Beautiful Box Set

Chapter 8-1

Chapter 8

Lou is waiting behind the wheel of an SUV that idles on the curb outside Johnny’s apartment. The vehicle is huge, the kind of transports the military uses for crowd control in the Middle East. The windows are tinted so dark, Johnny can’t see into the back seat, even standing right next to the door. The fact that Lou bothered to show up himself sort of pisses Johnny off—what, he can’t be trusted to listen to his manager’s advice and not bring Brett along?

But at least he won’t be heading to the audition alone. He feels good about that.

As Johnny slides into the back seat, he finds a dog-eared script and a bottle of water on the leather cushion beside him. “How you doing, son?” Lou wants to know. He watches in the rear-view mirror as Johnny buckles his seat belt. “Ready to knock ‘em dead?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Johnny mutters. The nervousness in his stomach cranks up another notch and he reaches for the bottle of water, anything to calm it down. He can do this. He’s done it before.

Lou revs the engine and puts the car into gear, but before he pulls away from the curb, he asks, “He coming, too?”

Johnny hits the power button on his door to lower the window beside him in time to see Brett exit the door of his apartment building. The guy looks stunning in the sunshine—his hair stands up like dirty-blond grass, and his eyes and mouth are a tad too large for his face, giving him an almost anime appearance. His slim jeans hug his hips and thighs, and the shirt he’s wearing is one of Johnny’s. It accents the hard angles of his chest, shows off the thin muscles in his arms, and stops just above a slight bulge at his crotch. Mine, Johnny thinks with a slow grin. He said it first, didn’t he? He said he was mine.

“He has to work.” Johnny raises a hand in greeting.

Brett sees him and nods. He looks like he’s going to say something, maybe call out to him, say goodbye, blow him a kiss, something, but his cell rings and the moment is gone. Johnny can hear the tinny jingle that Brett has set as his ring tone. “Yo,” Brett says into the phone, his voice carrying to where Johnny sits. “No, it’s not a limo. It’s….”

Then Lou eases the behemoth into traffic and Johnny doesn’t catch the rest of what his lover says. A glance back shows Brett watching them as he talks into his phone, and he gives Johnny one last quick wave. Sitting back in his seat, Johnny sticks his arm out the window and waves wildly. The grin won’t fade from his face.

In the front seat, Lou gives a disgruntled sigh. “Can you at least look at the script?”

His tone sobers Johnny fast. “I read it last night,” he says, flipping through the stapled booklet beside him.

“That was a sample script,” Lou explains. “That movie came out last summer. They wanted you to do a cold reading this morning but I managed to wrangle a few pages out of the office assistant. Give it a read through.”

Now Johnny’s worried. The script he read last night was frustrating enough, some stupid romantic comedy about a high school dropout meeting the guy of her dreams at a friend’s party, only to discover he was in med school. The rest of the film defied logic as she pretended to be enrolled in the college to get him to fall for her. “Is this a chick flick, too?”

“They’re all chick flicks,” Lou tells him. “The women who are going to pay to see these films are your target audience, and don’t forget it. They’re going to be snuggling up with their boyfriends while they fantasize about you up on that big screen.”

“I want to do real movies,” Johnny mutters.

Lou laughs. “No, you want to be famous. There’s a difference.”

Johnny doesn’t think so. Picking up the script, he frowns at the front page—Untitled Summer Blockbuster, it reads, and below that in even larger type, A Roxy Greene! Production. “Roxy Greene?” he asks. “Who’s that?”

Lou taps the brake in surprise and Johnny’s seat belt locks as he’s thrown forward. “You don’t know who Roxy Greene is? Jesus, Johnny, where the hell have you been these past few months?” Before Johnny can answer, Lou guns the gas, pressing him back against the seat again. “She’s Fox’s answer to Hilary Duff. Or wait, don’t you know her either?”

“I don’t pay any attention to girls,” Johnny reminds him, though the name sounds familiar. “You mean that Lizzie McGuire chick?”

“She sings now,” Lou says, “like a grown-up Hannah Montana. Roxy’s heading down that same path, only she’s a bit grunge, a bit punk….a wild child, so to speak. Out there just a little to appeal to the girls but still reined in enough to satisfy the moms. This is going to be her first major film, and the part they’re casting for today is her love interest. They want someone sexy and cute, someone fairly new to the scene who won’t overshadow their star, and someone Roxy’s fans can fall for along with her. So you’re perfect for the role.”