That broke him—Morgan disappeared and Steve bit his lip in a vain attempt to ward off a grin. “Screw off,” he finally said, laughing in defeat. “I didn’t realize we were doing improv.”
Drew grinned back, inordinately pleased even though he’d broken them out of a good groove. “I figured a little practice can’t hurt. I don’t get to do comedy often.” And Steve had a nice laugh.
“Somehow I think you’ll do fine.” Steve nodded at the phone. “I can’t believe you still have that handy. That is who I think it is, right?”
Roxy the border collie had been Drew’s costar on his first big paying gig. He was eight. “My mom emailed it to me yesterday. Apparently my parents are thinking of getting a dog.” Roxy had long since crossed the rainbow bridge, but she was by far Drew’s favorite person to work with. “Anyway, uh, I don’t think we’ve been introduced. Drew Beaumont. Actor.”
“Actor, huh? You don’t say.” Steve shook his hand, eyes smiling even as he rolled them a little, presumably because everyone knew who Drew was. Steve had broad, callused palms, and ink stains on his long fingers. “Steven. Sopol. Everyone calls me Steve, though. I’m the writer.”
“No kidding? I love this script.” When he saw it in his agent’s office, scattered over her desk so she could make notes in hardcopy like it was 1992, he knew he wanted to star in it. He made his case when Hilary returned from lunch, late as usual, to find him snooping. She told him it didn’t have a production company and wasn’t even finished; he prodded and cajoled her until she made it happen anyway.
Okay, so maybe Drew was alittlebit of a diva. But how often did an out bi actor get a role in a gay buddy comedy? If he had to use his fame for evil to do it, well, so be it.
“I just hope you still like it when I’m done writing it.” Steve took a step back and waved forward the guy he’d replaced. “All right, did that make things clearer for you? Ready to give it another go?”
Drew didn’t have a lot of hope as he reset himself for another run-through. Not for this guy, and not for the others waiting after him.
But he had an idea.
“WELL,”Hilary said when they finally closed the door to the audition room for good, with only the confirmed cast and crew inside. That meant Drew, Hilary, Steve, a couple of baby-faced kids fresh out of film school, and Nina Sanchez, who’d directed Drew when he was under four feet tall and who had agreed to do this movie even though she was technically retired.
Steve was going over something with the kids in the far corner of the room, which left Drew at the table with Hilary and Nina.
Hilary dropped her folder of annotated headshots and résumés on the table and let them fan out across the surface. “All right, I know good men are hard to find, but this is ridiculous.”
Nina snorted and started sorting through the papers, dividing them into piles. “Some of them weren’t completely terrible. But how do they not have chemistry with you? I’ve seen you get better reactions from inanimate objects.”
And that was Drew’s cue. “I thought one of them was pretty good, actually.” Across the room, Steve glanced up at him, as though he knew Drew was talking about him. He looked away again a second later, picking up the thread of his conversation with the newbies without missing a beat.
Nina raised her eyebrows so high they almost disappeared into her graying beehive, but she didn’t know Drew as well as Hilary did. Not anymore.
Hilary gave him a look. “Don’t.”
“What?” Drew said innocently. “Look, he knows the script, he’s easy on the eyes, he’s got great comedic timing, and his delivery is flat as a day-old Coke. He’s the perfect straight man.”
Hilary opened her mouth again and Drew waved her off. “You know what I mean. Nobody else even came close. We’re crunched for time and have basically no budget. Steve’s gonna have to stay on to finish the script and do any tweaking anyway, so we know he’s available. It’s fate.”
“He’s not an actor,” Nina pointed out as though this were a deal breaker.
“Actually he majored in theater in college,” Hilary said absently, tapping her index finger against the table. She was looking over at Steve now, a contemplative expression on her face.
Aha! Drew knew he couldn’t have been a total newbie. No one had that much natural talent. Also—“Wait, so you know him personally?”
Hilary pursed her lips like she’d bitten into a lemon. “He’s an old family friend.”
Excellent. “So you can get him to do it.”
“That’s not how friendships work!”
“Then you’re doing it wrong!”
Oops. Maybe Drew said that a little too loud, because Steve and the camera infants turned to look at him. Drew waved and gave a cheesy smile before turning back to Hilary and modulating his volume. “Look, this is his first writing credit, right?”
Hilary’s shoulders slumped. Drew was wearing her down. “First solo project, yeah. He’s a script doctor. Really good at his job. But he wants to be a writer.”
“Well, he’s a good writer too. But it won’t matter unless we have the right actor in this role.” Drew crossed his arms. “If he wants the movie to do well, it needs to be him.”
For a few tense seconds, Hilary held his gaze. Then she sighed and swept the headshots into a pile and shoved them back into their folder. “I’ll ask him,” she said grudgingly, and she turned to go talk to Steve.
