Ship It(38)

“I was hoping we could talk,” I say, walking down the hall toward him.

The elevator doors open. “Yeah, me too!” he says. “I gotta—sorry, I’ll be right back!” And the doors close behind him and he’s gone.

I sigh against the wall and slide back down. I guess I’ll wait some more. He has to come back eventually. I pull out my laptop and open a blank document while I wait.


HAMMER CURLS, PULL-UPS, tricep dips, upright rows, reverse flies, skull crushers. Arm Day. It’s the good kind of pain. The kind that I can handle, that reminds me that I am stronger than I was yesterday, and I’ll be even stronger tomorrow. Weight lifting is a contained pain that I can control, and I can decide whether to end it. It’s small and comprehensible and mine.

This hotel gym isn’t the most extensive, but it’s got weights and it’s empty aside from me, which makes it perfect. I’m putting new plates on the bar when Rico comes in. He’s not dressed for a workout, so I’m guessing he wants to talk.

“Hey,” he says as I start my bicep curls. “We have to talk.” I knew it.

Four…five… six…

“Forest.” He’s waiting for me to stop. But he doesn’t understand Arm Day.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Ric. I’m doing what I have to do.”

Rico comes over and sits on the bench across from me, but the nice thing about bicep curls is you do them bent over, your elbow on your knee, lifting the weight from the ground to your chin. It’s real easy to do them with your eyes locked on the ground.

“You put moderators out there,” Rico says to the top of my head. “That audience was pissed at us today. Did you see Paula’s face?”

Ten…eleven… twelve.

I switch arms. “I did that for both of us. We’re going to be looking for new jobs soon, we both know it. And this is the worst time for either of us to be seen as anything less than masculine.”

Rico watches me do reps.

Five…six…

“Did you know,” he asks slowly, “that they were thinking of going with another guy for Smokey?”

“What?” I look at him, but don’t stop curling.

“When we were auditioning. Some guy—Mark somebody. He was good, I could tell they liked him.”

I finish my reps and put the weight down. A line of sweat slides down my cheek, and I swipe it away. “What, did he have a schedule problem or something?”

“No, man, you happened,” Rico says, knocking his knee against mine playfully. “When you and I read together… fireworks. No one could look away.” He levels me with his gaze. “Do you remember that?”

“Yeah.” Of course I do. I’d never had an audition like my read with Rico, so full of energy, the connection between us immediately crackling to life, consuming the room. It scared me a bit, that day. And it scares me a bit even now, even here.

“So why do you keep denying our characters have chemistry?” Rico asks.

“Of course they have chemistry, but not the way those girls think,” I shoot back.

“They can only see on the screen what we put there,” he says, and I’m suddenly aware of how close we’re sitting. I can feel the warmth of his body coming off him, his leg a hairbreadth from mine. I wonder how many reps he does to get his quads to pop like that. I wonder how much he lifts. I raise my eyes to find him looking at me.

“You never played it that way?” he asks. “Even a little?”

Did I? No. I couldn’t have. Could I?

“What do you mean, that way?” I fake ignorance. I’m stalling for time. I’m not sure what’s happening anymore. This conversation is slipping out of my control, I’m grasping for a handhold, finding none.

“You know,” Rico says, like we have some secret together. “We always do the first take straight up. Then, take two, maybe it’s a little looser. And take three…” He pauses, reading my face. “Stripped down.”

I don’t move. My blood is pumping, but it’s probably from the weights. It must be from the weights. Right?

Rico shrugs. “Is it our fault they like to use take three?”

“No,” I whisper, my mouth dry and rough. I wet my lips, and Rico’s eyes flick to my mouth.

“No,” he agrees. “It’s not our fault.”

His gaze continues down my body, and my mind empties.

I uncross my arms.

Don’t think, don’t question. I open up.

Rico slides his hand across my cheek and behind my head and pulls me toward him and his lips are on—


I STOP TYPING and tip my head back against the wall.

I mean, it’s not that I haven’t written real-person fic before, I have. But it feels different writing it about Rico and Forest now that I’ve met them. It’s not a fantasy anymore, it’s more of a wish. Let me re-create Forest as I’d like to see him. Let me make him vulnerable, let me make him uncertain, let me make him love Rico. Let me make him understand.

There might be some people who find this gross or mean, but right now it’s just super cathartic. I turn back to the document and keep typing. It just got to the good part.


THE THUNDER ARE losing again. I had to charm the bartender of this faux-froufrou hotel bar to get him to change the channel away from—I swear to god—the Portland Timbers soccer game, just to watch my team fall apart in the fourth quarter. My only consolation is the fact that I can now afford to drink top shelf on my TV salary. But even killer bourbon won’t salvage this inane trip.