftily as the car pulls to a stop. “Do they not teach you that in acting classes?”

“I never took any of those,” Sage admits, opening his door before Eleanor can come around for him. “I was raised more in the style of ‘Jump into the deep end if you want to learn to swim so bad,’ if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, it makes sense.” Even as he offers this reassurance, Kit hopes that the phrasing is a metaphor. Unfortunately, he doubts it. Given everything he has managed to learn about Sage’s life, Kit wouldn’t be surprised if the first time Sage heard that concept was while being tossed into a pool at age four. “Incredibly rude of you to be so good at it, in that case. Acting, I mean—I can’t comment on your swimming one way or the other.”

“It’s terrible, actually.” Sage offers Kit a hand up out of the car; Kit tries not to cling to his warm, lightly calloused fingers, or to think about the fact that this may be the last time they ever touch. “Always was. Even living out here hasn’t cured me; I’ll go stand in the pool if it gets too hot out, but that’s about as far as I can go without making a total fool of myself.”

“Good for you,” Kit says firmly, and then, when Sage raises a confused eyebrow as they walk up to the door, adds, “My ex was a big swimmer; he was on his college team and everything. As far as I’m concerned, a lack of success there speaks well to your character.”

“Not sure you should tar every swimmer with that brush, but okay,” Sage says, shaking his head. Kit considers it a personal victory that he looks more amused than afraid as he reaches and presses the doorbell.

A barrel-chested middle-aged man answers after a moment, his dark hair thinning and swept back out of his eyes. Kit, given the incredibly fancy home made mostly of glass they’re standing in front of, was expecting a butler, but it couldn’t be clearer to him that the man he’s looking at is Wayne himself. Everything about him screams of the tasteful, understated class you sometimes see in the very wealthy, people who have reached such financial heights as to be beyond caring about things like branding or image. Wayne’s dressed simply in clothes that fit him like they were tailored to his precise specifications; he’s wearing large glasses with black plastic rims over dancing green eyes; everything about his stance and presence suggests he is very used to being in command of whatever room he enters, though somehow without any arrogance.

Kit likes him immediately, which is a shame. It’s not like, after tonight, he’ll ever see the man again.

Kit hadn’t known what to expect. It wasn’t as though his life had ever heavily featured meals with high-powered Hollywood financiers, attempting to secure funding for film productions, or pretending to be Sage Ballard’s boyfriend. It also wasn’t as though he and Sage had ever talked much about it, something he realizes was foolish only as he sits at Wayne’s table. On his own part, he’s abruptly and uncomfortably aware that he never brought it up because he never wanted to think about it. This dinner has, at least for the last month or so, represented the finish line on his and Sage’s little scheme, and if Kit’s honest with himself, he’s enjoyed the luxury of ignoring that finish line. As long as he didn’t mention it—as long as Sage didn’t bring it up—Kit could live with one foot in a fantasy with no endings, no agreement. Where the only thing between them that was fake was, in fact, the idea that they were faking it.

But if he had expected anything, if he’d allowed himself to do some research and project an idea of how things would go tonight, he would never have imagined this. It feels both distant and intimate, in a way that’s almost familiar, but impossible to put a finger on. They don’t talk about the movie at all as Wayne prepares the meal—he grills it all himself, and that, too, is odd. Kit would have guessed they’d be served by a hired chef, or out at a restaurant, something he definitely does not say as Wayne cheerfully plops a steak and some lightly charred vegetables onto the plate Kit holds out to him. He also would have anticipated some amount of Hollywood jargon to fly around, discussions of points on the gross or assumed risk or potential insurance costs.

And, of course, Kit would have imagined he’d be the one being grilled, not steaks and vegetables and large wedges of pineapple. That much, at least, he’d done his best to mentally prepare for. He’s been big on emotional preparation since the accident when he was young, anxiously over-cataloguing every possible outcome and trying to brace for them all, in spite of knowing on some level that it’s asinine: It’s not as though he could have predicted that piece of equipment collapsing out from under his feet, after all. There’s probably some deeply sad psychological reason behind the habit—seeking a sense of control, maybe, in a world that he discovered too early is often random and cruel.

Then again, maybe the psychology isn’t so deep, and this is simply something Kit does out of bitter experience and resigned self-knowledge. After all, no matter how much overthinking he indulges in, whenever the rubber actually hits the road, he has the marked tendency to commit to one path and steamroll ahead against all reason or logic. No one knows that better than he does—he’s the one who has to live with the consequences.

Whatever the reason, when he walked through the door, he was ready to do the now-comfortable song and dance of how he and Sage met, and say something measured and unbothered about how he was managing the extra press coverage. He’d felt fully equipped to talk about how he and Sage preferred to spend their time quietly hanging out in Cedar Falls, as opposed to out at fancy clubs and high-profile parties, availing themselves of various designer drugs. For all he hasn’t wanted to think about it, he was braced to do what he was, in all the ways that matter, hired to do: make Sage look settled, safe, and boring.

Instead, Sage and Wayne do most of the talking, and that talk is mostly about shared acquaintances, compelling stories they’ve recently read in the news, Wayne’s newfound interest in nature walks, and old times. This last has the air, for both men, of poking a bruise. Sage will bring up some event from his childhood and then wince like he wishes he hadn’t; Wayne will make a comment about the way things used to be and then look out the window, like the very idea is painful. Then they’ll both race to change the subject to something apparently safer before, as though unable to help themselves, they drift back towards the past again. It’s strange even the first time it happens, but by the third or fourth, Kit’s certain he’s missing something.

He’s honestly relieved when, over dessert, Wayne finally turns to him and sighs. “So: Let’s get down to the brass tacks, shall we? Not that this hasn’t been fun, but I’m tired of dancing around it. Sage wants my money to make his movies, and I want to know giving it to him isn’t as risky as it sounds. That means, Kit, that I have a question for you.”

“Shoot,” Kit says, swallowing hard. He steels himself, sure he’ll be asked to take up a defensive position. To explain what he’s done to steady Sage, maybe, or how he’ll keep Sage in line if things go off the rails. To detail their courtship, in order to convince Wayne it’s a real one. To promise that he, Kit, is not planning to lure Sage into a life of excess and irresponsibility. To state a position—ideally a negative one—on Sage’s decision to blow up nearly all of his Hollywood relationships, and his public image in the process.

Wayne gestures with his spoon, laden with a large bite of still-warm brownie, at Sage. “Describe him to me.”

Kit stares. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Wayne’s smiling, and his tone is light enough, but it’s clear that he’s entirely serious. “Describe him to me, and then, if you don’t mind, tell me what you see in him. As a partner, or a person, or whatever. Who he is and why you’re with him: That’s what I’d like to hear from you, Mr. Forrest. Assuming, of course, that it’s not too much trouble.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kit sees an expression of utterly bewildered panic flit across Sage’s face. He ignores it.

Kit chews briefly on his lower lip, thinking fast. His role here is to meet this question with the right answer, to say whatever he needs to say to get Wayne to agree to put up the cash. It’s just that he has no idea what that right answer might be, what description of Sage will make Wayne happy, or what reasons for Kit’s being with him would justify a significant investment of Wayne’s money. Frantically, he tries to come up with a guess based on what limited information he’s been able to gather tonight, knowing even as he makes the attempt that it’s doomed. It’s not as though the man’s taste in grilling tools or hiking destinations tells Kit much about what he considers reliable qualities.

Before he can think of anything better to do, the truth forces Kit’s always-treacherous mouth open. “He’s… brilliant, first of all. I think probably anyone who really talked to him could see that. The way he thinks about things—the way he can look at a story, or a character, or an idea, and distill it down into the essentials that make it real—it’s amazing. It blows my mind basically every time. He’s shown me things about books I’ve loved for years that I never would have thought of myself, just by talking to me about them, sharing his opinions. Obviously, his acting is amazing, but the more time I spend with him, the more I see that that’s why it’s amazing: Because he’s seeing the role for what it truly is, and bringing all of that into the work.”

“I see.” Wayne’s face is unreadable, but his eyes are twin power drills, boring into Kit’s skull. “What else?”