Page 40 of Fanboy in the Falls (Devon Falls #3)

I wonder if the world will ever know our real story. —Tom Evers

“This isn’t shameful.”

Gabe’s words are echoing in my head as I pour pancake batter into a skillet, listening to it hiss and sizzle against the heat.

“Hey there,” I whisper to the pancake. “What are you ashamed of?”

It doesn’t answer as I drop some blueberries into it.

I’m alone in the cabin’s kitchen this morning. Just me and my swirling, rabid thoughts. I left Colin and Gabe in bed, with Colin wrapped around Gabe’s torso and Gabe’s head nestled into Colin’s neck. I stood for a moment above them, watching. And Gabe’s words wouldn’t leave my thoughts.

I flip the pancake and sigh. I’ve never been ashamed of being pansexual.

I was lucky and privileged to grow up in a house with two loving mothers who taught me and my brother that love is love.

I went into a career in film and television fully out and proud, and I’ve always been very at peace with the fact that some people stop following my career or supporting me when they learn I’m not straight, or that I enjoy wearing bright, loud outfits and putting on an occasional dab of eyeliner.

Their loss.

Then The Good Sword happened. And for the first time in my life, I understood how someone’s hatred or fear of others has the power to destroy other humans.

Gabe’s spent so many years shielding huge parts of himself and his brother from his stepfather…

I can’t even fathom how exhausting that must be.

“No more, little fox,” I whisper as I lift the pancake and add it to the plate of others that are keeping warm in the oven.

“At least not as long as I have anything to say about it.” I’ve got no idea how Colin and I are going to protect Gabe and Lou through this custody battle with Dave, but I’m determined that we will.

Shame can’t win today. That’s what I’m thinking as I start to pour more batter into the skillet, then stop as my phone buzzes on the counter.

Melody, the screen reads.

My stomach immediately clenches. The last person I feel like talking to right now is my agent.

Melody’s a lovely human and all, but this cabin has become such a safe space for me over the past few days.

One where the outside, dangerous world dare not tread.

And Melody is very much a part of that outside, dangerous world.

Only I’ve been dodging her calls, and she must know that. When I let the call go to voicemail and the phone immediately starts ringing again, I sigh and do what I must. I answer.

“Tom! There you are!” Melody’s voice is high and surprised. “Finally decided to take my call?”

I turn off the stove and grab my jacket from the back of a kitchen chair as I make my way out the patio doors. I don’t want to risk waking Colin and Gabe. “Well, you’re quite persistent,” I tell her.

“You know I am.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “Listen, Tom. We really need to talk about setting you up for some auditions. You know what a short memory Hollywood has, hon. If their last and only memory is of you stepping away from The Good Sword franchise , then—”

“But I didn’t step away,” I say, interrupting her.

She sighs. “Babe, I know that. You know that. But that’s not the story the world knows. And since they can’t know the real story, we have to make sure the narrative stays strong. We said you walked away for other opportunities. So now the public needs to see you take some of those opportunities.”

I turn to look through the patio doors, letting my eyes drift to the open doorway of the house where Colin and Gabe are hopefully still sleeping, still tangled in each other. They’re so beautiful together, those two. One the man of my dreams, the other one who I never imagined in my wildest dreams.

I wonder if the world will ever know our real story.

Will Dave’s fear and hatred conspire to destroy what the three of us are building together?

My stomach twists again as I try to imagine coping with that sort of loss.

For all the years I spent desperate for a life of love with Colin, I know now how gray and blurry that life would be if Gabe weren’t there, sharing it with us.

And suddenly, I’m overwhelmingly tired. I’m so tired of parsing truths to the world out of shame. I’m so tired of living for other people’s fears and hatreds and angers.

Or maybe I’m just tired enough. Because I hear myself say, out loud, the word that I’ve been wanting to say to Melody for months.

“No.”

“Excuse me? What do you mean, no?”

I close my eyes and imagine Colin and Gabe, limbs crossing limbs, sleepy eyes fluttering, as I pull together the words I need to say.

“No, Melody. I don’t want to keep the narrative strong anymore.

I don’t want to keep hiding what really happened to me with that movie from everyone.

” I sigh. “I just want to tell the truth. Being ashamed of losing that role is exhausting. And I don’t want to do it anymore. ”

For a moment, she says nothing. I wait, in the silence, for what must be next: she’ll drop me as a client, and then my career as an actor, the career I’ve loved and worked so very, very hard to achieve, will be gone for good. But then Melody speaks again.

“I know it cost you a lot to stand up for what you believe in on that set,” she says quietly.

She’s right, of course. But I regret nothing. My actions on that set cost me so little compared to the price others were already paying there.

“Okay, Tom.”

I cough. “Excuse me? Did you just say okay ?” I ask.

Melody sighs. “Do I think this is the best choice for your career? Honestly, no. But Tom, you’re more than just your career.

You’re a human being. And it’s clear what happened with that movie franchise is eating you alive.

” She clears her throat. “I care about you, Tom. Share what you need to share. Do what you need to do. Talk to others about what happened so you can do some healing. And just let me know when you want me to find you another audition, okay?”

Tears are at the corners of my eyes now.

I watch as one lone, yellow leaf falls from a tree in front of me, surfing on a slight breeze as it drips and drops through the air before it slowly hits the ground.

Released from the tree that gave birth to it, then held it hostage until it was ready for something else. Something different.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you, Melody.”

The three of us have eaten through most of the pancakes and half a dozen eggs before I tell them. I pour us all more coffee, check that Gabe’s got his leg properly propped up and elevated on the recliner he’s sitting in, and then I clear my throat.

“So,” I tell them. “There’s something I need to tell you both. About what really happened to me at The Good Sword. ”

Colin’s eyebrows go up. “You’re finally ready? Thank fuck. Please tell us, sweetheart.”

My heart soars a little at the sound of his new moniker for me. I wonder if that will be the case each and every time he says it.

I draw myself up straight in my seat. I take a deep breath, and then I start talking.

“Things were going well after the first movie,” I tell them.

They both nod. “Good box office sales, good critical reviews of my role. We were in the middle of filming the second movie when things hit a snag.” I pause and close my eyes as the memories start to roll through me, and I feel two very different hands, one smaller and one larger, each land on my own. And then I go on.

“This film had a different director than the first,” I go on. “Someone I’d never worked with before. And one of our castmates, Dellie Shephard, is non-binary.”

“Oh,” Gabe says. “Yeah, I love them in that sitcom about the high school.” He frowns. “But wait, they’re in The Good Sword franchise? I never heard about that.”

I nod. “They had a small role, and they were playing it perfectly. We had some scenes together. But this director—Ron Valvo is his name—sometimes misgendered them or called them by a name they don’t use anymore.

Several of us corrected him; people do make mistakes, and we hoped that was all it was. ”

Colin’s eyes are narrowing now, and Gabe’s face is getting paler. And I keep going, because I suddenly realize that sharing this story, saying it out loud, is like emptying my body of trash that’s been sitting in it for so, so long.

“But then one evening, after filming,” I tell them, “he’d had too much to drink at a bar where the two of us happened to be together. And he started going on about how proud he is to be bisexual, and how lucky it is that we both have a strong LGB community in Hollywood.”

“LGB?” Colin asks.

I nod. “Exactly. I pointed out he’d forgotten a few other letters there.

And then he snorted at me, like a horse!

He started talking about how trans and enby and intersex people aren’t part of our community, and then he was spouting all that nonsense people like Dave like to say about how gender and biological sex have always been simple and basic to understand and how anyone who thinks differently must be dealing with mental illness.

He even said something about intersex people being a myth.

Any physician listening to him would have been horrified.

He genuinely thought he was sharing scientific fact, I think. ”

Gabe makes a strangled noise.

“Exactly,” I tell him. “Then he went on to say Dellie’s casting was a mistake, but there was no need to worry, because they wouldn’t be back for the next film.”

“Holy shit,” Colin murmurs.