its base, a plastic sculpture of a giant prehistoric sloth and looked the other way. James sighed and sat down on the grass a few feet from him. I looked from one to the other. Blake’s face was frozen, impossible to read. Maybe James’s lack of sleep was down to more than just worrying about what I might say or do.
‘Angela,’ James started, pulling at my hand. I sat down beside him, not really knowing what else to do. ‘First, can I just say I’m sorry?’
‘You’ve actually said that a couple of times already,’ I said, my eyes still trained on Blake. ‘And I think it’s best if I talk first. Sorry if you’d been rehearsing.’
‘Go for it,’ he said, squeezing the hand I’d forgotten he was holding.
‘I spoke to my editor this morning.’ I pulled my hand away and paused to see his reaction. Stupid bloody actor didn’t bloody have one. He should absolutely play professional poker. ‘The magazine doesn’t want to run your interview any more.’
‘What?’ He looked shocked. ‘What did you say?’
‘Calm down, I didn’t tell them anything. Yet …’ I noticed we’d almost got Blake’s attention. ‘They want us to do a “we’re so in love” interview in Icon next week instead. Apparently, I’m no good as an interviewer any more because everyone thinks I’m a great big slag who came out here solely to seduce you.’
‘Seriously?’ James shook his head.
‘Seriously.’
‘Well, thank fuck for that,’ he laughed, pushing me back in a giant bear hug. Too shocked to do anything but worry about grass stains on my T-shirt, I lay staring helplessly up at Blake.
‘That’s brilliant!’ James roared. ‘This is going to solve all our problems. We’ll do the interview, you’ll move here, everyone will think we’re dating. This is perfect. We’ll get an apartment – how about Los Feliz? You liked it there, didn’t you? Or would you rather be near the beach? Oh, Angela, this is fantastic. Why didn’t you tell me on the phone?’
Finally finding some strength, I pushed him off me and shot up to my feet. ‘Because we’re not doing it! I have a life and a job and a boyfriend and I’m not giving that up to cover up for you.’
‘But it’ll be perfect.’ James looked confused. ‘I’ll pay for everything. And you’ll have your own room in the apartment and everything. It’s not like we’ll really be dating after all, is it?’
‘Can you hear yourself? I’m not doing this, James. You have to tell the magazine the truth.’ I span round to Blake. ‘And you, you can’t seriously be OK with this?’
He shrugged but his face was ashen, eyes burning. And, oh my God, were they red around the edges? Had he been crying?
‘Angela, do you think this is the first time this has happened?’ James jumped to his feet, his hands on my shoulders. ‘We get on well, don’t we? We’re friends? And it would be great for your career. Think of how cool it will be, living in LA, in the sun, going to parties, premieres – it would be a dream.’
‘But not mine,’ I shrugged off his hands. ‘James, listen to me. I have a life. I have a boyfriend. And if you don’t come out, tell the truth, I’m going to lose it all. If we’re really friends, you’ll do it.’
James rubbed his hands down his face. ‘You don’t even know what you’re asking. You’re being so bloody selfish.’
‘I’m being selfish? You don’t actually know anything about women, do you?’ I snapped.
‘Doesn’t know much about men either,’ Blake muttered.
I carried on regardless. ‘All I’m asking you to do is to tell the truth and you’re asking me to lie and give up absolutely everything. Which sounds more reasonable to you?’
James threw his hands up in the air. ‘But think about what I’m offering you. You’d pass all that up for some arsehole that thinks you’re shagging about behind his back and a crappy job writing for a website?’
I’d been angry before. I was pretty pissed off when my mum boil-washed my Bay Trading angora sweater dress the night before the Year Ten disco. I was fairly annoyed when Peter Jenson told everyone in the sixth form that I was a lesbian after he walked into the bathroom at Louisa’s sixteenth birthday party and we were in there chatting while I had a wee. And, of course, I wasn’t overly pleased when I found my boyfriend shagging his mistress in the back of our car at my best friend’s wedding. But none of that was anything to how I felt at that exact second.
There he was, this ridiculously beautiful man who had everything going right for him in the world, standing in front of me waving around what he genuinely thought was the perfect life, like the moon on a stick, while his secret boyfriend stood six feet away, leaning against a giant brown plastic mammal. And I was being selfish? No wonder Blake was such a twat all the time. His boyfriend was the biggest arsehole in the universe and he couldn’t complain about him to anyone.
‘Do you love Blake?’ I asked.
‘What?’ James looked past me to where Blake was staring at us from the arms of the sloth.
‘Do you love him?’ I asked again.
‘Angela, just stop playing games. Are you going to fuck me over or what?’
I ignored him and carried on. ‘Because I actually love my boyfriend and the idea of him not knowing that for sure is actually worse than any of this bollocks right now.’
As soon as I’d said it, I knew it was absolutely true. I couldn’t get the look on Jenny’s face when she talked about Jeff out of my head, and I didn’t want to ever feel that way about me and Alex. ‘I don’t believe that you two are in love. If you were, you wouldn’t care who knew, you’d just want to be together.’
‘As if it’s that easy,’ James snapped back. ‘I’m not some random guy that can just do whatever he wants when I want, Angela. My career depends on my reputation. It’s all a character, everything I do.’
‘Oh shut up. It’s not the Fifties any more, you idiot.’ I took my turn to push him; unfortunately his six-foot-plus frame didn’t actually budge. ‘No one cares if you’re gay.’
‘It wasn’t the Fifties when I was growing up either, but they cared then,’ he fumed quietly. ‘I’m not doing it, so just pack it in. Blake understands why we have to do things the way we do.’
‘Do I?’
For the first time I realized Blake wasn’t leaning against the (actually hilarious in any other situation) giant sloth because he was too cool to stand up, he actually couldn’t stand on his own. His eyes were no longer a little bit red around the edges but wet with real tears.
‘Do I, James?’ he asked again. I suddenly felt extraordinarily uncomfortable. Oh bugger.
‘We talked about this last night,’ James said, in a considerably softer tone of voice than the one he’d been using with me. ‘You said—’
‘No, you talked about it last night.’ Blake’s voice got louder as James’s got quieter. ‘And I didn’t say anything, but I’m saying something now. Bitch’s right. There’s no need for all this bullshit any more. I know you had a hard time when you were younger but it’s over. You’re here now and you’ve got me. If you felt the same way I did, none of the rest of it would matter.’
I paused in my steady backtracking out of the way. Did Blake just call me a bitch? Arse, I was on his side!
‘Blake, don’t.’ James’s pretty face was dangerously close to crumpling. I swapped positions with Blake, him holding James’s shoulders, me clutching the oversized paw of the sloth. He looked fascinated by the proceedings. For a giant, infamously lazy plastic creature.
‘Don’t what? You remember when you asked me not to make you