18 Never Apart

The next couple of days pass slowly. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder for my father. Topher hardly leaves my side except for when I use the toilet or shower. And the shower took some convincing to let me do on my own. But, he’s been really supportive and understanding. He doesn’t question my paranoia, he doesn’t get mad when I cling to him on the street, and he hasn’t tried to feed me any shite lines about us being okay.

Waking up the morning of my shoot, I immediately jump in the shower. It feels like it’s going to be a long day again, but I’m trying to see the silver lining. It’s hard to do when you’re so nervous.

Today, I don’t have an excuse to bring my husband with me. This is one of those things that you have to do by yourself.

When I leave the bathroom, I walk straight to our closet which now contains both his clothes and mine. All our shoes had to be moved to the spare room because we have too much stuff. I throw on some simple joggers and a t-shirt saying as they will be dressing me all day.

Making my way back to the bedroom, I see that my husband is already awake.

“Were you going to leave without saying anything?” he raises a brow challenging.

I chuckle lightly and lay down next to him rest my still damp head on his naked chest, “No, I was just getting dressed. I didn’t think you would want to go with me to this one.”

“Why not?” he asks sincerely as he drags his hand through my wet locks.

Shrugging, I explain, “I’ve been pretty clingy for the last couple days. I feel bad about it. I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you. You’re not going out today, are you?” I sit up to look into his eyes.

“Actually, I was thinking about going somewhere,” he admits with a grin.

“Where?” I give him a quizzical look.

He smiles as he sits up next to me. Pressing his lips to mine quickly, he backs up to look into my eyes, “I’m going to my husband’s photo-shoot.”

“You’re coming with me?” I can’t seem to hide the happiness in my voice.

He nods as he gets out of bed and walks to the closet, “We haven’t had enough time to hire a bodyguard, so I’ll have to do.”

Chuckling, I stand up and walk over to him, wrapping my arms around his waist, “I’d much rather have you.”

-----

Walking into the dressing room is like walking into a fashion library. There are shelves full of shoes, tables full of accessories, racks full of clothes and a vanity full of makeup. If you’re into style, this would be the place to be.

This is my first time at a real photo shoot and interview mix. I mean, we took a couple pictures for the cover of ‘Save the Day’, but nothing fancy.

Topher must have seen the amazement on my face because I hear him chuckle, “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Do you ever get used to this?” I ask him still looking around at everything.

He shrugs, “This is normal for me. I’ve been acting for the last 21 years; interviews and photo shoots come with the territory.”

It’s surprising to me that this is my life. I hate to admit I’m a little nervous, but it’s all a bit intimidating.

I’m soon ushered to a chair where they glob on makeup and pull at my hair. My husband sits in a vacant makeup chair off to the side spinning around leisurely and talking to me. When he makes me laugh (which is quite often) I get yelled at for moving too much.

Eventually, I stop fidgeting and giggling long enough for them to finish with me only to send me over to wardrobe. The stylist pulls out a pair of gray trousers and salmon-colored button down shirt. Once I change into them with Christopher’s ‘help’, I walk back out to get bombarded by accessories.  Socks, shoes, necktie, leather jacket, wristwatch, and a belt complete the outfit. Then, the outfitter pushes me out of her area and into the place where they’re to take the pictures.

When they get the lighting situated, the photographer has one of his assistants put on some music. As the first song comes through the speaker system, the photographer tells me exactly what to do.

“Pose like this.”

“Put your hand near your face.”

“Lean back into the wall.”

“More smile.”

“Topher, stop making him laugh.”

“More sultry.”

“Less edgy.”

“Good, just like that.”

Then I’m pushed back to wardrobe and the process repeats itself. For a good portion of the day, I’m posing and laughing; singing and dancing. These clothes come off, those go back on. Questions get asked to make my mood change or just keep thing interesting.

At one point, when I’m told to take a few minutes, Christopher walks onto the shoot area and grabs me in his arms. Instead of the hug I was expecting, my husband starts to dance with me to the still playing tunes. One arm snakes around my waist, while the other takes my hand in his. The song that’s sounding over the speakers isn’t exactly slow so we’re moving quite fast. It’s closer to a swing dance than a ballroom waltz. Either way, I can’t help laughing.

The laugh becomes one of those full body, head thrown back, careless joys that’s almost indescribable. The lighter than air feeling where nothing in the world matters. It’s that knowledge that you probably come off as a total wanker, but you’re so happy that how you look is irrelevant.

When my husband pulls me back to him to rest against his chest, I lean my head onto his shoulder, still smiling, to catch my breath.

“I’m glad you came,” I admit pulling back slightly to look into his eyes. “Thank you.”

He pecks me slightly on the lips, “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

It’s then that I hear the faintest little clicks. Turning my head, I see the photographer on his knee next to us holding his camera to his face and moving it in different angles.

“Don’t move,” he shouts suddenly. “But, stop with the constipated look, Damon.”

“What are you doing? I thought this was a break,” I ask, but I don’t move as he walks around us snapping pictures.

“I’m an artist. I see something and I use it,” he explains, but doesn’t go any further.

Shaking my head slightly, I chance, “Can I move now?”

He waves his hand as if he’s swatting a fly, “Go ahead and do your interview. I have everything I need.”

“Are those last ones going to end up in the magazine?” I question as I detach myself from Toph.

The photographer shrugs, “If your husband signs a release waver they can. That’s up to you.”

“Can we get a copy of them?” My best friend adds to the conversation.

“Sure, kid. I’ll copy them to a disk and send them over to Damon’s people.”

“Looks like we have a picture of over the mantel,” Toph presses his lips to mine quickly as we walk over to wardrobe.

Scrunch my brows together, a smile slips onto my face, “We don’t have a mantel.”

“We’ll buy one,” he concludes.

Shaking my head again, I push his chest as I walk into the changing room, “Stay.”

“Not fun,” he yells from the other side of the door.

-----

“Thanks for joining me Mr. Jacobs. And congratulations on become Breakout Actor of the Year,” the interviewer, Rachel, tells me as I sit down in front of her.

Chuckling as I situate myself next to Chris, “Thank you. And it’s Mr. Ashton now, by the way. But please, call me Day.”

Well, officially I haven’t gotten my newly ordered identification cards or any type letter back saying it’s been accepted, but we filed to change my name. We decided that instead of trying to figure out something with Jacobs and/or Moore-Hill, we’d just get rid of them all together. I’m not particularly fond of my last name; saying as half of it comes from my father.

“Alright, Day,” she smiles at me before looking down at the paper in her hand. “Just so you know, this interview, like the photo shoot, is being filmed so we can edit it and put it on our website later.”

“Not a problem,” I assure her.

And it wasn’t, since they had me change into yet another outfit for this portion.

“Did you want me to wait somewhere else?” Topher looks a little worried as he watches me.

Confused, I ask, “Why?”

“This is your award. I don’t want to take any of your attention,” he shrugs slightly.

I lean closer and press my lips to his quickly, “It’s fine. I like you right here.” Looking back to Rachel, I see a massive smile on her face, “Sorry, please go on.”

“Off the record, I’m a huge fan. Even before you came out to the public, I thought I saw something between you. I’ve always shipped ‘Tophamon’ and I think what you’re doing is amazing,” her cheeks hold a pink tint as she cast her eye down. “Anyway, we should probably get on with the interview.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

“Can you look into the camera and say you name and that this is a GQ interview? Oh and why you’re here.”

Looking into the camera, I give them my best smile before lacing my fingers through my husband’s, “I’m Damon Ashton and I’m here, with my husband,” I send him a smirk before continuing, “in New York City for a photo shoot for GQ magazine honoring my award for Breakout Actor of the Year.”

“That was great,” Rachel confirms. “Now, we’re just going to jump straight in. What’s your favorite part about acting?”

Thinking for a second, I decide, “Being someone completely different from your own persona. You get to try out these new people just for the fun of it.”

“Were you acting before ‘Save the Day’?”

“I’ve only done one other film in which I was an extra,” I admit a little sheepishly. “But, when I was still living in England, I did a lot of stage acting on the West End.”

“What is your favorite movie of 2011?”

Turing to Christopher, I ask, “What was that one that we went to a couple months ago? We both really liked it with that one guy.”

“The one we went to with Riel and Tripp?” he raises a brow.

Shaking my head, I wave my free hand, “No, it was just you and I. With the one guy who was usually quite attractive, but he was sick.”

“Oh,” he realizes then gives me an accusing look. “It was 50/50. You think Joseph Gordon-Levitt is attractive?”

“You’re the only man for me.” Smiling, I turn back to Rachel, “50/50.”

“And what is your favorite album?”

“That’s difficult because we listen to a lot of music,” I share a questioning look with my husband. “Even just when were hang around the flat, there is usually some sort of tune playing in the background. What do you think we listen to the most?”

“I don’t even know,” he looks to be thinking. “We listened to Hot Chelle Rae a lot when they released ‘Whatever’.”

“True,” I nod before turning back to the interviewer. “I’ll go with that; ‘Whatever’ by Hot Chelle Rae.”

“Do you guys do everything together?” Rachel looks between the two of us with a smile.

Chuckling, I shrug, “Mostly. Even before we were married, we were best friends. It’s always been really easy for us to be together. Most the time it was never even planned, it just happened.”

“Easy as breathing,” Toph adds with his famous smirk, locking his eyes with mine.

“There’s been a lot of talk of this being a publicity stunt. What do you think of that?” she continues the questions.

Rolling my eyes playfully, I hold in the aggravation, “We’ve heard that. It’s a bunch of rubbish. No one knew we were getting married before we did it.”

“We didn’t even know until we were on the way to the venue,” my best friend explains.

I laugh easily, “Our ‘people’ were definitely not in on it. We got a bit of a lashing when it came out.” I let go of my husband to put finger quotes around people, signaling my mockery.

“How hard has it been to go from being best friends to being married?”

“It wasn’t. Not for me anyway,” I look over to Chris and raise an eyebrow.

His smirk turns back to a smile as our eyes connect, “Best transition ever. Now I get to wake up next to him and spend all day with him without having to have an excuse.”

“You guys ever do anything apart?” she giggles as I turn to her.

I join the laughter, “Actually, since we’ve been married, we’ve spent a couple hours apart, in total. But, coming up, I’m going to Los Angeles by myself for a few days.”

“Not looking forward to that,” my husband laces his fingers through mine again.

“I’ll have to hire a chef so he won’t starve,” I smile at him.

“Do you do most of the cooking?” Rachel dives back into her questions.

“All of the cooking,” I correct her. “I love it; it relaxes me. My mum taught me how to while I was growing up. It’s become second nature.”

“And he’s really good at it,” Chris adds with his smirk.

Rolling my eyes, I ignore him as the interview continues. Rachel asks about my movies coming up and projects I would like to do in the future. She hints more about our relationship as well as the whole gay thing. I tell her about more of my favorite things. Finally ending with the one thing I would like to accomplish before I die.

“You know,” I answer her last question. “It’s simple really. I want to be normal. I want to be a husband and a dad. I want a beautiful family with someone I can come home to every night that loves me no matter what. I want to live in a quaint house on a picturesque street. I want my children to go to a good school and grow up to be amazing people. I want to be happy.” Looking at my husband, I capture his lips with mine quickly before turning back to end the interview, “I know that I’m well on my way to that happy ending, but before that I have a lot of living to do. I want to travel with my best friend. I want to spend every night in his arms. I want to live for the moment and smile as much as possible. I want to love and be loved.”