Red Carpet

Chapter 7

'ARGHH!!!!' Locke cursed, frustratedly ruffling his hair. Sana flinched, surprised by the sudden action.

'Rough weekend?' she asked, putting down the styling tool on the counter. She didn't want to end up doing his hair twice.

'I'm sorry. Yeah...kinda...I guess,' Locke replied machine-like. 'Please carry on,'

'Okay...are you sure though? You look like a zombie right now Locke. You need to cheer up before the shooting begins,' She advised.

Locke sighed, sinking back into his chair. Shooting. Ah yes, he had multiple scenes today. With Keeye. Keeye. He groaned.

Sana paused again but Locke assured her that he would sit still and deal with his torment on his own.

He closed his eyes and even though he didn't want to, he was taken back to Saturday evening.

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Locke's pasta had been a success. Keeye making sure he didn't leave behind even the tiniest morsel on the plate served proof of that. Soon after, they were watching the released episodes of Falling for Dawn on TV over drinks and voicing out their thoughts on the show. Both of them were sitting cross legged on the floor, leaning back against the sofa.

'Have you ever doubted yourself before taking up a role?' Locke asked.

'All the time...it doesn't matter if I've been acting my entire life, I'm always nervous when I'm offered a role. But I consider it a good kind of fear.'

'Good kind?'

'Yes, it scares me but at the same time motivates me to prepare better,'

If Locke wasn't already in awe of Keeye, he definitely was now. Locke was inspired by anything the man did.

'To be honest...' Keeye confessed, swirling his can, 'I didn't want to play Hunter.'

Locke blinked. 'Why?'

Keeye mulled over how best to put his thoughts into words. 'I didn't want to play a queer character. I've taken up a lot of roles in my career for sure, but this one...I didn't think I could do justice to it. Would I really be able to pull it off? Can I really have feelings for a guy and project it well enough in front of the camera? Thoughts like these haunted me. My agency...' He paused, an unpleasant memory surfacing, 'Due to certain circumstances...I had to agree to it,'

'I didn't have much of a say and worked on it like how I usually did.' Keeye continued, 'I did my homework. And that was when I understood a lot of things...the more I looked into it, the more I was educated on the gender spectrum. I was no longer seeing it as black and white. I realised it was not really that different and definitely not a massive task like I thought it was. In the end, it was just two people in love,'

Locke nodded. He could resonate with Keeye on every word he spoke.

'All you need is an open mind.' Locke summarized, munching on the bowl of chips on the coffee table.

'What about you?' Keeye asked.

'Me? I had similar thoughts I guess. But mine weighed more on my caliber as an actor since this was my first big break into the industry. The realization that you had, I was exposed to that from a young age since Silver came out pretty early and was vocal about it. At first I was a little confused but I quickly unlearned what I was taught and looked at it from a wider perspective and it all naturally made sense,' Locke explained.