Some of the early projects were ridiculous, of course, and the compilation’s creator made very certain to include his justifiably infamous scene fromCreekwatch.The one that featured Peter—“Drowning Guy #2”—nearly, yes, drowning in the titular rain-swollen creek while the lifeguard-slash-vigilante hero, played by Marcus, fought to save him wearing only a Speedo and way too much self-tanner.
“I won’t let you die!” Marcus declared along the muddy shore, beside Peter’s utterly still body. “Not in the same place my sister was killed! Not when I haven’t yet found her killers, even though I’ve been looking for so very long!”
The clear and somewhat disturbing implication was that if Peter’s character had chosen any other drowning location along the creek, or if Marcus’s character had already imposed his spectacularly inept brand of justice on his sister’s killers, Mr. Why Aren’t You Giving the Victim Mouth-to-Mouth Instead of Making a Speech would have let Drowning Guy #2 become Entirely Drowned Guy #1 without a second thought.
So that clip made him laugh. It made everyone in the theater laugh, and for good reason.
But so many of his other performances still made himproud. The agoraphobic sculptor. The snootiest clerk at the record store, with the funniest lines of anyone in the entire cast, even if he wasn’t a lead. The hostage at a bank robbery with a medical condition that would kill him if he didn’t get treatment soon. The plumber in a small town, quietly romancing the shy librarian in the background of so many scenes as the main couple found their own happily-ever-after.
Each of those roles had stretched him in a different way. Tested his skills and made him better. He’d come home to his little apartment at the end of a workday and feel—satisfied. Not necessarily happy, because he was so goddamn alone. Fulfilled professionally, though?
Yes. Without a doubt.
In a bid to appeal to the masses, main characters in tentpole productions were often required to be so damnbland. Character actors and leads in indie films, though—they could beanything, because another season or a possible sequel or hundreds of millions of dollars of production costs didn’t depend on their relatability. Onhisrelatability.
But if he signed the now-finalized contract withFTI...
Well, there would be subplots, of course, but Maria had nailed the essential dynamic. In less than a month, he’d be just another interchangeable white guy in a white coat peering into a microscope, enhancing computer images of license plates, and becoming an inadvertent target of murderers. If he was lucky, maybe he’d have a marriage falling apart behind the scenes, which the show would indicate via a total of four minutes of footage and two fleeting indications of open grief during the entire season.
Frankly, the serial killer role he’d originally auditioned for would be more interesting to play. By far.
Why hadn’t that even occurred to him before?
Uneasy, he stared sightlessly at the screen for another clip or two.
And then... there she was.
He’d known this part of the video was coming. There was no way in hell theywouldn’trequest a clip from Maria, and no way in hell she’d refuse them. She’d probably shot the segment weeks ago but intended to keep it a surprise until the actual event.
Somehow, though, it didn’t matter what he’d known or how well he’d thought he prepared himself. When her beloved face appeared, her beaming smile, her warm brown eyes sparkling with confidence and vivacity...
If one of those fucking enormous cows on the island sat on his chest?
Yeah. It felt like that.
He stared at her dumbly.
Her mouth was moving as she said whatever she was saying, her lips rosy and tipped up at the corners. He’d slipped his tongue between those lips. Slid a thumb across them. Opened them wide for his cock. Covered them with his palm as she came.
He’d kissed them softly, marveling at how well they fit his. How well she fit him.
Six years. Six years they’d spent together, lovers turned friends turned lovers once more. During those six years, he’d earned widespread critical recognition, won several golden statuettes, raised his professional profile to lofty new heights, scored legions of new fans, and deposited unprecedented amounts of money in his bank account.
It was success. Undeniable, profound success.
He’d tilted at a windmill and... won.
For those six years, that enormous stretch of his professional and personal life, he’d been happy. Startlingly, terrifyingly, consistentlyhappy, in a way he’d never experienced before and might never experience again.
And he’d spent most of those years on a tiny fucking island off the coast of Ireland, where all the perks and trappings of his success couldn’t find him or change his daily life.
On the island, as long as he had enough money to live comfortably—to buy souvenirs or pub meals or ferry rides to the coast—the excess didn’t matter. There was nowhere and no need to spend it. His new ability to score lead roles didn’t make much difference either, since he had little time to film said lead roles. If he had more followers on social media, that didn’t change how he posted: infrequently and curtly. Which, bizarrely, had become a source of much hilarity among his fans and brought him evenmoresocial media followers. His golden statuettes sat on the mantel above his fireplace in LA, right below his mother’s drawing. They might have kept her company, but they didn’t do a thing for him from across the Atlantic. Neither did the house itself, no matter how perfectly it sat perched on some the most exclusive real estate available.
So if his long-awaited success had made him happy all those years on the island, he wasn’t quite sure how.
Was it the mereknowledgeof his success that did the trick? The prospect of how that success would, in fact, demonstrably change his life during his next filming break, between seasons, and after the show ended?
Or did he just fucking love being around Maria and their friends whenever he wasn’t filming scenes for a role he found both challenging and interesting?