Page 3 of Need to Know

“WELL?” Roz stabbed.

“T…t…t…that question wasn’t on the list. He must have decided to ask it there and then, spur of the moment. I’m sorry, okay?” he stuttered as he stared at his polished brogues. This was bad, very bad.

“Sorry isn’t fucking good enough! My client’s career is on the line. And it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. That motherfucker prepared a gad-damn display board. Did you see that? How did he get that into the suite? Where the fuck was security?” Roz threw her hands up to heaven and walked in a circle like a dog chasing its tail.

Nate and Roz’s journey to the junket in Paris began badly. At their departure airport of Westchester in New York, the two US close security officers employed by the studio were denied boarding on their private charter flight because of a typo on both of their business visas. They were arrested…yes, arrested on sight…because of a typo. Nate told me that Roz had flipped out, and she was also threatened with arrest if she didn’t calm down. There was no time to get new visas so the studio contacted a security company in Paris and arranged for two guards to protect Nate and I during our short stay in Paris. The guards outside the suite door were ex-Military, one Greek, the other Lithuanian. Neither man spoke good English, but they were the only two available at such short notice.

“Do I have to do every-gad-damn-thing around here myself? We need a crisis management meeting. We need a damage-fucking-limitation strategy so that motherfucker doesn’t leak the interview online and trash tomorrow night’s première,” Roz roared.

Roz Appelbaum was a ball breaker, and if I’m honest, she terrified me. But, she’d worked with Nate since he got the lead in the drama ‘Eze Street’, after the soap opera ‘Heading South’ was cancelled. She’d guided Nate’s career as he moved from TV soaps to serious drama and then onto movies. So far, Roz had protected Nate from the scrutiny and scandal that was part of the entertainment circus…until now. Rosamund Appelbaum had finally dropped the ball, and she did not take failure lightly.

Our interview with a French entertainment gossip website named La Galerie des Murmures, which ironically means The Whispering Gallery, was supposed to be about our movie, however, after a few standard questions to both Nate and I, I’d noticed we were a little thin on the ground for representation. The studio lawyer Mason De Luca was absent, as was the publicist Avery. Then Roz stepped out to take a phone call, and where the fuck was my press agent Benji? The interview should have been paused while our reps were out of the room, but there was no one to step in to call a halt. The interviewer, named Dominique Le Grand, noticed our support system had abandoned ship, and the little shit took his opportunity to ask:

“Monsieur Linden, do you ‘av any comments about ze photographs of your ‘usband taken in ze ’amptons?”

The only representation we had, if you could even call it that, was a terrified twenty-something intern named Anja Baker, and the two bodyguards standing like boulders outside the suite door, clueless as to what was happening inside the suite. Nate and I were on camera, lambs to the slaughter. Confused, I’d turned to my co-star.

“Sorry, I don’t know what you mean,” Nate replied icily. Then Dominique, and I shit you not, picked up an A3 display board that he’d covertly rested beside his chair. He held it in front of the camera, and then he turned it and placed it on his lap facing us. The board showed an enlarged photograph of a handsome, fit, silver fox I recognized as star-architect Erik Thorne. I’d met him once at a gala in London years before I’d known Nate. In the photo, Erik was not alone. He was with a younger man, pale and elfin with raven hair. The two men were on a yacht, at the prow, the twink standing with his arms open like he was on the Titanic, while, on his knees; Erik sucked the younger man’s dick. The headline read ‘The King of the World is Going Down’. I cringed. Erik Thorne had earned the ‘King of the World’ moniker from his stratospheric architecture career, having designed some of the tallest buildings in the world with his global architecture firm. I respected Nate’s privacy, as he did mine, and so I was clueless about the status of their marriage. But from the winded look of devastation on Nate’s face, my guess was that they didn’t have an open marriage. Nate Linden was All-American handsome with piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones, and a chiselled jaw line. He was the kindest, most gentle man I knew, and he had a surprisingly shy nature. Why would anyone cheat on a man like him?

What followed was appalling. Nate looked like a little boy who’d just been told that Santa isn’t real. I wanted to reach out to him, comfort him, but I didn’t. I observed a slow-motion car crash, powerless to prevent it.

“Stop filming, stop fucking filming!” Nate roared as he stood up, then he pulled the mic clip from his shirt, and tossed it onto the ground. He grabbed the display board from Dominique’s grip, broke it in two over his knee, and tossed the pieces aside. Pinning the younger man with a murderous glare he ground out, “You fucking asshole. We’re done here!” and then he stormed out of the room.

Shocked, I stood too. “Dude, what the hell?” I stated waspishly as I removed my mic clip, tossed it at him, and then kicked over his tripod. I made to follow Nate; however, at that moment Roz rushed in and sent me a fiery glare, as if I’d said something to set her client off! I matched her glare, but mine said, seriously? I wordlessly gestured to the display board on the carpet. The pieces had landed face up showing Erik sucking the twink. Roz’s face turned puce, and she roared.

“Security!” Then she directed her ire at the anxious man stuffing his camera into its bag. “Mr. Le Grand, if that footage is released, I’m going to make damn sure you’re blacklisted from every press junket from here to fucking eternity.” Dominique wore a self-satisfied smirk. I guess the little shit had gotten exactly what he wanted, a reaction shot to monetize clicks on his entertainment gossip website. Roz pivoted to her terrified intern.

“Anja, get those two meathead security guards in here and make sure this motherfucker stays until we’ve decided on how to deal with him. Cancel the interviews for this afternoon. We’re done.”

We had ten interviews scheduled for the afternoon, but I was relieved to hear we were finished for the day.

“But—” the girl began, confused.

“Tell them the actors are jet-lagged. They’ll get their five minutes on the red carpet at the première,” Roz added and then turned away, her phone now pressed to her ear. The jetlag excuse was laughable, seeing as I’d taken the Eurostar train from London which took just over two hours. Dominique had collapsed his tripod and was attempting to slink out of the suite, but the security guards finally stepped in, puffed out their sizeable chests, and wouldn’t let him leave.

“Hey, ziz is not America. I have rights…you’re infringing my ‘uman rights,” he complained his hands pushing on one guards chest as he tried to get through the doorway and into the main hall.

Roz was shouting at her phone. “Avery, where the hell are you? Get back here, we have a 911.”

I did not hang around for the oncoming explosion. One of the burly guards let me pass. I quickly strode down the short corridor, and out onto the pushily carpeted hallway of this cream, gold, and powder-puff-pink French hotel. My press agent Benji Moss was still nowhere to be seen. It was fucking typical of him to vanish in a crisis. I was with the Freiberg talent agency of Covent Garden, a boutique LGBTQ-friendly agency owned by Lucy Freiberg. Lucy saw me in a Shakespeare production, one of my first gigs when I was fresh out of drama school. She offered to personally represent me and take my career to the next level. For junkets and events that Lucy couldn’t fit into her schedule I was allotted a press agent to represent my interests. Benji Moss was possibly the worst press agent I’d dealt with during my career. I’d asked Lucy if I could have someone else, but still, I was stuck with this public school tosser with a marketing degree. The guy couldn’t bullshit his way out of a paper bag and he didn’t have a clue about the entertainment business. Turns out, nepotism was making my life hell, because I’d discovered something my agent kept quiet—that Benji was Lucy’s wife’s little brother and the job was a favour!

I reached the elevator and stabbed insistently on the up button. My current priority was to find Nate and ensure he was okay. I already knew there was no way Nate was anywhere near the galaxy of okay, but still I wanted to be there for him. His perfectly constructed world was falling in and I couldn’t stand the thought of Nate dealing with it alone, especially in a foreign country. Yes, it could be a purely selfish notion, as admittedly, in my deepest, most private self I craved time with Nate as much as I did fresh, clean air. But I put my personal feelings aside. Impatient, I wondered why the hell elevators took so fucking long to arrive when you were in a rush. I noted the doorway for the emergency stairwell at the same time I heard Roz bark out my name. I hurried through the doorway and I shuddered as if I’d dodged a bullet. I took the stairs up to the fifth floor, three steps at a time.

Nate’s suite was opposite mine. I tapped lightly on his door. No reply, so I knocked again, more insistently this time. I heard Nate roar on the other side of the closed door.

“Can I not get five god-damn minutes?”

“Nate, it’s me, look…If you need a friend I’m—“ I didn’t get time to finish my sentence because the door was wrenched open, Nate’s hand fisted my shirt and he dragged me into his room before slamming the door closed and flicking the bar lock. I stood in the hallway of his suite, a little stunned as Nate then pulled me into his arms and hugged me, clinging on as if I was the only thing keeping him afloat—I was a log in the middle of a stormy ocean.

“Oh god, Jack,” Nate breathed my name as if asking a hundred questions at once.

“Mate, I’m so sorry, there, there,” I cooed as I rubbed up and down his back, giving him the comfort he clearly needed. Feeling the shape of him, the delicious ripple of his muscles under the fabric of his shirt was delicious…in turn, I was giving myself something too! In an instant something changed between us, a switch was flicked ON! My stomach did this swoop and dive thing, and my heartbeat quickened. I loved how desperately Nate clung to me and I couldn’t resist the warmth of Nate’s familiar, hard chest pressed to mine. I turned my face into his nape and inhaled his spicy sandalwood scent. Nate turned into my neck too, and I felt the tip of his nose rub circles against the sensitive skin there. “Jack,” he breathed against my skin, and I let out and involuntary groan. On hearing that sound a rush of need seemed to make him hold me a little tighter, ensuring every—single—part of us was touching for the longest, and briefest moment. But then, just as swiftly Nate pulled out of the embrace. I was confused by this burst of what seemed like mutual longing, but my friend wasn’t in his right mind. Nate was trembling, probably with anger at discovering his husband was a cheating bastard. As his hand worried over his mouth Nate’s glance was fleeting. He didn’t meet my eyes. He turned away from me and strode down the short hall and into the open plan lounge of his suite. Pensively, I followed, giving him a moment to compose himself.

With all of the gentleness I could muster, I asked, “Have you…eh…spoken to Erik?” Facing away from me Nate shook his head,

“He’s…eh…not taking my calls,” he said stiffly.

“Don’t lose heart, mate. You’ve no idea where the photo came from or even if it’s real. It could be an AI deep fake or…or Photoshop or something,” I suggested trying to sound upbeat.