2. Rowen

2

ROWEN

He doesn’t know who I am.

Thank the fucking skies above.

That was the one great thing about hiding out in middle-of-nowhere, Tennessee: it wasn’t like New York City, where I’d seemed to carry a repelling cloud around me anywhere I went.

When it got really bad, near the end of my time there, people hated me just from reading my last name. I’d tried to get a coffee one morning, and when the barista had scanned my credit card, he’d had the balls to say across the counter: “ Sorinelle? Rowen Sorinelle? Your family should be fucking ashamed of yourselves. ”

Needless to say, I never got my cappuccino.

But that was my secret. A secret this guy Shane would never know.

I felt bad pool-sharking the poor guy, because he seemed nice enough and was clearly lonely tonight.

But it was very, very rare that I ever lost a game of pool. And one thing that wasn’t a secret about me was that I was always too curious about people.

I wanted to know why a tall, fit, pretty-boy jock was sitting at this bar alone, looking so sad. Shane looked more like he belonged on a soccer field or a farm, smiling and glistening under the golden sun.

Abercrombie type , as I used to call it in high school. An all-American Tennessee guy—nothing like the artists, writers, and self-professed proud freaks I used to hang out with in New York City. Shane seemed earnest. I knew if I won the bet, he’d probably even tell me the truth about why he was sad.

And blissfully, no one here in Tennessee had to know my secrets.

“This is an abomination,” I said as we approached the pool table. I pointed at the mini pumpkins and big, carved Jack-O-Lanterns still sitting on the shelves nearby. “Halloween was yesterday .”

Shane looked amused. “One day after Halloween is too long for you?”

“It’s outdated,” I said. “Christmas decorations should go up—”

“On November first,” he said, finishing my sentence.

I gave him a nod. “I knew I liked you.”

He cocked his head to one side as he grabbed a pool cue. “Liked me? Thought you said I looked sad .”

I shrugged. “Who says I don’t like sad?”

Shane seemed fine with that answer. He said nothing as he held my gaze for a moment, some quiet question behind his eyes. He reached for the knob of chalk, pushed it onto the end of the cue, and started in on some practice shots.

I knew he wasn’t trying to show off his biceps, but the practice shots really did a nice job of that. He racked the balls, putting the 8-ball at the center and then removing the triangle.

“Mind if I break?” he asked.

“Go for it,” I said.

Shane hit the white cue ball with a satisfying crack , scattering the rest of them all around the table. I took a sip of my drink as I watched him take his first shot, pocketing one ball and claiming stripes for himself.

He missed the next shot and turned to me, standing up straight again.

“What are you having?” he asked, nodding at my glass.

“Espresso martini,” I said.

“Fancy.”

“I got one as a joke one night in the city and now they’re all I ever want.”

Used to be my mom’s favorite, too, until she ended up behind bars.

No big deal.

Shane sat on one of the seats near the tall table where I was leaning. “The caffeine doesn’t keep you up all night?”

I shook my head. “I sleep okay.”

“Lucky,” he said.

Christ. I didn’t deserve to be in the same room as someone as sweet and earnest as Shane, let alone hang out with him.

I headed over to the pool table and was able to pocket three solids in a row. I wasn’t all that good at pool, but hanging out around pool tables in bars had become a pretty big part of my life living in New York. Turns out that when the callbacks for auditions stop coming in, you end up spending most of your time waiting tables or drinking.

“Damn. You’re pretty good at that,” Shane said.

He leaned over to set up his next shot and I stayed beside him.

“Here,” I said, putting a hand to his elbow gently. “Lower that arm. Just a little.”

He glanced back at me the moment my hand landed on his skin. My hand felt warmer than his upper arm, but he definitely didn’t seem uncomfortable.

“Thanks,” he said.

“No problem. Now visualize what you want,” I said, near the side of his head. I put a hand on the small of his back, giving a soft downward pressure. “Don’t arch too much. Your bridge looks great.”

He smelled faintly like pine. Almost like a Christmas tree , honestly. Either he had the best body wash on the planet or he’d actually been working with a real pine tree today, because his scent was incredible.

He cracked the ball and took a shot, missing his intended pocket by a few centimeters.

“Shit.”

“Great try,” I said. “Really.”

I didn’t hold back for my next few shots. After Shane and I took two more turns each, I ended up winning the game.

I did a little forward bow for Shane.

“Didn’t know I was up against a master of the game,” Shane said.

“Hey, you could have won,” I told him. “You’re better than you think.”

He shook his head then grabbed his whiskey on the rocks, taking a sip. “Nah. I don’t tend to win much.”

“You do owe me something now, though,” I told him as we both leaned up against the tall table.

I liked this bar a lot—I’d been expecting a typical Tennessee dive when I came in here, but instead I’d found an old bookstore that had been converted to a bar, surrounded by dark wood bookshelves.

In this nook, Shane and I had our own nice view of the rest of the place and the bar a little further away, but we were in our own little space. Dim pendant lights hung from the ceiling, casting us in a glow.

“I do owe you,” he said, his blue eyes meeting mine.

“So,” I said. “What’s got you sad, tonight?”

He shrugged, shaking his head. “Well, I’m sad because of the Fixer Brothers.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “I don’t know what I expected you to say, but it certainly wasn’t that ,” I told him. “You’re sad because of some home renovation TV show?”

He nodded, forlorn. “It’s my favorite show. Tonight I found out they’re having a contest asking anyone in the States to apply to be featured, but… it’s only for couples. And I’m not in a relationship, to say the least.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Tough.”

“And even if it wasn’t my favorite show, I certainly can’t afford to fix up my house on my own.”

“What do you do for work?”

“I work at the front desk of the inn down the street,” he said. “Which really just means I do odd jobs all around the inn, because Harvey’s old, and he’s owned the place for his whole life. I was only supposed to work there for one summer after college, but now I’m 26, and well—shit. Whiskey makes me ramble. Sorry.”

“Good thing I enjoy your rambling,” I told him.

“You like my rambling, and you liked that I looked sad?” Shane asked.

“My grandparents are friends with old man Harvey, actually,” I told him. “They’ve told me about him and the inn.”

As Shane told me about a few stories from the inn, pure, white-hot envy pooled somewhere deep in my stomach.

I ran my fingers over the base of my martini glass as I watched him speak.

One thing was certain: I was never going to lie to anyone.

My grandparents did live nearby, and I had been staying with them since getting here. Like me, they were very tight-lipped about my parents having ended up in a luxury prison in New York. I knew word might spread around town eventually, but for now, I was able to hide out.

My parents got caught embezzling—fucking stealing—millions of dollars from innocent acting students and their parents in New York. And since I’d always been their golden child, helping them run the acting school, I was very much seen as guilty by association.

Sorinelle Acting School had been my whole life. Practically since I’d been born. All my friends had been made there, and after attending it, I started teaching classes there full-time years ago.

Now it was gone forever. In a flash.

I’d never done anything wrong. I hadn’t even known the crimes my parents were committing, every day. But by association, I was now a blacklisted outcast back in the city to anyone who’d been involved with the school.

Shane’s life here in tiny little Bestens, Tennessee at the inn sounded amazing in comparison.

He took a sip of his drink now, nodding at me.

“So, yes,” he was saying. “I do a lot of odd jobs all around the place.”

“My grandparents told me about the… what was it, a quail infestation, at the inn?”

Shane’s eyes brightened. “You heard about that?”

I nodded. “A little.”

“It wasn’t an infestation,” he said, grinning. “We just had multiple little quail families all born at the same time a few months back. We’d look toward the back lawn of the inn and see the babies following after their moms every day.”

“Fucking adorable,” I said.

Shane ran a hand across his hair, which shined under the pendant light.

There was something about him I liked.

Something genuine. Like he was exactly who he seemed to be—kind, sweet, and always 100% himself .

“Wow,” Shane said. “You hear stories about the inn, even when you’re out auditioning and acting in New York City. I’ll be damned.”

“Well,” I said. “ Trying to act. Kind of a cutthroat game out there.”

“Cutthroat? What do you mean?”

I wasn’t going to tell him that my family name had gone from being celebrated to being one of the most hated words in our neighborhood back there.

Liars. Embezzlers. Fucking cheats.

So instead I griped about auditions.

“Last year my girlfriend got cast in eight roles, and I got exactly one,” I offered. “That one stung.”

“Well that sucks ass,” Shane said, furrowing his brow.

For some reason, it hit me right in the chest.

He seemed so sincere, looking at me with those earnest eyes and telling me he was sorry. I was used to people shaking their heads, telling me that acting was just like that —a constant game of rejection until one day, you hopefully got a good role. Some people had even told me I should quit.

But this heart-of-gold Tennessee sweetheart of a guy was already being nicer to me than half of my friends back in the city. He didn’t even know me.

I tossed back the rest of my martini in one gulp, the liquor sitting nicely in my blood.

“Hey. Do you want to get out of here?” I asked him.

“I like your scarf,” Shane said as we walked out into the chilly winter air. “And your sweater.”

“Like I said. As soon as it’s November first,” I told him. “I’m allowed to wear my reindeer sweater.”

“Damn right.”

We walked slowly down the town street. As we walked we passed by a couple of families already hanging up their outdoor lights, too. Bestens was old school in a good way, the kind of place where the “downtown” was small but had everything you’d ever need.

“So why can’t you just have somebody pretend to be your girlfriend for the show contest?” I asked.

He glanced over at me. “Boyfriend,” he corrected. “And because I don’t know a soul on Earth who’d be willing to do that.”

Damn. I’d never clocked him as being gay, but maybe that was just because I’d been too busy watching his pool stance.

“What do you have to submit to apply?”

“A five-minute video, showcasing why your relationship is special,” he explained. “Then if you win, they film an episode of the show in your house, presumably with your oh-so-special partner there, too.”

My boots crunched on a pile of leaves on the sidewalk. “Fuck it,” I said. “Sign me up.”

Shane stopped walking. We were in front of a little park, its street lamps glowing.

“What?” he asked.

“I’ll do it,” I said, shrugging. “Why the hell not?”

“What about your girlfriend?”

“Oh,” I said, shifting on my feet. “She dumped me the moment she got cast in a Netflix movie.”

A dark swirl of shame settled in me. I hated massaging the truth when I talked to people like Shane. My girlfriend had dumped me because of the scandal. Part of me wished I could be completely honest and tell him how much it fucking hurt to be dumped by friends and lovers for something I hadn’t even known my family was doing.

But I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to do what I was in Tennessee to do: escape.

“Shit,” he said, frowning. “Getting dumped is the worst.”

Something warm bloomed inside my chest.

He was doing it again. Being so earnest and kind that it almost made me panic. I was so used to rejection that even a small amount of true kindness made me feel… strange. Like I almost didn’t deserve it.

“Don’t worry, Shane,” I said, deflecting. “I promise, getting dumped last year isn’t my darkest secret.”

He nodded. I could see his breath faintly in the chilly air.

“So, no girlfriend,” he continued. “But you’d really be willing to pretend you’re gay, on screen?”

I laughed softly.

God, he was cute.

“I’ve pretended to be gay countless times in plays,” I told him. “Trust me, it won’t bother me.”

“Really?”

I nodded once. “I like kissing men. I’d do pretty much anything.”

Shane shifted on his feet, the shadows cast by the street lamp moving in tandem. He looked like I’d just told him I was an alien or something. Like he’d never heard of a guy who really didn’t mind pretending to be gay.

Not that I’d ever exactly felt 100% straight, either. I was 26, the same as Shane, and ever since high school I’d wondered if I was different. I’d never dated a guy, and girlfriends always seemed to fall into my lap more easily. But I’d enjoyed kissing male co-stars before. I’d even had a little guy-crush on one of my friends a few years ago, though I’d never taken it seriously.

The way I felt about my own sexuality was something closer to who fucking knows?

And I liked the way Shane looked at me, anyway. How could it be bad to pretend to be his boyfriend for a little five-minute video? There wasn’t a shot in hell he’d win the contest, anyway.

“So it would be… just an acting gig,” Shane said, and I could practically see the gears turning in his mind. “Just like any other. I don’t have much to pay you—”

I shook my head. “No payment necessary,” I said. “I’m going to be honest, hanging out with you is the most fun I’ve had since being stuck here in Tennessee. Your company will be payment enough.”

The faintest red blush appeared on his cheeks, and it was like catnip to me.

“Holy shit, it’s really going to happen,” Shane said. “I’m going to apply to be on the Fixer Brothers.”

“Here,” I told him, pulling out my phone and unlocking it for him. “Put your number in. I’ll text you tomorrow morning and we’ll get this rolling. I can bring my camera, too. The one I use for audition tapes is pretty high-quality.”

It was the exact opposite of what I was supposed to be doing.

I was supposed to be devoting my time to sending in audition tapes to as many open acting calls as I could. I’d changed my actor name to Rowen Skye. I needed to apply for commercials, short films, TV, anything . I’d get rejected from almost all of them, but I had to try to break back into the world on my own. To prove myself, and prove that I had nothing to do with my goddamn parents.

But how could I say no when Shane looked at me like that?