Take Me Out

By Imogen Markwell-Tweed

When well-known soap actor Wyatt Masen loses his gig after over a decade, it sends him reeling. On top of that, he’s had to relocate to an unfamiliar apartment to wait out a stalker situation — another first for him. All he wants is some comfort food… and while the pizza is sub-par, the attractive delivery driver more than makes up for it. And, refreshingly, he doesn’t seem to know who Wyatt is.

Axel Andrews, a law-school student juggling three jobs, is probably Wyatt’s polar opposite. But he’s strangely drawn to the handsome customer who quickly becomes a regular, and spending time together quickly becomes regular for them, too. When a platonic study session suddenly becomes a steamy sleepover, both men find themselves trying to work up the courage to tell each other how they really feel — but when Wyatt’s stalker reenters the picture, it just might be too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Shorts
• Release date: Jun 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094418254

Imogen Markwell-Tweed

Imogen Markwell-Tweed is a queer romance writer and editor based in St. Louis. When she's not writing or hanging out with her dog, IMT can be found putting her media degrees to use by binge-watching trashy television. All of her stories promise queer protagonists, healthy relationships, and happily ever afters. @unrealimogen on Twitter and Instagram.

Book preview

Chapter One

Wyatt Masen was no stranger to disappointment.

An actor, philanthropist, and the only son of an uncompromising power couple, Wyatt had learned early on in life to brace himself against disappointment and simply… move on.

He’d always been good at it, too. Good at objectivity and confidence.

But then he’d had ten years as the leading hero of Handle with Care, a medical soap so popular that it was chugging into its eleventh season with the highest ratings at the network, and Wyatt could admit now, having been unceremoniously fired a week ago, that the fame had made him soft.

And, Wyatt knew, it didn’t help that only days before he’d been written out of his medical drama, he’d been relocated due to an extremely persistent fan who had gotten through his gated security. His manager, Nina, had refused to let him just hire more security, and instead had made him move into an already furnished apartment halfway across the city. He’d had to leave his home of ten years just to prevent further occurrences of someone sneaking into his bedroom.

Nina hadn’t offered him any sympathy later about being fired from his show, either, because it was his fault for arguing with the writers.

Wyatt knew that arguing with the writers was a risk, but he’d done it before with no real consequences and, really, did they think that a person could survive three brain transplants? He still stood firm that he was right to have complained.

Well. Now he had no job, no home, and no pizza.

The pizza was what was currently reducing Wyatt to tears.

His favorite pizza place, Archie’s Anchovies, was closed. It was not just closed but permanently closed, and the little animated pizza man on his computer screen was dancing as he held a sign that said CLOSED FOREVER and Wyatt was trying hard not to cry.

The half-empty vodka bottle sat on the coffee table, taunting him. The bottle and he both knew it was the alcohol’s fault that he was so emotional right now. Not over the lack of a job, or a home, or any friends that were in town and free— they had work, unlike Wyatt— and, really, his whole life had been Handle with Care for so long that he’d stopped even trying to make relationships off-set.

He just wanted pizza. Why shouldn’t he get pizza and be drunk? No job to return to in the morning, no wife or husband to make breakfast for, no reason to do anything but eat carbs and drink—

Wyatt scrubbed his hands down his face. With his vision blocked by the heels of his palms, he swayed a little. This was getting a little maudlin even for a wallow night.

Forcefully, Wyatt blinked himself to awareness. He squinted at the laptop screen as he typed pizza near me.

It actually was pzidfsa naer me but Google understood drunkenness.

The Rising Sun was the first result on the list.

Wyatt was too depressed by the fact that Archie’s Anchovies wasn’t even on the list— never mind that since his move the delivery radius would be entirely different— to bother searching further than the first option.

He made the order online, grateful he didn’t have to talk to anyone. When the little webpage confirmed his order, he slammed the laptop closed.

There. He had ordered a pizza. He was strong and capable and—

Absolutely not complimenting himself on the completely ordinary act of ordering takeout.

He leaned back on the uncomfortable, bachelor-gray couch, and tried to work the unfamiliar remote. He missed his house. He missed being busy. He missed there being someone else who had to order his pizzas and take care of him while he was resting on-set.

Wyatt finally managed to conquer the remote. He had to squint hard at the TV and focus but eventually he got Handle with Care to appear on the streaming service menu.

According to his half-sister Morgan or any of his exes, Wyatt was as self-centered and vain as a person could get. But really, Wyatt was appropriately humiliated by seeing himself on-screen, and rarely watched the show unless it was some sort of screening. But Wyatt was feeling a bit weepy and a bit like pitying himself and he clicked the pilot on before he could talk himself out of it.

Eleven years had passed since Wyatt had filmed this episode.

God, he looked young. The lines of his face were all gone, not from Photoshop but because they hadn’t come in yet, and he looked bright and youthful and happy, even when he was trying his hardest to act. And, God, he felt like wincing at the almost over-eager performance. Even drunk, he recognized how unskilled he had been.

Not completely unskilled, but not as skilled as he was now. Wyatt knew that he was good, but a decade of work had honed him.

That version of Wyatt got work; this version got complacent and lost everything in the span of one bad week.

He turned the television off. He couldn’t stand to see it, that asshole he’d used to be, having no idea what was waiting for him in his career.

Wyatt stood up too fast and he felt a little nauseous with it, a bit dizzy, and he wondered if it had really been a good idea to drink in the first place.

Well, he thought. Too late for that. The pizza might sop up the worst of the drunkenness, at least.

He would need to figure out some sort of plan. He needed to get another acting gig before the tabloids started running with the story of him being fired, but the stalker complicated matters further. Nina was reluctant to let him work again when they still didn’t know who the intruder was or how they’d gotten past security. His father agreed, and even Morgan had sent him a firm email suggesting he lie low for a while.

Not for the first time, Wyatt wished he were a little closer to his sister, if only because without work, he was realizing just how small his circle was. He knew that if Morgan were here, she’d be sneering at his drinking and saying truthful words that stung unnecessarily, and he would be equally as likely to kick her out as she would be to storm out.

But here, in the privacy of his own mind, a little drunk and a little lonely, Wyatt could admit that he wished it wasn’t that way.

He could blame their father and the competitiveness he’d fostered between them for their lack of a friendly sibling relationship, but he knew that Morgan already blamed him for so much that adding another thing seemed both pointless and cruel.

Still, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through his private Instagram. Morgan had posted a photo of herself on a rooftop bar, smiling brilliantly, her dark hair slung over one shoulder. Millie, his co-star— ex co-star— had posted a picture of herself behind the scenes on the set of Handle with Care. Trey, his closest friend, though they were both loath to admit it, was still out of the country on tour with his band. Even Leon, Wyatt’s bodyguard since his teen years, was out on the town tonight.

It seemed like Wyatt was the only one alone.

He felt it, too.

When the self-pity swelled up and threatened to bring him down with it, Wyatt forced himself to push the thoughts out of his mind. He made it to his kitchen, only stumbling a little bit.

Wyatt downed a cup of water, then, realizing how thirsty he was, downed a second one. He was standing in this new, awful kitchen, one hand flat on the island to keep him from tipping over, as he gasped a horrible, dehydrated choking gasp. He was busy trying not to let his watering eyes turn into tears when the door buzzed.

Wyatt stumbled to the buzzer. He clicked it and the pizza man asked to come up. It took him a second of squinting to find the right button but eventually he got the door unlocked.

Knowing that the food was on its way, Wyatt opened his apartment door. He was the only one on this floor— no neighbors except downstairs, another precaution Nina had insisted on.

Now, though, staring down the abyss of the hallway, waiting for a lone pizza man to be the only human contact he had tonight, and it wasn’t even the right pizza, Wyatt was starting to get upset again.

Somewhere, deep beneath the alcohol, Wyatt was mortified at his emotions tonight. In a voice that sounded suspiciously like his father’s, he told himself to get a grip.

The elevator doors opened. The pizza man stepped out and then stopped abruptly when he saw Wyatt staring at him.

Well. Okay. That was probably weird. Hi! Wyatt said, trying to make the moment less weird.

The pizza man’s face scrunched as he frowned. Uh, hey.

The pizza man was cute. He was blurry, yes, because he was too far away and no amount of squinting could get his alcohol-addled eyeballs to focus right. But Wyatt could tell he was cute. He had really dark hair, curled around his ears, and bright, bright eyes. He was tall, too, in a lithe sort of way, like he might trip over his own limbs on the way toward Wyatt. Wyatt thought he was very handsome and considered telling him that.

But then he smelled the pizza. It didn’t smell right. He felt a wave of disappointment again. You’re from the Rising Sun, Wyatt remembered, and felt his face fall.

The pizza man didn’t notice. He nodded, smiling brightly, and loped over to Wyatt, balancing a square box on top of a larger, flat one. I’ve got your pizza and wings here, man; it’s going to be—

"I wish your pizza was the good pizza," Wyatt blurted.

The man’s eyes narrowed. "Uh, it’s great pizza."

Wyatt shook his head. He felt his eyes sting. "Your pizza is terrible, I bet. I miss good pizza. My pizza. I wanted to get my pizza from Archie; you know Archie, don’t you?"

The pizza man was watching him