Building Us: A Gay Romantic Comedy and Adventure (Marketing Beef Gay Romance Book 2) by Rick Bettencourt

Author:Rick Bettencourt [Bettencourt, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bettencourt Concepts LLC
Published: 2017-10-07T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 40

Dillon

Making a movie isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There’s a lot of waiting, adjusting of lights, and allowing the talent to “feel the moment”—at least that was how Vilhelm described it. The ping of pelting sleet held us back for a time too. I didn’t know much about Tapped in New England. Adam had told me it was about a widowed maple-syrup farmer who’d lost everything in the Long Depression of the late 1800s—nothing but his dog for companionship and living on a small spit of land threatened by industry.

We filmed in downtown Settlement, near a stream tempered by ice. The cottage, that up until a month ago had been a plumber’s warehouse, looked like its nineteenth-century former self with loose clapboards and wavy windowpanes.

Under the cottage’s doorframe, Vilhelm stood transfixed in character. Dark wool garb made his tall frame look stern. He welcomed me inside as written in the script.

I eschewed our earlier scuffle. I needed to act. Okay, Dillon. You can do this. “Yes, Mr. Smith, I’ll build the—” Stage lighting ripped me from the moment. I tried to pretend I stood in a secluded cabin in the 1800s alone with widower Smith to explain my preparations to build a dam and flood his property to the south, preventing potential bidders from acquiring it. But the camera, the slew of people with clipboards, headsets, and microphones, made it all seem so unreal.

“Let’s take it again,” Vilhelm’s voice rippled like a smooth ride down a lazy river. “Can we clear the set? Only the essential.”

A girl with a pencil sticking out from her bun of hair rolled her eyes. “Who the hell isn’t essential? We’ve shot this five time—”

“Please.” Vilhelm held up his pale hands. “As if this were 1875.”

Pencil-bun left. The lighting dimmed. A few more crew dispersed. I picked a wedge from my too-tight union suit. “Why am I in red pajamas?” I finally asked. It irked me that I was lumbering about the set with every ripple of body fat—well, all ten percent—and each bulge of my privates for mankind to see.

Vilhelm held a hand up to the director—a Frenchman with glasses too small for his hawkish nose and wide face—who appeared ready to provide me my motivation. “Allow me,” Vilhelm said, and placed a cold hand on my shoulder. “You see. I’ve been alone for many years.”

“You or Mr. Smith?”

He grinned. “I’m Mr. Smith.” The character’s aura never faded, palpable like the funk of sharp cheddar when you enter a cheese shop. “You’ve come along,” he explained the backstory, “as a faithful friend, a servant working the syrup with little to no pay. Remember, you stay in the cottage next to mine.”

In reality, there was no other cottage. I guess I had to imagine it. “Sure, but the suit?” I picked at a cinch of material cupping my crotch.

“We’ve become close.” Vilhelm’s breath smelled of spearmint and hints of lemongrass. “We’re lonely. We’ve been everything to each other during this Long Depression.”

I raised an eyebrow.

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