My whole life’s been a performance of one kind or another.
At least this time, I get to choose the role.
Chapter 3
Dante
August 12th
OLYMPIC HERO’S DOWNWARD SPIRAL: Dante Hastings Spotted Living Fast Life in Monaco While Former Team Claims Gold Without Him
The unforgivingLA heat burns mercilessly, indifferent to my pounding hangover.
Last night served as my farewell to summer—a decadent blur of top-shelf liquor, pristine lines of white powder on sleek black marble, and models whose endless legs defied gravity. All of it a desperate attempt to numb reality.
The U.S. Fencing team claimed Olympic gold. Without me. As if I hadn’t shed blood on those strips for years, hadn’t transformed that team into something remarkable. I single-handedly elevated fencing into a sport worth watching, yet they act like every medal and victory I brought them meant nothing.
Now I must wait four more years to reclaim my title—a title that should have secured me a second gold this year.
Four years to prove I remain unrivaled.
Four years fighting against obscurity.
My legacy dissolves like cocaine in champagne, ephemeral and fading.
To compound the injury, my baby brother, Ezra, claimed two medals in swimming this year. I should be proud—Iamproud.
But this bitter, resentful person isn’t me.
I’m Dante fucking Hastings.
The studio lot signs shift and blur, refusing to hold still. No piste, no saber, no beautiful violence of competition. I take a deep drag of my cigarette, spot Studio F through the haze, and force myself to move.
Three days of table reads and in-person meetings with the stunt and props teams await me. As the stunt coordinator consultant on this project, I’ve been collaborating with Marcus, the head stunt choreographer, working through the film’s sequences over email. It’s my first time working on a film, but the process has been surprisingly straightforward. The props team regularly sends me sword specifications for my professional feedback.
Today, I have a four-hour meeting with them immediately following the first-act table read. The script my agent, Todd, mailed me sits untouched in my suitcase, as pristine as the day it arrived. Why cloud my mind with it when we’ll be reading it today anyway?
I haven’t read a script since college. Surely I’ve overcome the fact that sometimes when I read, the words tend to swim together.
Dyslexia can’t be permanent, can it?
Whatever. I’ve managed fine without much assistance for twenty-six years.
When I reach the door, I check my Patek. I’m fashionably late, but these Hollywood types probably expect that. I crush out my cigarette, pop a mint, and take a deep breath.
I push through the studio doors and into the table read room. A mahogany table dominates the space, surrounded by leather chairs and expectant faces.
“Morning,” I say crisply to no one in particular.
Felix Langford, the action movie mogul, lounges at the head of the table like he’s sitting on a throne. His wire-frame glasses and shaggy gray hair dip forward. “Well, well, if it isn’t Mr. Hastings finally gracing us with his presence.”
“Charmed.” I grab a coffee and a crimson apple from the snack table. The familiar preperformance stiffness settles into my shoulders—until everything stops.
Because there she is.
Reese Sinclair.
One look, and I’m not an Olympian, not a Hastings—simply struck speechless.
