Maybe that was a good thing after all.
“Are you sure you want to deal with the scrutiny we’ll get?” he asked, spearing his pasta and pretending he wasn’t as terrified of everything happening to him as he was.
“I can say this much,” Lee pulled his hand back and started eating. “My book sales have been way up since pics of us started to appear online. And I’ve had a few nibbles from agents, too.”
“That’s great,” Drew said, breaking into a relieved smile. At least Lee would get something out of their whole crazy plan.
They ate the rest of their dinner and talked about anything else other than their pseudo-relationship. Drew relaxed more as the meal went on. Lee really was easy to talk to, especially since they could talk about his books. He got so excited about his characters and their adventures. The way he lit up as he talked about dragons and dragonkeepers, then switched to filling Drew in on the new contemporary ideas he was outlining, sucked Drew in and had him forgetting about the dangerous line he was walking with their fake relationship.
They worked well together as they cleaned up after dinner, then moved to flop on the couch together with the TV on, playing some silly game show that seemed to be super popular in the UK.
Drew didn’t really care about the game show. He just liked being close to Lee.
They’d naturally gravitated together and were sitting with their bodies flush and their arms around each other when Drew finally worked up the courage to say, “Let’s take a quick pic of the two of us like this, then post it online with something that makes it clear we’re together.”
The way Lee’s smile slowly grew and his eyes filled with warmth behind his glasses as he stared at him did things to Drew’s insides that he wasn’t ready for. He’d already committed to the relationship, though, and he didn’t want to back out of it. For Lee’s sake.
And for his.
“Okay,” Lee said, scooting closer to Drew. “Are you going to take the picture?”
“Yeah.” Drew pulled his phone out of his back pocket and held it up selfie-style. He then tugged Lee closer and smooshed his face up against Lee’s. “Say cheese!”
Lee laughed. Drew snapped. It was the perfect moment.
He remained snuggled up against Lee as he studied the pic. The two of them looked so happy together, so free and unencumbered. Drew liked who he was in that picture. He liked who he was with Lee.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked as he opened his favorite social media app and set up the post.
The caption he typed was “Just a quiet evening in with my man.”
Lee audibly drew in a breath. “You know this is going to hit hard out there,” he said, twisting his head so he could look directly into Drew’s eyes.
Drew caught his breath, too. Yes, the subtle admission would hit hard in the fandom and beyond. But nothing could hit as hard as the way Lee’s caring, concerned look slammed into his heart.
There was no going back from this.
“Okay. Let’s go,” he said, putting on a smile that was at least forty percent pretend to mask the existential panic that was welling inside him.
It was just a picture, just a clever plot to make himself into who the world thought he was. It was for his career, for his future and the futures of his friends who relied on him. The pretend break-up could come before he left England, and he could continue on with the rest of his life and career with rumors quashed and a clear path forward.
But as he posted everything, he felt like he was shifting the course of everything he thought he knew about himself forever.
ten
. . .
“So let me get this straight,” Diana said as Lee strode through the twilight streets of London on his way to a dinner out with Drew. “No, strike that, let me get this gay.”
“Diana,” Lee warned her, glad he was wearing earbuds for the phone call and that no one around him could hear what they were saying.
“You’re telling me that you think Drew Oberlin, the guy you’re fake dating, the ultra-mega-superstar that you’re fake dating, is actually gay. Even though the only reason he’s fake dating you is because he has a girlfriend but needs the public to believe he’s gay.”
“None of those things you just said are fair assessments,” Lee insisted, glancing nervously around him in case people actually could hear the full conversation.
That and glancing around for cameras or people snapping pics of him on their phones. Because that was starting to happen now and then, too. Even when he wasn’t with Drew.
“So Drewisstraight,” Diana said, sounding humorously exasperated with him.