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The voice in my head was curiously flat.

That’s what you wanted, right?

Right. The world never has to know the real me.

I knew you. I loved you. You always said that was enough.

I think we’ve established I was always a selfish prick. Don’t throw it in my face now.

I recoiled from the wounded bitterness in Vinnie’s voice, and clung to Noah instead.

“How bad’s it gonna get?” Noah asked somberly.

“I have no idea,” I mumbled. “It could be nothing. It could be a few calls for some exclusives and the press conference from the first day all over again. It could be looking at
The National Enquirer
calling you my ‘Dark Chocolate Love Monkey’ and haunting my shrubbery for a picture of your ass. I honestly have no idea— What?”

“Really?” he asked, eyes wide, a delighted smirk twisting his mouth. “‘Dark Chocolate Love Monkey’? Can I do that? Can
I
call myself that in the press?
I
want to see my picture in
The Enquirer
with the caption ‘Dark Chocolate Love Monkey’—that would be
awesome
!”

“Shut up.”

“No, seriously—can I be your ‘Coffee-Colored Big-Dicked Servant of Lust’? I mean . . . can I keep a vlog and talk about how you never top?”

“Shut up. I will fucking top you right now,” I threatened, and he let out a roaring laugh that shook through my body as he held me—and bled out the last of the shaking, trembling nerves that had racked me since I’d crawled out of bed that morning and refused breakfast.

“Yeah, I’d let you top,” he patronized, rubbing his chin on the crown of my head.

“Thank you,” I whispered, suddenly not able to laugh or speculate, even a little.

“For what?”

“For not caring if you’re my Dark Chocolate Monkey of Love.”

“Con?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I love you, right?”

I shuddered and clung to him harder. “You know what’s in my heart, right?” I asked, the word looming like a big wall of infidelity, the last landmark of a ten-year relationship, the one thing that had made Vinnie and me special.

“A whole lot of sadness for the last guy who loved you,” Noah said wisely.

“And a little bit of joy for the guy who loves me now,” I told him, hoping it was a gift. I leaned my head against his shoulder. “I won’t always be broken, Noah. I . . . I’m not at a great place for promises, but I want to keep that one.”

“Connor?”

I looked at him. “What?”

“I’ll love you if you can’t.”

“Can’t keep the promise?”

“Can’t love me like you loved Vinnie.”

That broke me. “I will,” I whispered, wiping my eyes. “I already do.”

But I couldn’t say the word. Not right now. Not when the fallout of what I’d just done had yet to rain down.

And even if it didn’t rain down, I still needed to walk through the rain of regret for not having done it sooner, for not having forced Vinnie’s hand, for not having said, straight out, “I’m not living in the closet, Vinnie. You do what you want but I’m going to have a little faith.”

Oh God. How much more real this last year would have been if it had been real for the rest of the world too.

I didn’t say any of that to Noah, though. I just took what he was offering and held on, for a minute, and another, and another, until Viv knocked on the door and told me it was time to report to makeup.

Carter and Levi were in the makeup trailer, which surprised me, because we were still not supposed to know the other existed in this world, and we didn’t have a scene together for another week.

Carter was wearing a bright, golden-boy smile, and behind me Noah said, “Oh no . . .”

“Oh no what?” I looked at Noah, my vision clinging, because at this point he was my safe haven.

“Conklin told him.”

“Of course he did,” Carter said. “Congratulations! You must be really proud!”

“No,” I said, shaking my head and settling down in my chair. “It was no big deal.”

“It was plenty big a deal.” Levi Pritchard was dark and growly in person just like on screen. For some reason I trusted that more.

“You guys did it first,” I said, trying to make that sound supportive and modest. Even Levi smiled, so I must have succeeded.

“Yeah, we did,” Carter said. “But why did
you
? I mean, we like you here, but you can still shoot films in the hiatus, and this could limit your roles.”

I shrugged. “Most of the directors I like to work with won’t care, and not getting another movie role won’t kill me. As long as I can keep working
somewhere
, I’ll be fine.” Oh God. I
loved
movie shoots. I
loved
being an action hero, running to stop the bad guy, driving the fast car with manic desperation. I liked the more in-depth character stuff you got to do in a television show, but . . .

But I wasn’t going to show uncertainty, not here. Not in front of other actors. Not where people could see. Noah knew. It was enough.

I stopped lying then, and gave these nice men some of the truth. “And I’m seeing someone—it’s going to make his life hard enough, me just being in the public eye. It would be great if he didn’t have to worry about being in the closet with me too.”

Levi nodded, arms crossed in front of his chest, like he found that acceptable. Carter’s boyish enthusiasm never dimmed.

“Well, that’s great. If you need help with the paparazzi or the papers or bloggers, just let me know—Levi and I have some pointers. I mean, you don’t
need
to milk it if you don’t want to, but there can be some very nice publicity perks if you want them.”

Yes, I’d seen. Their courtship was famous—their marriage celebrated—and the fact that neither of them shied away from the world knowing was . . .

Extremely brave.

But, also, not me.

“Thanks guys,” I said, smiling quietly. “That’s really generous.”

Junior was suddenly standing between me and Carter and Levi, and they said good-bye and left the trailer. I breathed a sigh of relief, and thought I was doing really well until Junior tucked a bib into my white T-shirt and started sponging on foundation.

“They’re really nice,” he said, as though I’d said they weren’t.

“Yeah, I know. That was kind.”

“I mean, I know they come on a little strong but—”

“No, I get it. They’re the alpha dogs here, Junior. They were welcoming me into the gay pack, it was sweet.”

Junior let out a breath and kept sponging foundation. “Look, I know you’re a really good actor on the soundstage, Mr. Montgomery, but here in my chair? It’s like looking through glass. You needed them both the hell out of your space so you can pretend this morning didn’t happen.”

I closed my eyes so he could get my lids. “Junior, do you and your girlfriend need anything for your house? Engagement ring? Car? Honeymoon fund?”

He laughed a little. “Antique satin,” he said promptly. “She wants to make this wedding dress, but the fabric she wants is heinously overpriced.”

“Send me the website and the specs,” I said, relaxing into the chair. “It’s yours.”

“Ha-ha,” he said dryly.

“No, I’m serious.”

“Why? Why would you buy my girlfriend’s wedding dress fabric?”

“Because her fiancé totally saved my life,” I told him truthfully. God, someone got it—someone not Noah. It was just nice to have friends who didn’t hate you when you were trying desperately not to be a miserable asshole and failing.

As I was lying there, being thankfully quiet in the makeup chair, my phone rang. I pulled it out and handed it to Noah, and he checked it, grunting.

“What’s it say?”

“It says the next couple of weeks are going to suck large,” he muttered.

“Good, because the last year has been a
cakewalk
!”

“
Huffington Post
,
The Guardian
,
Gawker
, and
BuzzFeed
all want quotes, and Jillian says you have three more interviews on Friday afternoon—promised to be fifteen minutes apiece.”

“Suzanne posted that awfully early. Wasn’t it only supposed to go out after three?”

“Her cameraman must have taken pity on her and helped her with her career.”

“Fucking lovely.” I sighed. “Noah, you want to do me a favor—”

“I’m entering it into your phone already, Mr. Montgomery,” he said, voice dry as toast. I remembered when he’d joked about being my PA. I hope he didn’t mind if that sort of just “happened” right now.

He didn’t, which was great—because the next week was just as bad as that moment promised.

Interviews, calls from the press, suddenly everybody knew my name. And that poor Suzanne Sylvano, she was brutally outclassed: Did Vinnie know? Was Vinnie gay? Were you lovers? Of course you were lovers—which one topped? Did your sexuality figure into your decisions for
Warlock Tea
and Marvel? Were you in rehab? Did your gayness drive you to rehab? Who are you seeing? Do we know whom you’re seeing? Is it the new director, Rafael whatshisface? What about Simon Conklin, are you seeing him? Do your friends in Hollywood know? Did your agent know? Did the producers know? Is there a tiny tribe on an island in the South Pacific that is being destroyed by climate change and does not get any sort of technology that does
not know or give a giant flaming shit whom you want to fuck
?

Apparently not.

By the end of the first week, two days before
Vogue
came to do the photo spread—at a state park, thank God, and not my house—I’d pretty much had it.
Not
having those people at the house on the sweet and quiet little block had been a major headache, and the only reason I wasn’t up to my armpits in stalkers in the hedges was because Jilly asked Anna and the show’s producers to arrange for extra security, bless her heart, and because Noah pretty much scared the hell out of anyone who slipped through. Local law enforcement lent a hand, and Noah and the sheriff both got particularly good at shooing people the hell away.

So personally, it was a nightmare. Professionally? I had my shtick down, I’d memorized my lines, and I’d developed a thousand and one ways of talking about
my
gayness while leaving Vinnie’s gayness and Noah’s identity completely out of it. Which meant mostly I used “No comment,” especially when I got tired of dancing around the subject.

And when I got tired of “No comment,” I used, “Talk to my agent,” and apparently from Jilly, “No comment” sounded an awful lot like “Go fuck yourself with a hellfire sword, complete with the handy mace attachment” because nobody ever came back to me after talking to her.

A part of me was proud—I’d launched into this whole thing to protect Noah, right?

But a part of me . . . most of me . . . was starting to curl steadily inward, a pill bug, trying to let my hard, brittle shell shed all that pressure. And the whole time, Vinnie kept up that snarly, passive-aggressive banter in my brain. I swear to God, if he’d still been alive, I would have broken up with him and outed him from fucking spite. And my shell was starting to crack.

Noah stayed there, my rock through the whole thing. He got me into the studio when the fan buildup in the front gate was too big to be manageable. He fielded phone calls when I was on the set, or often when I wasn’t, and there were times when he just turned the damned thing off at night so we could be together.

He never left me alone.

Not once.

We got back to the house after that first night, and there was a whole new dresser and computer desk up in my bedroom, and ta-da! I had another roommate. One with definite perks.

That night, my “perk” simply rubbed my feet after dinner and let me lie on him as we watched an old Cary Grant movie on TNT. (Now
there
was a guy who knew about a closet!) When the movie was done, I didn’t move, staring blankly at the Turner Network guy talking about Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, while Noah stroked my hair back from my face.

“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” he said after a moment.

“I’m trying
really hard
not to think at all,” I confessed, burrowing harder into his chest.

His hand stilled. “Is that really what you want from me?”

I frowned. “No thinking. Brain hurt. Just hold me.”

He laughed softly and kissed the top of my head. “’Kay. You’ll let me know when you want me to break into that bag of goodies we’ve hardly touched, right?”

“Mmm . . .” The thought sent a tingle down to my groin—but not much else. “Yeah. And feel free to take that into your own hands too. But—”

“Not right now.”

“Yeah.”
God, I love you. I love you so much.
I tried to think about whether Vinnie would have listened to me in this moment, or if he would have jollied me into sex to make himself feel better, or if he would have pouted because I didn’t think sex was going to solve all my problems.

You’re being sort of unfair, Con. I held you a lot too.

Yeah, Vinnie. You did.

Or maybe that’s what made all great couples great. That they knew what to do for each other, and it wasn’t important that Noah be better than Vinnie at this part of the game, just that he was good for me now.

So great—that first night started with peace—but by the end of the week, with the stalkers and the phone calls and emails from Jilly that started with
JUST FUCKING SAY NO TO ANYONE NOT ME
, I was a wreck.

When we got back from the set Saturday afternoon—because yeah, all the extra security had us behind schedule, which meant that, once again, speshul snophlake Connor Montgomery had managed to fuck everyone’s world up with his stupid personal life—we could see the idiots hiding in our bushes.

Hiding. In. Our bushes.

Noah had to grab the two kids by the scruff of the neck and haul them up to the main road for the security guy to get. While he was doing that, I pulled the car into the garage and trudged inside, thinking I should get dinner or lunch or something started, and that I should start doing laundry because we were going to have to leave at the end of next week or answer Jilly’s last email making sure I was okay or double-check with Viv that she was coming with us and whether or not she wanted to bring her little sisters along and—