Oliver smiled. “Come on.” He pulled me up, and I eagerly followed.

Gabe stayed where he was, only shifting to move his long, long legs so we could pass.

“He never leaves the couch when we go out,” Oliver said.

He swung me around as if we were ballroom dancing instead of in the middle of a gay nightclub where everyone was half-naked, sweaty, and about one Jell-O shot away from retreating to a corner to fuck.

“Oliver—”

“Ollie.”

“Ollie.” I’d just connected a few things that I hoped weren’t connected at all. “Does Bond know about this?”

I gestured to the room, to him. Remembering that I was here because of a job was stabilizing. Necessary.

He went still for just a moment. Enough to know that I was right. Then he began swaying along with the music.

“They wanted me to sign a morality clause,” he said.

“A morality clause?”

“It was all very vague and lawyer-y, but the gist was that if I did something that they could say was ‘morally objectionable,’ I would be fired immediately,” Ollie said. “It was pretty clear that they didn’t want me coming out.”

I wrinkled my nose, not sure what to say. It seemed ridiculous that anyone would care, but I knew they did. And the way that articles kept bringing up Gabe’s role in Angels in America, from when he was in college, made it abundantly clear that there were plenty of people who cared a lot.

“He didn’t know,” Ollie said.

I tilted my head.

“Gabe.” Ollie jerked his chin in his direction.

He was still on the couch, his long fingers drumming along his knee.

“He knew about me being gay. But he didn’t know that they reached out to me first. About Bond,” Ollie said. “When he found out, he threatened to quit.”

We spun around, the glittered mirror ball throwing light across our faces.

“I thought about it,” Ollie said. “I told myself that I wasn’t ready to come out yet so why not just stay in the closet for a while longer?”

He tilted his head back.

“But signing something called a ‘morality clause’? Allowing them to equate my sexuality with an issue of morality?” He looked back down at me. “No. I couldn’t do that.”

I nodded, but I was lost in thought.

Ollie stopped spinning, stopped both of us moving.

“Please,” he said.

I knew what he was asking. This time, I didn’t hesitate.

“I won’t,” I said.

He nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t completely sure if he could trust me.

“My story is about Gabe,” I said. “We went to see your movie and it was great. He’s a fan of your work—you support him. You’re friends. Good friends. There’s no competition between the two of you—in fact, you insisted that he’s the right person for the job.”