Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

“Areyou certain you wouldn’t rather take your mum to this event?” Casper asked Sawyer several days later, as they sat in the line of limos waiting to enter Leicester Square and dump their celebrities onto the red carpet for the premiere of Start at the Beginning.

Sawyer sat with his shoulder pressed against Casper’s in their own, hired limo, worrying his lip with his teeth as he tapped away on his phone. Casper had told him to stop checking social media every three seconds to gauge the public’s opinion of him and of their relationship. Sawyer had been good about not checking in the days of interviews and press obligations leading up to the premiere.

But ever since Kenny had sent him a scathing assessment of Sawyer’s supposed queerbaiting that had been posted on some dark, dank blog earlier that day, complete with supposed confirmation of Sawyer’s straightness from an “unnamed member of After the War’s crew”, Sawyer hadn’t been able to pull his eyes away from his phone.

“Hmm? What?” Sawyer finally glanced up and looked at Casper, desperation in his eyes.

Casper reached over and plucked Sawyer’s phone from his hands. “Stop picking at it,” he said, the same way he had once told his university roommate to stop picking at the scab that had formed when he’d cut himself shaving. “You’re only making it worse.”

Sawyer blew out a breath and smiled at Casper. “What would I do without you?”

Casper laughed. “Is this the part where my line is ‘Aren’t you lucky you’ll never have to find out’?”

Sawyer laughed with him, then lost his smile with lightning speed. “Are you saying that sarcastically? Do you want to break things off? I know this whole celebrity gig is a lot to handle and that you wanted attention, but not this much attention. So I’ll understand completely if you’ve decided we’re not right together and I’m not enough for?—”

Casper cut Sawyer off by grasping his face and slanting a kiss over his babbling mouth.

At first, Sawyer tensed and made a sound of protest, but within seconds, he’d calmed enough to enjoy the kiss.

“There,” Casper said, finally letting him go.

Sawyer let out a breath. “I’m just saying that I would understand if this is too much and you’d rather fade into the background.”

“Would you rather fade into the background?” Casper asked. After the last few days and the way Sawyer had come home completely exhausted at the end of each night and filled with stories of impolite interviewers and social media storms, all surrounding what sort of genitals he fancied, it was a serious question.

Sawyer shifted and straightened his designer suit as their limo pulled into Leicester Square at last. They would be the next ones shoved out into the flash and grab of the red carpet. “I’m good,” he said. “I love acting. I want to keep doing it and booking the best roles.”

That had become Sawyer’s mantra in the last few days.

“And would you rather have your mum here with you than your tabloid-worthy, academic boyfriend?” Casper asked.

“No, Mum hates this sort of thing,” Sawyer said dismissively. “Besides, after I spoke with her the other day, she said she was going to make an effort to have more friends by joining her church’s choir, even though she sounds like someone stepped on a cat when she sings, and they practice tonight.”

Casper laughed, despite how inappropriate it was to laugh at a woman who was trapped in the life she’d made for herself and didn’t seem interested in getting herself out, and for what Casper thought were silly reasons. It wasn’t his decision, though.

“I just want to be with you,” Sawyer said, leaning over to kiss Casper quickly as the limo rolled on to the end of the red carpet.

Casper could already hear the calls of the crowd that had gathered, and the shouts of photographers trying to get Sawyer’s attention first. There were even several flashes as those photographers tried to snap the intimate moment between the two of them through the car windows, despite them being tinted.

“Right. Let’s do this,” Sawyer said, shifting across the seat to the door as the chauffer opened it. Just as he stuck one leg out to leave the limo, he turned back to Casper and said, “Will you hold my hand, though?”

“Of course,” Casper said, smiling at him with what he hoped was calm and reassurance.

The truth was, he’d never felt less calm or more unsure in his life. Not even when Dr. Morrow had called him the day before to officially offer him the professorship at the Royal University of London. He’d told Dr. Morrow he needed a day or two to consider their offer, especially with Sawyer’s premiere looming. Dr. Morrow had been more interested in the details of the premiere than Casper was comfortable with.

And now, there they were, at the end of the red carpet, dozens of photographers and journalists throwing all their attention at the two of them like grenades, and a harried publicist of some sort gesturing for Sawyer to come forward and stand in front of the long screen with a repeating pattern of the logo for Start at the Beginning plastered across it.

“Just keep smiling and wave like they’re all your best friends,” Sawyer said.

At first, Casper thought Sawyer was coaching him in how to walk the red carpet. But as they moved on and Sawyer’s grip on his hand tightened, Casper changed his mind and thought Sawyer was reminding himself.

It was one of the most glamorous, terrifying, and surreal experiences of Casper’s life. If ever he’d fretted because he was invisible and constantly pushed aside for people flashier than him, he was making up for it now.

“Sawyer! Is this your boyfriend?” one journalist called out to get his attention.

“Turn this way!” a photographer shouted.

As soon as Casper turned, an impossibly bright flash went off in his face. He immediately understood why so many celebrities looked like they had gas in the red carpet pics he’d seen in the past.

“Are the two of you really together or is this a publicity stunt?” another reporter cried out.

Casper frowned and turned to try to get a look at whoever that had been, but he and Sawyer had moved in front of the film’s publicity wall, and the lights that shone on them were so bright it made everything else impossible to see.

“Smile,” Sawyer whispered to him. “Try to give them several different angles.”

Casper could only imagine he meant angles for photography. He did his best to keep up with the sort of poses Sawyer seemed to fall into naturally, but he was hopelessly stiff. Definitely not the stuff of a Hollywood boyfriend.

That seemed to be proven true when an assistant with a headset grabbed his arm and tugged him. “Stand over here, please,” the young woman said.

Casper moved away from Sawyer before he could ask whether that was what Sawyer wanted. As quickly as he’d stepped into the spotlight, he was pulled out of it and into invisibility again as more pictures of Sawyer alone were taken.

It was strangely fascinating to watch Sawyer at work, though. Casper had seen him act on set, and he radiated that same sort of convincing falseness for the cameras now. He was acting. None of the people crowding in on him with impertinent questions or setting off flashes in his face knew who the real Sawyer was. The real Sawyer belonged to Casper alone, and mad as it was, Casper loved that feeling.

As quickly as the whirlwind had started, it ended as soon as Sawyer waved and stepped over to the shady corner where Casper had been planted.

“Thank God that’s over, right?” Casper asked him as Sawyer reached for his hand.

“Oh, it’s nowhere near over,” Sawyer said, words and face serious, eyes glittering with excitement and affection.

Casper’s stomach dropped at the foreboding statement. He let Sawyer lead him on into the exhibition hall where the film would be showing in about half an hour.

As daunting as the red carpet had been, the giant, noisy lobby of the exhibition hall was even more so. There was far less order and organization to the hall. Instead of PAs lining people up and directing the press where they should stand and for how long, the lobby was a free for all.

“Sawyer! Is it true that you’re dating or is this all for show?” a man in a glittering jacket who Sawyer seemed to know asked loudly over the din of the lobby. He sidled up to Sawyer like he might push Casper aside.

Sawyer tightened his grip on Casper’s hand and tugged him close. “Hello, Nigel. Yes, it’s true. This is Dr. Casper Penhurst, my boyfriend.”

“Ooh, Dr. Penhurst,” Nigel said, extending his hand. “So the two of you play doctor, then?” The question was followed by a salacious laugh.

“Doctor of History,” Casper said, showing his dislike for the man on instinct.

“Excuse me,” Nigel answered snootily, as if imitating what he thought Casper was without bothering to learn anything about him. “Everyone thinks you’re faking it for attention,” Nigel said, immediately ignoring Casper in favor of Sawyer.

“I can assure you, it’s very real,” Sawyer said, his smile brittle.

“Really?” Nigel arched one eyebrow. “Go on then. Kiss him.”

Sawyer huffed impatiently. “I will not. Casper is not a circus side-show, he’s the man I love.”

Casper sucked in a breath and turned quickly to face Sawyer. They’d expressed it in a dozen different ways, but they hadn’t really told each other “I love you” yet. It was thrilling to hear the words, and in such a public setting. If only Sawyer wasn’t saying it to shut someone else up.

But Sawyer didn’t seem to notice what he’d said or to realize how important it was. He was too busy waving to someone else nearby who had tried to get his attention.

“Excuse me, Nigel,” Sawyer said, pulling Casper over into an entirely different conversation.

Except it wasn’t a different conversation, it was another version of the same thing.

“Are the two of you really dating or is this just a ploy?” a woman in her thirties who Casper swore looked familiar, but who he couldn’t quite place asked.

“It’s not a ploy,” Sawyer insisted, still smiling.

“Are you sure?” the woman asked, like she knew more than Sawyer did.

“I’m sure.”

The same cycle of questions was repeated a few minutes later, then hard on the heels of that. It seemed like no matter what Sawyer said, people believed what they wanted to believe. Casper could see that Sawyer’s patience for the whole thing was wearing thin.

What he did not expect was for Sawyer to turn to him after the sixth or seventh time he’d had the same conversation to say, “I think we should separate.”

“We…oh…if that’s what you want?” Casper was so blindsided by the statement that his brain couldn’t catch up. He could barely hear himself think over the maelstrom in the room.

“I think it’s for the best,” Sawyer said, leading Casper over to the side of the room, where several people were leaning against a wall, looking at their phones like they had checked out of the festivities. “This is too much for me to ask of you,” Sawyer said, half shouting. “And it’s only going to get worse. I’m sorry that everything has to be like this, but?—”

“Sawyer!”

Sawyer turned to look over his shoulder as a young woman in a slinky dress who Casper was relatively certain was his co-star in Start at the Beginning. She waved, and Sawyer waved back.

“You’ll be better off over here, out of the limelight,” Sawyer said, letting go of Casper’s hand. “You don’t even have to come in and watch the film with me if you don’t want to.”

“Sawyer! They need us over there,” the young woman said, grabbing Sawyer’s other arm.

Just like that, Casper was left alone in the shadows. His mouth hung open, but no words came out as Sawyer was pulled back into the crowd and across to the far end of the room.

Casper let out a breath and leaned against an empty space in the wall, beside a tall, attractive man with dark skin and deep, soulful eyes. What had just happened? Had Sawyer just broken up with him? Is that what he meant by the two of them separating? Was everything that had been so good between them done, just like that?

The man beside Casper huffed a small laugh and said, “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

“Sorry?” Casper still had no idea what was going on.

The man held out his large hand. “Gregory Anders,” he said. When Casper took his hand and shook it, he went on with, “I’m Brighton Sinclare’s husband.”

“Oh. Right.” Casper had no idea who Brighton Sinclare was, but he was starting to understand that he might just have been parked in the spouses and significant others’ section of the lobby.

“So you and Sawyer Kingston, eh?” Gregory asked.

Casper nearly winced before he stopped himself. It felt like the evening had turned into a broken record that kept skipping, over and over. “Yes, we’re actually dating,” he said, maybe too forcefully. “It’s not a publicity stunt.”

Thankfully, Gregory laughed. “Been there, done that, mate,” he said. “When I first started dating Brighton, everyone thought I was his bodyguard. Big, black man with a suave, white, producer. It was funny, standing back and watching their faces when they found out I wasn’t a bodyguard, I was just a lowly primary school teacher.”

Casper blinked and broke into a smile. “Fancy meeting another teacher here,” he said.

“You, too?” Gregory asked, as excited about the connection as Casper was.

“Well, not quite,” Casper said, turning to face Gregory in the hope of tuning out the noise of the premiere so he could conduct a conversation. “I did a bit of student teaching in my university days, and I’ve just been offered a position as a professor, but mostly, I’ve been the historian for The Brotherhood for the last three years.”

“I know all about The Brotherhood,” Gregory said, turning to face Casper as well. “I even thought about joining, but I didn’t think they’d admit anyone like me.”

“The Brotherhood is open to anyone and it always has been,” Casper said, relaxing as the discordant chaos of the film world began to fade into the background. “From the very start, admittance to The Brotherhood was not limited by class or race. We’ve had some prominent members of color over the years, even in the nineteenth century. Why, the composer Samuel Percy was a member in the late nineteenth century.”

“You don’t say,” Gregory said, nodding with genuine interest.

He shifted, a look of curiosity in his eyes, and crossed his arms.

“You wouldn’t be interested in doing some sort of a presentation about queer History and The Brotherhood to a bunch of year tens and elevens, would you?” he asked.

Casper blinked. “I’d never really thought about it, to be honest. I didn’t realize queer History was part of the approved curriculum for primary school.”

Gregory tilted his head to the side. “Not at state schools, but I happen to run an independent school for LGBTQ students or children of LGBTQ parents. We’re a great option for students who have experienced bullying in state schools but whose parents don’t want to home school.”

“That’s magnificent,” Casper said, loving the idea. “I wish something like that had been around when I’d been young.”

Gregory laughed. “So do I. That’s why a couple of uni friends and I started the school, nearly ten years ago now, to fill the need.”

“Ten years ago. Wow,” Casper said, inching closer to Gregory, since the din of the premiere was getting louder. “And it’s been a success?”

“We’re growing all the time,” Gregory said proudly. “And our students have a higher than average university acceptance rate.” He paused, his expression warming, then gave Casper a lopsided smile. “Actually,” he said, reaching into his back pocket and taking out a wallet. He pulled a business card from his wallet and presented it to Casper. “I know this is impulsive, but if you’re ever interested in giving us a visit, and maybe if you want a job, we need a History teacher for the upper years. I haven’t started the search for next year yet, but if you’d be interested in talking about it….”

Casper took the card. It had Gregory’s name and “The Allan Horsfall Academy” printed on a rainbow background. Just touching the card filled him with a sense of rightness and purpose.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling up at Gregory. “You know, I might actually be interested in?—”

“Casper?”

Casper turned to find Sawyer standing only a few yards away from him and Gregory, wearing a look of shock and desperation.

It took Casper a moment to register the look. He was too excited about the sudden job offer in front of him. He took a step toward Sawyer, eager to show him Gregory’s card and explain what they’d been talking about.

But Sawyer took a step back when Casper moved toward him. His face pinched with upset, eyes dancing between Casper and Gregory, and even though Casper knew Sawyer was strained by the premiere, there was more going on. Before he could say anything, Sawyer turned and bolted for the nearest door.