Chapter Seven

DREW talked himself out of asking the question at least four times over the course of the afternoon. But then Steve would make him laugh or flub a line or forget it entirely and ad-lib something ridiculous, and Drew would remember how much he enjoyed spending time with him, and he’d think it was a good idea again.

He blamed Leigh.

Seven excruciating hours after they began, Nina finally called, “Cut! All right, I get it, you guys are juiced. Go home.”

Drew could have kissed her. In fact, why not. Maybe it would snap him out of his… whatever this was. Sudden tendency to overthink. He handed his “wallet” to Flora, the prop master, and swanned down to the director’s chair. “Nina, my love! Beautiful, wonderful, merciful—”

“You’re full of something,” Nina grumbled, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as Drew pressed his lips to her cheek.

“Gracious, benevolent—”

“Old,” Nina broke in, swatting at him. “When you were small, you had the protection of child labor laws. How come there’s no version for old farts like me?”

Okay, now he felt like an ass. “Are we working you too hard? We could get an AD in here, probably. I know a guy. Or a girl. I can put in a word with the producer.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“That’s very sweet.” Nina patted his cheek. “This is a one-off shoot, not a regular day job. I’ll be fine. Get me something pretty for Bosses’ Day and we’ll call it even.”

Drew blinked. “There’s a Bosses’ Day?”

“Oh, get out of here. Go home. Go find some pretty young thing and make the most of what’s left of the night.”

Without meaning to, Drew glanced over at Steve, who was talking to Flora. “Not really my thing.”

Nina eyed him shrewdly. “Oh? Like them a little older than you, do you?”

Damn it. “I don’t date.”

She let out a lewd chuckle. “Who said anything about dating?”

“Nina!” Drew hissed. Fortunately no one seemed to be paying them any attention, everyone dragging ass to get ready to leave for the day—or else hightailing it, fueled on some kind of postwork energy infusion Drew would very much like the recipe for. “I’m not going to screw around with a costar. I’m more professional than that!”

Nina raised one well-manicured eyebrow in an incredibly articulate retort. Okay, so she probably knew him too well to buy what he was selling. He didn’t date in the business, but that had never stopped him from hooking up with other actors and actresses who shared his philosophy.

Well. Maybe Drew should just be true to himself. “Whatever. I gotta go, Nina. See you tomorrow!”

If he hurried, he could catch up with Steve in Wardrobe.

By the time he got there to hang up his expertly tailored jeans and gossamer-thin T-shirt, Steve was unfolding his own cargo shorts. “Hey. You got big plans tonight?”

Drew winced. “I still have to hit the gym.” He’d skipped working out too many days this week. “But first, fuel.” He slipped his belt through the loops and set it in its cubby. “You?”

“I run in the mornings.”

Of course he did. Drew wanted to ask And the shoulders? but he had too much self-respect. Okay, champ. Here’s your chance. “What about this Saturday?”

Steve paused with his hand on his fly. “I’m running then too?”

Drew narrowed his eyes, trying to decide if he was playing hard to get or being obtuse. “After that. Seven o’clock, eight if we want to be fashionably late and make an entrance.”

Steve paused, brow furrowed. “Are you, uh…?”

Not exactly the resounding yes Drew had been hoping for, but he injected his voice with as much confidence as he could fake. “I’m asking you to dinner.” And then abruptly his feigned confidence fled and he added, “My date canceled to go to Hawaii, and the idea of spending four hours in a tux eating canapés and schmoozing with people who spent a thousand dollars a plate to schmooze with me makes me hate humanity.”

“Gosh, you’re such a people person,” Steve said, drier than a stale saltine in Vegas. “I can’t imagine why you have trouble finding dates.”

Ouch. Drew probably deserved that. “Sorry, that just… ugh. Let me start over?” He unbuttoned his jeans and started shimmying out of them. The process took a few seconds. “I have an extra ticket to a fundraiser dinner at the aquarium. I guess the penguins need a new air conditioner or something. I always take Leigh to stuff like this because I know she’s not using me for publicity and she can hold up her end of the conversation without trying to get in my pants.” He finally got the skinny jeans down to his ankles, but he didn’t dare kick them off because Will would murder him if the seams ripped. Instead he bent to work them over his feet. “But she can’t come. And I like spending time with you.”

Damn it. When Drew glanced up, Steve still didn’t look convinced. He certainly wasn’t jumping at the chance to spend a night off with Drew. Maybe Drew had read him wrong.

But finally his expression cleared and he said, “Pick me up at seven.”

Yes!

There was just one problem, of course.

Drew still didn’t know if it was a date. Or even if he wanted it to be.

AS it turned out, Drew didn’t have just one problem. In fact, the act of thinking so had probably, in true Murphy’s Law fashion, directly led to many other problems, including forgetting his lines, missing his marks, dropping props, and spending twenty minutes on his lunch break wondering how to answer an email about filming on location.

“Rough day,” Nina said, sitting down across from him with a plate of food. She shoved an extra, smaller plate, this one laden with pickles, toward him. “Something on your mind?”

“Mulling over what to get you for Bosses’ Day,” Drew tried, but he couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm to pretend he thought he was funny.

“Ooh. Should I have gone for the chocolate instead of the pickles?”

He sighed. “No. You know chocolate makes me break out.” Besides, he’d already gotten the message that he needed to buck up. He couldn’t remember the last time a director had to sit him down for a heart-to-heart about why he was screwing up.

Nina reached across the table and patted his hand. “Eat the pickles, baby. I need you to nail the rest of the day. My grandkids are in town.”

Drew crunched into a pickle. They always tasted better when he was filming. Grandkids. The last time they worked together, Nina’s daughter was in her late teens. “How old are they now?”

“Eight and six. Allison has her hands full.”

“You’re not going to see them much if we don’t finish at a good time, huh?”

“That’s the way the cookie crumbles.” She gave a tight smile. “Grandma’s place is nice for a base of operations for Disney and Legoland and aquariums and all the other things kids love.”

“Like their grandmother?” Drew suggested. Allison and her wife lived in Maine, he thought. Somewhere coastal and liberal but with shittier weather than LA. “Why don’t you bring them by?” They were supposed to shoot a crowd scene at a food court in a couple of days. “They can be extras—if Allison says it’s okay.”

“You don’t think Hilary will mind?”

He scoffed. “What, because she gets to cast two less child extras? I think she’ll be okay. This whole production is practically a family affair for her—you know she knows Steve from when they were kids? Might as well keep it in the family, so to speak.”

This time her smile was a little more genuine. “That’s a good idea. I’ll talk to Allison. The oldest, Marley, he reminds me of you. Young and vain.”

“Hey, when you got it, flaunt it. Maybe I can give him some pointers.”

“On second thought—”

Drew stuck out his tongue.

“Anyway.” Nina picked up her napkin and carefully wiped each of her fingers before depositing it on her plate. “Do you think you can pull your head out of your butt and be a professional now, or do I need to ask Steve to show you how it’s done?”

Drew opened his mouth, ready to retort that Steve was a professional head-from-anus remover, then thought better of it. He didn’t need to think about Steve and anyone’s butt more than he was already. As filming wore on, Will was tailoring Steve’s pants more and more too, to reflect that Scotty and Morgan were rubbing off on each other.

Ugh, Drew didn’t need to think about rubbing off either.

“I asked him to go to a fundraiser dinner with me. Badly.” Honestly he couldn’t remember being less smooth. “He said yes anyway and now I don’t know if it’s a date.”

Now Nina leaned back in her seat and gazed at him assessingly. “It’s not a date unless you both want it to be a date. So the question you have to ask before anything else is: Do you want it to be a date?”

Yeah, it would be helpful if Drew knew the answer to that. It definitely wasn’t no. He just wasn’t sure it was yes. “I don’t know.”

“That’s just a yes with an asterisk.”

He wrinkled his nose. Did he want to have sex with Steve? Yes. Did he want more than sex?

He hadn’t dated in years. He’d been focused on his career and on not letting someone use him. He had friends; he had a fulfilling life. He didn’t feel like anything was missing from it.

But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to share it with someone more than a friend, and getting action from someone other than his right hand or a onetime hookup would be a nice bonus.

“If you think any harder your brain’s gonna melt.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He picked up his tray to deposit it on the service cart.

“You don’t need any more confidence. You need clarity and maybe a kick in the pants to get you moving.”

The thing was, he wasn’t sure she was wrong.

He pushed the thoughts from his mind, ditched his tray, and draped his arm around her shoulders. “Maybe so,” he said. “But for now let’s concentrate on me nailing the rest of the day’s shoot so you can go home to your family.”

A little extra motivation never hurt. They finished the day’s shooting schedule before six. Drew still didn’t have all the answers he needed… but at least now he knew the question.