by Kilby Blades
Javi melted a bit under Adam’s charm. Not that Adam had needed to use it to find out what he wanted to know. If anyone knew the skinny—and was willing to say what he knew—it was Javi.
“Well,” Javi began, “it’s obviously perfect for exhibits. It used to be a gallery, years ago, then this terrible chain store got the lease. Well, you know, the people in the neighborhood fought it and it took years to try to get the chain store out. Turns out the way to do that is to have it rezoned.”
“Smart,” Adam commiserated. “I’m guessing they turned it into artist’s space.”
“Mm-hmm,” Javi hummed around the straw of his drink as he paused to suck in a deep swallow. “I mean, this is prime real estate we’re talking about. Levi was lucky to even get it.”
“Not luck….” Darius shook his head in mild disagreement. “Paul’s got his own agenda, and he’s got sway over all the city supervisors that count. That space was always gonna go to whoever Paul decided to get behind.”
“Who’s Paul?” Adam feigned innocence, as if Javi hadn’t told him Paul was a business associate and Levi hadn’t insisted on much the same the day before.
“Levi’s investor,” Darius said.
“Levi’s admirer,” Javi corrected with emphasis.
Adam shifted his gaze to Levi, with a face that would have seemed neutral to anyone else. Levi sensed his annoyance. “Which is it, Lev?” he asked in a voice that sounded more menacing than teasing to Levi’s ears, though that wasn’t how it would come off to anyone else.
“My investor,” Levi said with just as much emphasis, glaring a little at Javi. That man roused entirely too much rabble for his own good. “Paul’s just a flirt.” Levi shifted his gaze to Adam, throwing him a pointed look. “Lots of people are. It doesn’t mean shit.”
Adam took a sip of his drink but kept his gaze on Levi. “Paul sounds like a generous guy—where’d you say you met him again?”
I didn’t, Levi thought.
“Sanctum,” Javi piped up, but Darius had caught on and now looked curiously between Adam and Levi.
“I thought Sanctum was overrated.” Adam didn’t take his gaze off Levi.
“It is,” Javi and Darius chimed in at the same time.
“Paul is part-owner of Sanctum,” Darius began, seeming to sense the need to defuse. “He’s also one of the biggest gay philanthropists in the city….”
Javi, who seemed to sense nothing amiss, launched into such a lengthy account of Paul’s philanthropy, it would have been rude for Adam not to shift his gaze.
As Javi was talking, Darius shot Levi a look that asked Is everything okay? But Levi didn’t want to answer questions. Whatever cats he’d tried to convince to stay inside the bag had leapt forth with aplomb. There was no more damage control to do on this situation. Every line he’d meant to draw to keep his two worlds separate had blurred.
Not only that, Levi was still crabby. He’d woken up too early, worked all day, carried the emotional burden of managing his friends, and he was tired. If he stayed up, he would say something he regretted. And he didn’t need more to drink. What Levi needed now was his dog and a bed.
“Levi won’t admit it yet, but he’s gonna come around….”
Levi’s ears perked up at Javi’s bold words. He was still talking about Paul. Levi couldn’t stop the biting tone of his response.
“You’d be a better matchmaker if you stuck to people who wanted to be matched. You know that, right?”
“Says the man who’s trading his bachelor pad for a house with a white picket fence….”
Levi restrained himself—just barely—from an unkind retort, announcing instead, “That’s it for me.”
While Darius was busy throwing Javi a dirty look, Adam studied Levi with an expression he couldn’t read. Rising from the table, it took Levi all he had to grind out a tense good night before he fled.
Chapter Fourteen: The Ride Back
THE ride back to San Francisco was silent. The air in the car was somber, and everyone seemed tired. Sonoma was still beautiful. The air was crisp and clean. Ranch animals were out and grazing. Dewy vineyards sped by, always a visual delight with their perfectly aligned rows. Javi—who had stayed up drinking with Adam for God only knew how long telling Adam God only knew what—fell asleep in the front seat just minutes after they left the hotel.
Darius had slung an arm around Levi’s shoulder in the lobby to whisper-ask whether everything was okay. Still not knowing how much he wanted to say, Levi had responded with a grateful kiss to Darius’s temple and a single word: “Later.”
As for Adam…. Levi didn’t know what to make of things between them. Was it astonishing that the two had never fought? Come to think of it, no one fought with Adam. The man had no filter. He told you what he thought, even if it was critical and harsh. His behavior was odd, Levi decided. He wore dark glasses. His lips seemed tight and his shoulders were tense. Usually Adam only played his cards close to his chest when he negotiated—when there was some business deal at stake.
Just as they’d descended from the bridge and gotten back into the city, Adam got a call. Javi was rousing and Darius was thumbing through his phone. Adam began to talk, a little loudly.
“Hey… you just get in?” Adam asked the person on the phone, who Levi surmised to be Elle. She was scheduled to land in the private jet terminal in Oakland that afternoon. “Yeah, we went to the place in Sonoma for a couple days. You been to that one?” Adam waited for her answer. “It’s nice. You should take Jenni and Alan. They like wine.”
Adam didn’t speak for another few seconds. “Lemme ask him.”
Still watching the road, Adam didn’t bother to turn to look at him. “Hey, Lev—do you wanna have dinner with me and Elle?”
“Tomorrow night,” Levi called loud enough for Adam to hear over the sounds of the city and the wind. Levi gave no further explanation for why, despite not having seen the girl who was like a sister to him for months. But this thing with Adam was too weird to do in front of anyone else.
“Tomorrow night,” Adam parroted, then “Uh-huh… okay. I’ll call Elise.”
Adam hung up the phone and the car returned to silence. Ten minutes later they were pulling back up to the place where it had all started: the front of Darius and Levi’s studio building. Adam double-parked and got out of the car to bid goodbye to Levi’s friends. After Darius and Javi thanked Adam profusely, Javi began the short walk back to his place and Darius began to ascend the steps. Adam bent his knee to say goodbye to Baxter. He rose at the same time as he lifted the dark glasses from shielding his eyes. And that’s when Levi saw it: the hurt. Still, Adam was Adam and he was him and the two of them were best friends. Adam engulfed him in a hug and left with a single word: “Mañana.”
As the convertible pulled away, Darius remained at the top of the steps, hands in pockets, shoulder resting in the jamb of the door. Levi climbed slowly, waiting for Baxter to do her business and for Darius to say what he was going to say.
“He’s territorial when it comes to you,” Darius said finally. “You know that, right?”
Levi swept his hand over his face.
“He asked me whether I had a crush on you,” Darius revealed then. “Said he wouldn’t blame me if I did.”
“That’s not…,” Levi began, cutting himself off when he realized he scarcely knew what he planned to say. “Adam’s just protective.”
“Protecting you from who? Your friends?”
Could that really be how it was? Adam wanting Levi to himself? Hadn’t it been Levi who had tried to sequester Adam? Levi honestly didn’t know anymore. He’d lost every shred of perspective.
“We’re oddly codependent.” Levi could now admit that Cy’s explanation was true.
Darius gave him a look that Levi had never seen on his friend. “That’s not what I’d call it,” he said before turning and walking to his door.
Chapter Fifteen: The Interviews
“LEE-LEE!”
Hearing
his old nickname from Elle’s lips and bending to embrace the woman who had always been family was the only thing that could have made Levi smile. He’d arrived at the suite that morning to find no trace of Adam, no indication of where they stood but, instead, a note:
Lev, Had a meeting. Sorry I couldn’t join you for solo shots of Elle.
Levi wondered where in the world something had happened that Adam had to tend to it so early, why he wasn’t making use of the office, and how long Adam had been gone. Levi didn’t know why it got to him so much. There really could be a big emergency. Elle could only spare a day away, and the two CEOs of a powerful company couldn’t both be off call at the same time.
Unbeknownst to Adam, this wouldn’t be the first time Levi had shot Elle’s portrait. In fact, he’d done numerous sessions with Elle and her growing family. She had a baby son, born just in time for Elle’s father to have met him. Ben had died a month after she’d given birth. Along with Adam, Levi had gone to the hospital on the day that little Freddie was born. When he got older, he would call Levi “uncle.”
“Looking as lovely as ever,” Levi complimented Elle—not even a platitude, because she was. Aging well ran in their family. Both Ben and Aryana had held their age well, their beauty becoming more classic the closer to sixty they got.
“And you look hot as ever,” she complimented. “You’re lucky I fell in love with Fred.”
It was an inside joke between them. Elle and Levi has been each other’s first kiss and Levi had been Elle’s teenage crush. She liked to quip that if not for Fred, she might still be after him. Levi loved her dearly and had vowed a dozen times that if he ever went straight, he’d go straight for her.
“I like your friend Perry,” she started then, hooking Levi by the elbow as she walked them farther into the suite. “You just missed him. I might have to start a tradition of coming shopping here a few times a year to fill my closet. And, you know, to visit my other twin….”
At a certain age, they’d all done so much together, Aryana had started to call them her triplets. Levi looked so different from the other two that it made no sense to anyone else when they said it out loud. It hadn’t been unusual, when they were younger, for Levi to tell people he was her brother. He’d always been protective of her.
“Adam told you,” Levi concluded.
“Not only that,” she said with intrigue. “He told me you didn’t tell him.”
Didn’t tell him yet, Levi thought to himself, though when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. He closed it again and took a breath or two before looking down at Elle and choosing his words.
“I thought he was marrying Leila,” Levi admitted, hoping Elle wouldn’t make him say any more. Even if Adam never had, Elle had figured out a few things.
“Hmm…. Leila….” Elle hummed. “Interesting starting point, but I’ll take it. Now, what in the world does Leila have to do with you staying in San Francisco?”
“I didn’t think it would be such a big deal if I made changes at the same time things were changing for him too.”
Elle seemed to think about this.
“It’s just been…” Levi shook his head as he tried again to find words. “…a really surprising week. I thought he was gonna ask me to be his best man. I figured we’d spend the weekend smoking cigars and planning some crazy bachelor party. You know how Adam is.”
“Leila….” A small frown crossed her face. “She’s another story. It did not end well, and I’m glad she’s out of the picture.” She stopped their slow walking and looked at Levi pointedly. “Your story, and Adam’s, is that when things are changing for him, that’s when he needs you the most.”
Levi opted to say nothing, because she was the second person to tell him that. And he couldn’t process everything right then.
“On that note….” Levi trailed off.
Even without his prodding, Elle would have changed the subject. She was the type to say her piece but not belabor the point.
“Tell me how you want to look,” Levi said in a more businesslike voice as he set his camera bag down on the table. He approached the rolling rack from Perry that held all of Elle’s looks. His shooting options with Elle were limited. With only about half a day, there was no good way for them to travel to the city’s better locations, let alone to catch ideal light.
“Fierce,” Elle said, raising her chin as she eyed Levi. Her golden eyes reminded Levi of Adam’s.
Levi had scoured the hotel for every visually interesting nook and cranny. He already had a few places in mind: the boiler room, the lobby restaurant, the unfinished roof, and the kitchen all came to mind.
Levi grabbed two garments from the rack: tight leather pants and a black racer-back tank top that had written in sans serif font: The patriarchy isn’t going to go fuck itself.
Elle’s eyes lit up.
“Then put these on,” he said with a wicked smile. “We’re gonna start with this.”
BY the time four hours had passed, Levi and Elle had shot the hell out of every good location. Elle had called ahead for food, which awaited them in the family suite. No sooner had they sat down with dim sum takeout from a place nearby than did a very sweaty Adam walk in the doors.
He was out of breath—soaked from running, which meant that he had run long and hard, because the day was cool and Adam never ran inside.
“Hey, sis,” Adam said, placing his hands on her shoulders. He bent to kiss the top of her head. “Hey, man,” he continued, walking over and clapping Levi on the shoulder. “How’d it go this morning?”
He asked the question friendly enough, but the light didn’t reach his eyes.
“Photogenic as ever,” Levi said without thinking.
It wasn’t until both Adam and Elle gave him looks that Levi remembered Adam wasn’t supposed to know.
“Now all I have to do is make the two of you look as united but not-in-love as possible.”
The looks they gave him were even weirder then.
“You’d be surprised,” Levi defended. “It’s hard to convey relationship between two same-aged people who aren’t a couple.”
Elle blinked. “I don’t think that will be a problem….”
The next hour was spent with Levi attempting to do just that. By the time the press interviews started in the Presidential Suite at two, Levi had been shooting for six hours without much of a break. Since today was the only day the outlets that wanted both of them could interview them at the same time, there were interviews scheduled clear through 8:00 p.m.
At least Levi felt calmer as he eased into the art and Adam eased into the interviews. Watching Adam field questions had that effect. He was so smooth… so sincere… such a pleasure to watch. It was bittersweet, knowing that at the same moment Levi was letting Adam go, America was about to fall in love with him.
“Who are your biggest influences, Adam?” Levi didn’t know the name of the interviewer—a newscaster he recognized from television.
“Too many to name,” Adam responded in his low, calm voice. “Growing up in a hotel gives you influences from people all over the world. In New York alone, we have employees born in more than thirty countries. I learned more from them, in the back of the house, than I learned from any school.”
From there the questions became more pointed. Most of them were directed to Adam even though Elle was sitting right there.
“Why did you decide to give the CEO position to your sister?” another interviewer asked.
“First things first, Robin—I didn’t give Elle anything. Kerr Hospitality Group is rightfully hers. She’s served as COO for going on five years, and she’s got a spotless track record. Family business or no family business, anyone with Elle’s experience should have been a contender for the role.”
“But you weren’t a contender. Why?” A look of exaggerated concern came over Robin’s face as she turned her question to Elle.
“Our late father held outdated views of women in business,” Elle replied in an utterly rati
onal tone.
“Yet you were one of many women on the Kerr Hospitality executive team,” Robin baited. “In fact, Kerr Hospitality has a strong track record when it comes to women in leadership. Can you explain how a man with the attitudes you describe earned his company those kinds of distinctions?”
Elle was every bit a natural at this as Adam. “Our father grew up in a different culture at a different time—in his Iran, salesmanship meant stretching the truth. Our father had a way of making sure that everything we presented to the public was cast in a very specific light.”
“I noticed that you didn’t say ‘the best light.’”
“No.” Elle smiled wanly. “I don’t believe that our father’s way was the best. I don’t think it was best for the employees of our company, who were impacted by the things he chose not to cast light on, and I don’t think it was best for the Kerr Group’s bottom line.”
“Really?” Robin raised her eyebrows. “Tell me what you mean by that.”
“Before either of us speaks to that,” Adam cut in, “I’ll say that we don’t mean to disparage our father’s memory or to discredit the amazing experience he built.”
“But?” Robin prodded.
“But he did things that I won’t repeat as a leader and that my conscience no longer allows me to bear. I believe the culture our father created hurt women who were leaders or who had leadership potential. I believe that decisions related to misogynist beliefs hurt the company’s bottom line. And, speaking personally, my father’s actions hurt me.”
“In what way?” Robin asked, her voice softening in compassion, as if commiserating with a boy who had just lost his puppy or skinned his knee.
Adam’s pause in that moment was so effective that even Levi waited with bated breath.
“He actively hid my sexuality from the public view. I came out of the closet as bisexual more than ten years ago.”