Regina Kyle - Triple Threat

“She?” Nick leaned forward in his chair. Spousal abuse was a hot-button topic after a spate of recent celebrity arrests, but the writing hadn’t felt like an “issue” play, which—shoot him for saying so—made him assume it was written by a man.

He wouldn’t admit it to Garrett, but he’d read the whole gut-wrenching story on the plane—instead of sleeping. The author had gotten into his head, and to find out the guy who spoke to him was a woman was...disconcerting.

What Garrett didn’t know—what almost no one knew—was that domestic violence had been a part of Nick’s daily existence for years. It still reared its ugly head every time his mom visited him, or when he talked to her on the phone. Affected him most on those rare occasions when he contemplated going home to confront his father.

He’d kept his distance, though, because he didn’t trust either of them to control their rage. His mother suffered enough already. She didn’t need the two of them beating each other to a pulp.

“A woman,” he said again.

“Down, boy. She’s not your type.”

Nick didn’t bother correcting Garrett’s perception of him as a skirt-chasing man whore. He’d given up fighting that image. In reality, he was more of a serial monogamist, but he’d learned the hard way that it wasn’t worth bucking the Hollywood machine. The press, the studio—hell, even Garrett—were happy to exploit his image as a ladies’ man, truth be damned. Nothing he could do or say was going to change that. “How do you know she’s not my type?”

“According to Ted, she’s short, smart and sweet. That’s three strikes against her in your book.”

“Hey,” Nick protested with a wry smile. “The women I date are sweet.” Tall, leggy and vapid, sure. But sweet. He wasn’t looking for a lifetime commitment. If watching his parents hadn’t been enough to sour him on marriage, then dealing with the liars and cheaters in Hollywood for the past ten years had put the nail in that coffin.

Love would have to wait a very long time to catch Nick.

“I’m not kidding.” Unlike Nick, Garrett wasn’t smiling. “This one’s off-limits. She’s a serious author, not one of your blonde bimbos.”

“Whatever.” Garrett’s threat was meaningless for one simple reason: Nick wasn’t doing this play. Final answer. Game over.

Exhaustion invading like crystalline Ambien, he closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the chair. He needed to come up with a new plan of attack or he’d find himself in a rehearsal room in Chelsea. “So the writer’s legit and the play’s the real deal. But why the bastard ex-husband? What about the cop?”

Garrett shook his head. “Pussy part. Besides, it’s already been offered and accepted.”

Nick snapped to attention. “Who?”

Garrett shuffled through some papers, doing a shit job of stalling. They both spoke fluent body language, and Nick could tell he wasn’t going to like Garrett’s answer. “Malcolm Justice.”

“You can’t be serious.” It was Nick’s turn to push the script back across the desk. “I wouldn’t play opposite that goddamn lightweight to save my career. Even if he was the asshole ex-husband and I got to beat on his pretty-boy face every night.”

“Get over it, Nick. You’re Trent Savage. He’s not, even if he claims he’d have been the better choice. His fans’ bitching and moaning on those stupid message boards is just sour grapes.”

“What about the fact that people will see me as a wife beater? Stop me in Starbucks to berate me...” The most important of those people being his mom. If she managed to sneak away from his father long enough to catch the show, she’d probably watch the whole thing from between her fingers, experiencing every blow. Stage an intervention to curb his violent tendencies. Definitely cry. A lot.

“That’s the price of being an artist.” Garrett poured another drink, handed it to Nick and stared out at his fortieth-floor glass-plated view.

“Some artist.” Nick took a sip. He’d wondered when Garrett would get around to sharing the Maker’s Mark. “I’ve spent the past six years playing a globe-trotting, womanizing fortune hunter. Not exactly Shakespeare.”

Hell, he wasn’t even sure if what he did could be considered acting anymore. And now his own agent wanted to serve him up as fodder for critics like that jerk at the Times, the one who made no secret of his disgust for what he called Broadway’s “star worship.”

As much as Nick hated to admit it, this whole thing scared him. It had been years since he’d been onstage. He figured he’d pick up where he left off before heading west, at some obscure way-off-Broadway theater where he could flop without risking career suicide.

Nick took another sip of bourbon. It scorched a warm trail down his throat, but not even that familiar, normally reassuring sensation could help him shake the feeling that he was in way over his head. Broadway? Who the fuck was he kidding?

“What’s that motto you’re always repeating?” Garrett’s tone was mocking. “‘Be beautiful, be brilliant’?”

“Be bold. Be brave.” The words jolted him back almost fifteen years to a lakeside dock and the girl who’d first said them and changed his life.

Holly Nelson. He wondered if she remembered that night at the cast party as vividly as he did. The breeze ruffling her wavy brown hair. Her hand, warm and insistent on his arm, urging him to dream big. Her wide, bottle-green eyes seeing him completely, as weird as that sounded. Not just who he was but who he could become.

No, she probably didn’t remember any of that. Probably didn’t remember their kiss, either, although it was imprinted in his brain. He’d known she was inexperienced, and he’d meant it to be innocent, a thank-you for telling him what he needed to hear. But the second his lips met hers, all thoughts of innocence had disintegrated. She’d melted in his arms like butter, soft and pliant. He’d closed his eyes against the rush of pleasure as her mouth opened to him and her hands fluttered up to stroke his chest through his T-shirt. He’d been so far gone he hadn’t seen Jessie Pagano sauntering across the lawn to interrupt them until it was too late. Lost camera, his ass.

While he’d thought about Holly over the years more than he cared to admit, Nick hadn’t kept track of her. He owed her for kick-starting his acting career, but it would be presumptuous to track her down. He imagined her back home in suburban Stockton, married to a high school gym teacher, with kids she kissed and praised all day. What would she think of this whole Broadway thing?

“You okay, buddy?”

Garrett’s voice brought Nick back to the present. He downed the rest of his bourbon and wiped his mouth, nodding. “Fine.”

“So you’ll meet with the production team?”

Shit. “Where and when?”

“New York.” Garrett paused to finish off his drink, and once again Nick knew what followed was going to be bad news. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

“No way. I just got off a goddamn plane. Can’t it wait a few days?”

“No can do. Casting was supposed to be finished last week but they held off, waiting for you to return stateside. Seems someone over there’s got a real hard-on for you in this part.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You said it, brother. That’s why I booked both of us on the red-eye.”

“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Sure this part will catapult you to the next level, if that’s what you mean. Rumor has it Spielberg’s shopping a Joe DiMaggio biopic. You’d be a great fit for the title role, and this play is just the thing to put you on his radar.”

Damn. Nick would give his left nut to work with Spielberg. And Joltin’ Joe was a national hero.