“And then you’ve got a general with Alan and Sandy Crawford. They cast the last Jennifer Lawrence movie, so they’re very hot right now. Now,” Clarice said sternly, “this is just a general. So don’t get your hopes up. But, little birds tell me that...”

“Clarice,” Colin cut her off. “Please. I can’t take it. Just… let me do the general. Don’t call me and tell me that Scorsese might want me but he needs to get Leo committed to the starring role first, which looked likely yesterday but not today. I can’t. I can’t be spinning like a top over this. Don’t call me with this stuff until something really happens. When there’s a piece of paper on your desk with my name on it.”

Hung Jury wouldn’t be released for another nine months, but cuts from the dailies had already been making the rounds in Hollywood. There’s a reason they call it buzz, Colin thought. He was like a pollen-rich flower that had just opened, and every bee in town wanted a taste.

And the tabloids were buzzing, too, for another reason. Jeff Breeze was furious at Colin, and the director, and the studio, and everyone else involved in the movie. Which is understandable, Colin thought generously, when the hero is constantly upstaged by the villain. And the way it had been rewritten, it wasn’t the criminal who was the main villain, but his lawyer. Of course the hero triumphs in the end, but not, it was clear, through superior lawyering (or acting) skills.

And that was the best thing that could have happened to Colin. People would someday forget Christian Bale’s Batman, his performance merged in their memories with all the other Batmen, but who will ever forget Heath Ledger as the Joker?

Martin Crampton, the Bad Guy’s lawyer, had foiled Jeff Breeze’s earnest, Grisham-like lawyer, at every turn. And Hollywood loved it because Colin’s performance hadn’t been a scenery-chewing spectacle, but because Colin had reacted as “Martin” to Jeff’s, well, overacting.

Colin had an acting teacher who called it “missing baby acting.” When writers run out of ideas to fill a season, they concoct a baby kidnapping so that everyone, however distant from the nuclear family in question, can spend an hour dramatically pacing in tiger-like circles and tearing their hair out fretting over the missing baby.

And Colin’s character had been the man most likely to kidnap the baby, and eat it, too. He’d loved the character’s amorality, his glee in winning at any cost. He was so far from the meek and mild Colin who’d barely had the courage to pick up the phone and call the escort agency and make a “date” with Hamilton Dillon.

Being with Hamilton had made him more confident, which had let him take, and nail, this part, which had in turn let him come back and, still full of swagger, fuck the daylights out of Hamilton.

Colin breezed into his general meeting with the Crawfords. A “general” was the industry term for a meet-and-greet, a way for a casting director to get to know an actor, or for a producer to get to know a writer. There was no specific job you were being interviewed for, they just wanted to see you for themselves. And if you made a good impression, hit it off with them, they were much more likely to think of you for a part later, than be if you were just a head shot on a desk.

“Just be yourself,” Clarice had advised him. “Don’t talk about your credits unless you’re asked. Have in mind some properties going around that you might like to be attached to. Don’t be shy, you’re on the cusp of leading roles right now, Colin. You won’t get them yet, you need a couple more second banana or ensemble pieces, but read some Black List scripts between now and then, and lay claim to one, because you just never know in this business.”

The only truism in Hollywood that had held up for its hundred plus years of existence had been William Goldman’s statement that “Nobody knows anything.” In other words, you never knew what would be a flop, or a hit, despite all the “evidence.” Oh, that kid Lucas did American Graffiti, let’s throw him a bone and let him do that science fiction thing. This Titanic movie, Jesus, what a clusterfuck, did you hear about that giant water tank they built, they’ll never make their money back on that one.

It was only when he was seated on the couch in the Crawfords’ beautiful and comfortable office that Colin realized he hadn’t barfed once that day.

That’s because you’re not him anymore, he told himself. The modest mouse, the nervous Nellie. You’re this character you’ve invented for yourself, you’re Neil Callum, the actor with top billing, the man who fucks Hamilton Dillon in the ass and makes him love it.

“How did you like working with Jeff Breeze?” Sandy asked him offhandedly, near the end of their meeting.

Colin went into character, responding as he would on the red carpet at the premiere. “It was a real honor to work with someone so talented, and I was very lucky to have the opportunity to watch a great actor at work and learn from him.”

They nodded. Everyone knew it was bullshit, and that was the point. They wanted to know if Colin would be a gossipy actor, who would spill the beans on “troubled productions.”

“Thank you so much for coming in, Colin,” Alan said as he stood up to shake Colin’s hand. “We’ll be in touch with Clarice as soon as we have something for you.”

“Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it.”

He walked out with a movie star’s smile on his face, and more than one mail room worker turned and watched him go, wondering, Who’s that? Is he someone I should recognize?

And Colin knew that, soon enough, the answer would be yes.

* * *

“And, on the bright side for your emotional development,” Roz said over dinner, “now you’ll have to move to LA. You can’t be flying across the country three times a week for auditions and meetings. And that will be the end of you and Hamilton.”

Colin blinked. Of course, he knew that. He’d have to live here. Clarice had already been hinting broadly about a condo she knew about at a great price. Then he smiled.

“No, it’ll just be more expensive. I’ll need to fly him out here.”

Roz looked at him. “Honey. I know he was good for you. Obviously, you’re a new man now. But… Look. You’re going to be a movie star now. Everyone will want to fuck you. They’ll pay you.”

He laughed. He couldn’t argue with the bizarre truth of it. Having finished a buzzy role in the industry was like… well, like changing over the summer from the short fat kid with a “nice face” to the tall slim gorgeous kid. You were the same person, but nobody treated you the way they’d treated “him.”

And maybe… it was unthinkable, forbidden to think it, before now. But Hamilton was a person, a man, just like him.

“I’m going to say something,” Colin said. “And I don’t want any lip.”

She sighed. “I know what you’re going to say, and you know what I'm going to say in return, so let’s just pretend we already said it all, and go straight to the sulking.”

Colin glared at her. “Nice move. Are you going to listen now?”

“Yep yep yep,” she said with a grin.

“I’m… I’m not who I was when I met Hamilton. I’m somebody now. Somebody worth desiring, somebody on his level. Someone with money, like him, someone successful and accomplished.”

“If he’s so successful, why is he an escort?”

“Um, because it pays an insane amount of tax-free money?”

“So you’re going to ask him out on a date? Without date in quotation marks? Like, two normal people?”

“I’m thinking about it, yeah. Why not? What do I have to lose?”

“Do you think he’s going to stop escorting? Fucking other people?”

Colin shrugged. “Actors do sex scenes with other actors, and then go home to their partners.”

“Sex scenes, scenes being the operative word there. They don’t actually fuck the other actor. Whereas he…”

“You know,” Colin snapped impatiently. “I think I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I’m not going to think about the terms and conditions of a relationship when I haven’t even asked him out on a date yet.”

Roz hesitated.

He sighed. “Go on.”

“What if he says no, Colin?” she asked gently. “Do you just… keep paying him? Because I wonder, once you pop that question, if you can go back to just being client and service provider. If what you want is a relationship, with him, and you let him know that, and he turns you down…”

Colin felt a flutter of anxiety for the first time in a while. Roz was right. It would be an “up or out” situation – if he put that on the table, they would have to either take it to the next level, or part amicably and move on.

“Yeah. It would be too awkward if I confessed, you know, feelings and shit and then had to pretend I didn’t have them and just keep… fucking, and that’s it, period.”

She signaled for two more cocktails. “Well, think about it. But you’re on the clock now, hon. You’ve got a lot of decisions to make, and soon.”