Page 1 of Best Supporting Actor

PROLOGUE

Tag

Hallowe’en

Tag O’Rourke was thoroughly enjoying the Reclined Pigeon Productions Hallowe’en party. He was mildly drunk, had just spent the last hour dancing like no one was watching—although quite a lot of peoplehadbeen watching, thanks to his eye-catching costume, which consisted of tight, silver lamé shorts, lots of body paint, and very little else—and now he was heading to the bar to get a couple of cold beers for himself and his friend Aaron.

The RPP lot were a pretty nice bunch, it turned out. He’d met loads of new people tonight, both actors like himself and behind-the-camera types.

Tag liked meeting new people. He was naturally gregarious, and besides that, he’d come along tonight determined to make the effort to network with industry people. Like it or not, opportunity was all about who you knew in this business. Talent could only get you somewhere once you were through the door, and for a guy like Tag, with no connections in show business, getting through the door was the hardest part. In fact, since he’d left drama school a few years ago, he’d mostly come up against firmly closed ones.

But maybe his luck was finally beginning to turn. After getting to know Aaron a few months back, he’d discovered that his new friend worked at RPP and was one of the writers of a new TV pilot calledBow Street. It was Aaron who had encouraged Tag to audition for the show, and he’d actually landed a role—a small one, but still. They started filming in the new year, and while it wouldn’t earn Tag much, it would certainly help flesh out the television credentials on his CV, which currently consisted of one toothpaste commercial.

As Tag approached the bar, an older guy he’d met earlier waved at him, beckoning him over.Len, Tag recalled, head of the RPPlighting crew. He’d turned out to be from Tag’s neck of the woods and had worked on construction sites with Tag’s dad back in the day.

Tag began to make his way over, eyeing a younger guy standing with Len who wore a t-shirt splattered with fake blood and a headpiece that made him look like he had an axe buried in his skull.

“Enjoying yourself?” Len asked cheerfully when Tag reached them.

“I am, yeah. It’s a great party!”

“Yeah, the RPP Hallowe’en bash is legendary,” Len said, grinning. He jerked a thumb at the younger guy and added, “This is my nephew, Liam. He reckons he went to the same school as you.”

“Yeah?” Tag said, turning to the younger guy. “Woodville Secondary?”

“Yup,” Liam said, grinning. “You were two years above me, in my sister’s year. You remember Jodie Fleming?”

“Oh my God, Jodie’s your sister? How is she?”

Liam began filling Tag in on what Jodie had been doing since their schooldays. They were so deep in conversation that Tag barely noticed when someone else greeted Len and started talking to him. It was only when the new arrival laughed—a warm, inviting, deeply attractive laugh—that Tag glanced his way, at which point his jaw practically hit the floor. Because Len was talking toJay Warren, the male lead in RPP's flagship show,Leeches.

Jay Warren was standing right there, right next to Tag!

“Oh my God,” he said, before he could stop himself. “You’re Jay Warren.” Then he felt himself flush, heat flooding his cheeks.

Jay’s gaze flickered over him, a quick up-and-down that was somehow friendly, distant, and heated all at once. And Tag was suddenly more aware than he had been at any other point this evening that he was wearing nothing but a very small pair of silver lamé shorts. And that Jay Warren was probably even hotter in real life than he was on TV, if that was even fucking possible. Christ, those eyes. Storm-grey and intense.

Fuck, was he getting a hard-on?

Tag shifted uncomfortably.

“Hey,” Jay said. “Nice to meet you…?” He trailed off, a faint question in his voice. An unspoken invitation for Tag to offer his name. Luckily, Len leapt in at that point, since Tag wasn’t sure he could have managed actual words.

“This is Tag,” Len said. “He’s going to be working on that new show,Bow Street.” He nodded in Liam’s direction then. “So’s this one actually. He’s my sister’s lad. Just joined the crew, didn’t you, Liam?”

Liam smiled proudly. “Yep, following in the family footsteps!”

“That’s great,” Jay said, smiling affably at Liam.

“Hey, funny thing,” Len said, elbowing Jay. “Turns out that Tag and Liam here went to school together. Small world, innit?”

Jay managed to express a suitable level of surprise at this really rather unremarkable fact, to Len’s obvious gratification.

“Tag was mates with my sister,” Liam offered as further evidence of this cosmic coincidence, and Jay managed to look impressed, while Tag stood there thinking,For fuck’s sake, Tag,saysomething!But he couldn’t seem to dredge up a single word, and now Jay was asking Len how the family was, and Len was telling him all about his daughter starting university, while Jay smiled and nodded, adding polite little pleasantries at just the right gaps in the conversation, all posh and uber-confident and—Christ, he was sexy. Tall and dark with miles of golden skin, overlong messy hair that looked silky to the touch, and Skye Jäger’s trademark heavy stubble that somehow accentuated the classical beauty of his features.

It was only when the conversation between Len and Jay wound up that Tag finally got a chance to say something.

“Great to meet you,” he said eagerly before Jay could escape. “My mum'll be well impressed when I tell her you were here. We loveLeechesin our house.” He was suddenly, stupidly, aware of his accent. It didn’t usually bother him—hell, he was proud of it!—but for some reason, as those words gushed out, he found himself noticing and cringing at each glottal stop and silent ‘h’.