by Kilby Blades
“Octopussy,” Adam said with a completely straight face.
Midsip on his beer, Levi nearly snorted it out. Half the fun of the game was seeing what yarn they could spin to have harmless fun stringing people along. Since Adam liked to improvise, Levi never knew what might come out of his mouth. Adam had the charisma to pull off the wildest and wackiest lies.
“Oh, yeah, I know that one,” one of their table mates claimed. “Hot app. Didn’t it make the Mashable list?”
“Better than that,” Adam claimed boldly. “It was top ten last year in Valley Beat Magazine.” He leaned in conspiratorially.
Levi hid his smirk behind his pint glass as he watched the others follow suit. They were hanging on Adam’s every word. Adam had the commitment of a method actor when it came to the game. His postshopping research had found him a quintessential tech dude hangout. Adam had been sold on this place after reading a colorful review calling the place a “total sausage fest.”
“And it’s not public yet,” Adam continued, “but it’s gonna be named the hottest app of the century next month by AppJojo.”
“Get up—that’s hot,” praised an impressed-looking bro.
“Tim congratulated us on Twitter just this morning,” Adam said smugly after taking a healthy pull of his beer.
“Tim Cook?” another bro piped up.
“The one and only.” Adam was completely convincing. “What do you think of our logo? We just had it redesigned.” Adam lowered the zipper on his hoodie and directed his question to the table.
“Looks great, man,” one guy chimed in.
Adam looked right at the guy, threw him half a smile and nodded slowly. “Right?” he agreed. “So much better.”
“How much did it cost you to get the naming rights?” asked the one Levi had already identified in his mind as the skeptic. Ninety-five percent of everyone they’d ever conned bought their stories, but there was always one guy who knew something wasn’t right. “Must’ve cost you a pretty penny, to get the Bond franchise to give you the naming rights. I’m impressed your investors went for it.”
The skeptic looked at Adam, clearly testing the story. But Adam wasn’t an amateur. He’d make it come together, whether he’d worked it all out or not.
“Branding,” Adam said simply. “Half the battle is making sure when it gets mentioned, people remember the name.”
But Adam hadn’t answered the question yet, and the skeptic wasn’t going to let it go. “Indulge me,” the skeptic said. “I’m curious as to how much rights like that might cost.”
The table waited in anticipatory silence. Every other space in the beer garden was roaring with animated postwork conversation, yet this one hinged on these two.
“It wasn’t for me to decide,” Adam said with a shrug, looking utterly nonplussed for someone who seemed on the brink of being caught in a lie. Then he did it—he saved it. Jutting his chin, he directed the table to look at Levi. “Maybe you ought to ask Ian. He was the one who set the price.”
Ten pairs of eyes swung to the silent-up-until-that-point Levi. Instituting the oldest stalling tactic in the book, Levi took a long drink of his beer, thinking. The way Adam had said Ian made him think it wasn’t an arbitrary name.
Octopussy. The Bond franchise. Ian.
Yes.
Ian Fleming had authored the Bond series. Adam was setting Levi up to be his heir. Levi was meant to be Ian Fleming Jr.—or, probably, Ian Fleming III.
Levi shrugged. “An Englishman doesn’t kiss and tell,” he chimed in, in his best BBC English. Then he took a leaf out of Adam’s book—Adam, who had taught him the art of the pregnant pause. “Besides… what’s twenty million pounds up front plus 10 percent royalties on all downloads, between friends?”
With all astonished eyes on Levi, Adam had the chance to throw his friend a smug wink.
“So, what exactly does this app do?” came the question from another brave soul. Those willing to actually admit they were out-of-the-know were few.
Yes, Adam, Levi thought. What, exactly, does the Octopussy app do?
Adam half scoffed, half laughed as he cast his golden gaze upon Levi instead of the questioner. This was part of the code they used to volley their story back and forth. Out loud, he said, “Exactly what it sounds like it does.”
In their silent language, Levi heard Adam’s message loud and clear.
Tag, Adam had said. You’re it.
Adam sat back a little, like he would have in a high-backed office chair, except they were at a picnic table, which made it all the more impressive that he achieved a lounging air.
“It’s the most efficient dating app on earth,” Levi announced boldly, trying to channel James Corden. Adam’s eyes were fixed on his beer as he spun the heavy glass in his hand. Levi saw him half smile and nod with subtle approval out of the corner of his eye. “It imports the feeds of the eight most popular dating apps, saving time and creating a stronger sense of mental organization.” Levi took his gaze around the table, making eye contact with his audience as he continued to spin his tale.
“Did you know that 73 percent of app-based daters log into more than four apps on a daily basis? That’s a lot of monitoring. And some of the dating interfaces have created unintended consequences….” Levi trailed off.
“Like what?” asked a guy who looked like he might not have had a date in ten years.
“Say you’re sitting in a meeting, or at your desk and your thumb is moving like this….” Levi pulled out his phone and started an exaggerated pantomime of dating app swiping, frowning dramatically as he swiped left, then smiling cheekily every time he swiped right.
When he stopped to look up, Adam was laughing into his glass as he drank.
“Who wants everyone to know when they’re cruising?” Levi queried the table. “Do you?” He raised his chin to ask one of the guys.
A mustachioed Asian guy shook his head. “Hell no.”
“What happens if you see someone who looks familiar on one app, then you have to check to see whether you’ve talked to them on another?”
“I fucking hate that,” someone else said.
“Right.” Now it was Levi’s turn to lean in. “Octopussy automates all of that—cross-references metadata to let you know who you’ve already dated, rejected, or been rejected by. It even lets you organize and place notes on the people you’ve already seen….”
“Dude,” Adam interrupted. “You always give people too much of the technical shit. It undersells it. Just tell it like it is.”
Adam didn’t wait for Levi’s retort before recapturing the audience.
“Yeah, it helps you organize your ‘dates,’” Adam said with an eye roll and air quotes that were completely unnecessary. “But the value proposition stands alone: One UX. Eight different apps. Eight times the chances that, tonight, you’re getting laid.”
This was it—the moment when their audience would believe it completely or someone would call bullshit. Over the years it had gone both ways. Once, when they were twenty-five, they’d escaped a Nevada biker bar by the skin of their teeth. But that was another story.
“That’s filthy,” the skeptic finally breathed in disturbed admiration.
Adam slid his gaze to the skeptic and did an Alec Baldwin. “The only filthy around here is how rich we’re gonna get.”
The next time he looked at Levi, he planted his elbow on the table, raised his glass to his lips, and swallowed the remaining beer. His gaze was still fixed on Levi as he set the glass down on the table. He raised his eyebrow for a split second.
Mic drop.
Chapter Six: The Duke
“THE facial recognition was a nice touch,” Adam complimented, sliding into the booth next to Levi after they’d wandered off the rooftop deck and gone inside. If they were going to party all night, they had to stop and eat dinner. The inner dining room was still rustic. Adam and Levi sat on the two built-in benches at a pentagon-shaped table that formed the shape’s peak.
A
dam slung his arm around the back of the bench, as he often did. It had always felt hopefully intimate to Levi: the hint of Adam’s arm around him and the sense that—even sitting separately—he and Adam were close. He knew it was wrong to indulge in it, let alone to think too much of it. Adam just liked to spread out. It was an extension of his personality—everything about Adam was big.
“Octopussy?” Levi raised his eyebrows and angled his body to face his friend.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Adam mused, “crass title aside. Think about it. We could get the rights from the real Ian Fleming’s estate. There could be a whole family of dating apps: From Russia with Love. Goldfinger. Dr. No.”
Levi just shook his head. “You are twisted, brother.”
“Good thing you love me in spite of myself….”
When Adam said it, he moved the hand that was already slung behind Levi to the nape of his neck, squeezing it a little and not moving. It was another of those things about Adam that fell into Levi’s love/hate zone. Levi loved Adam’s hands on his skin—loved affection itself and loved having friends who showed it. But he hated himself for craving Adam’s touch.
“And, just so you know….” Adam trailed off, fixing Levi with a humorous eye. “Your encyclopedic knowledge of the pain points of online dating apps is concerning. No gay guy in San Francisco who looks like you should need an app to get laid.”
Adam had always been charitable in that way. When you were always the richest, the best-looking—the most powerful—person in the room, you could either make people feel inferior or you could say kind things to lift them up.
Levi shook his head and looked away, glad that his skin had the good sense to know how to hide a blush.
“Where’d you learn all that tech talk anyway?” Adam asked distractedly, nodding his thanks as the waiter brought fresh drinks.
“They give you a test when you move here,” Levi said, taking his first sip.
Adam looked around the restaurant. “This place is a little weird.”
“You picked it,” Levi pointed out.
“Not this place, this place,” Adam clarified. “San Francisco.”
“Please don’t be that guy,” Levi started to complain. “We both know you’re better than that.”
“What guy?” Adam frowned.
“The die-hard New Yorker who thinks there’s no life west of the Hudson.”
Adam scoffed. “I’m so not that guy. I own a global hotel empire,” he pointed out, sarcasm lacing his voice. “I’m a citizen of the world. I just like some cities better than others.”
“Fair enough,” Levi conceded, taking a long sip of his own drink. “But give San Francisco a chance. There’s a reason why it’s one of the most expensive cities.”
Adam looked around again, frowning a bit at the clientele. “I dunno. Everyone looks so… chill. It’s like they’ve been hitting the dispensaries too hard.”
Levi smiled. “Being chill isn’t a bad thing. Baxter loves her CBD oil dog treats.”
Adam shook his head in a pitying way and squeezed Levi’s neck again. “We gotta get you out of here before you get too soft.”
It wasn’t the first time Adam had alluded to Levi’s return to New York. But they were having too good a time for Levi to cast a pall on their afternoon with unwelcome news.
Adam’s phone chose that moment to chime with an incoming text. With Adam distracted, Levi took the opportunity to unpocket his own. He’d ignored the afternoon’s buzzing—texting was a privilege that Javi in particular liked to abuse.
Monday @ 10AM?
The first text was from Perry. Just reading it flooded Levi with relief. Perry Anthony was an internationally known stylist who was very much in demand. In support of Adam’s press tour, Levi had called him in for an assist. Levi wouldn’t have been surprised if Perry had responded to his voicemail by texting back a row of those emojis who were laughing so hard they cried. If his own mother had asked for an appointment, Perry might not have been able to squeeze her in. But friendship and favors went a long way in this business.
I owe you, big time, Levi texted back. I’ll email you instructions for where to send the bill. Charge him double.
Uh-oh… the asshole fee? Perry shot right back.
They’d once laughingly admitted to one another that they upcharged high-maintenance clients.
Definitely not. But you’ll be working overtime to pull this off, Levi tapped out, then sent the text off.
His next text was from Hazel. No, the next three texts were from her, and they seemed a bit frantic. Good, Levi thought. It served her right for rearranging his schedule. She would serve her penance by working harder than he’d ever worked her in the six months since she’d become his assistant.
As the third and final member of Team Kerr, Hazel would work closely with Adam’s PR agency on all the shoots that needed sets. Before Benedict that morning, as Adam had slept off his jet lag, Levi had rounded up Hazel and Adam’s PR rep to agree on how all of the logistics would be run.
Media campaigns were complex beasts, and it was all a matter of timing. Adam and Elle would do a fair bit of live television in New York. The focus of the San Francisco interviews was business, culture, and lifestyle magazines.
Out Magazine would want Adam’s take on the paradox of having one foot in the closet. Lilith would want to talk feminism in the workplace. The Forbes and Entrepreneurs and Time Magazine types would want to cast Adam as a prodigious young mogul and make business sense out of it all. And the photo spread would be so sexy, who cared what Vanity Fair wanted?
The agency was working separately on interviews for his sister—a litany of women’s magazines were on deck to see her in New York. The following week, she would fly in for a day of joint magazine interviews with Adam. Levi’s goal was to avoid emulating the many bland portraits too often chosen for CEOs. He was known for flawless execution of high-concept shots.
The New York Times Magazine wanted to deal with you directly. Can you call them? came Hazel’s first text.
Levi had already developed concepts for a few of the publications and voiced them earlier that day. It helped that he knew Adam so well. It had taken Levi nearly no effort to go through a mental list of possibilities and lob ideas for quintessential Adam Kerr shots.
Salon wants us to superimpose a rainbow over Adam on a yacht with San Francisco in the background. Do you approve?
Hazel’s next text had been sent only five minutes after the first and it had a photo of a yacht attached. Levi liked the idea of a rainbow, but he wouldn’t superimpose one. He also didn’t like the idea of a yacht. On to the third:
Vanity Fair loved the concept, but they want Adam barefoot on sod beds of Kentucky Bluegrass. Do you approve and where do I order that from?
Adam tapped out his answer to all three texts within a single response:
Yes. No. Yes. And Google it.
His final text was from Darius, his most even-keeled friend and the third member of his everyday crew.
Dude. You gotta come out tonight. Javi’s dragging me out on a spy mission. You know how that goes.
Levi did know how that went. To hear Javi describe them, his clandestine escapades were about seeing for himself whether his clients and their dates had any real chemistry. Only he didn’t stop at spying—he pulled all kinds of wicked tricks to test their mettle.
Most of them were innocuous. For dinner dates, he’d pay off waiters to knock over wineglasses or bring out the wrong order to see how his client—or his client’s date—reacted. He’d orchestrated car trouble, cancelled reservations, and even hired actors to create all sorts of predicaments for his clients.
Sorry, man. My friend’s in town. I’ll be tied up all weekend.
But as he tapped it out, Levi realized it was no longer true.
Actually, I’ll be tied up for more than just the weekend. I got a last-minute job.
Will you still be around to help move my piece? Darius returned.
Dam
n. Levi had forgotten. It was yet another commitment that had dropped off his schedule. Darius was a brilliant sculptor whose talent had barely been discovered. It was a big deal that a Silicon Valley bigwig had bought his work and earned Darius his first five-figure sale. Levi had agreed to help Darius move and install the piece, and to take photos of the sculpture in its space. Few of his artist friends had reached the career status that Levi had. The least he could do was to help his friend save on movers and take some shots of his work.
Yes. Of course, Levi texted back, ready once again to throttle Hazel. This was going to be more complicated than he thought. It wasn’t just work stuff that had to be shuffled around—Levi had a life.
No, Levi thought. I’ve got two lives that were never supposed to meet. Moving to San Francisco had been about starting over.
When Levi had received the artist-in-residence offer, he’d felt one emotion: relief. He didn’t want to become a Peter Pan. There were two kinds of New Yorkers: Peter Pans roved the city with their bands of Lost Boys, fated to never grow up. Nick Carraways got whatever they were supposed to get out of living in the city, grew disillusioned, and moved away.
Adam wasn’t quite a Peter Pan, though he did a good impression. It had taken Levi a while to figure out that he himself was a Nick. The nonstop, high-octane partying had gotten old and Levi’s wants had become simpler: to breathe fresh air, to keep company with authentic, down-to-earth friends, and to have somebody to love.
The part of him that loved Adam loved some of the shameless fun. He would never do with Javi and Darius what he’d done with Adam that afternoon. But he loved the things he did with his San Francisco friends too—things that would bore Adam to tears. And maybe it was imagined, but for as long as Adam was still in town, Levi felt as if he had to choose.
There were other things: Adam was a billionaire with a capital B—he could be excessive and showy. But half of Levi’s friends were starving artists. Then there was the corporate thing: Adam wouldn’t win any popularity contests admitting to San Francisco people that he was a huge corporation CEO.