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Tom met his eyes. “Maybe you should get her home.”

Cos nodded. As if that would help.

“We’ll need to meet later,” Tom said. “I want Jules Cassidy there, but he’s going to be tied up, probably until the morning.”

“Morning’s good,” Cos said. That would give him some time with Jane. Time to try to make her understand that this wasn’t her fault.

Tom nodded. “I’ll get the car into the garage.”

“Get her brother, too, please, sir,” Cos said. “If you don’t mind. I want to make sure he’s contained.”

Tommy shot him a look. “Good luck with that.”

Robin folded himself into the backseat of Janey’s car for the ride back to Hollywood.

Jules had barely glanced up when he’d said good-bye—he was busy being official and investigative. Although when Robin looked out of the rear window, Jules was definitely watching their car drive away.

Holy Jesus, he needed a drink.

The Navy SEAL was driving Janey’s car. He kept looking over at her as if he were worried about more than just her physical safety. She finally reached out and took his hand—well, wasn’t that interesting?—as if she were the one comforting him.

“I guess you’re not gay,” Robin said.

Cosmo gave Robin a long, pointed look in his rearview mirror. “Guess not,” he finally said.

About three miles passed before Robin spoke again. “I might be gay,” he said.

Jane turned and looked at him. She was obviously exhausted, with dark circles beneath her eyes. “Are you drunk?”

“I might be drunk,” he agreed, “but I don’t think the being gay thing changes with blood alcohol levels. Although I could be wrong. I seem to be less gay when I’m drunk. Or maybe just more willing to fuck anybody. And by anybody, I mean women. I’ve never . . .” He shook his head.

“Robin, if you’re playing some kind of freaky method acting game, like you are now Harold Lord all the time, 24/7, just stop, all right?”

“What if he’s serious?” Cosmo asked her.

Janey rolled her eyes. “He’s never serious.”

“What if this time he is?” Cosmo looked into the mirror at Robin again. “What you’re supposed to say is, ‘So what? Gay, straight, bi—it doesn’t change a thing. You’re my brother and I love you.’ ”

Robin wanted to cry—those words coming from this big, tough sailor. Jules’ voice echoed:
Coming out doesn’t have to be traumatic.
“Nobody ever said anything like that to Hal. And he knew no one ever would. He would have lost
every
thing. Not just his family, but his career—his entire future.”

“That must’ve been hard for Hal,” Cosmo said quietly. “Having to face that.”

Janey looked back at Robin again. “How could you be gay? Every time I turn around, you’re with a different woman. You’re, like, the least gay person I know.” She glanced at Cosmo and smiled. “Well, except for you.”

The reflective heat from that front-seat eye contact nearly scalded Robin. Well, hey now. And good for Janey. She hadn’t had sex in . . . Jeez, it was probably years.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that I’ve never had a steady girlfriend?” Robin asked her. “I mean, not since middle school.”

“That doesn’t make you gay,” Jane said. “That makes you a selfish, commitment-shy asshole. Didn’t you just have sex with my personal assistant? My very female personal assistant?”

“Yeah,” Robin said. He’d been thinking about that a lot and was pretty sure he’d figured it out. “I thought I was in love with her, but I think I was just in love with the fact that she was unattainable. I couldn’t have her, so I wanted her. And I was horny, too, so . . .”

“You suck,” Jane said. “You are, like, the lowest scum on the bottom of the pond.”

“Today I’m in love with Jules Cassidy,” Robin said, mostly to see what it would sound like if he said the words aloud. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t let it. Besides, he had no idea what real love felt like. Everything he’d felt in the past—the intense need—always faded away too fast.

He was definitely feeling something powerful now, although it may have been indigestion from drinking whiskey on a newly emptied stomach.

All he knew for sure was that he couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. Although he supposed that didn’t make him gay. Just obsessive.

“You are
so
screwed up,” Janey said as he closed his eyes and relived the surprising softness of Jules’ mouth, of the sensation of crisp cotton shirt beneath his hands, the hard body beneath that. . . . “I hope he stays away from you, because all you’ll do is hurt him, too. He’s a really nice guy, Robin. Are you listening to me?” She snapped her fingers at him. “Focus. Do
not
play your make-believe games with him. He won’t know it’s not real.”

“Jane,” Cosmo said.

“He’s just being a jerk,” she said. “He doesn’t mean any of this.”

Cosmo looked at her. He didn’t say anything, he just looked, and she sighed with exasperation. “Gay, straight, bi—it doesn’t change a thing. You’re my brother and I love you,” she rattled off, “but if you continue to mess with people I care about, you selfish prick, I will make you sorry you were born.” She laughed her disdain. “Like that threat has ever stopped you before.”

Well, of course not. Because he was in a perpetual state of being sorry he was born. Always so freaking dissatisfied. Always looking for something that he couldn’t identify, let alone find . . .

Had he found it tonight in Jules Cassidy’s eyes?
For the first time in years, I know exactly what I want. . . .

Holy crap, what a total lose-lose situation.

Entertainment Weekly
had called Robin “a sex symbol waiting to happen” and “one of Hollywood’s hottest rising stars.” He could take gay roles like that of Hal Lord and be thought of as “daring” and “edgy.” But if he
was
gay, he’d
only
get gay roles.

He’d be stereotyped. Labeled. And eventually he’d get no roles at all.

He’d sink back into a life of obscurity. Or worse.

Pretty boy. Homo. Little faggot.

God, he remembered far too well the sheer terror as the older boys, the bigger boys, grabbed him in the middle school hallway, pushed him into the bathroom, and locked the door. They threw him to the floor, and he’d pressed his cheek against the cold tile as he cowered in the corner, flinching from their taunts, praying that they wouldn’t do more than kick him. Because if they bruised his face, his father might notice and ask what had happened, and he couldn’t tell him he’d gotten beat up again—he couldn’t bear the shame.

Little faggot. Little faggot. Little faggot . . .

Then, almost overnight, it all changed. Jane, the least likely guardian angel on the face of the planet, had swooped down and rescued him. It took her over a year, but she got him transferred to her town, to her school district. She dressed him up, taught him how to walk and wear his hair, how to stand.

And then it was Kimberlee Novara who had taken him into the bathroom and locked the door. “Do you want me to?” she’d asked, and it never occurred to him to say no. Truth was, he didn’t want to say no. He’d liked the way she made him feel. And when word spread around school that she’d done what she’d done, he was a hero. The same boys that would have beaten him up a year earlier were slapping him on the back. Inviting him to hang out after school.

Kimberlee was obnoxious and stupid and not particularly attractive, but “going out” with her didn’t mean they spent a lot of time together. At least not time spent talking. When Robin went to her house, she’d take him down into her playroom and . . .

Sex was sex. And most of the time the lights were off.

Kimberlee turned into Ashley, who turned into Brianna, who turned into Lisa, Tawanda, Jacki, Christy, Deena, Susan, Chloe, Mara . . .

And no one called him
little faggot
ever again.

How could he even consider going back to the abuse, the disrespect, the relentless fear?

Janey was probably right—he was just getting too caught up in this role. He was spending too much time as Hal. And despite his sister’s casting choices, he’d somehow identified Jules as Jack. That was what this was about.

Robin wasn’t gay—he was just an incredibly talented actor who truly lost himself in his part.

“Are we filming tomorrow?” he asked Jane. “Or are we shutting down production because of . . .”

She shook her head. “God, I don’t know.”

“Don’t shut down,” Cosmo said.

“It seems so disrespectful to just continue, as if—”

“It’s not,” Cosmo said. “If it were me in the hospital, I’d want production to continue. Don’t let this guy win.”

She nodded. Looked back at Robin. “Yes, we’re filming tomorrow.”

Ah, shit.

“All right.” Robin unzipped his backpack, took out his script.

He was as ready as he’d ever be for that scene with Hal and Jack’s first real kiss. But there was another scene they were filming tomorrow, too, and it had a kiss as well. Jesus, all he was doing, all movie long, was kissing fuckin’ Adam Wyndham.

“I hate this movie,” he said.

“Right now, I do, too,” Janey said.

Tomorrow’s second scene was Hal and Jack’s big farewell. In it, his character gave a letter to Jack. It was sealed in an envelope upon which was written the cheery message, “Open in the event of my death.”

The contents of that letter would be revealed toward the end of the movie via voice-over.

Robin flipped to that page in the script, dog-earing it. He’d read the letter several times in the morning, right before shooting the scene. Because even though the audience wouldn’t hear it until later, the words Hal had written had to show on his face.

He held the script up so the page caught the glow from the headlights of the car behind them and he could read.

Dearest J.,
the letter started. Huh. He’d never really noticed that before. It was kind of funny, in a pathetic way. J. was what Adam called Jules.

God, he had to stop thinking about him.

By the time you read this, I will be gone.

I may be killed in battle, or a prisoner of the Germans, or safely on my way home to Alabama.

Whichever outcome fate chooses for me, the man you know and love will be dead. He must die—if not in body, then in spirit. If he does not fall in battle, I must do the deed and cast him, and you with him, my dearest, from my heart forever.

If I am truly dead, please do not grieve for me. With you I finally knew happiness. Your love was a gift I never expected to receive. What we shared made my life complete—I left this world with no complaints.

If I should survive the war, please forgive me for not being strong enough.

Please do not write. I will not answer you. Do not come to see me. I will not know you. And you will not know me—the man you loved is gone.

The only place he will live on—and I fear his days are numbered—will be in your heart.

Respectfully,
H.

Robin’s reaction, when he’d read that letter back when Janey had first shown him this script, was that Harold Lord was truly conflicted. What a terrible choice he’d had to make.

Now he wasn’t so sure that the man hadn’t simply been a flipping coward.

Cosmo brought a cup of tea into her bedroom.

It was enough to make Jane’s eyes flood with tears. Again.

God, she was on the verge of tears at the drop of a hat. Never mind that she’d allowed herself to let loose in the shower for a solid fifteen minutes after they got home. Cosmo probably could have come into the room to discuss the weather and she’d well up and start sniffling.

“Any word from the hospital?” she asked as he set the mug on the table next to her bed.

“Not yet,” he said without the slightest trace of exasperation, even though she’d asked the very same question ten minutes ago. He sat down on the edge of her bed. “Janey, it’s really okay if you cry.”

“No, I’m all right,” she said. “I’m just . . .”

“What?” he asked, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear, his touch unbelievably gentle. “Talk to me.”

Jane just shook her head. How could this be real? Guns and bullets and people getting shot—that was make-believe. It was Hollywood magic. In her world, the director would’ve called cut, and Murphy and Angelina would have stood up, laughing and joking, and gone to shower off all the pretend gore before joining friends for a late-night snack.

In her world, wars were fought with prop guns that didn’t really fire, with bags of fake blood, with latex body parts.

In Cosmo’s world, death and destruction were commonplace. Danger was a given.

Right now he was checking out the stitches in her arm, making sure she was okay. Stitches like that were nothing to a man who knew how to administer first aid to a sucking chest wound.

“We’re so different,” she told him.

He smiled. “I was just thinking how alike we are.”

God, if he thought she was like him—brave and strong and solidly determined—she really had him fooled. Here sat another victim to the famous J. Mercedes Chadwick charm.

She did the only thing she could do. She made a joke. The alternative was to start crying and never stop. “Yeah, people always mistake me for a Navy SEAL.”

Cosmo laughed, and she had to force back a fresh rush of tears. Which was crazy. She loved making him laugh. It was her new favorite pastime.

Except now he’d stopped laughing and was looking at her with such concern in his eyes. She reached for the mug so she didn’t have to keep up the eye contact while she worked to will her latest bout of tears away.

“All this must seem so surreal,” Cosmo said quietly.

“Yeah,” she agreed as she took a sip of tea.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

Jane had to laugh, because—amazingly—he meant it. The most attractive man she’d ever known was offering her his complete support. She tried to imagine Victor—or any of the losers she’d dated before—uttering those words and . . . Nope. She couldn’t do it.

She tried to imagine one of them giving up a well-paying job for her. Or bringing her a cup of tea. Or throwing himself in front of a bullet for her.