Out of Frame Page 4

  I stepped inside and gently closed the door behind me. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, but I’m pretty sure they’d prefer we not break the cabin door or sink the ship, ya know?”

  “I’m not gonna sink the ship.”

  Levi sank down into a chair in the corner and toed off his shoes. He was quiet for a minute and I watched the top of his head. When the cameras weren’t around, Levi was less . . . just less. Like a toned-down version of the Levi he was in front of the cameras. “So what’s got you all pissed off?” he asked.

  I flopped down on my back onto my bed and placed my arm over my eyes. “Casey was a dick.”

  “To you?”

  “No, to some girl who accidentally spilled a drink on him. And then of course the cameras caught me instead of him, so I’m the one who’ll look like the asshole.” I picked at a wet spot on my shirt. How I looked in front of the camera wasn’t what really had me the most upset, but I couldn’t tell Levi the whole truth. Upsetting that kid was what had me sick to my stomach. “I played into it, though. Of course.” I rolled my head to the side to see Levi chewing on his lip. He had great lips. Not that I’d ever tell him that. Because, awkward.

  “Not much longer,” he said. “It’s almost all over.”

  “Yeah, I know that, but . . .” I bit my tongue, but maybe it was the drink I had earlier, or the melancholy feeling that had been hanging over me, because that didn’t stop me from continuing to talk. “I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I wanted to be an actor, but I’m so tired of cameras and the whole scene . . .”

  The bed dipped and I looked up to see Levi sit down near my feet, a respectable distance away, taking care not to touch me. I hated that, because he could if he wanted to. He could lay a hand on my knee as a friend, and I wouldn’t freak out that he was hitting on me.

  But I’d lied for so long that it was easier to keep doing it.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked. “I’m done talking about myself.”

  Levi dug his toe into the carpet. “Well, my sister is supposed to return from her deployment soon.” I nodded. His sister was in the army. “And,” he continued, “we talked about going into business together, but first, we want to hike the Appalachian Trail.”

  I smiled. “Really?”

  “What, you think I can’t camp?”

  “I know you can camp, but I also know you like to look pretty.”

  He scowled at me. “I’m naturally pretty.”

  I laughed and shoved at his hip with my foot. He squawked and flailed his arms to stay on the bed. He pounded a fist on my shin and I made a show of clutching it and groaning.

  “You’re dumb,” he huffed, standing up.

  “You’re dumb,” I shot back.

  He hauled himself up to his bed above me. “Turn off the light then, will you?”

  I turned off the light, stripped out of my clothes, and crawled back into bed. I stared at the wall beside me, trying not to think about the fact that I was on a boat and not solid ground.

  Then Levi’s voice came from above, quietly. “It’ll all work out, J. R. You’ll figure it out.”

  It was nice for someone else to have faith in me, since I didn’t have any in myself. “Thanks, man. I hope so.”

  I lay awake for a while as Levi’s breaths evened out, thinking about how I wasn’t so sure I had anything figured out anymore. In high school, I’d auditioned for just about every play I could, but no one wanted a black Danny Zuko or Romeo. So lead parts that would’ve challenged me were hard to come by. There hadn’t been any theaters near me with programs for teens, so I didn’t have many options.

  When I moved to Los Angeles at eighteen on a prayer, I thought it would be the start of things for me—my chance to act, to be challenged. And my chance to finally deal with the fact that I was attracted to guys and girls—a knowledge I’d suppressed since I’d figured it out in middle school.

  That had all been fun and great and totally freeing for once in my life until I found an agent. I should have known he was shit, representing a broke kid like me without a credit to my name. He’d found me the Trip League audition—it was a last-minute one because a cast member had dropped out. They needed someone not white but straight.

  I was not white, and hell, I could play straight, right? Sure. So, I’d signed my sentence. Andrea was my agent’s idea, my plan to prevent everyone from asking questions.

  At the time, I’d thought this was my only shot, my only way to get noticed, my only way to make some money to help out my family. My agent had told me coming out would affect my chance on Trip League. He said all I had to do was play straight for the show and it would all work out in the end.

  I wasn’t so sure of that anymore. The further I denied who I was, the further I fell into the role of J. R. Butler, and the more I felt like Jay Ryan Butler was a stranger.

  Chapter Four

  Quinn

  After the night I had, I should have crashed until noon. That’s what normal people did on spring break.

  But I was up at six a.m. because I couldn’t sleep. Jess was still out, her hair spread across the pillow, small snores escaping her lips. I tried to read for a little but I was restless in my narrow bed, so I crept out of the cabin to walk around the deck. Maybe some fresh air would help. I grabbed my Sea-Bands and shoved them in the pocket of my shorts. Just in case. Jess would never know.

  I didn’t see another living soul on the deck besides me. Which wasn’t a surprise because it was the ass-crack of dawn and I’d seen nothing but dozens of drunk people last night after we’d left the bar.

  The ship was huge. Like several football fields huge. I’d read the brochure, and it said the ship was about a thousand feet long.

  That was a big fucking boat. Screw you, Jaws.

  I ran my hand along the blue metal railing while watching the churning water below. The sun was rising above the sea, a large red orb on the horizon.

  I dropped my chin to the railing and stared at the white foam below. They said we might see some dolphins. I was hoping for a giant squid, but that was obviously wishful thinking.

  I passed a tennis court and a pool with a cabana bar, which was closed at this early hour. A couple of crew members were out and about, cleaning and whatnot. Thinking I should head back before Jess woke up, I took one last gaze around the ship. As I turned, movement caught the corner of my eye. It wasn’t a crew member in a white starched uniform. This guy was in a pair of khaki shorts and a black tank top. As I stared, he bent over the railing, his hand on his head. I knew I should just mind my own business, go back to Jess, but as I began to walk over to the guy, I realized with a jolt that it was J. R. And he looked sick as hell.

  His dark skin had a pale cast to it, and he rubbed his stomach with one hand. As I approached, he turned watery eyes toward me. His lips moved, and I hoped he didn’t recognize me from the night before. Those hopes were dashed when he said quietly, “It’s you again, huh?”

  If he was trying to sound threatening, it didn’t work, not when he looked like he was seconds away from hurling over the side of the boat. “Too much to drink last night?”

  He shook his head. “I had one drink. It’s this fucking boat.”

  I fortunately had been spared motion sickness so far on this trip. Maybe it was the size of the boat, I wasn’t sure. But clearly J. R. hadn’t been so lucky. I stuck my hand in my pocket and curled my fingers around the Sea-Bands. I took a deep breath, wondering if he’d stare at me, horrified, like Jess had. But what was the worst that could happen? Like always, I ran through the consequences in my head. His comfort won out over my anxiety. I pulled the wristbands out of my pocket and held them toward him in my open palm. “Want to try these? They’re supposed to help, uh, motion sickness.”

  He stared at my hand like it was a snake. “What are those things?”

  I ste
pped closer and opened a package, then took one out and slipped it over my hand to demonstrate. “They’re called Sea-Bands. This bead sits over your pressure point and is supposed to make you feel better. Not be so affected and feel so . . . uh . . . sick.” I left out the fact that my mom bought them. He had called me kid, after all.

  We were close again, so close. I could smell that he’d showered recently, the soap mixing with the sea air. The breeze coming off the ocean ruffled his shirt and I caught a glimpse of nipple under his loose tank top.

  I stood frozen as he turned fully to face me, still leaning slightly on the railing. He bent his head and gripped my wrist, turning it this way and that as he inspected the band. The warmth of his fingers seared my hand, sending flares of heat up through my arm. I didn’t think I was breathing, either, so I focused on that before I passed out. I was in front of a guy who had fascinated me for a year. He was touching me, and talking to me as if he wasn’t a celebrity. As if we were peers. My knees threatened to buckle, and I remembered to lock them.

  Finally he looked up at me, his brown gaze boring into me the same way it had the night before. “These actually work?”

  “They’re supposed to. I haven’t felt sick yet, so I don’t know for sure.” I slid it off my wrist and handed it to him with the package. “Here. Maybe you can even keep some breakfast down.” I smiled at that.

  He blinked at me once and his gaze dipped to my lips and back up, so quickly I thought I’d missed it. Heat raced through my chest, up my neck, and over my face. I knew I was blushing like crazy. Stupid fucking pale skin. But he’d looked at my lips. And he wasn’t moving away. Even as he slid on the wristbands, he stayed close, his bare feet on either side of my sandaled ones.

  He had nice feet. Well-formed toes with a high arch. Dammit, Quinn, stop looking at his feet.

  “Hello?”

  I jerked up to see him staring at me, a slight curve to his lips. He had the wristbands on now. “Sorry, what?”

  “I said, what’s your name?”

  I glanced around, wondering if there were cameras. He must have known, because he shook his head. “There aren’t any live-feed cameras here. And the crew isn’t up for another hour.”

  I chewed my lip. “Oh, well then, my name is Quinn.”

  “I’m J. R.”

  “Yeah, I kinda know that.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I guess you do.” Then his smile faded. Color was starting to return to his face. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “What?”

  His eyes narrowed a little now. “I said, why are you being nice to me? After what happened last night?”

  I shrugged. “You were a jerk to me, but . . . that doesn’t mean I want you to feel like shit the whole trip.”

  “So the entire night and this morning were enough punishment?”

  “Guess so.”

  “These aren’t actually filled with poison that is slowly being absorbed into my bloodstream?”

  I gasped and clutched my chest. “How did you know? I swore I made the formula undetectable!”

  I liked the way his throat moved as he threw his head back to laugh at my words. And I liked how his eyes glowed in the early morning light. I couldn’t reconcile this man from the one who sneered at me the night before.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked.

  He frowned “What do you mean?”

  I leaned on the railing next to him. “Last night. You—”

  He shook his head. “Last night was . . . a mistake.”

  “Threatening me had been a mistake?”

  His glanced at me sharply. “I wasn’t threatening you. I was warning you. About Casey.”

  I could keep up with just about any lecture on macroeconomics or web development, but give me a conversation where I had to pick apart the intricacies of various words and social interaction, and I was a little lost. “Warning me?”

  The muscle in his jaw jumped. “Look, Casey is . . .” He left the sentence unfinished, then turned his head to stare out at the ocean.

  I kept my gaze on him. “Casey is what?”

  He finally turned to look at me, his shoulders slumped. “We’ve been like rats in a cage for a year, with only one another for company, and this is all a little bit of a shock to us. Casey’s my friend, and this isn’t about him, it’s about . . .” He let out a long breath. “We’re not who we’ve been edited to be for an entire season, okay? There are things the cameras don’t show.”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. Of course, logically, I knew reality shows were edited. I knew producers decided what we’d see and what we wouldn’t. And I knew scenes could be framed to show the cast members a certain way.

  But I hadn’t thought about . . . how that affected them. On TV, they were just little two-dimensional pixels running around. Here, in the flesh, I saw what a toll this was taking on J. R.

  “And you?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

  He didn’t react, and I wondered if my words were whipped away by the sea breeze, but then he began to shake his head back and forth, all while staring at the floor, his fists clenching and unclenching. Finally he lifted his head, and glanced at his wrists. “I gotta go, Quinn.”

  Right, of course. I was some kid on a cruise ship. He was a celebrity TV star. What, did I think he’d spill his guts to me? I ducked my head to hide the heat creeping over my cheeks. “Oh, yeah, sure.”

  He rotated his wrists and gave me a small smile. “Thanks for these. I actually feel better already.” He went to take them off, and I held my hands out. “No, please, keep them.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He dropped his hands to his sides, then shoved them in the pockets of his shorts. “Uh, okay. Thanks a lot.”

  I nodded.

  He took a step away, then stopped, turning slightly at the waist. “And Quinn?”

  I tamped down the surge of hope. “Yeah?”

  “I’ll watch your back for you.”

  And then he was off, strolling across the deck, head bent, the wind whipping his shirt across his back. I shot out a hand and gripped the railing, then bit my tongue before I did something stupid like call his name and then run leaping into his arms like this was some romantic comedy.

  This was real life. I was just a kid on spring break.

  And he was J. R. Butler.

  Before boarding, I wasn’t sure I’d even see him, let alone talk to him. A private conversation like that was more than I could have hoped for. I rubbed my naked wrists and ran a finger over the places J. R. had held my hand.

  That was creepy. Jess would tell me that was creepy.

  I shoved my hand in my pockets and made my way back to the cabin.

  ***

  J. R.

  I sat at breakfast, stuffing a waffle in my face. I was going to have to visit the gym later because cruise buffet food was going to wreak havoc on my diet. I looked up at Casey. “Hey, where’s the gym?”

  Midsip of his orange juice, he grunted out, “First level.”

  I nodded and continued to eat. Casey was like a gym K-9. Swear to God, the kid could sniff out a set of barbells in a cornfield.

  Levi popped a mini-muffin in his mouth. “Ugh, I need cardio time.”

  “I did yoga this morning.” Paisley stirred her oatmeal. “There was a class at seven.”

  “Is there a basketball court?” I asked.

  “Beside the gym,” Casey answered, mouth full of omelet.

  “Good deal,” I answered.

  “Are you guys seriously going to spend all your time on this cruise shut in the gym?” Selena said.

  Casey leaned back and patted his abs. “These don’t come free, baby.”

  I flexed my left biceps. “The gun show even comes along on the cruise
.”

  She rolled her eyes and stood up. “You guys are so dumb. I’m going to get a bowl of cereal.”

  “Stick with something high in fiber if you plan to snub the gym,” Casey called after her.

  She shot him the finger, and I laughed. Good for her.

  Adriana walked over and set a plate of pancakes and bacon down on the table beside me. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said, gulping down my orange juice. I sniffed her coffee. “What’d you put in it this morning?”

  “Cinnamon and honey.”

  I loved the smell of coffee but never warmed up to the taste. Coffee was Adriana’s first love, I was pretty sure, and she changed up her flavorings every day. When we were on location in Brazil, I’d found this rare set of beans and given it to her for her birthday. I thought I was her favorite just because of that. “Smells good. Got any plans for the day? Bunch of us were going to hit the gym.”

  She wore her hair in a short bob, the black ends barely brushing her cheek as she shook her head. “Nah, I really want to sit on the deck and scope out our shipmates.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I think the percentage of guys wearing shirts at any given time on this boat is like thirty-five percent. It’s my personal heaven.”

  Adriana hooked up more than anyone on the show, and I wasn’t sure how she did it, but she managed to keep it all off-camera. I was a little in awe of her, and I would have asked her tricks, but then I’d have to reveal why I was asking.

  And I wasn’t going there.

  So I stayed loyal to the imaginary Andrea. Which meant that except for a few very discrete hookups, I was a freaking choirboy for the last year. Quinn’s face from that morning flashed through my mind, red hair whipping around his head in the breeze, crooked grin aimed at me. Fuck.

  I leaned back in my chair and stretched, moving my neck from side to side. “Think I’m gonna knock out that workout, then maybe check out the casino.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Probably too many guys wearing shirts there. No thanks.”