Texas Pride

Chapter 1

“Austin! Austin! Over here!” The deafening roars of his name sounded from every direction as he made his way up the theoretical red carpet of the Kodak Theater in sunny California. With a slight lift of his hand, he waved while inclining his head in the general direction of the screams without cracking a smile. Actually, Austin worked hard to keep his sneered frown from showing the disgust resonating deep inside his soul. Nothing more than years of training had him extending a hand down to his date’s lower back to gently guide her to the first interview stop along the way to the front doors. The sooner they made it through the line of national media, the closer he got to the end of this evening.

The event’s itinerary was set in stone. It was the same dog and pony show at every one of these award ceremonies. Austin had done this for years, too many years, and it never ever changed. There were several media stops all along the route to the front doors of the theater. Each one required them to step in a certain spot and pose prettily in what felt like an incredibly awkward position that somehow magically looked like a normal stance in the printed picture. Then, the cameras blinded the eyes with thousands and thousands of flashes before they gave a meaningless, uninformative, random interview. Once all of the ridiculous questions had been asked and answered, they did it over again until they made it inside the darkened front doors of the theater and out of the public’s ever focused eye.

Tonight, Austin’s date, who also played the critical role of his assistant and future wife, ate up the cameras. The pair of them were considered the “it” couple of the evening. A role they’d easily held for more years than he could count. No matter how angry or antisocial he became, they were the couple everyone wanted to interview and all the paparazzi stalked to photograph. She played her part with the grace and ease of a trained actress, readily overcompensating for his increasingly disagreeable disposition which technically was exactly what he paid her to do. He let that thought slide by as they stepped up to their first interview.

“Austin, Cara, good to see you again! Cara, you look lovely. Who are you wearing tonight?” Ryan Palmer of Entertainment Television started right in on them. They were only allotted two minutes at each interview, and Ryan made the most of it by immediately hurling questions their way as the cameras panned into their faces.

“I’m wearing Vera Wang tonight. She designed this especially for me. What do you think, do I look alright?” Cara linked her arm with Austin’s, turning her charming smile in Ryan’s direction.

“You look stunning, but that’s nothing new,” Ryan said with a good natured Texas size grin that he instantly toned down when he faced Austin. He wasted no time in shoving the microphone into Austin’s face.

“This could be back to back Oscars for you tonight, Austin, which would put you in a category very few actors have ever achieved. How does that feel?” Ryan angled the microphone to catch Austin’s response.

Austin watched Ryan with a distant mild interest, not paying any attention to the question. But, he almost cracked his first smile of the evening. Ryan stood five feet nothing tall, and compared to Austin’s six foot two inch frame, he had to really lift the microphone to reach Austin’s face. Out of nothing more than morbid curiosity, Austin cast his gaze down to see Ryan already stood on a step stool and was reaching up on his tip toes trying to make them appear closer in height.

“I’m happy with the decision,” Austin finally replied after an extended pause. He gave in to the chuckle he’d been holding back, and hoped his response came close to answering the question he hadn’t even tried to hear.

“You still plan the extended sabbatical after tonight’s ceremony?” Ryan asked.

Austin focused on the way Ryan jerked his hand back and forth between their lips, trying to get in all the questions he could during the short interview. For some reason, the movement tickled his funny bone and provided a bit of comic relief to his way past sick of all this, hardened heart.

“Yes, I am,” he said, again not giving anything back in his response while resisting the urge to lift his hand and mimic Ryan in the universal hand gesture of jacking off. It was in that moment, with all the fans surrounding him, all the movie stars taking shape on the red carpet and all the cameras capturing everything, when Austin realized that without question he’d made the right decision to leave behind the extreme celebrity world of Hollywood.

The event aired on national prime time television and he couldn’t help but think about jacking off! Damn if this wasn’t some major boring bullshit. If they would just come up with something new to ask, something relevant to anything happening in the world, but they didn’t. He’d answered all these same questions hundreds of times in the press circuits. Hell, a trained monkey could answer their questions. It was either lift his hand and pretend to jerk off, or make a gun out of his forefinger and thumb to shoot himself in the head. Both would be appropriate responses to this prick’s questions.

“I’ve heard some speculations on your impending departure, saying it’s the wrong time, that it’ll destroy your career. You’re the favorite tonight and if you win, it’ll be a clean sweep across the board. You’ll have won every major best actor award given this year. Do you think it’ll all still be here waiting for you when you come back?” Ryan quickly shoved the microphone back in his face. The question pissed Austin off. He didn’t even do the moody contemplation he’d done for years. Instead, he raised an irritated eyebrow ready to tell Ryan exactly what he could do with the microphone.