by Kilby Blades
“I already sent you the photos,” Levi pointed out, thinking of the cloud-based gallery of this very exhibit he’d shared with Adam months before.
“It’s not the same thing as seeing it in person,” Adam retorted wisely as they entered through enormous glass doors. “Besides… when are you gonna let me be proud of you?”
Levi dropped his protests as they walked inside. His was a featured exhibit housed in premium space, one he’d been in so often that it felt like walking into his own living room. Masquerading as a bystander had proven interesting. Most visitors didn’t recognize Levi as the artist, which made him privy to commentary, good and bad. Mostly it affirmed what he’d already decided: shooting celebrities wasn’t his calling, but this was.
It wasn’t that Levi didn’t love the money. He earned more than he’d ever dreamed. Doing it the way he had these past years had bought him his freedom and shown him the world. But the more that he put himself out for hire, the less he shot what he really wanted. What Levi loved the most—what evoked passion and made him want to get out of bed in the morning—was everyday people and their stories.
This exhibit achieved that. He’d gone into the shadows of San Francisco and photographed the homeless. A departure from the portraits he did for album covers and magazines, it looked unflinchingly at raw, unseen lives. The twenty-five-photo series took over the space. Even on a Wednesday afternoon, the room was full of visitors milling around.
“They’re exquisite,” Adam breathed, stepping closer to the first photo in the sequence, lingering much longer than the other visitors did. He took the first three in, in silent observation—a woman with her children, a teenage girl standing in the door of her tent, a man sitting under a bridge.
“Your talent is…,” Adam began again, shaking his head, pinning Levi with a heart-stopping gaze. “I’m so proud of you.”
Levi smiled lightly but kept walking, ever shy and skeptical of Adam’s flattery. Minutes later and halfway through, Adam broke the silence of his observation, speaking in a tone that made Levi look to study his face.
“I’m sorry I missed your opening.” Adam’s gaze remained fixed on the photo before them on the wall. His voice was lower than it had been a minute before. Something complex stormed in his eyes. From the sound of it, it wasn’t a simple regret.
“It’s a twenty-hour flight. It would’ve been crazy for you to come.” Levi frowned, wondering what had Adam so messed-up.
“Still, it wasn’t right.” Adam blinked over at Levi, the full intensity of his gaze revealing itself. “It’s the first opening of yours I’ve ever missed.” Adam looked back at the photo, arms still crossed over his chest. “I know how you hate those things.”
Adam wasn’t wrong. Before Levi got his break as a freelancer, he’d been a photographer of the standard struggling artist variety: hustling to get his work exhibited in the competitive New York scene and shitting bricks every time it did. Adam remembered the early days, when Levi could barely sleep for a week leading up to each exhibit and would spend the first half of each opening vomiting in the bathroom. For ten-plus years, Adam had been his trusted source of moral support and Ativan.
“Hey….” Levi nudged Adam, pinning his friend with a conciliatory gaze. “I’ve gotten better, you know,” he said with a little smile. “Believe it or not, I’m starting to get the hang of this thing. Gotta take off the training wheels sometime, right?”
Adam frowned a little, looking distressed for reasons Levi couldn’t understand. “Yeah,” Adam muttered. “Right.”
Chapter Eleven: The Convertible
TWO days, five thousand photos taken in and around the hotel, and two run-ins with his friends later, Levi announced a change of plans. The shooting schedule kept shifting. Most press interviews were now slated to take place the following week, with several stragglers and reshoots slated to happen during week three. Pressing Pause on the San Francisco shoots would give Hazel breathing room for the logistics. It would give Perry more days to get in shipments. It would give Adam more days to get used to the camera, and it would give Levi an excuse to get them out of dodge.
Levi didn’t know what he’d been thinking, concluding that it would be easy to keep his two worlds separate. In retrospect, he felt naïve. It seemed he couldn’t bring Adam near a single person in his life without one of the two dreaded scenarios Levi had envisioned coming true. Perry fell squarely into the “I like this cat” pool. So did the two Davids, who had run into Levi and Adam the evening before, when they’d gone by the house to pick up Bax. Once the Davids had their hooks in you, it was impossible to be let go without physically entering their house and accepting something to eat or drink.
By then Adam had lovingly dubbed the two Davids “the doppelbängers” for how much they looked alike. Both dark-haired and beefy, they sported twin cropped beards that had clearly been groomed by the same barber. They didn’t quite dress identically, but even Levi had to admit they fell just a hair short. They stood at the same five foot nine and followed the same basic motif: colorful sweaters, fitted chinos, and hats in the same style.
The Davids had bonded with Adam on their back patio over a pitcher of Pimm’s Lemonade and listened—wide-eyed—to Adam’s stories and delighted at his wit. Thanks to Maisy’s allergy to Bax, they’d avoided sitting in the living room, where the Davids surely would have gushed over the portrait Levi had taken of them.
Interestingly, for Maisy, the jury still seemed to be out. She’d sat silently with Baxter at her side. Sitting on her miniature patio chair, she’d sipped her juice box and studied Adam through Wonder Woman sunglasses and—if Levi wasn’t mistaken—had thrown a little shade.
Given how much the Davids liked to talk, in no time the entire street would know about Adam. And once they did, Levi’s sense of normalcy and anonymity would be shot. It would be just as it had been since forever: the sun that shone on every one of Levi’s own budding friendships obscured by Adam.
“Change of plans,” Levi announced, coming down the stairs of the hotel suite Friday morning in a robe of his own. Adam had thought to have a dog bed and supplies delivered to the family apartments, so Levi and Bax had spent the night at the Kerr. It was a nice gesture for how guilty Levi had been feeling about being away from his dog.
Unsurprisingly, a cup of coffee was surgically attached to Adam’s palm. He swallowed the liquid as if it were lifeblood. On the empty plate in front of him were the signs of an eaten red currant scone.
“Cy texted about dinner,” Adam murmured absently, his eyes fixed on his iPad as he gave whatever story was on the screen a closer read.
“Shit. I keep forgetting—we’ll hit him up when we get back,” Levi said.
Adam turned away from his iPad long enough to grab a china cup off the tray, push it in front of Levi, and begin to fix him his coffee with honey and cream. When he was finished, he removed the stirring spoon and brought it to his mouth to lick it clean.
“Get back from where?” Adam’s eyes lit with anticipation, intrigued by the possibility of adventure.
“Sonoma,” Levi announced. “The interviews got pushed back, so we’re gonna flip the days.” They’d been slated to head up anyway the following week.
“Sweet!” Adam said. “I haven’t been in ages. I’ll call now.”
A number was dialed and Adam’s phone was in hand when he pushed Levi’s own phone toward him.
“By the way, some guy named Paul is blowing up your phone.”
Double shit.
Paul had an in with the owner of the building he wanted for his gallery, and Levi had pitched him on serving as a silent partner on the venture. Levi had the chops and the network to make the community gallery concept a success, but Paul was his gatekeeper to a great location.
“Thanks,” Levi said, grabbing his phone hastily and navigating to see the time stamps on his missed calls.
“Do I get to meet this Paul?” Adam asked in a put-on parental voice, prying as he always did when he sme
lled romance in the air.
Levi looked up from his phone. “I told you—I’m not dating anyone.”
“Dating and fucking are two different things. Your ass must be sweet if he’s jocking you this hard at nine o’clock in the morning.”
“It’s a work call,” Levi informed him. “So I’ll thank you to take your mind out of the gutter. Now make yourself useful and get us a car. Ready in an hour?”
“Tell Paul I said hi!” Adam called, even as Levi was ascending the stairs.
Paul’s business was pragmatic in nature—the building owner needed to screen Levi. That meant a credit check, a background check, proof of assets and income—you know, the kinds of things that are easy to pull together at the drop of a hat. Levi spent forty-five minutes of the hour he was meant to get ready scraping together banking, brokerage, and retirement account statements, signing authorizations for the checks, and pulling the property tax receipts he’d paid for his father’s house.
Right on time, a freshly showered Levi joined Adam downstairs. Adam swung by the concierge quickly enough to grab a set of awaiting keys. Both men exited the front doors to a chorus of “Have a good day, Mr. Kerr” and “Safe travels, Mr. Cossio.”
Sitting in front of the circular valet drive was the least San Francisco car Levi had ever seen. And because Adam sported a goofy grin and was already touching the enormous blue thing, there was no doubt in Levi’s mind that the sixties-era Cadillac Eldorado belonged to them.
“FIVE minutes,” Levi vowed after telling Baxter to stay in the car. He wanted to run into his studio and get a few things for Sonoma. The sooner they left the city, the better. The car had garnered stares ever since they’d left the hotel. Low-key Levi wasn’t keen on the extra attention.
Besides, if they wanted to hit the light right, they had to get to Sonoma. Levi needed farm shots and vineyard shots and shots of spaces in the hotel. Levi made haste gathering the right equipment. It didn’t feel as if he had been gone for long, but when he returned, a crowd of people surrounded Adam’s car.
No.
Levi’s stomach filled with a sense of dread as he recognized a shock of platinum-blond hair among the crowd. Not that it should have been a total surprise—Darius’s studio was in the same building as his. With no clue how he meant to introduce his friends, Levi stopped in his tracks to give himself a minute to form a plan. Then he spotted another familiar face: Javi, Levi said in his mind at the very same moment that Javi spotted Levi and shouted out his name.
“Check out this car!” Javi waved with big arms, as if Levi hadn’t already spotted him and wasn’t twenty feet away. “Eldorado,” Javi hollered. “1966.”
Adam had been chatting up a different bystander, telling him who knew what, because this wasn’t even Adam’s car, and how much could he possibly know about this make and model?
“Hey, Jav,” Levi said, resuming his descent of the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he hugged and cheek-kissed his friend.
“Darius….” He turned to his other friend and greeted him in the same way. Levi sighed inwardly. Neither of them understood what was about to happen.
“Hey, Lev… you know these guys?” Adam suddenly chimed in from nowhere.
Darius looked between Adam and Levi, no doubt trying to decipher the relationship. As far as his friends knew, Levi had only been scarce because he’d been tied up doing a job. What must they be thinking now, to see him with a guy they’d never met driving him around in an expensive classic car? Levi saw on Darius’s face that it had also landed strangely to hear the nickname Lev instead of Levi or Lee.
“Darius, Javi…,” Levi introduced, “this is Adam Kerr. I’m shooting some stuff for his company for the next few weeks, but we’ve known each other forever.” Levi turned more toward Adam and repeated the process with his friends. “Adam—these are my good friends, Darius and Javi.”
“Hey, nice to meet you,” Adam said warmly, leaning in to shake each of their hands. “What brings you to the neighborhood?” he continued, ever the conversation starter.
“Levi and I are neighbors,” Darius explained, then clarified, “Studio neighbors. I’m on the ground floor, and he’s above.”
“Why didn’t you tell us your client was your friend?” Javi practically whined. “Here we’ve been leaving you alone so you can handle your business, and the whole time, you could’ve brought him out.”
“We’ve been busy,” Levi said quickly. “Matter of fact, we’re headed out of town right now. We need to get shots this weekend in Sonoma.”
Darius looked skeptical. Levi realized with alarm that Darius suspected Adam wasn’t really a client—that riding off to Sonoma for the weekend in a classic convertible had nothing to do with work. His friend knew about Levi’s abysmal dating life and might have surmised that Levi had found some action.
Javi, meanwhile, seemed to be thinking no such thing. “Sonoma’s beautiful!” he gasped. By then he’d already established that Adam was in from New York and not very familiar with the region. “Where you gonna stay?” Javi continued to probe.
“The Tannin,” Adam replied, saying nothing more. He liked to do this—liked to mention his hotels to people who didn’t know his identity and hear their gut reactions.
“That place is supposed to be really nice…,” Javi replied.
“Adam,” Levi interjected. “We’d better—”
“What are you guys up to this weekend?” Adam asked, looking between Levi’s friends.
“We’re busy,” Darius said at the same time Javi admitted, “Absolutely nothing.”
“You should come with!” Adam proclaimed. “I’d love to get to know some of Lev’s friends.”
“We wouldn’t want to impose,” Darius started in. “Besides, there’s no way we could get a reservation.”
Darius still seemed suspicious as hell.
“Reservations won’t be a problem,” Adam vowed.
“It’s Friday,” Darius hedged. “And that place books up months in advance.”
“Really,” Adam said. “I’d be happy to host you. The thing is, I own the place.”
Annnnd, boom!
Levi had seen this moment play out dozens of times before. The astonished pause, followed by disbelief, followed by attempts to recover.
“Hell yes,” Javi said loudly, as if he’d been waiting for an invitation all his life. Javi considered anyone he met who wasn’t wearing a wedding ring single until proven otherwise. And any singleton he met was a potential mark or a potential client. Add to all of that the fact that Adam had just outed himself as a VIP, and Levi knew his fate: countless hours running interference, shielding Adam from Javi’s matchmaking and shielding his friends from Adam’s charm.
“It’s not a pleasure trip,” Levi interjected. “We need to shoot two locations on the way up. You’re gonna be totally bored.”
Javi smirked. “I’ve never been bored a day in my life, honey.” Javi slid his gaze to Adam. “Besides… the two of us can help. Things will go faster with all hands on deck.”
Even Darius had to roll his eyes at the suggestion in Javi’s voice. Javi could ask you to pass the salt and make it sound dirty. Darius still didn’t look excited about going but seemed to acquiesce. Surrendering to the inevitable, Levi knew it would be better if both of his friends came rather than just Javi.
“The Tannin is pretty sweet…,” Levi finally coaxed Darius. Then, “Free trip to Sonoma. What do you say?”
At that, Darius cracked a smile, not speaking out loud a yes or no. He only said he needed to go home and pack.
Chapter Twelve: The Ranch
“SHOTGUN!” Javi hollered, breezing past Levi long enough to throw a stylish duffel in the trunk. Javi’s “just five minutes” to pack a bag had turned into twenty. Levi had killed time sulking and rearranging camera equipment—his gear bag unzipped as he stood behind the open trunk. Adam and Darius had leaned against the car and chatted. Darius wasn’t nearly as excitable as Javi—it had been innocent sma
ll talk from what Levi could tell.
Levi closed the trunk in time to see Javi spring into the passenger seat of the car, steadying his hand on the rolled-down window to jump from the raised sidewalk inside. He did it with the agility of Luke Duke running away from trouble with Boss Hog by escaping into the General Lee. Adam took that as his cue to half jump, half slide into the driver’s seat. That left Levi and Darius—apparently the only two who believed in doors—to file in normally.
Fifteen minutes later they’d left the Castro, taken Stanyan to Fulton, to Park Presidio and were approaching the mouth of the Golden Gate Bridge. The fog had long since burnt off, and the sun was in the wrong position for the shots Levi had thought to take just before the too-late of morning. He’d have gotten the shot he wanted from the Marin Headlands: Adam in profile, legs straddled on both sides of the old stone wall that marked Levi’s favorite vista, angled subtly toward the city as he leaned forward on his arms.
Adam’s face would have been pensive, but his body would tell the tale—it always did. Adam had a delicious tension about him. The way he leaned in would be slightly eager, as if drawn to this city—all cities in which the Kerr was an institution—the king poised to reign over his empire. But Levi planned to present the world with a different kind of king. Adam didn’t need to fill anybody’s shoes—he was an original. Not his father. Not corporate. Not anybody but himself. It was important to Levi to let the real Adam come through.
Maybe on the way back, Levi thought bitterly, a bit petulant still. This was not how he wanted Adam—Javi peppering him with questions and Adam chatting him right back up. Javi was a little too good at what he did—profiling new people he met and cataloging them in his mental Rolodex to calculate who might be good for whom. Under other circumstances, Levi might have been relieved that Javi had found new prey. He’d tried slyly to set Levi up for months.