The taxi driver was chatty, but not the sort of guy Drew would have expected to see his show. He asked the usual questions about whether Drew was a tourist and what sites he had seen. Drew answered generically, his thoughts somewhere else entirely.
Lee Cresswell. What were the odds of a fake-dating service pairing him up with Abby’s favorite author? Abby would lose her shit as soon as Drew told her. He was happy he’d be able to report that Lee was awesome and a good conversationalist and hot to boot.
Drew caught his breath, then puffed it out and dismissed that stray thought. He wasn’t immune to attractiveness in people, be they women or men. And yeah, he’d been drawn to guys before, but he’d always just accepted those feelings as part of being a decent human being who didn’t get caught up in labels or red-pill nonsense. Some men were objectively hot, and even he recognized that. Nikky, for one, and he’d been naked and sweaty with Nikky. On a set, surrounded by cameras, grips, their director, and the show’s intimacy coordinator.
The feelings he’d worked with Nikky to interpret on the set weren’t anything close to the things zipping through him at the thought of Lee. He didn’t want to have sex with Lee, for one. He’d loved talking to the man, appreciated the fact that he kind of got what it felt like to be a celebrity, and enjoyed the brief tour of the core of London they’d had together. Whatever ended up happening with their fake relationship, he could see himself and Lee staying friends.
“What do you think?” the cab driver asked as they pulled into the lot for the studio’s apartments.
Drew shook himself out of his thoughts, a little embarrassed he hadn’t heard whatever he was supposed to have a reaction to. “Sorry?” he asked.
“Think you’ll get a chance to see more of London before you leave?” the driver asked as he pulled to a stop in front of Drew’s building.
“Oh. Yeah, I’m sure I will,” Drew said, unbuckling his seatbelt and scooting forward to pay for his trip with a credit card.
“You just give me a call, then, if you want to go anywhere,” the driver said as Drew climbed out of the car.
“Sure. And thanks.”
He shut the car’s door, and as soon as it drove off, his flashy, public smile faded, and he bit his lip. He liked people, likedtalking to them. That didn’t mean he had to be on all the time. He was sure getting lost in his thoughts instead of striking up a conversation had more to do with being exhausted and still a little jetlagged. It had nothing to do with the subject of his thoughts.
Lee was right back in his brain as he walked up the path and into the apartment building. Drew hoped he’d made it home okay. He wondered if Lee was really up to the task of appearing in public with him and being mobbed by fans, like they’d been outside the coffee shop. He wondered what Lee thought of him, if he thought he was just another entitled celebrity who thought only of his image or if he actually liked him.
“You’re back,” Jessica greeted him as soon as he stepped into the apartment.
For no good reason whatsoever, her half-smile and distracted greeting as she sat at the kitchen table with Abby, eating some sort of supper, hit Drew wrong and made him edgy. Throughout their walk, Lee had looked him directly in the eyes while they talked, but Jessica hardly glanced up from her cell phone as she ate.
“So?” Abby asked, giving him her full attention as he took off his jacket and put that and his shades aside before joining them at the table. “How did it go?”
“We know how it went,” Jessica said with a triumphant look. She held up her phone.
Drew took it from her and looked at a picture of him and Lee that had been taken in Trafalgar Square. It was a little fuzzy, like someone had zoomed all the way in to take it, but clear enough that there was no doubt it was him and Lee. They were standing close together and smiling at each other.
“You’re all over the socials,” Abby said with a lopsided grin before spearing another piece of broccoli on her plate and eating it.
Drew scrolled through a more of the app Jessica had open. Her algorithm must have been trained specifically to him, because with a few flicks of his finger, half a dozen pics of him from that afternoon, most of them with Lee standing right next to him, scrolled by.
“I knew this whole thing would work out,” Jessica said, snatching her phone back from him. “And it didn’t take long, either. People are already speculating who your mystery man is.”
“Lee Cresswell,” Abby blurted, then laughed. “What are the odds of that?”
“I know, right?” Drew said, laughing with her. “I thought of you the second Javier from Rent-A-Boyfriend introduced us.”
“What’s he like?” Abby went on, her eyes lighting up. “I’ve seen his picture before, but I didn’t realize he was that hot.”
Drew flushed from his neck all the way up to his face. “He’s actually really nice,” he said, deeply uncomfortable with his own thoughts. He couldn’t even nail down what they were, so he pushed them aside in favor of facts. “He seems really smart and on top of the whole celebrity thing.”
“He’s on top?” Abby asked, one eyebrow arched teasingly.
Drew laughed a little too hard. “Get your mind out of the gutter, woman.” He reached over and shoved Abby’s arm. “I just meant that because he’s a writer, he understands what it’s like to work in a creative field with its shifting sands and roller coaster rides of fame and obscurity.”
“He sounds perfect for you,” Abby said, the teasing light still in her eyes.
“This is great,” Jessica interrupted their banter, still scrolling. “Since Lee Cresswell is sort of maybe a little famous, too, though nowhere near our league, it’ll be way more plausible that the two of you are together.”
All the discomfort that goofing off with Abby had lifted from Drew’s shoulders came thudding back down on him. “Someoneactually recognized him when a bunch of people swarmed around us for selfies. He asked if I was working on an adaptation of one of Lee’s books.”
“Oh my gosh, that would be amazing,” Abby said, lighting up. “I would kill to seeThe Dragonkeepermade into a TV show or something.”