Page 14 of Starring Role

"Oh, that sounds good! Have you been invited back?Did anyone get photographs of you together?"

"I'm sure I couldn't say. You'd have to check the gossip sites," Coop said coldly.

"But he's interested? He wants to see you again?"

"Goodbye, Allan," Coop said, and very brazenly hung up. There was only so much grilling he could stand, especially when he felt as guilty as he currently did.

The first episode got good ratings and a decent audienceshare; it garnered attention on review sites and a couple of morning show appearances from Lincoln to promote it. Coop wasn't invited.

He avidly watched every one he could catch, trying to see how Lincoln handled the press machine in case he ever had to. It was hard to imagine any excitement about the show for Lincoln; he seemed more bored, even faintly distasteful about having to sell theshow over and over again to morning chat hosts and their all-female audience, trying to make it sound like more than just another cop show, something thoughtful and deep. Coop didn't know if he could've done that either, and he absolutely loved the show, everything about it.

Every review he read was more positive than negative, and although some of them made him cringe—he was a ham, apparently,scenery-chewing, whiny and self-pitying—he got far more of a write-up in every single review than Lincoln did. More lines, more mentions, and more positive remarks. A few reviewers really hated him, but most found something more positive to say about his performance than they did about Lincoln's, which was called "phoning it in" more than once. Words of doom, if he hadn't been such an establishedname, an actor people would tune in for.

But Coop got such words of praise as "unexpected delight," "stellar performance from newcomer Cooper Hayes," and "unexpectedly affecting portrayal of a young wolf shifter finding his place in the world." It was heady stuff.

Lincoln wasn't going to like him any better for that.

Coop had never gotten so many good reviews in his life, or indeed, so manyreviews. He'd never had a part big enough to be mentioned by name in a review, either. Even if most of the reviews were on smaller online sites, they got views, and there were even a couple of longer reviews. He only had a couple of truly unpleasant mentions, which hurt, of course, but even in these, he got more column inches than Lincoln, and Lincoln never got any truly spectacular remarks,at least not that he'd seen.

Even big fans of Lincoln seemed to be a tiny bit disappointed, though some of them blamed Coop for that, for hogging too much screen time with his petty drama when they wanted to see shooting and car chases.

Coop's professional social media pages got a lot of views and likes and follows, which was exciting. He made sure to keep up his usual bland posting scheduleof a picture or two a week: beach views, selfies of him stopping for fresh juice, that sort of thing, just to keep his smiling mug out there and be as inoffensive as possible.

That was one thing he'd been warned about early on, especially by his agent. Don't make any sort of waves, or be the kind of person whose internet presence could turn anyone off or make them think twice about castinghim. In other words, no gay clubbing posts, nothing about dating or relationships unless it was completely approved beforehand, and no politics, fringe beliefs, weird diets, strange remarks, weirdness or angsty drunk posts.

For the most part, he'd had no difficulty following those rules. Sometimes things were on the fence, and he really would have liked to be a little more open about hislife, but in general, he could see the wisdom of being careful, especially at this stage in his career. Of course, in his fantasy, someday he'd be a famous actor, and he'd post cute pictures of himself and his husband, because of course in this fantasy he was famous enough to be out, and had found someone to love him enough to marry him, and he'd have people hanging on every witty word he chose toshare.

But that wasn't today. He could smile and look pretty, and stay in the closet—for now. It wasn't as though coming out would put him on anyone's blacklist, not these days, his agent had assured him. It might even garner him five minutes of publicity and a few talk show opportunities. But it would almost certainly lose him roles. There were powerful players in the industry—and not afew—who would immediately cross him off the list to play any straight character, and since most movies and TV shows featured straight characters, he'd be severely limiting his roles. It wasn't fair, of course. Nobody crossed straight actors off the list to play people on the LGBT spectrum; if anything, they tended to be applauded for it.

But Allan had impressed upon him that this was theworld they currently lived in, and he didn't need to get pigeonholed before he'd even found his footing in the industry. If he was ever going to—but that ominous caveat had been left unspoken by both of them. There were certain superstitions you didn't go against, and to Coop, saying anything that implied he wasn't on his way to stardom and fame felt an awful lot like jinxing himself. Doubts werekept quiet, or drunk and partied away.

He hadn't had too much to drink during the party, but he felt he'd come sickening close to having sex with Rorke just for being a friendly face. The truth was, he'd enjoyed the banter, but he didn't find Rorke sexually attractive, and he had some major qualms about dating or having sex with someone simply to advance his career. When he started out, he'dnever thought he'd even consider such a thing. It would have been breathtakingly easy to step over that line last night. That had shocked him to his core, had shaken him more than he liked to admit.

Even without crossing that line, he'd definitely left the door open for dating. He'd let Rorke think he might be interested, just a bit coy or shy or nervous. Not that he wasn't coy, shy, andnervous; he was. But the truth was, if there was no career advancement at stake, he wouldn't even be considering it. He didn't feel like he was really ready to date again, not if he was honest. It took him longer to get over failed relationships than this, and the last failure had been a doozy.

Wonderful, beautiful, and unexpectedly cruel, Shane Clark had been a glorious specimen of a manwho seemed to have little going on between his ears most of the time. He'd been very understanding about not being public about their relationship, even though, as a highly in demand fitness instructor, he didn't have to remain so careful and closeted.

Coop was apparently the kind of insecure idiot who fell hard for people who didn't actually like him, and usually found that out a bit too lateto save himself from heartbreak. What he'd thought of as a serious, hopeful relationship had gradually revealed itself to be an opportunistic sexual opportunity for Shane, who liked a lot of flattery—and a lot of choice about his bed partners. Without necessarily informing his boyfriend about that fact beforehand.

Anyway, Coop had the dreadful feeling that he had amused Rorke, and that if theydid go to bed together, he would be compared (probably unfavorably) with every previous boyfriend, lover, or affair partner Rorke had had since he was Coop's age, or younger. And that had been quite some time ago. Coop didn't really go for the amused, detached type. He wanted someone who was passionate about him, who didn't judge him only on his credentials or his body, but something differentand more, even if he couldn't quite say what that should be.

Did anyone really fall in love with a personality? He didn't know. But he'd like to be viewed as more than the sum of his parts, or as an object to acquire for a time, caught in the gilded cage of being someone's trophy before being released back into the wild, probably a bit better off financially. Swindon, for one, was knownto be generous.

Despite all that, he'd been as nice as he could when he was leaving, and he'd let Swindon have his phone number when it was requested. He knew very well that if the man invited him out on a date, he'd probably go. It was nice to be wanted, and you didn't turn down someone like Rorke in an abrupt or casual way. There was no saying he was the type to hold a grudge and ruin ayoung actor's career, but Cooper didn't want to find that out the hard way, did he?

The truth was, Rorke probably could seduce him if he actually cared to. Coop hated acknowledging that about himself, but he was an insecure young actor hungry for love and approval, and it would be easy to give in to accepting it from someone older and more powerful (and rich). Whatever self-respect he lostin the process, at least he wouldn't be worried about money for a while, if ever again.

It made Rorke Swindon the sort of man you gave your phone number to if he asked for it, and you didn't play coy about it. He hated himself a little for that. They both knew the score, but it wasn't a comfortable knowledge on Coop's part. No doubt Rorke was used to buying his boyfriends by now, since he'dclearly done it so often before.

Maybe nothing would happen. He'd never call, and Coop wouldn't have to face that decision. To be wined and dined would be appealing, but at what cost? Maybe he would be better off not ever finding out exactly what his price tag was.