Read an extract from The Hot Guy
Film critics Mel Campbell and Anthony Morris have teamed up to create The Hot Guy, a satirical rom-com that both sends up and pays tribute to movies, romantic conventions, and inner-city Melbourne – complete with hipster jokes, fake film trailers and good-natured snark. You can read a short extract from the novel below.
We’re pleased to be hosting a free event with Mel and Anthony discussing the novel with the Good Copy’s Penny Modra on Wednesday 25 May. Find the details here.
‘This was your childhood bedroom?’
‘Yep,’ Adam said.
‘Nothing’s really changed since I moved out for uni.’
‘It’s a pretty big bed,’ Cate said in amazement. ‘Did you stick two queen-size mattresses together?’
Adam nodded. ‘Plus we put a single across the end for more leg room.’
Cate looked at the quilt, which was clearly constructed from three regular quilts stitched together. ‘Why did you need such a gigantic bed? There’s no room in here for much else.’
Adam shrugged. ‘Sometimes friends stayed over.’
‘Is that why you have the fully equipped wet bar in the corner?’ She looked up. ‘And the mirror on the ceiling?’
‘Yeah, the girls wanted all that,’ Adam said. ‘They said they liked watching me sleep.’
‘I’m surprised there was any sleeping going on.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Adam said. ‘They were just friends.’
‘Yeah,’ Cate said, ‘sexy sex friends.’
Adam put the film festival trophy on a shelf already groaning with awards. ‘You’ve got a dirty mind.’
‘I thought that’s what you liked about me.’
‘I do,’ he said. ‘I just mean that…’
Cate was examining the awards. ‘You won a state prize for woodchopping?’
Adam laughed. ‘I didn’t even enter,’ he said. ‘They said they’d engraved my name on the trophy by mistake, so I might as well have it.’
‘Does that happen a lot?’ Cate considered the suspicious swiftness with which tonight’s trophy had been engraved with Adam’s name.
‘It used to,’ he said, ‘but they realised after a while that I didn’t care about winning. That’s what I like about filmmaking. It’s about the craft.’
‘What about the Oscars?’ Cate said.
Adam scoffed, ‘The Oscars are just a promotional tool. The only films that win are commercial tearjerkers and blanded-out biopics.’
Cate said nothing. The last three Oscar-nominated films she’d watched had been My Dead Baby, Oh No, Yoko: What Ringo Saw and The Caligula Diaries. Adam was fussing with the trophy, clearing others away to give it more space on the shelf.
‘This is the first thing I’ve won that’s actually meant something to me,” he said, pride coming through in his voice. ‘I know it’s just a provincial festival, but now I can legitimately say I’m an award-winning director. It’ll make a real difference when I apply to the bigger film festivals. And people pay attention to those. I might get a decent producer, and funding to make the feature length version of Metadata…’
Cate couldn’t follow Adam’s film industry talk, but his passion was undeniable. Over the years, she’d heard plenty of guys talking big, but as Adam talked up his future, for once it seemed like something more than empty boasting. She’d viewed his filmmaking as just a hobby: a youthful phase he’d grow out of eventually. But it startled her now to realise how much she wanted Adam’s dreams to come true. Not for her sake – she didn’t care what he did for a living – but because she could see how happy it would make him.
She blurted, ‘You do know I love you, right?’
His eyes widened and he smiled tenderly. It was like making God smile, she thought.
‘Oh, Cate,’ he said, reaching out for her. ‘I love y–’
There was a loud scraping noise from outside. Cate let out a squeal.
Adam sighed. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s just Dad.’ He pulled aside the curtain to reveal the top of a ladder being propped against the window frame. Cate hoisted the window open and peered outside.
‘Oh, good,’ came a voice from below. ‘No problems opening the window, then?’
Standing on the lawn under Adam’s window was a handsome silver-haired man in his fifties, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt and holding the base of the ladder.
‘Hey there,’ Cate said uncertainly. ‘Um, thanks. I’m Cate, by the way.’
‘No worries,’ the handyman said. ‘I’m Harris, Adam’s dad.’
He gave the ladder a shake as if to check its sturdiness. ‘I’ll just leave this here. It’s solid wood! And these solar lights are on motion sensors,’ he added, gesturing down the drive. ‘You can easily find your way to the front gate.’ He put a pair of plugs into his ears. ‘Okay, nighty-night.’
Cate turned to Adam. ‘What the hell?’
Adam shrugged, looking embarrassed. ‘Parents.’
Cate looked out the window again. ‘Is that a taxi rank at the end of your drive?’
Adam nodded. ‘The council put it there a few years ago. Not sure why – there isn’t much through traffic here. It’s pretty convenient, though.’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, it is,’ he said.
‘I don’t care,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Come here.’
Adam smiled and pulled the curtain closed.
