“Yes, exactly,” said Grayson. “See what I mean?”
“I’ll think about it.”
WHILE NOLANtalked to Helena, Grayson flipped through a little booklet of paint cards to find the exact yellow he wanted. It didn’t ultimately matter and the cameras were off, but Grayson felt like he needed to do something to prove to Nolan he wasn’t completely inept, especially after Nolan’s not-really apology.
He should go home. There was no reason for Grayson to linger at the studio now that they were done for the day. He hoped to catch Nolan’s attention, but there was something a little sad about waiting around for crumbs of Nolan’s affection.
What had Grayson really thought would happen here? That Nolan would meet him, and Grayson would charm him, and then they’d fall in love? That was ridiculous; Nolan was closed off, thought Grayson was too young and silly, and was clearly not interested.
“Yeah, we can close this down,” Nolan said to Helena. “Looks like Grayson is on to something, so we’ll finish up the design proposal and I’ll shut down the studio. Just the light switch by the door, right?”
“Yes,” said Helena. “Stay as long as you need to. Consider this your studio for real, not just the set. Here are the keys.” She handed Nolan a ring with three keys on it. “Come in whenever you want. Turn off the lights and lock the door on the way out, that’s all the network asks.”
“Sure.”
Helena left with her assistant on her heels. And then Nolan and Grayson were alone.
“Yellow I’ll give you,” Nolan said, walking over and looking over Grayson’s shoulder. “Maybe a vibrant, punchy yellow. Like… this one.” Nolan reached around Grayson and stabbed at a paint card with his pointer finger. It was New York taxi yellow.
Grayson held the paint card against the color story sheet. “That’s not quite it.Thismelon yellow is very on-trend, though. It’s not subtle. But adding it makes the theme more ‘Sunset on the Jersey Shore in Winter.’”
“Can’t hurt to run it by the Robertses.”
“I just think that you don’t hire Nolan Hamlin to decorate your home if you want something bland and neutral.”
“Hmm.” Nolan stood right behind Grayson, close enough that Grayson felt Nolan’s breath on his neck. Part of him wanted to jump away. The rest wanted to lean back, to know what it would be like to touch Nolan for a moment.
But those were crumbs. Grayson might be willing to take whatever Nolan wanted to give him, but he shouldn’t just settle for crumbs.
Grayson set the paint cards aside and stepped away from Nolan. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
What Grayson wanted to ask was if he even had a chance, but that was too forward. He decided to relate it back to the show. “How much of ourselves are we sharing with the audience?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do we show to the audience? Do they want to know about our personalities, our life stories? Does the audience care that I’m a gay kid who lives in Brooklyn? Are they interested in who I’m dating? Like, what am I sharing?”
“Are you dating someone?”
The question took Grayson so off guard, he asked, “What?”
Nolan shrugged. “My story’s out there. What’s yours? How do you want to be known?”
“Well, I’m not dating anyone right now. I’m basically every other creative person in Brooklyn at the moment, except I don’t have a beard. I live in a tiny apartment with roommates. I want to be a great interior designer. Most of my money goes toward my wardrobe, and even then, I buy everything on clearance. I want to look the part, I guess.” Grayson plucked at the lapel of his blazer. “Ralph Lauren, 70 percent off at Macy’s, can you believe that? Last one in the store happened to be my size.”
“I remember those days.”
Grayson shook his head. This was so different from anything Nolan would have experienced. Grayson had moved to New York with nothing. Now he didn’t need to scour the clearance racks. “This show is going to change my life. I don’t think I fully appreciated how much until I got my first paycheck. Even if it flops, it’s high-profile enough that I’ll find other work. Assuming, that is, it doesn’t look like I’m just second banana to the real designer.”
Nolan frowned and leaned against the side of the table. “I’m sorry. I haven’t worked on a team in a while. I’m used to making decisions unilaterally. And even then, I haven’t really worked in more than a year. I’m rusty, I think. The sunset colors are great, and I think Carol Roberts would really like them. This yellow goes really well with the peachy pink I picked.”
“I am kind of the second banana, though. If I have any good ideas, I feel like they’re flukes. I mean, a broken clock is right twice a day, yeah? You have so much more experience than I do. You notice things that I don’t. You’re confident about your designs in ways that I’m not. I thought going into this, I’d walk through the Roberts house and know exactly what I’d do with it. But it was like being in my first year of design school again.” Grayson swallowed, suddenly horrified that he’d confessed so much. “I shouldn’t even have said all that, because I really want to impress you.”
Nolan smiled in a soft way that Grayson couldn’t interpret. Supportive? Patronizing? Amused? But then he said, “You’re not so arrogant after all.”
Had Nolan read Grayson as arrogant? Grayson supposed he did put on a brave front most of the time. He wanted people to think he knew what he was talking about. But then he’d gone and confessed what an insecure mess he really was. Ugh, had he really said all that? It had been honest, though. Nolan probably read it as him fishing for compliments. He decided to shove it aside.
