Character Bleed Box Set

Prologue: Auditions-3

He wanted, against all logic and rationality, to help.

This realization silenced him.

Colby, looking faintly shocked, managed to find safe harbor in a line. “I’d like to be able to choose. For once. For one night.” That was more or less the script, but Jason hadn’t imagined it quite so raw, so poignant. “Could you offer that, Captain Lanyon?”

“Perhaps I could.” They could’ve had hands on a balcony’s old stone railing, under moonlight; he held his out instead, a suggestion. The scene, this scene, should end with the breath before a kiss, followed by that tumble into the library, a Regency-draped one-night-stand, loosened cravats and undone breeches and gasping breaths. He could have closed fingers around that slim wrist and yanked Colby forcefully to him; he only made the hand an invitation, and waited. “Would you accept it if I did?”

Colby’s eyes flicked to the open hand, then back up to Jason’s face. “If you politely offered to give me what I’d like?”

“As polite as you’d like me to be, my lord,” Jason promised. “Or—not. Whatever you’d choose.”

Colby lifted his own hand. Set it in Jason’s. His fingers were long and graceful, but slightly cold; Jason wanted to warm them. And Colby’s complicated eyes sparked with newfound fire. “Then I’d choose less polite. Captain.”

In that reply the title was a beckoning, a flare, a call to action and the future: temptation to push that smile down and conquer it, never without care, never causing harm, but with a fierce and wild need to wind fingers into his hair and hear Colby’s voice murmur the word again, Captain or sir or even Jason’s name—

Stephen’s name. Christ. Colby Kent was a damn good actor. Jason couldn’t breathe.

Colby’s fingers tapped his, just once, then lifted. Jason was still struggling to remember where and when they were.

Colby fiddled with a shoved-up sweater-sleeve for a second. It didn’t seem in danger of sliding down, but maybe it was, or he thought it was; either way, his gaze dropped from Jason’s. Afterward he looked up, smile firmly in place, and displayed said smile at the camera, at Jill, at their audience. “How was that?”

Two-thirds of their audience applauded. Enthusiastically. With drumming on the desk. Ben even did a small silent whistle. “God, you make my words sound good.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Colby waved airily. “I do try.” As if he’d not been trembling and brave and determined, a moment ago. As if he, like Jason, wasn’t fighting back the urge to reach out again, to touch again, to find out what’d happen if they touched more—

He probably wasn’t.

Acting, Jason reminded himself. Colby Kent had built a career out of being lovable. Being adorable. Performing.

Jillian cleared her throat. Set down her pen. “Thank you, Jason, that was…certainly memorable.”

“I’m going to remember it,” Ben murmured. “Later. For script revisions, of course.”

Colby avoided looking at Jason some more.

“Thank you for coming in,” Jillian said, “and we apologize again about running late. We’ll review today’s tapes and let you know within the week.”

“Thanks.” Handshakes all around. Nods. Pretending his career, his future, didn’t hang in the balance. He paused when he got to Colby, who’d come over to perch on the corner of the table. Those long legs stretched out against a backdrop of meeting-room blandness; Jason offered his hand there too, and then internally winced at recent tumultuous memories. “Sorry.”

“You do keep saying that,” Colby said, and took his hand very briefly, the limit of what would’ve counted as courtesy, and let go. “Never apologize for honest reactions. They’re rare enough in our line of work. In which some of us, like me, are very good at being fake. As you so honestly observed. Someone will be in touch very soon, since we’re moving fairly rapidly with this. I think that’s all, unless you’ve got any questions for us?”

That question wasn’t really one. Rhetorical. Jason, trapped by the middle statement, couldn’t scrape together words. He muttered some collection of sounds, and fled.

In the elevator he slumped back against the wall. Shut his eyes. Exhaled.

This role. This fantastic waistcoats and ballrooms and love-letters role. And he wanted it. He wanted it so badly he nearly screamed.

He wouldn’t get it. He wouldn’t. Brainless action-hero reputation aside—and that’d be a pretty damn big aside—he’d insulted Colby Kent in a hallway, then done…whatever it was he’d done…during the screen test to make famous romantic-comedy blue eyes get even wider and off-balance, and consequently left Colby not quite able to look at him.

He contemplated kicking the elevator. Settled for thumping his head against it as they traveled downward.

Colby Kent, being a producer as well as playing Will Crawford, would be non-negotiable. Jason Mirelli was likely no longer even on the same metaphorical planet as any negotiations. That comprehension hurt.

Like a Regency-era bullet to the gut. To his career.

He leaned against his friendly elevator a little harder, sagging.

He could play this role. He knew he could. He could handle battle scenes; he could make himself cope with the water scenes; he could love another man and stand up and wave the banners of that love, fighting to be seen throughout history. He knew how he’d play that first kiss, that quiet letter-writing stillness, the moments of stolen shore leave.

And someone else would get to do it. None of that would be his.

He’d held out Stephen’s hand more gently because it’d felt right. In the script, Stephen and Will would flirt and bicker and challenge each other, and they’d both be sure of what they wanted; but despite the dazzling sparks the element of choice lay at the core. Stephen would definitely haul Will off to the library and ravish him, but not without being certain that was what Will desired; Will would’ve spent too long not being allowed to choose for himself, a path not dictated by expectations of his rank or his ill-health, and he was clever and stubborn and competent in his own right. Anyone who’d simply assume he wanted mindless plundering would be reading their roles wrong. Jason gritted teeth.

He was picturing Colby’s slim fingers in his. Feeling the lightness of that touch. Seeing the way those lips had parted, not expecting consideration in the scene.

Someone else might not see that, the way those expectations didn’t quite line up, the weight behind the response. Someone else might stampede directly over Colby without noticing the subtlety. Someone else might not play the moment right.

He heard that unforgettable multilayered voice saying goodbye again. Telling Jason not to apologize for being honest. Calling himself very good at being fake. Echoing the insult not as if upset about it but as if accepting it as correct.

Jason would’ve bet his entire income from the John Kill series on that flicker of vulnerability—his hand stroking Colby’s hair, his question about desire hovering a caress away—being real. Even now, picturing the moment in a slowing elevator, he would again.

He didn’t know what that meant.

And he’d never know. Big dumb action hero. Trampling all over feelings and a scene. Ruining whatever connection had gotten him to this point.

He didn’t know how he’d call Susan. He didn’t know what he’d do next. If there’d ever be a next role, another opportunity. Even if so, it wouldn’t be this.

The doors opened. Ground floor.

He left the elevator. He stepped out of the wide glass entryway into diamond-bright Los Angeles sun. He winced because he’d forgotten sunglasses, and blinked rapidly, and stepped to one side to not be in the way: a large-shouldered near-forty-year-old action star in jeans and a too-warm jacket, out on the pavement.

Even while he stuck a hand in his pocket to find his phone and call a cab, sunbeams leaden on his shoulders, he wasn’t thinking about breaking the news to Susan, or to his own heart, though he would have to do both soon.

He was thinking about Colby Kent, instead. Those slightly chilly fingers, and those wide blue eyes.

On the phone, later that night, he did not tell Susan that part. She commiserated anyway, an agent and a friend, and promised to send over some other projects that might be a better fit. Jason nodded even though she couldn’t see him, poured a second glass of scotch, and stared out into Los Angeles under thick smoky skies.

City of stars. City of dreams. And a future as an increasingly less relevant B-level punch-and-kick-and-explosions memory.

He didn’t mind being popcorn entertainment. He wasn’t lying to himself about that; he’d never be anything but grateful for his career. He’d had fun, and he’d never say he hadn’t. Anyway, everyone needed undemanding pure high-adrenaline spectacle once in a while.

He’d just wanted something else alongside that. Something that’d mean more for an audience. For history and the stories that got told. For himself.

Stupid, he thought. Stupid dreams. As if you could be right for that. As if you could be good enough for that. As if they’d take you and your muscles seriously.

As if you could help someone. Anyone. Someone with blue eyes, who uses too many words as friendly rambling armor, deflection over self-deprecation.

As if he’d want you to.

Jason tossed back the rest of the scotch, sighed, couldn’t face himself in the mirror, and went to bed.

He woke to the mild ache of dehydration—he hadn’t drunk enough water—and the slanting bars of optimistic sunshine on his face and two missed calls, both recent, both with voicemails. One from Susan, which he’d get to after. One from Jillian Poe, which had to be the incoming polite no-thank-you after yesterday’s debacle. It was nice that she’d called personally, he supposed.

He played that one first. And then he sat very still on his bed, surrounded by rumpled sheets and sunshine, unshaven and fuzzy with shock.

Congratulations, Jillian said, and could he come in for wardrobe fittings and makeup tests as soon as possible, and would he mind working with a historical-consultant ballroom dance specialist before filming? They had someone in mind. Someone Colby knew. And congratulations again, and please call her back.

He had the part. They’d offered him the role.