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She was brightly cast in sharp relief against the hectic darkness of the pub. Dom noticed her straight away. But then, he was known for being drawn to bright, noisy things. She had that sparkle, besides; that racing humor that reminded him of a small creature pumping its legs to get itself somewhere, never knowing that it was only spinning a wheel endlessly beneath its pink little toes. But there was life there and life was something that Dom had been chasing for months following Rings. He wondered if—just like that animal, just like this girl—he had somehow gotten a wheel under his feet. He had plenty of other things about himself to criticize, though. Much more industrious things. Like why he was on the pull alone. Like why he couldn't seem to like Los Angeles even though there was no reason for him not to. Like why he felt he was a burden to Elijah and to Sean and to Mac no matter how much they showed him he was wanted.
On the flip side, there was a lot in life that was easier—getting into clubs, for one. Getting into beds, for second. Getting out of beds? Well, no amount of fame made that easy. Unless you'd bought your company and yeah, Dom hadn't needed to play that card just yet. Chat a bit, smile and look them in the eye, drop a name or two (if things were getting desperate) and bam, simple as that. He'd love to see your collection of vinyl records, absolutely, fantastic: and what'd you say your name was, again?
Billy and him fit great, of course, and that came out right away. But there were several CDs of his that Billy just could not stand. And whenever Dom'd bring them over late at night, Billy knew the cheeky bastard had every intention of striking up the stereo bright and early the next morning with just the CD he didn't want to hear. It was Dom's way of "broadening" Billy's horizons—and Billy liked his horizons just where they were, thank you very much. Her name was Maggie. The bright girl from the pub, that was. Up close she was even better; dark brown hair tucked back straight, real long and tempting. She was even a bit on the rounded out side with not a bone in sight and nice soft breasts. A girl he could really get into, a girl who just might fly over the stereotype LA girls often tried to conform to. Her place was nearby so they walked. Dom was feeling good. Good vibes coming from her, too; she wasn't into the drug scene, wasn't too crazy about getting smashed every night, wasn't some studio exec's daughter that he'd have to worry about shagging because it might come back to haunt him. She liked art but wasn't mad about it. She was working as an assistant to a scenery designer. Low profile stuff but not so far under the radar that she couldn't afford to live comfortably. Her eyes was gray and her body language relaxed; she brushed against him, touched his arm every now and then, but it was so thoroughly casual that he wasn't spooked. She had been around plenty of a-list guys, she said. Guys that didn't care to know she existed, guys that were assholes. Some were okay, she said, but mostly they didn't concern her. So she wasn't going to go all star-struck on him.
And she hadn't asked him for Elijah Wood's phone number yet, which put her high up on Dom's list. He'd see what she did when he mentioned Orli. That was the real test. In fact, he gave himself such a chuckle thinking about it that he brought it up right away, playfully. She laughed and shook her head. Said Bloom was far too pretty for her tastes. Dom said that he could deal with not being pretty so long as he was handsome and she smiled and her dimples pinpointed and said he was most definitely cute. Cute. He liked that.
Meeting Billy was like the first day of school. You really hoped you'd like your teacher because, hell, you'd be stuck with him for forever (nine months is forever when you're a kid) and you'd better find something cool about him or it wouldn't be bearable. He'd be working with this Boyd guy whether he liked him or not and it'd be real fucking annoying if they had to fake a friendship. Their meeting was highly public and there wasn't any of that lightning violin world shrinking around them bullshit. The phrase "and he just knew" wasn't anywhere close. There was nothing to base that on. Billy was great. A lot older than he looked. And a lot more fun, probably, Dom judged, because people use the first few hours among strangers to adjust, not to broadcast who they really are. That comes later. So Dom wasn't surprised when the conversation stayed light—sports, weather, how was your flight, where're you from, got any family. The reality of Billy came in dribs and drabs of conversation in the following weeks, revealing a mosaic of pretty-colored tile that had a tendency to form happy as well as sad pictures. Dom tried to relate to Billy's loss of his parents, failed somewhere around the middle, but liked Billy enough to stay right there in the center; a proffered, dangling string of sympathy ever-ready to comfort. He pictured Billy smelling of glue with hands full of paper-cuts; binding books with ordered precision. He pictured Billy small and sweaty under the footlights, belting out impassioned monologues to smoky, faceless audiences. He quickly learned what it was like to see Billy drunk, to hear Billy giggle like a girl, to memorize the sickening sound Billy made when he leaned over into the street and vomited up half a bottle of whiskey.
Billy had seen Renard and some episodes of Hetty, but quickly admitted to having found the show boring. Dom laughed it off and cuffed Billy upside the head and went on about all the stuff in Billy's resume he found equally yawn-worthy. Dom liked Billy by the end of that night simply because Billy had been and continued to be honest.
Maggie had a cat the color of her eyes and Dom liked that, too. Her apartment was alright in an equally alright neighborhood; close enough to the scummy parts so that you didn't forget where you were, but not close enough to require more than bars on the street-facing windows and two locks on the door. He was comfortable with the crocheted doilies on the table and the Art and Leisure magazines piled next to the television set. They talked about everything but his career until Maggie had finished talking about hers; naturally it was Dom's turn, so he answered her questions and she seemed genuinely interested in the bits that were usually glossed over. Good sign, he thought, with his legs folded up indian-style in front of him and his beer forgotten, leaving a ring of dewy condensation on the glass-topped coffee table. For a long time she mimicked his body posture but as the conversation spiraled to narrower topics and silences cropped up, her legs uncurled and her feet nudged Dom's jeans, bare ankles presenting a tasty little view. His eyes drifted from the clinging plastic of her flip-flops to the frayed hem of cropped pants around mid-calf. She smiled and offered to get him a fresh beer; he declined. She smiled and suggested they watch a movie; he shrugged it off. She smiled and asked if he'd like to stay the night; and when he said that it was sort of late and asked her if she was sure they should do that, she kept on smiling. "So you're not an asshole," she said, which made him laugh. "That, or you're just thinking that an accent combined with the nice-guy act will win me over..." He liked her. Was maybe actually thinking about seeing her again. Didn't want to act on the urge to go to bed with her simply because he could. Now wouldn't mum be proud, he thought, and grinned, shaking off her cynical comment. "If you're not gonna take the offer, then kiss me and get the hell out so I can call you later, alright?" And he laughed again (the running laugh tally was very important, here) and leaned in and cupped her pretty, round face and kissed her. She tasted like nothing with a vague slip of liquor and that was just fine. Her mouth was easy to kiss and her pulse fluttered nicely against Dom's palms when they touched her throat. The contact stirred a primal warmth in him, dipped its toe in the waters of his desire, just checking and all that.
On his way out—smiles on both sides that were sweet and honest—he snatched a napkin off her kitchen table and tore it in two. He wrote his cell-phone number on one half and she wrote her address and number on the other and they exchanged halves with schoolyard grins.
No one in Dom's life had ever made him laugh as much as Billy. And not the fake we're in public and that was supposed to be funny so let's laugh kind of laughing either. It was the kind that couldn't be controlled; the kind that made your head ache; the kind that brought up embarrassing snorts and squeaks a grown man shouldn't really make. He had tears in his eyes and a stitch in his side when the laughing died down. Then there was that drowsy, satisfied moment when he'd realize that what had set them off wasn't really funny at all and that what was really funny was the way he and Billy, together, had seen the whole situation. The filter of comedy that they created together was the first step in becoming Merry and Pippin (never mind that the roles were reversed). Long evenings with the guys were wickedly fun, of course, and only served to make Dom and Billy more familiar with each other. But the parts that truly impacted their friendship were when they were alone. There was a serious bone somewhere in the Dom-and-Billy body and it displayed itself during moments of silence, when they'd run out of drinks or things to joke about. They talked about the girls they'd dated, the schools they'd gone to, the sort of friends they'd had when they were small and stupid and only dreamed of being on stage or on film. Sometimes they would hit a stride of conversation that uncovered a lot of common ground between them; conversation strewn with "Yeah, yeah, absolutely!" and "Fuck all, that's exactly it." Dom would stay over and sometimes they would sleep in the same bed because it was easier to talk that way. There were mornings when they'd wake up snuggled together for warmth. Dom tried to deny that he liked it in a way he shouldn't and so did Billy. In an effort to shorten the amount of time he spent watching Billy sleep, he ended up letting Billy see him watching Billy sleep. That was when the possessive feelings started to assert themselves in Dom, and he worried a bit more. It was disaster, real first-rate top-notch shit, to have feelings for your best friend—blah, blah and let the cliché parade begin. Bottom line was, there was truth in the overused concept, and Dom was feeling the press of that reality clear as day between his eyebrows. It was like a phantom migraine, stirring and jabbing just when he'd managed to put it out of his mind. In the end it was those hazily unrealistic mornings that undid them. Dom rolled over and there was Billy watching him—instead of him watching Billy, and that just sent a fracture down the fabric of things, didn't it? He cracked some joke about Billy's snoring and moved to get up with the goal of coffee and maybe toast. "Dom," Billy said, real soft, real serious, and Dom felt warning bells clang somewhere in his head. He paused; did the casual thing and asked Billy what. Billy thought for a long beat and sat up, sheets clinging drowsywarm to his arms. He was going to say something, but changed his mind. Before Dom could react Billy was gently invading his space; one hand glanced awkwardly off his cheek and tipped Dom's mouth into range before pressing lips there. The kiss was like breathing, airy and almost not there, almost like it hadn't happened. The line between what we are and what this is blurred, leaving Dom dizzy with an unsettled feeling.
A sudden physical lust flooded, gathering up the debris that was Dom's affection for Billy and forming a froth of emotions that made him feel brave; brave to spite the flood, brave because it seemed perfect, brave because it was a marvelous idea right then and there. Bravery only took them so far that morning.
When Dom met Maggie for lunch at a café a block from her apartment, he told her about the razing over he'd gotten from Elijah and Sean at his off the cuff announcement that he had a date with a girl. (He left out the part about Sean taking him aside and launching into a speech about a certain Scottish man that Dom didn't want to discuss.) He and Maggie shared a laugh over it and she delivered a to-the-point story that involved her first boyfriend, her father, and a rifle. She ate through a massive cheeseburger without giving him a second glance and made no attempt to hijack the conversation or touch topics that would have been too personal. So far Dom hadn't found one thing about her that bothered him. He felt comfortable. He hadn't looked down at his watch once, so he knew the date was going well. They took in a show—a real rough piece of comedy with clumps of fantasy and contemporary stuff all mish-mashed together that she thought he'd like. She was right; and that was great. On the way back from the little ramshackle theatre she took his hand and held it and their fingers laced easily. He thought about the three condoms flat against his hip pocket. She was gentle but plain about what she wanted; him, namely, and he had to trust that it wasn't because he was who he was, that it wasn't for whatever money he might have. In the hallway just outside her apartment she kissed him—only it wasn't to say goodnight this time around—and his body responded in the most predictable fashion.
Inside there were the steps familiar to both; the kissing and the rubbing, hands roaming and passing barriers with polite hesitation, fingers teasing edges of clothing, withdrawing, and then going for it again. Faint, suppressed-excitement laughter and playful banter all the way into the bedroom. Dom found his mind blessedly absent. In its place sat good old instinct, which knew exactly what to do and where to do it—and more importantly, didn't require the attendance of Dom's heart.
The first time Dom was naked next to Billy, he felt like an idiot. Would Billy poke fun at childhood scars or, worse, be unimpressed with what he saw? But that was what best-friend Billy would do and Dom reminded himself that lover Billy would have to be slightly different. Just different enough to command Dom's attention; he needed to learn this new thing. Besides all that, his mind was drifting southward and kept insisting that he shouldn't give a shit what he looked like. He'd messed around with guys at school and even a couple he met through his earlier projects, but he'd never had a male lover before, not the way Billy wanted to be, anyway. So he felt silly, still, but that was just fine. Because Billy liked him and Billy wasn't going anywhere any time soon. The room was a lovely dove-gray; that irreproducible shade of New Zealand morning that happened during the hour before sunrise. Dom was very hot and the sheets stuck to him when he rolled over to face Billy. And then there were arms around him and hands on his shoulders, tripping down the damp that spotted his back. Down lower they went, searching, closed on sensitive backside, making Dom's body pay attention.
Billy was kissing him; and it had been a long time, but Dom remembered the way because only men kiss like that, broad and bold and penetrative as soon as they can manage it. Kissing without censor of what the kissing would eventually lead to; and Dom liked that, liked lunging after Billy's tongue and exploring the crevasses of Billy's mouth with his tongue until Billy was hot against him. There were soft moments, but the hard moments were what made Dom's body scream—and the severity of that response was what stayed with him, was what eventually led to him needing it, to nothing else satisfying.
Maggie's kisses were like whispers, too. But they stayed that way for too long. Even after they gathered substance and became sure enough of themselves to play with possession and hunger, they maintained that breathy quality and applied it with enough frequency to debunk the whole effect. But that was fine. Dom wasn't making comparisons because Dom's brain wasn't involved. His body accepted the effort of Maggie's simple technique with sighs of pleasure, because she was fairly good. Her wrists were steady and her fingers knew how to stroke and pull—and then there was her mouth, full of hot breath and damp cheek, clamping down. He didn't want to push her down or be forceful and couldn't figure out how to tell her she wasn't doing it hard enough. He didn't feel allowed to move into her mouth, so he let her go on. When enough time had passed he tugged her up.
Her breasts were soft and fleshy against his chest and he liked that, that's fun, always, so he played with them and suckled them the way he was supposed to. He smoothed her belly and hips with kisses—he made them feather-soft the way she seemed to like. The flush of red tint on her skin was nice and he admired it, encouraged it, and altogether approved of it. He returned the favor, you know, you scratch my back, and she tasted like salt and had that musky scent that drove his senses crazy for a while. Her arousal provided him with what he needed to finish.
Billy's mouth was full of suction around him and Dom couldn't tear his eyes away. His heart pounded, not perfectly in time with but akin to the paced bob and stroke of Billy's mouth and hands. The pressure and the timing were perfect and there was nothing to nag at Dom or distract him. Billy's eyes pinned him for a while and he was chained so quickly to that darkened shade of green that he didn't have time to question what was going to happen an hour from now or a year from now. And once he realized it was okay to make noises he was doing it, he was saying Billy's name and begging, and letting Billy suck the underside of the head of his desperate erection even though it looked lewd, because it felt so fucking good. Then there was Billy's mouth, Billy cheeking first one ball and then the other, and there was Billy's fingers prodding lower, rubbing that patch of skin just under and pushing like he was looking for something. Dom didn't know what the fuck he was—well, he sort of knew, but didn't that involve, and—and then Dom was jerking into the rubbing, whimpers were coming up into his throat unchecked and uncensored, because an electric sort of—oh my fucking God—was happening when Billy did that that Dom had never felt before.
When Billy stopped and kissed him again Dom nearly fell apart; the intimacy was racing hectic tracks up and down his body, scorching lines and tattooing scars he knew he couldn't erase. But he was too far gone. Billy's body was hard and tucked perfectly into his and Billy's voice was like slicks of melty dark chocolate in his ear and he had never wanted anyone with so many parts of himself before. The fear was almost as exciting as the passion.
Dom watched Maggie relax and then get gradually worked up underneath him. It had been a bit of squick, there, getting out of bed to retrieve his pants and then working the bloody rubber on without looking stupid—no one really looks sexy putting on a condom, then, do they?—and then climbing back in to finish warming her up. But she was grinning and enjoying him, so she didn't mind. He wanted to be inside her, deep as he could get and right now if you please, but he couldn't do that. Her slow-moving hips cautioned him to take it just that way, so he listened and pressed her lightly and kissed her and touched her hair and face. Dampness from her forehead clung to his fingertips. He lingered that way; pressing and falling back, drawing sighs from her dark mouth and watching her breasts quiver. He was absent again by the time he slid into her.
Her fingertips roamed the downward slope of his tense shoulders. He rolled a rhythm that she matched with slow, deep curls of her hips. The heady, honeyed fragrance of her body blended warmly with the ever-so-slightly sharper bite of his and they were moving around that, accommodated by the slick glove of her inner muscles. And there was nothing as simple as that; a timed clench that would eventually push him over the edge.
Billy was sprawled on his belly and Dom was over him and between his spread thighs, kissing his shoulders and back. His mouth had fallen in love with Billy even before he had, and that was a marvel in and of itself. He went crazy, biting and licking, leaving marks and then soothing them—all because he seemed to know exactly what Billy wanted. Billy rolled over a bit, told Dom where the lube was and Dom hesitated for a second before getting it. He toyed with the tube, put it aside, and then went back to tracing the shape of Billy's spine and stifling a giggle over the adorably tiny, tight rise of Billy's arse. "What's so funny back there?" And Dom laughed again. He was enjoying this; and it hit him that it could work this way. That he could not only have Billy to enjoy things with, but have Billy in bed, have Billy to kiss and—oh, do things like he was doing now, things that involved grabbing the tube of lubricant and begging Dom to fuck him. His hands were shaking—the cap on the lube stuck—and he vaguely recalled the last time he'd fucked a guy; some pale, freckled kid that was on the crew for Renard. Yeah. Yeah, that was—and Billy was putting a pillow under his stomach and Dom was smearing the chilly gel over himself with a single palm. He didn't want to hurt Billy, but that seemed inevitable; it was such an unyielding, small—and it took a while, but eventually he was buried, buried and halfway to falling apart again, because it was so fucking tight.
They ground into each other and tried to remember to breathe and move and think at the same time. Dom fell gently forward over Billy's back and they curled up tight, pelvises swaying just above the line of their bodies into the air and then back down against the pillow. Dom's body was too busy getting over the vice-like grip of Billy's to notice any details. But there were stars swirling sharp and alien just under his eyelids and Billy, squirming and full of near-silent noise under his body.
Maggie began to rock and go still alternately, throwing off the rhythm of their bodies, but Dom dealt with it, because he didn't actually expect to keep up that clean motion right straight through to the end. He clutched her body and brought her close as she began to whimper and tremors crawled down her legs. Dom was ready to let go and really wanted to and in the blank space he filled his head with as a distraction, he found that the memory of other flesh and another's body layered nicely onto the current display. That way lay madness, though, and Dom wouldn't, couldn't—it was there before his attempt to ignore it even started. There was no similarity beyond the thrusting and the driving deeper and the movement—and he supposed it could be the heat and maybe the fabric softener in the sheets or maybe—and he didn't want to, really, didn't need to replace her with— He already was. He could smell it, like it had always been fucking there in his nostrils, that cologne and those sheets and that sex all wrapped up and offered around the sound of—panting, there was panting and growling, low chesty noises with a definitive lack of feminine drawl and he was coming, coming so fucking hard—
And of course he didn't call that name. Because when you're with someone else and you're coming and it's not particularly mentally absorbing, you're perfectly aware of what your mouth is doing and you don't say an old lover's name. But you might just want to. And in the end, as he lay panting and sweaty over her shivering body, he wanted to so damn much.
It wasn't possible to keep things under wraps for long. Sooner or later it slipped; something they said or did cued a domino effect of joking and speculation. The simplest way to stop it was to tell the truth to those that mattered and they did, gradually and casually, as the months of filming sped past. No one minded it much; no one thought it was particularly strange. Dom and Billy didn't talk about what they were and they set no rules. They had connected in a special way; in a way that had not been replicated with any other cast mate. So it was a general assumption that they were exclusive. But only because the urge and desire to be that way was there.
Dom tried not to think of Billy becoming attracted to anyone else. Billy was more easy-going about it. Didn't expect at his age that anyone else on the set would want him; and besides that far-off possibility of temptation, he needed Dom in ways that frightened him. They didn't talk about that, either.
Three days after they slept together, Dom worked up the nerve to call Maggie. He had worried, though he hadn't wanted to admit it, that once they reached intimacy old wounds would be reopened. It had happened with every bloody person, male or female, that Dom had tried to date or shag since New Zealand. It was impossible to draw a curtain between things done with Billy and things done with others. And it wasn't Maggie's fault. Hell, he still liked her, just didn't want to sleep with her. So there's another cliché for you; another line a guy gives to a bird when he has reasons for not wanting to get any closer to her. She was surprisingly good about it. She said that she'd known as soon as he left that night that something had been off. The sex had been good for her. She asked how it had been for him and he assured her that it had been good, but that it wasn't the problem. He let her know that he had just gotten out of a relationship and had made the mistake of jumping back in too quickly—which was only a different way of putting it and not a lie. But it felt like one anyway. She told him she thought he was still a good guy and that if he wanted to talk about his ex, she'd listen. She hoped they could still catch a show or a movie or maybe a party together now and then and be cool with each other. He was all for that and it sure as hell made him feel better. Sean declared her a nice girl and informed Dom that it was more than he deserved to get in return. Later that night Dom followed Elijah to a party that was tame enough to allow them conversation without shouting. "Look, about this whole Billy thing," Elijah began. Dom put up a hand. "Strangle that for a second, yeah? Right. Good. I know Sean hit you up to talk to me, so don't put on that he didn't. And second, I won't. I won't call him. He insisted on this, man, you were there. I don't want to go through it again." "You're a fucking mess," Elijah said, trying to sound reasonable. "You've been through, what, half a dozen people in three months? You've put all the shit he gave you in a box in your closet like some after-school special teenage girl who gets her heart broken by Mikey from next door, dude. Freakin' pathetic." "Do you ever breathe?" "Dom." Dom sighed. Built a tower of cheap plastic coasters and then looked at Elijah. "If I hear his voice, I'm just going to fall apart. And it'll start all over again." "He was scared, alright? He didn't want to tell you how scared he was. It's hard and don't you tell me you don't know about it, because you broke up with a long-term girlfriend to film a goddamned movie so you know about that kind of decision." Dom hesitated. "How the hell is that the same thing?" "You knew there was gonna be distance. You knew there was gonna be lots of time apart. You made a call. Bottom line."
Another silence and another sigh and Dom deconstructed his tower of coasters. "Fucking hell. Yeah. But I close my eyes, Lighe, I'm telling you, and it just plays over and over."
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