Steam (Homecoming Hearts #4)(6)

His manager worked for an agency that represented actors in film, theater, television and anything else in between. They had some pretty big names on their books, most of whom had their portraits framed along the very corridor Trent was trudging his way down. He stopped at the print of his own face, his expression mischievous. The cultivated bad boy who ladies wanted to bed and men wanted to be.

Well, he wasn’t so much bad boy now as borderline deviant. Thank fuck Dez Starr hadn’t wanted to press charges. It made him look like the bigger, better man if he dropped his claim. But that didn’t mean Trent wasn’t still in a whole load of shit.

He knocked with a sense of trepidation.

“It’s open,” the gravelly voice snapped from beyond the wooden door.

Trent sighed and turned the handle, letting himself in.

Barry Barsky was a heavy-set man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a razor-sharp eye for detail. As was usual when he was awake, he was puffing on a cigar, the smoke from which had permeated every nook and cranny of his office, despite the supervisor giving him countless reminders that this was a no-smoking building.

Barry pointed the smoldering cigar at Trent as he closed the door behind him.

“Sit,” he barked. “Now.” His voice sounded like a cement mixer after so many decades of destroying it with smoking. The man was a cockroach though, or at least Trent had always affectionately thought so. He’d be here long after the apocalypse took the rest of the world out. There was no destroying Barry Barsky, god love him.

Although it felt some days like Trent was doing his best to try.

“What the actual fuck?” Barry rasped as loudly as his voice would go.

He jabbed the cigar toward Trent again, little flecks of ash drifting down onto the overloaded desk. Trent wasn’t sure how he got any work done when his computer was buried under so many files and contracts and magazines. One of which he picked up and thrust into Trent’s face. He winced at the front page, which showed a split image of him punching Dez and then him being led away by the cops in cuffs.

“The guy’s a jerk,” Trent mumbled into the back of his knuckles as he rested his elbow on the chair’s arm.

Barry slammed the magazine back down again and blinked his big blue eyes at Trent. They stood out from behind the gray-black whiskers that encompassed the rest of his face. If it wasn’t for the two-thousand-dollar suit, he could have passed quite nicely for anyone’s lovable but slightly crazy unemployed uncle.

“A jerk?” Barry repeated. “Of course he’s a jerk. This is Tinseltown, everyone’s a fucking jerk. You’re a jerk, all these guys are!”

He flung his arm out and indicated the many framed photos he had on his wall of all the talent he’d represented over the years and the A-list directors and producers he considered buddies. Four walls dominated by Barry shaking hands with Hollywood’s best known from the last three decades.

Trent had yet to make it onto one of these particular walls. Barry was still unconvinced he had what it took to be a real name. And as it turned out, he was probably right.

“There’s a difference between jerks with Emmys and jerks standing in lineups,” Barry griped. “You feel me, kid?”

Trent grumbled again and folded his arms.

Barry sighed and leaned back in his gigantic leather chair, bouncing on the springs. “Look,” he said, his voice gentler. He puffed on the cigar. “I’m not an idiot. I know what the date was. I can guess the kind of thing that prick Starr said. But you can’t let him get under your skin.”

Trent just shrugged.

Barry huffed. “Okay, look, I put out the Elsie Hadden fire. Turns out she’s not even pregnant. She just gained a couple of pounds and a so-called gal-pal ran to the press thinking she had a scoop after she caught her drinking a soda instead of vodka for once.” He rolled his eyes. “Some friend. No idea why they picked you to pin the bump on. But, whatever, it’s over.”

“Thank you,” Trent muttered.

Barry toyed with his cigar for a few moments, flicking it against an already full crystal ashtray. “You wanna talk about it, kid?”

“No,” Trent said immediately.

Barry sighed. “Well, if you don’t want to talk to me, you might have to talk to someone. Anyone. This shit was already getting out of hand before you got charged with assault.”

“Dez dropped the charges,” Trent countered. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Barry told him firmly, taking another drag. “For the past two years you’ve been drowning in booze and women, and it’s not working.”

“I’ve always done that,” Trent argued.

He tried for his signature cheeky grin, but Barry’s expression remained stony, so he dropped it. Seriously, though. What was the big deal? He’d been Below Zero’s ‘bad boy’ when they were in the band, and that reputation had got him his first few film roles without even trying. Everyone knew he was a daredevil and did all his own stunts. After The Fixer had come out over Christmas, he was tipped to be the new Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, Jason Statham.

He’d almost hoped that the incident with Dez might be good press if they could spin it right. But obviously, Barry wasn’t seeing it like that.

“It was cute in the beginning,” Barry said, shaking his head. “But that was before you started showing up on set drunk or hungover or somewhere in between. Before you picked fights with sound operators-”