Chapter Five

The rest of the day went by in a haze. Levi measured actors, cut fabric, and sorted the piles of togas and tunics he had already made. He tried to focus on his work, but nothing could tear his mind away from Griffin and the things his ex-boyfriend had said.

Could it be true? Did Griffin still care for him, or were those just words? It was so hard to tell with actors. Their entire careers were built on being convincing liars. He distrusted almost everything an actor said to him, especially after spending a decade working in the theater. Of course, he had always been distrustful. His parents had seen to that.

He put the half-finished costumes onto hangers while his intern, Sherrie, watched him in concerned silence. He barely saw her, barely even registered that she was there. He could only see Griffin’s face, Griffin’s smile, Griffin’s mouth around his…

Levi shoved those thoughts away immediately. What had happened at Starlight was a mistake, and he had to keep telling himself that until he believed it. The only problem was that he wanted to make that mistake again.

He left the workshop with a mumbled goodbye to his colleague, then walked to the hotel. It was a long walk, and it took him hours, but it gave him time to ruminate. He tried to run through all of the logical reasons why getting back with Griffin was a horrible idea. He tried to tell himself that they fell apart once, they would do it again; but Griffin’s voice kept running through his head.

“I’ve never stopped loving you.”

He arrived at the hotel a little after seven, and he realized that he was probably late in setting out Sir Edward’s evening attire. He was hard pressed to care. Let the old man hang up his own trousers and shirts.

Christian was sitting in the hotel lobby when Levi arrived, and the production assistant looked up with a frown.

“There you are,” he scolded. “Sir Edward was calling for you. I got his evening clothes hung up the way he liked them, but he’s pissed. He wants to talk to you right away.”

He sighed. “Fine. Thanks for taking care of the princess.”

Unexpectedly, Christian chuckled. “Yeah… he’s a piece of work. Between him and Lawrence across the hall, I don’t know how the hotel doesn’t collapse under the weight of their egos.”

Levi’s eyebrows rose. “Griffin is across the hall from Sir Edward?”

“Yes, in the other penthouse suite.”

“All by himself?” The question slipped out before he could stop it, and he wasn’t certain he really wanted to know the answer.

“As far as I know.” Christian shrugged. “Anyway, I’m going to be driving Sir Edward to dinner as soon as he comes down. God forbid he should call a cab or something.”

Levi smiled ruefully. “Well, I’d better go face the music and see if I can get him to come down so you can get on with your night.”

He rode the elevator alone and got out on the top floor. The corridor was silent and still, and for a strange moment, he felt like the only person in the world. When he reached the door to Sir Edward’s suite, he hesitated, key card in hand, and looked over his shoulder at the suite across the hall.

There was no sound, and the door was as featureless as any other hotel room door in the world. He wanted to knock, and he wanted to run. He had never felt so at a loss.

The door in front of him opened, the handle pulling out of his hand. Sir Edward stood before him, the corners of his mouth turned down.

“Mr. Rudd,” he greeted, his voice carrying as clearly as if he were on the stage. “How good of you to join us. I trust that you’ll be performing your duties at the end of the evening more conscientiously than you did this evening.”

“I apologize, Sir Edward.” He stepped back. “It took too long to get back from the theater. Sometimes costuming takes long hours.”

The actor looked at him with piercing eyes, shrewd and judgmental. Levi could feel himself withering beneath that irritable stare.

“Yes, well,” Sir Edward said, “I will see you when I return.”

“Yes, you will.” The Englishman stalked off down the hall, surrounded by a cloud of irked annoyance. Halfway to the elevator, he stopped and turned around. “I must say, Mr. Rudd, if you are unable to decide where you wish to be, you will always be nowhere.”

Levi frowned, confused. “What does that mean?”

“It means, my young man, that you must live as if you’re a hero. If you are afraid, your bravery will find you when you need it most.” His eyes flicked toward Griffin’s door, then back to Levi’s face. “And you should know that rumors travel quickly, and Brutus is a known traitor, so be warned.”

The Englishman turned and got into the elevator, heading down toward the lobby. Levi went into the suite.

He took a shower, hoping that getting clean would help settle his jangling nerves. It helped, but only for as long as he stayed beneath the jets of water. He leaned against the tiled wall and closed his eyes.

This is ridiculous, he thought. I have got to get a grip.

He left the shower and put on casual, frumpy clothes that were comfortable but looked like hell. Levi put Sir Edward’s night clothes out the way he liked them, and he made sure that the older man’s slippers were arranged just so against the bedroom closet. He had always thought that he had neurotic tics, but from what he was learning, Sir Edward took the cake.

He was sitting in the main living room, watching a nature documentary with the sound turned off, when someone knocked loudly on Griffin’s door. A porter shouted, “Room service!”

Levi got up and went to his own door, peeking out through the peephole to watch. Griffin emerged, still dressed as he had been earlier, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his perfect nose. Levi was surprised to see them, but he supposed it was proof that a decade had gone by. Neither one of them was all that young anymore.

I’m twenty-nine, which means Griff is going to be thirty. His birthday is in three days. Why do I still remember that? He shook his head at himself and his random memory.

Griffin paid the porter and started to pull the room service cart inside. Levi opened his door.

“Late dinner?”

Griffin looked up, surprised, and quickly removed the glasses. “Uh… Yeah. I was getting hungry. Shakespeare does that to me.” He gestured vaguely toward his suite. “Wanna come in?”

He should have said no. Instead, he nodded and joined him across the hall.

“Why don’t you call and order something? It’s on me,” he told Levi.

“I can buy my own food,” he responded, sounding grumpier than he’d meant to be, and more than he felt.

With a chuckle, the actor said, “Well, fine. Buy your own food, then. See if I try to be nice to you.”

“I wouldn’t want you to go against your character.”

“Wow. Insults.” Griffin pushed the tray toward the sofa, which had been turned so that it faced the window instead of the television. “Can I look forward to more of that while I eat? Because I’ve always liked dinner and a show.”

In spite of himself, Levi smiled. “No. I don’t mean to insult you.”

“Liar.”

He clicked his tongue. “I mean, I don’t mean to… I’m not…”

Griffin shook his head and handed him the hotel phone. “Sit down and call for your food.”

Obediently, Levi did as he was told, ordering a burger and fries with a cola on the side. His ex-boyfriend chuckled.

“Wow, I could have ordered for you. You are so predictable.”

Levi looked away and saw pages of the script laid out on the floor, Griffin’s parts colored with canary-yellow highlighter, and some lines underscored with red ink.

“So are you. You still underline the parts you’re having trouble remembering?”

He shrugged and took the cover off of the steak meal he’d ordered. “It works for me.”

Levi spoke before he could stop himself for the second time that night. “I can help you run lines if you want.”

Griffin hesitated with a fork full of meat halfway from his plate to his lips. He looked up at Levi, the gold flecks in his green eyes catching the light. “That would be great. Thanks.”

“Least I can do.” He sat down in an armchair and leaned on his hand.

They sat in tense silence as Griffin ate his dinner and Levi waited for his burger to arrive. Finally, the actor put his flatware aside and asked, “What do you want, Levi?”

He sensed that the question referred to more than just what he was doing there at that moment. “I just… I… I don’t know.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands between his knees. “What do you think I want?”

Griffin laughed, but there was sadness in the sound. “Honey, if I could figure out what you wanted, we’d still be together. I can’t read you most of the time.”

He looked at Griffin then, really looked, and saw what he hadn’t seen before. There was loneliness in his ex-boyfriend’s eyes, and a certain downward slope of his shoulders that wasn’t there when he was acting. It betrayed a certain lack of confidence, or a lack of contentment, in Griffin the man. There was uncertainty in his look, and in the way he kept glancing up at Levi’s face.

It wasn’t what he had expected. He had always thought Griffin was totally in control, especially when it came to their dynamic, but now… now he wasn’t quite so sure.

Softly, barely louder than a whisper, Levi asked, “What do you want?”

A loud knock and the bellowing porter returned to interrupt him before he could answer, and Griffin stood with a smile. “Saved by the bell.”

“I’m paying,” Levi objected.

“Shut up.” Griffin accepted the second tray and signed the receipt, adding it to his room bill. He brought the tray over to where Levi was sitting and said, “Technically, the Actor’s Club is paying, so eat up.”

Levi straightened the tray and set about preparing his burger. He removed the top of the bun and reached for the ketchup.

“Pickles need to come off first,” Griffin said softly.

He looked up, startled, his hand pausing over the offending green slices. “What?”

“You always took the pickles off, then added a little extra ketchup to the burger. Then you spread mustard on the bun and cut the whole thing in half.” Griffin smiled. “I know you.”

He dressed his meal according to his habit, which his ex-boyfriend had so clearly described. He flushed in embarrassment. “Am I the most neurotic person you know?”

“Pretty damned close,” the actor admitted, “and in my line of work, that’s saying something.”

Levi ate rapidly, trying to get the meal over with so Griffin wouldn’t be stuck watching him fill his face. Griffin, for his part, went back to reading through the play and coloring it with his highlighter. By the time Levi was done, more pages had joined the ones on the floor, and more red lines had been added to the neat rows of text.

“You’re going to run out of floor space,” Levi said, teasing.

He looked at him, and he smiled. When he spoke, the Alabama twang that he always tried to conceal came dancing out. “Why, Mr. Rudd, I think you’re having a jab at me.”

“I’m joking with you,” he corrected. “Not quite the same thing.”

Griffin sat on the couch again and crossed his long legs. He was physically the most attractive man Levi had ever seen, and even now, when he should have been a hundred miles away from here, or at least across the hall, he found himself staring at Griffin like a thirsty man looking at a canteen.

“I meant it, you know, what I said in your workshop.”

Leave it to Griffin to cut to the chase. Levi had always been amazed by his lover’s ability to get straight to the point. “Which thing you said?”

He smirked. “How soon we forget.”

Levi took a breath and gave in. “That you still love me.”

Griffin nodded. “Yes.”

“If you love me, why did you leave?”

“If you love me, why did you let me?”

They looked away from each other, the moment too close, the emotions too raw to be comfortably expressed. Finally, Griffin stood up and came over to the armchair where Levi was sitting. He boldly took Levi’s hands and crouched in front of him, searching his face.

“I loved you from the first moment I saw you, and I still love you now. I loved you the day I left, and every day after that. I had to go to L.A. That’s where my auditions were, where my career was. You knew I had to go.”

Levi closed his eyes, annoyed by the pricking of tears behind his lids. “You could have come back.”

“I invited you to come with me. I said I’d come back when I was done.” Griffin sounded hurt. “You made it sound like you didn’t want me to.”

“I didn’t… Of course, I wanted you to come back to me. I just didn’t think you would. Once you got out to California, when you saw all those other actors, those handsome, beautiful wanna-be’s, you wouldn’t want to come back to a glorified tailor.”

“You honestly thought I would have cheated on you? I would never…” He looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Levi Rudd, you are the most infuriatingly insecure bastard I have ever met.”

He tried to pull his hands free, but Griffin wouldn’t release his hold. His hands were still remarkably strong. “Let go,” he whispered.

“Why? So you can run away?”

“Because I said let go.”

Griffin released him and stood up. “We never talked about what would happen after graduation, and I just assumed we’d stay together through the whole rigamarole to come.” He paced a few feet away and turned to face him again. “I thought you’d come out to L.A. with me while I auditioned, and then, if nothing panned out, then we’d come back to New York and try to find work in the theater together. I was giving myself three months to find something, and then I was going to give up and come back. Come back to you. But you wouldn’t come with me, and you wouldn’t wait for me, because you honestly think so little of yourself or so little of me that you couldn’t believe I’d be faithful, or that I’d love you despite the distance, or… Christ, or I don’t even know what you thought. You never told me.” To Levi’s surprise, a tear escaped Griffin’s eye and traced a wet line down his face. “You never even told me you loved me. Three years together, and you never said the words. Do you know that?”

Levi couldn’t bear it. He stood up and went to him, putting his hands on Griffin’s muscular forearms. “I did. I think… I still do.”

“You only think you do?”

He sighed. “I know. I just… I can’t even explain the things…”

“You could try.”

There was too much to say. His parents, his faith, his need for acceptance, his need to stay in the arms of his Orthodox Jewish community – they were all part of the reason why he hadn’t wanted to leave New York. He had wanted to prove to his parents, once and for all, that he could be a success in the field they’d never wanted him to pursue. He had wanted to become a big light on Broadway, a name, a somebody.

He’d failed. He hadn’t had the chops to be an actor, and his costuming was good, but it wasn’t Broadway-level good. He was never going to be somebody, and he was never going to be able to prove himself the way he wanted to. He was also too afraid to be himself in New York where his disapproving family might find out that he slept with men.

“I can’t,” he said at last. “There’s… it’s too… I can’t.”

Griffin pulled away in frustration. In that moment, Levi had the sinking, sick feeling that he was losing a chance at something beautiful. He tried again.

“I wasn’t ready to be with you,” he admitted, “and I wasn’t ready to go to Los Angeles where I knew you’d find a job the first time you tried. I’d just be in the shadow. You’re blessed, Griff. You walk in and everybody notices you, and good things just fall at your feet. I have had to work and fight for every crumb that the world has ever given me, and there’s… there’s no place in Tinsel Town for people like me. LA is for the beautiful people, the blessed people. The lucky people.”

His ex-boyfriend snorted. “Tell that to the folks on Skid Row.”

“I would’ve been one of them.”

“Bullshit. You would have been with me. I would have given you everything I could have. I would have helped you find work, given you a place to live, given you me… but I guess that wasn’t enough.” He sat on the sofa and put his head in his hands. “Jesus, Levi, what do you want from me? Why did you have to be here, of all places?”

His voice was a teary whisper. “I could ask you the same thing.” He went to the door and opened it into the corridor outside. “Thanks for the food.”

Before Griffin could respond, he shut the door and ran like a coward to the suite across the hall.

***

Griffin sat on the couch for a long time after the door clicked, his face in his hands. He tried to hold it together, but here in his room, alone, he saw no reason to continue the charade. It truthfully didn’t matter.

He knew now that the reason he’d never started dating anyone for these ten lonely years wasn’t that he was afraid to come out. Screw that – he’d be himself, no matter who it offended. He’d already come out to his family; that had gone about as badly as it could have, and he wasn’t afraid of anybody else’s reactions now that he had weathered the worst. He had ten years of a popular series under his belt, a syndication deal, and royalties that would be rolling in for the rest of his life. He had a good agent, a career that would sustain him after Hunters folded, even if it folded because he was gay. He knew and trusted his fanbase, though, and he didn’t think they would turn on him. They wrote gay porn fanfic about his character and even about him personally—his coming out would just be catnip to them. 

Now that he had seen Levi, he realized that the reason he hadn’t found a new boyfriend was that he’d been holding out hope that the two of them would get back together. He loved Levi. He had loved him from the first weekend they’d met back in school, and he would love him until the day he died. He knew this. Now, though, he was afraid that his hope was misplaced. Maybe Levi hadn’t really loved him, or maybe he’d just never loved Griffin enough.

Levi didn’t trust him. He had never trusted him… had never believed that he was good enough, even though he had been the center of Griffin’s world. He didn’t believe that when Griffin said he loved him, he meant every word.

He had waited for ten years for something that looked like it was never going to come. With his face still in his hands, he began to grieve for what was, what wasn’t, and what would never be.