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 wanted to keep doing it. As long as he was allowed.


He glanced at Allie’s envelope, where he’d scooped it up and tossed it onto the desk. Colby’s enchanted handwriting shimmered darkly on the front. He caught himself smiling: bittersweet, hurting on behalf of those blue eyes but oddly hopeful too, bewildered and wanting and tangled up in perilous quests.


He got up from the bed and went to find his toothbrush; wandering back out, he moved the laptop off the bed, and thought about texting Colby in the morning. Despite the toothbrush, he ended up smiling more.


Colby, after Jason left, lay without moving for a moment, hugged by and hugging pillows. The door really had shut; he could see it. No one coming in or out. His room, his space.


His boots sat in their parade line beside the bed. They kept silent, but they looked contented.


Chapter 77