Colin took a car to Griffith Park, up to the observatory. It was late but the park was always open, joggers and night owls and romance-seeking couples around and about.

He didn’t know how well or poorly he’d done on the job. “I believe in you,” said the love interest to the con man at the end of Act Two, and it was at once the absolute truth and the world’s biggest lie. Colin the actor disregarded everything he’d learned in the last few weeks and willed himself to remember himself as he was that day in the country with Hamilton.

The supreme irony, Colin thought, was that he was the con man now – playing a character as dumb as he’d been, as if he wasn’t dumb, as if he was right to believe in the con man, to trust him, to give him his heart…

Colin never let on the whole shoot that his anxiety was back, full bore. That he was barfing so much he thought he might have ulcers. Every day on the set was hell, every morning when he woke up and realized, I have to see Henry/Hamilton today, I have to act like I know what the fuck I’m doing, like I belong on a movie set.

The anxiety was torture. Working with this director was like seeing a Freudian analyst, giving little advice or feedback to the actors, almost always saying, “Great, let’s move on.” Was he just okay and they were moving on to the next scene because okay was good enough on a tight schedule, and since he was just the love interest, it didn’t matter if he was good as long as he was functional?

And Colin never watched the dailies, for fear of running into Henry. Like any insecure artist, he needed to hear everyone telling him he’s doing great, and to confirm his world view he needed to believe they were all lying.

He sat on a bench and ruminated on Henry. Really, what a waste it was for Henry to stay behind the camera. Because honestly, what a very good actor he was. If that was the real Henry, that almost stereotypical slovenly writer type – almost, because the perfect example of that stereotype was never, ever as handsome as Henry – then Hamilton was an Oscar-winning performance.

And where did all the money go? Colin wondered. If he didn’t really own those suits, if he only had a few dollars in the bank, which Colin had sensed was the truth.

He wasn’t a drug addict, that would have been plain to see after this long. A gambler, maybe? That was one of the worst addictions of all, because you could put it all on black and it’s gone in one second. There were a million secrets Henry could be keeping from him.

And there would be no answers. He could torture himself the rest of his life over Henry as he had over Ty – if only, if only, what if, could it be, maybe he was…

No. He had to move on. He would move on.

* * *

A week later, he realized he couldn’t. At least, not easily.

He’d spent that week sleeping a lot, eating delivery food, greasy Chinese food and pizza, almost spiting his hot bod, knowing that even two or three pounds on his abdomen would make him “Hollywood Fat” and cause frowns when casting directors told him to lift his shirt.

He couldn’t let go of the puzzle. It didn’t make sense. He had to make sense of it, even if… even if it hurt. Even if he had to walk back into that dark place where Hamilton/Henry was in his mind, and figure it out somehow.

What if Henry was a gambler, would that make it easier to understand? Would it make it easier to forgive and forget, or at least understand and forget?

What Colin needed to know, was what every hurt person wanted to know, was not the given reason but the truthful answer to the question, Why? Why did you hurt me?

Finally, he broke down and searched the web for “Dillinger.” He knew it was counterproductive to his rehabilitation, to see Henry yet again. And yet, if there were answers there…

He didn’t intend to jerk off. He kept his pants on with a firm intention of watching Dillinger as “research.”

For a moment he was sure Henry had lied to him, again. Until he recognized, with a startling pang, the thin faded Mets t shirt on “Dillinger.”

The man was on the bed, his back to the wall in an almost defensive position, as if the camera was the enemy. His trucker hat was pulled down over his eyes. The five o’clock shadow that Colin had never seen on perfect polished Hamilton gave him an even more cut and hard jawline.

“Yo, Dillinger, what up?” the cameraman asked.

Henry/Dillinger shrugged. “Not much, man. Hanging out, workin’.”

“You been gettin’ much tail lately?”

Colin felt a tension build in his groin as Dillinger tugged on the bill of his hat. Fuck, that was a hot dude. He held his body like a fighting man, like a man used to tussling outside bars with someone who’d fucked with him inside.

“Nah, man,” Dillinger growled. “Bitches are all tight ‘n’ shit with it lately.”

“They want you to buy ‘em drinks and dinner and shit, right?”

“Yeah.”

Colin was hard by the time Dillinger almost thoughtlessly put his hand on his own swelling crotch. “I ain’t got the cash for it, man.”

“Well, we’ll fix that today. You ready to put on a show?”

“You show me the fuckin’ money, yeah.”

“Oh god,” Colin groaned. It didn’t matter who this was really, what mattered was that he was hot, so hot, and Colin wanted him, this man he’d never had. The man nobody could have. He had his dick out and stroked it furiously as Dillinger stroked his own, his glazed eyes on the straight porn to the side of the cameraman.

God it’s big, he thought. Fuck I want that, he thought, as if he’d never had it, as if he himself hadn’t been buried to the hilt in that man’s ass.

He grunted and shot his load as Dillinger shot his, a spectacular geyser. And then he and Dillinger both finished.

And then Dillinger grinned, and it wasn’t Hamilton’s smile because there was a surly curl to the corner of his mouth… it wasn’t, but it was. The charisma that lit up the screen, that was breaking hearts all over the web, was real. And that meant it was Henry after all, that Henry really was in there, was all of the men he’d pretended to be.

And Colin started to cry, then realized he couldn’t even wipe away his tears with his messy hand, and then he laughed, and then he cried some more.

And some of it was pain, but some of it was relief. He hadn’t been really, entirely wrong about Henry. That smile. It wasn’t an act. Behind Henry’s morose exterior, Hamilton and Dillinger and Dallas Harris all lived.

Maybe, he thought, now that I know I wasn’t entirely wrong, maybe now I can put it all to rest…