Behind the Scenes

Chapter 2

Connor's POV:

It's been a week since I met Leo now, he and I have been videochatting every day minus one 'cause he went to theme park with his friends on Monday. That was one hell of a boring day for me.

Living the showbiz lifestyle like me sounds like a distant dream to many people. But then, not many people live the showbiz lifestyle. At least not the way they always dreamed of. Which is where the tragedy of my current life probably began. You hear tell of those "

Disney kids"

that get cheated into thinking that the world owes them everything they could possibly ever ask for. The kids whose parents put them into the attention-seeking-business before they're potty trained, which is the

only

reminder that those kids didn't

choose

to become celebrityland's biggest assholes.

I'd like to think of myself as a guy that doesn't fit that description too perfectly, but I still try to avoid looking into a mirror when I see one. Lying to yourself is easier when you don't have to look into your own eyes.

But, am I really allowed to complain at all? I don't think so. At least on paper, my life is the dream of many people my age. I have money, fame, fans, a career (if you could call it that), all the toys I want. And oh yeah, a loving family from which I received very decent genes, if my Instagram follower count is any indication. Not to mention the dozens of date-requests that

slide

into my

DM's

everyday.

Oh that reminds me, I also have a girlfriend. Yay.

Not bad for an average American 21 year-old huh? I mean, I do still live at home with my parents, but hey, that's the price you pay when you choose not to live an actual life and decide to live the world's greatest lie instead.

I love my parents, I really do, but moving to LA the year I was born was probably a mistake. And giving me the freedom to choose my own path instead of forcing me to go graduate highschool and apply for a decent college

might

have been a tiny mistake too. They love me though, and I was their first try of course, my little bros are getting their degrees just fine.

It's not like my parents neglected me, or my schooling. Not at all. My fourteen year-old self just managed to convince my parents that

"my passion lies elsewhere"

. With the help of a few profit-seeking Scrooge McManagers and a couple of vibrant talent agents that promised a booming career and a flourishing future in Hollywood for me, my parents gave in.

Sometimes I wish they'd listen to my grandparents more.

But here I am. Connor Dexter,

"perfect example of an adonis"

and

"number one free-pass amongst teenage girls".

While everyone who actually

knows

me can tell you that I'm just a no-good, shit-for-brains, self-spoiled brat with a way too early midlife-crisis.

Add to that the fact that I have the typical showbiz sexuality dilemma to deal with, and there you go.

Disaster no longer waiting to happen.

That feeling that you get when

everything

you planned,

everything

you ever hoped for,

everything

you wanted for yourself and

everything

you wanted to be for those around you seems to slip away from you. No hope, no plan B, nothing to fall back on. Just the perspective of a future filled with the same chain of shit you got yourself into after that first mistake.

You know that feeling?

Do you?

I did.

I

almost

did.

If it weren't for that one little sparkle of hope that made it's way into my life about a week ago.

Who am I kidding?

Exactly

a week ago. A week, 7 hours and 33 minutes to be precise. Leonard. Fucking. Hagens.

I still don't know what happened exactly. I didn't go into it with a different mindset than I normally would with a job like this. Just another movie, just another fresh face to pretend to like in order to get the right chemistry on-screen. Well, that was apparently not the case with this one. That list of things I have the pleasure of having in my life? Notice that it didn't include friends at all. It did once. A lot of them. Good ones. Very,

very

good ones. Then for a while there weren't any at all. I can thank myself for that. And god knows who I can thank for being able to add

one

single friend to that list again. And it's the best

fucking

one yet.

All those doubts, the whole prospect of me living a miserable lonely life almost disappeared completely over the course of this week. And it was all because of Leo. It could be because he's new to showbiz and has a down-to-earth look on things. It could be because he makes me laugh. Or it could be because he's Dutch? From Amsterdam? He made it very clear that the Netherlands and Amsterdam are in fact not the same thing.

I have an even better theory of how he managed to get rid of my depressive feelings towards life though... It goes like this:

He's fucking amazing and perfect and I want to crush my body into his and suck his face off while we're fucking each other senseless.

That's right.

But I realise how unprofessional that would look of course, given that I'm a serious actor.

And straight...

Oh. And taken,

damn

it.

I had never talked to someone so far away from me, and I had never talked to someone I felt so close with. So comfortable. I told him everything. I layed it

all

on him and he just stared at me and listened, with no intention of selling all my thoughts to a stupid magazine. Within four days he knew me better than anyone knows me. Even my own parents. And within five he even knew me better than I did myself.

Except for me being gay of course. That's my secret. One that I can't afford to let go.

Not yet at least.

I had been getting used to being able to talk to Leo whenever I wanted. Whenever I'd feel like it I could just dial his number and he'd pick up on the first ring, his beaming face greeting me in the same way, no matter where he was or what he was doing. By now I can guess where he is and what he's doing before I call him up just by looking at the time.

Talking to him so frequently, being addicted to looking into his eyes and trying to fight off raging boners because I just

happened

to call him just after his shower so he would answer the call shirtless did take up some time though. Time that I'm supposed to spend drooling over someone else.

I had been lying to Caytlin about having to work all week long. I didn't really feel like seeing her anymore. I know that sounds harsh and very egocentric. But Leo is not the reason I want to stop seeing her.

Well, not the

main

reason.

Caytlin is a bitch.

My mom had told her that I needed some time away from all the

"conference calls"

I told her I'd been having with the director and the producers. While it was really Leo acting as my personal psychiatrist/soulmate/pornstash. Even if he didn't know it.

Caytlin grew jealous of anyone who occupied my time instead of her. God forbid I give even a tiny little piece of attention to someone who's

not

her. I mean she's my girlfriend and all, but is she for real? She's the clingiest person in the whole world, and god knows why because she hates me at least as much as I hate her. Why did I even bother with her in the first place?

I didn't want Leo to know she was my girlfriend. I tried to talk around it in that first conversation we had, but I failed miserably. I just didn't want him to think I had a relationship at all, for the same reason I didn't tell Caytlin I was talking to Leo at first.

I had stalked Leo before calling him. I do that with all fresh faces. From the very first moment I saw a picture of him on his instagram, I knew I wanted him. I

had

to have him. I wanted

him

to have

me

.

The picture was just him casually walking through some kind of forest, rocking the hell out of a

hella

sexy leather jacket, throwing an easy smile at whoever was taking the picture. It looked so effortless. Like he wasn't even trying. The guy had 300 followers. The other 2. something billion Instagram users were just unknowingly missing out on this perfect tall glass of water. And he

is

tall. 6'1" next to my 5'9". I didn't know wether I should feel intimidated, scared or incredibly turned on by that.

But

fuck

if a combination of those didn't make my cock harder than ever. Keeping in mind that I have at least 20 pounds on him.

Everything about him drew me in closer. I must have looked at his Instagram page for hours before I realised his Snapchat username was at the top of his bio. I added him immediately. To my disappointment, Leo didn't seem to be the kind of person to post pictures every few hours to let everyone know what he was up to all the time. Normally I

hated

those attention-seeking idiots on social media, but I had hoped Leo was one of them nonetheless. I even checked up on him in SnapMap a few times a day to see where he was. Which let me to have crazy jealous fantasies about who might ogle him at the gym he went to every other day, or the swimmingpool and the park on the days inbetween. Or who he might chat up at the Starbucks he visited so frequently, and would linger at for hours on end.

I felt like a stalker by the time he video-called me and I knew where he was

just

because I'd memorized his schedule. Unfortunately he wasn't shirtless at the gym, like I had imagined.

No one, and I repeat,

no one

knows that Connor Dexter is gay... yet.

I don't know.

It has always felt like a secret that should remain a secret. But

come on

! How was I ever going to be able to pretend being straight in front of

Leo

. Damn, even his name was cute.

Leonard.

He had let me nickname him

"Leo"

and

"L"

. Eventhough he told me his friends called him that, in my mind I had come up with it. Which was pathetic, to say the least.

No one will know I'm gay.

That's how I used to think about it. But lately I'm growing tired of pretending to be straight for the sake of... I don't even know. It's like my whole life can tip over if I come out of the closet. And I don't know if it will be worse, or if maybe that's just what I need right now. I just want to have what everybody else has. I just want to go out on dates with guys that I like. Or

a

guy.

So I've been considering to come out for a while now, but never actually did it.

And then I meet this fucking dreamboat, who I would walk hand in hand with straight down Rodeo Drive if only I had the chance. I wondered why he was

so

perfect at first. I thought it may have been a European thing. But that turned out to be wrong when I remembered some European exchange students I'd met when I modelled for one of their art projects a few months ago.

Nope, it was just

him.

During my time as a teenage star I had a fair amount of girlfriends, including my current one, Caytlin. At first I thought it was cool to be a real ladies' man, but that changed when I hit puberty and started to figure things out. To be fair though, of all the girls I dated, Caytlin is the first of all the girlfriends I have had in my 21 years on God's green earth that I had done anything really intimate with. I lost my V-card to her when I was 19. Ironically though, that less than gentle fuck-session along with a couple of other hints across the years, only strengthened my suspicions that I was meant to be playing for the other team.

There was a short period after that time during which I was scared of maybe being

asexual

alltogether. But that changed when I first kissed another guy a year ago when I was 20.

Caytlin and I were in a club and really, really drunk. I had eyed this cute guy at the bar all night. He'd caught my gaze a few times and smiled and winked at me the last time. The booze had upped my confidence, and in a moment of genius, I dared Caytlin to kiss this other girl that'd tagged along with us halfway through the night. I hoped that Caytlin would reverse-dare me into kissing a guy. Caytlin was also

really

drunk. She went all-in, and according to plan, she dared me to kiss

any

guy in the club in return. I made it seem like she had to convince me, but she didn't even have to try. I was more all-in than

she

was.

The kiss was mind-blowing. Not because the guy was a good kisser, but just because of the fact that I felt his lower regions and mine

react

to each other. This was a

boy

, and man was that hot. And afterwards, even the

thought

of doing something with another guy was more pleasurable to me than mushing my face in Cay's curvy rack.

So I knew for sure then, that I liked guys. I fooled around with some other guys too, but I didn't feel too bad about it because I was sure Caytlin cheated on me from time to time. I just never went to second base or had sex with a guy. I don't really know what all the

base

things are to be honest. It sounds dumb. I've never had sex with a guy, handy, oral or otherwise. I lost my virginity to someone who's feelings I didn't reciprocate. If there even were any feelings to reciprocate in the first place. And I

never

want to make that mistake again. I want to keep that safe for

the

, or at least

a

special person.

It sounds pretty gay, I know that. But living this life, sex is about the only thing I haven't

really

given away yet. All the rest is in magazines, youtube channels, gossip websites. I want to keep that ultimate intimate encounter to reserved for someone.

I don't count what happened with Caytlin as truly intimate. Because it was not. It was us getting our rocks off as the perfect powercouple everyone thought we were. We were loud, rough, hard, fast and definitely not thinking about eaach other.

And

goddamn

if I didn't have someone in mind to actually have perfect, mind-blowing, insane sex with.

Leo just strolled into my life with his wavy dark blonde hair and piercing ocean blue eyes. He's fucking gorgeous, adorable, funny, handsome, smart and unconsciously sexy all at the same time. It's not fair. And I had only seen him through the screens of my phone and laptop. Unreachable. Like, when you see a commercial of that one perfect brand of chocolate and you can't actually reach through the screen to take it like that weird pale Johnny Depp character promised you can.

It was completely ridiculous how Leo held such control over me, I thought about him

all the time

. And not just in a PG-rated way. More so often in a

very

R-rated way. I mean

holy shit.

Last night I bust a nut to a picture of him at the beach. He was typically leaning against a big rock, one leg propped against it and his arms hanging loosely by his sides. The whole thing ignited a completely new fantasy. I got really carried away.

Damn

even now, with Caytlin sitting next to me on the sofa. Leo in those sexy red trunks is all that I can think about...

---

'Hey stud, how's the sun?'

I look up to see Leo walking towards me, water dribbling down his defined muscles. His bright-red swimming trunks leaving almost nothing to the imagination. It's a good thing I'm lying on my stomach.

I'd been staring at him swimming back and forth across the coastline of the cove. I lost sight of him a couple of times when I was playing with the soft white sand in front of me, drawing random shapes in it and then covering them again. The first time that happened I panicked a little, frantically turning my head and squinting my eyes to try to catch a glimpse of him. It took me almost a full two minutes to find him swimming leisurely through the waves at least 500 feet from the beach. He had passed the bouys. I only felt comfortable looking away once he had returned to the area with the kids swimming with floaties.

This trip was such an amazing idea of Leo's. And it came as a total surprise.

Everything is perfect. It's a pretty long beach, but secluded. Some people, but enough to keep at least 50 feet between every family's spot. Which is enough for the waves and the soft breeze blowing through the palmleaves to drown out the sound of screaming children. Only the occasional seagull cries as it flies over.

So calm and tranquil. Nothing to worry about. I can't remember the last time I felt so careless and relaxed. And free. White, green, brown and blue surround me as I breathe in the smell of the ocean.

I hear Leo's quiet panting as his shadow casts over me. I look up to see him shaking out his hair, the cold droplets landing on my back. 'Knock it off!' I chuckle. He smiles brightly at me before laying down next to me and kissing me on the cheek. I'm a little self-conscious about Leo's PDA. Being out of the closet is a one-step-at-a-time process for me. To be fair, Leo is very respectful of that. But being with him, in this beautiful place extinguishes all of those fears I have almost instantly.

Leo just turns my head and brushes his lips tenderly against mine before slipping his tongue between my lips. He tastes salty. For a small second I'm distracted and let my tongue play with his for a short moment, before I remember we're on a public beach with tourists that could snap pictures of us sucking face. So I bite his tongue.

'Hmm... nice.' He drawls in that husky voice of his. That was not what I was going for.

'Mmno, we can't... I can't, I'm sorry.' I give him a guilty look. He eyes me and smiles, then pecks me on the lips one more time and lies down on his stomach next to me.

'It's okay Con. Don't worry about it.' He mutters, eyes closed.

That wouldn't have sounded sincere from anyone else, but it came from Leo, so I know he means it.

'I shouldn't push you in public. I don't mean to act like I need you to be affectionate with me.' He throws me a naughty gaze. 'Besides, you'll more than make up for it when we're alone.' He winks. A barely visible blush colors my tanned cheeks. Then my eyes start to travel slowly across Leo's back and the map of defined muscles there.

'You need another round of sunblock L.' I grab the bottle and give it to him. He looks at it for a moment, then sets it in front of him with a smirk.

'Nahh, I don't think I need it.' That was ridiculous. I only need a little at the beginning of the day, but Leo's nordic skin definitely needs a rubdown every other hour. Otherwise his perfect tan will turn crimson. And then it will be sore, and then we can't do anything fun in the hotelroom later. 'Come on baby, you

need

it. I don't want your back to hurt later.'

'Because we can't have sex if I'm sore? And you called me

baby

? I'm considering it...' He plays with the bottle in his hands before dropping it in the sand in front of him again. 'But nope.'

'Oh come on man. I really want to do stuff later. You have no idea how many boners I've had just from looking at you in those swim shorts.' I whine.

He props himself onto one side and grins, an evil twinkle shines in his eye. Speak of the devil, my dick stiffens almost as if on command.

'I see a bottle of sunblock right here, and I see an amazingly sexy stud right in front of me. There's no way I'm going to apply that stuff myself,

baby

.' He growls, adding yet another wink.

I sigh, trying to put an annoyed look on my face, but I can't push back the stupid grin crawling on my face. I decide to try and push my boundaries a little. 'Are you sure you want to play it that way hot stuff?'

'Hell yeah I am.'