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

He hated confrontations. He hated doing something wrong. He hated not being good enough. If he’d tried harder, if he’d worked at fixing it—


Jillian had said then, and continued to say, that this was stupid. Not his fault. None of it.


But there’d been a kernel of truth in it. He’d never been very good at other people. At friends. At connecting. Always awkward, shy about interfering but overeager about the wrong things, stories and learning and calligraphy and romance and intricate historical steampunk artwork. A new boy in a new school in a new country, over and over again. He’d known early on that money and a nice house and shiny toys might get kids to ask if they could play with the latest game system. None of that had anything to do with wanting to spend time with Colby himself.


Chapter 36