Page 29 of If the World Was Ending

“Thanks.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

Hunter smiled. His life here in Los Angeles had never gone as planned, not since he stepped off the plane for college. There had definitely been more failure than success so far, but becoming friends with Colby? That was in the success column for sure.

“When do you start?”

“Thursday night.”

Colby’s whole face lit up again. “Tidal’s playing! Epic. I can’t wait!”

Colby reached over and squeezed his leg again, briefly, before putting his hand back on the steering wheel. Hunter smiled.

“I have something for you,” Colby said. “Grab my backpack and open the front pocket.”

The knapsack was navy blue with lighter blue zippers and pulls. It was wedged in the floorboard near Hunter’s feet. He grabbed it, the front pocket already opened and a bunch of white pages sticking out. “Pull out the script.”

“The script?” Hunter repeated dumbly. He grabbed the pages and tugged. It wasn’t a full script. There was no title page. No name. Hunter scanned the dialogue in front of him, which seemed to start somewhere in the middle of an actual script about… Royalty? Or… space? It was hard to decipher from the brief glance he gave it. “What is this?”

Colby’s smile popped off again, putting his dimple on display. Hunter had never thought much about facial features like birth marks or freckles or whatever, but that fucking dimple… he thought about it a lot. He put a concerning amount of effort into trying to make it appear on Colby’s face some nights when they hung out. And worse, he felt weirdly jealous when someone else made it appear. Unless it was Briar. He’d met Colby’s high school bestie a couple times now, and he really liked her. But he still didn’t understand why Colby wasn’t dating her. She was hot and funny and super supportive and clearly cared about Colby. Hunter would have dated her if he were Colby.

“So, a guy came to one of my… Tidal’s shows.” He always corrected himself when he referred to a gig or a song as his. It was admirable the way he wanted to include the band even though Hunter knew it was mostly Colby’s talent carrying them. “He liked one of the songs and wanted to tell me about it, so like he yacked my ear off and bought me a drink…”

Is Colby gay? Hunter hadn’t even considered it. Until now. This very moment. Colby paused the conversation to concentrate on the hairy turn at a busy intersection, and as soon as he was through it, he continued with his story. “He’s an actor. Well, he’s a model mostly, for some discount internet brands or some such shit, but like he’s trying to get into acting.”

“Is he good-looking?” Hunter asked before he could stop himself. Why did he do that? Why did it matter if the dude was good-looking? “I mean, he’s a model so I thought he must be, but then you said discount internet, and I don’t think those are. I mean, what’s the criteria for discount modeling? I think you just need to be average hot, not like super attractive.”

Colby glanced sideways at him. His blue-gray eyes looked more blue today because he was wearing a navy T-shirt. The shirt had a white outline of a vintage pin-up girl on it. “I mean he was… I didn’t question him when he said he modeled. It seemed obvious, so, yeah, I guess he wasn’t ugly. Why does that matter?”

“I don’t know. I just… So this is his script or something?”

“Pages from an audition he’d been on. For a sci-fi flick called Platonic Planet,” Colby explained. “It’s not like a blockbuster project or anything, but he explained the whole plot to me, and it sounded really fucking cool. And like something you should be going out for.”

“Oh.” Hunter stared at the pages again, starting to actually read the words on the first one. The characters were a guy and a girl who were clearly in love but were talking around it. It was well written, and he wanted to read more. But he didn’t turn the page, he glanced up at Colby again. “So, you stole his audition script?”

“He gave it to me. Said he thought he bombed anyway, which was a bummer because he really liked the role too,” Colby explained.

Hunter flipped the entire chunk of pages—there were twelve—over and noticed a handwritten note on the back page.

Call me 310-555-4157. Daxton.

“Ummm…” Hunter turned the script to show Colby the number. “Did you call Daxton?”

Colby’s eyes slid off the road and then snapped back to it. “I did not. So I thought that if it interested you, maybe you could ask Marge to set up an audition for you. Or like at least submit you or whatever it is they do.”

“Margo, not Marge,” Hunter corrected and then ran a finger over the name and number. He hoped it would smudge, but it didn’t. “Should I call your friend Daxton and thank him? Or you could call him and thank him for me. Since he gave you his number.”

“Dude, whatever,” Colby laughed, but his dimple wasn’t making an appearance like it usually did when he was amused. “For all we know, that’s the number of someone who was trying to pick him up at the audition or something.”

“Didn’t he tell you his name when he was fanboying all over you?”

Colby shrugged. “I don’t remember, but if it was something as pretentious and made-up sounding as Daxton, I would have.”

“It does sound like a brand of vacuum cleaners,” Hunter surmised, and the dimple in Colby’s cheek reappeared. “I’ll read it over and ask Margo about it. Thanks. I appreciate this.”

Hunter was feeling more confused than hopeful about the script and the possible audition. Was Colby really thinking about Hunter’s career so much that he was sniffing out auditions for Hunter from fans at his own gig? Colby pulled to a stop next to the cars parked in front of their building. “What are friends for if we can’t help each other out? Especially in this business, in this town. If we don’t have each other’s backs, no one will, right?”

Hunter nodded and stared at the script again as he reached for the door handle. “Have a good rehearsal.”