An epic motion picture! A gay Napoleonic War love story! Ballrooms and battles at sea! Romantic happy endings on the silver screen! And a film that’ll change everything for its stars ... Jason Mirelli can’t play adrenaline-fueled action heroes forever. He’s getting older, plus the action star parts have grown a little thinner since he came out as bisexual. This role could finally let him be seen as a serious dramatic actor, and he needs it to go well -- for his career, and because he’s fallen in love with the story and the chance to tell it. The first problem? He’ll be playing a ship’s captain ... and he hasn’t exactly mentioned his fear of water. The second problem? His co-star: award-winning, overly talkative, annoyingly adorable -- and openly gay – box office idol Colby Kent. Colby’s always loved the novel this film’s based on, and he leapt at the chance to adapt it, now that he has the money and reputation to make it happen. But scars and secrets from his past make filming a love story difficult ... until Jason takes his hand and wakes up all his buried desires. Jason could be everything Colby’s ever wanted: generous and kind, a fantastic partner on set, not to mention those heroic muscles. But Colby just can’t take that chance ... or can he? As their characters fall in love and fight a war, Colby and Jason find themselves falling, too ... and facing the return of their own past demons. But together they just might win ... and write their own love story.

Seaworthy

In the background, far off, someone said, “Holy shit—”


Someone else demanded, “Don’t you dare stop recording, I want every second of this—”


They didn’t matter. Unimportant. Jason watched Colby’s face, the way the next inhale lingered over lips, the way his hair brushed his collar when he tipped his head up to meet Jason’s gaze more directly. “I prefer—”


He stopped. Jason had left the hand in place, stroking whisper-soft hair, and now half-inadvertently slid it down to touch his cheek: a caress and a question and a request for forgiveness. Colby seemed to be wordless.


Forgiveness, Jason thought. For Stephen’s interrupting of Will’s retreat; for his own idiotic tantrum earlier; for whatever had put that resigned small pain behind Colby Kent’s complicated pretty eyes. They all fell together and blurred into one. He couldn’t pull them apart. He no longer quite knew how.


Chapter 5