So when I got an agent the first thing he said to me was Gordon, you look like a star, but your name has to go. So from Gordon Solomon I became Jordan Sullivan and now I’m a star. Kind of. To tell you the truth, being on a soap is the closest thing to a regular old day job you can get. It’s just like the temp gig I had over at the Accounting Capital of the World right out of college, only we get up earlier, work longer, and deal with less interesting material. I’m exaggerating, but ‘it really is a daily grind’ is my point.
So you know, we go home exhausted some nights, and some nights we go out for drinks as co-workers. This is one of those nights, when we just ignore the paparazzi and let down our hair.
The bar’s a good place. Usually it’s pretty busy, but we’re in that weird lull between football and baseball season, and Lakers fans are few around here. That’s OK. It means I can get my beer and sprawl all over the really comfortable couch they have in one corner.
Except for Ryan Markey’s beat me to it.
It’s like my eyes are a camera again, and the camera’s doing a long, slow sweep up his body, like this is some sort of soft-core Playgirl porn. I see his boots first, then the cuffs of his jeans. Up, up, up forever until his waist, then shirt, shoulders and a pair of eyes that react when I get to them. He jumps up to a sitting position, and I have to wonder if my jealousy about the couch is that plain to see.
I sit down– it’d be rude not to. “Thanks, man,” I say. He nods, and we sit in silence a bit, watching Marie and Annie laugh themselves silly about something us guys are too dumb to understand.
“Do you–?” I ask, letting my gesture at the girls complete the sentence.
He shrugs. We grin. I get a feeling like fizzing soda in my insides, and I drown it in beer.
“You’re good,” he says.
“Huh?”
“Your work.” He gives a sort of half-assed smile, like he’s shy. What the hell is he doing being shy? He’s a goddamn heartthrob. “I saw you in that film about the nun.”
“Oh, my God, that piece of crap? Independent no-budget nothing, right when I moved here. I’m sorry you wasted your eyes on it.”
“Well, it was crap, no denying that,” he says. “But you were the best thing in it. I actually kind of used to try and mimic your delivery and the way you work with the camera at my own screen tests.”
I stare at him. There’s a funny symmetry to this. He watched my camerawork and I’ve been shooting him in my mind the whole day. “Did it help?”
“It got me an agent,” he said. “But when I was at my audition for this job they called me on it. ‘You’re not playing Luke Hathaway, you’re playing Andrew Starr. Stop acting like Luke.’ I think it was Barbara who said that.”
“Ouch.” I cringe.
“I know, pretty pathetic, right?”
“No, not you.” I rush in to fill that void, as though him thinking I find him pathetic is not acceptable for a single second. “I mean, if I’m doing the same thing as Luke that I was as that minister–”
“Priest.”
“–Whichever. It means I haven’t grown at all.”
“I didn’t mean that!” He’s as hasty and nerve-wracked as I am right now. “It’s not that you haven’t gotten better. I was trying to… never mind.”
And then I click into camera mode again. His hand is moving against his forehead, which is kind of reddened, and he scratches the boyish cuff of hair there. His cheeks are splotchy with color, and he shifts in his seat. Then he turns to me and swallows, and I’m watching his Adam’s apple move against the skin of his throat.
Our eyes catch. I can’t breathe.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.
I won’t admit this. I won’t let it happen. I’m up and over to Marie flirting with her something awful. It’s safe with Marie ’cause she’s married. She can take it. Annie, on the other hand, looks vaguely jilted. She keeps looking at me reproachfully. And out of the corner of my eye, I see Ryan Markey put down his beer, look pensive for a few seconds, then get up and leave.
Good. He can go away. Because this isn’t happening.
