by Onley James
Before he could put too much thought into it, the buzzer to the callbox downstairs beeped out a weird rhythm and then began to screech like somebody was holding down the button. When it finally stopped, Calder said, “What the fuck?”
“It’s us, let us up.”
Calder sighed at the familiar voice and shook his head. Was this what it would be like if he and Robby were together? Wyatt and Charlie bursting into his apartment uninvited at all hours of the day and night? He tried to muster up the irritation that thought would have caused just a week ago but found he couldn’t. He shook the thought away, unsettled at how much the idea pleased him. It was a great fantasy, but it was just that, a fantasy. Calder didn’t deserve a happily ever after. Maybe Robby was his penance. Seeing what he could have had if he’d done the right thing, if he hadn’t been so selfish when it truly mattered.
He pressed the button to unlock the front entrance. He opened the door just as Wyatt and Charlie were walking up the last step into his hallway. “You guys know you don’t live here, right?”
Charlie rolled her eyes and waved a hand. “We might have just solved your case for you so you should be a little nicer.”
“What are you babbling about?” Calder asked, a throbbing starting in his left temple.
“I’m talking about you needing to pull a Hangover and piece together Robby’s blackout. If anybody knows how to do that, it’s Wyatt and me. We’ve lost entire weekends. Shit, one time in Ibiza, we lost a whole week.”
“It’s true,” Wyatt said as if imparting some sage wisdom.
“How exactly do you even know about any of this?”
Charlie gave him a look like his question was absurd. “You called Webster, Webster called Linc, Linc was getting a blowjob so he put it on speaker, Wyatt finished up his…husbandly duties and then called me, and here we are.”
She brandished her phone from her purse. “So, I used this app that basically allows you to compile every pic or video or tag you were mentioned in within a specific timeframe, and I’m almost positive I can tell you everywhere Robby was from about five thirty in the afternoon until his arrest. Believe me when I tell you, homeboy was busy.”
“What’s going on?” Robby asked, voice thick from sleep.
Charlie beamed at him, but the look carried a fair amount of pity. “Hey, Boo. We were just telling your knight in dirty denim that we may have pieced together where you were and what you were doing the night you were arrested.”
Robby’s cheeks flushed. “Oh, yeah? Great,” he said, sounding like it was not great.
Wyatt went and sat next to Robby on the couch, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “So, the good news is, there are tons of pics and videos of you that night. The bad news is, there are tons of pics and videos of you that night and I’m about eighty-five to ninety percent sure the tabloids will find them eventually.”
Robby groaned, burying his head in his hands. “Is it that bad?”
Charlie gave a malicious cackle. “Bad? Oh, it’s glorious. I just wish I had been there as your wingman, er, woman. Whatever, the truth is, you had an epic night and you should never let anybody shame you for it.”
Robby peeked at Wyatt from between his fingers. “Forget it. I don’t want to know. Just let them take me to jail. It would be far less humiliating than whatever it is you two are so happy about.”
“Oh, buttercup. Your ass is far too pretty for prison. You’d be holding somebody’s pocket before dinner.”
Robby’s face crumpled, and for a split second, Calder feared the boy might start crying again. “Jesus, Barbie, stop helping. Also, for the love of God, never volunteer for a suicide hotline.”
Charlie scoffed. “Like I’d ever make that mistake again. Laugh at one clown…”
Calder stared at her for far too long, unable to tell if she was joking but fearing she wasn’t. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“Can I borrow your tv?” Charlie asked, already flipping it on and linking it to her phone without waiting for Calder’s permission. “Wi-fi password?”
Calder handed it over, feeling at that point like resistance was futile. This was his life now. Overrun and bossed around by two twinks and a scary brunette with no filter. As soon as she connected, she plopped herself onto the floor, folding her jean-clad legs beneath her and staring at Calder expectantly. He went and sat back in his seat, his weight displacing Robby so he shifted towards him. Before he could scoot to give the boy his space, Cas crawled down from the top of the sofa to curl up in Calder’s lap and go back to sleep. All three of them stared at him as if he’d performed some kind of magic trick.
“Are we gonna do this or what?”
Charlie nodded. A picture popped up on the screen. Robby stood with a group of dude-bros in polo shirts and backward ball caps. Shots of tequila lined up before them. The hashtag said Boardwalk 11.
“Do you know these guys?” Wyatt asked, threading his fingers through Robby’s and squeezing.
Robby nodded. “Yeah, the guy in the pink polo is Marco. He’s my dogwalker.”
“You went day-drinking with your dog walker? I’m so impressed,” Charlie said. “I know you’re sad but heartbroken Robby is definitely more fun than fake boyfriend Robby. I stand by this. So, we know at five thirty you were doing tequila shots with a bunch of frat boys because they all tagged you in several pics. You must have stayed there until at least eight o’clock.”
“Because that’s when open mic night starts…and that’s when you started performing.”
Charlie keyed up another video, and all the color drained from Robby’s face. “Please, tell me you’re joking.”
“Oh, buttercup. I wish I could. Brace yourself.”
Robby stared in horror at Calder’s television. It was like a car accident. He didn’t want to look but he couldn’t look away. Why did they have to have a video of this? Robby couldn’t sing. He sounded like somebody was trying to strangle a duck. As soon as Charlie hit the play button and the music swelled, Robby’s fear of carrying a tune faded and a new terror gripped him as the music to Eminem’s Rap God swelled. “Oh, please. No,” he whispered.
“Oh, yes,” Charlie confirmed, gleeful.
For the next two minutes, Robby could only sit frozen, staring as he stalked across the stage, arms swinging as he attempted to spit the lyrics to one of the fastest songs in existence, spurred on by the crowd who screamed for him like he was actually Eminem and not a kid who ironed his jeans. Maybe they just hadn’t expected a kid in khaki pants and a button down shirt to know anything about rap, or maybe they were as drunk as he clearly was and couldn’t hear him butchering the song. Either way, it now existed on the internet forever.
“I think we get the point,” Robby muttered.
“Shh, this is my favorite part,” Charlie said, waving her hand at him.
Robby’s face was on fire as he watched himself lift the mic in the air and drop it before stalking off the stage. The crowd went wild. “Please, tell me that was the most humiliating thing I did that night.”
Wyatt shook his head. “Sorry, sweetie, but this doesn’t even make the top five.”
Robby could feel his organs shriveling within him. “Can you guys just watch the rest of this without me?”
Charlie chuckled. “What kind of fun would that be? Besides, for a kid raised in a cult, you kinda nailed it.”
“It’s true. You were amazing, really,” Wyatt confirmed.
Calder said nothing, his expression uncharacteristically stony. Robby buried his face behind Calder’s shoulder as Charlie pulled up the next video. He forced himself to lift his head and look at the screen when he felt Calder tense beneath him.
Wyatt snickered at the picture on the screen, but Robby’s brows knitted together. A guy in a realistic Spiderman costume hung from a street sign. Robby had unrolled his mask so only his lower face was visible and it appeared they were seconds away from re-enacting the famous kiss from the movie.
Robby cut his eyes to Calder w
ho sat with his jaw clenched tight. Was he…was he jealous? Embarrassed? Robby didn’t remember anything, but he prayed he hadn’t kissed another stranger. He didn’t want to kiss anybody else, just Calder. Except, maybe now Calder didn’t want to kiss him anymore. That thought cut like a knife through his rib cage.
“Am I at the Walk of Fame?” he asked, if only to distract himself from the idea that Calder was angry with him.
“Yup,” Charlie confirmed.
“What the hell am I doing there?” he wondered out loud.
“Making friends,” Wyatt said, pointing to the screen.
He was talking to two men who were holding hands. One was enormous, easily six-foot-six and probably three hundred pounds of muscle. The other was built in a similar way to Robby. Robby recognized the boy’s top immediately. It was the crop-top cat hoodie he’d been arrested in. “Who are they?”
“According to their profiles, they’re married gay porn stars. Their instagram is super cute,” Charlie said without looking at Robby.
Robby thought he might throw up. He didn’t begrudge people making a living, but he didn’t think he wanted to know how he ended up wearing the shirt of a porn star. He didn’t have to wait long for the answer. The next picture showed the boy, shirtless, holding four hundred dollars and Robby wearing the cat hoodie.
“You paid four hundred dollars for a cat hoodie, angel?” Calder asked, sounding amused but also a tad relieved. Had Calder feared he’d sold his virginity for a cat hoodie? Robby couldn’t be mad at him since he’d also feared the same thing.
They flashed through more pics of Robby on the Walk of Fame, taking pictures and signing autographs in his cat hoodie. He appeared to be alone. When had he lost the frat boys? How had he ended up there at night? He closed his eyes and tried to remember something—anything—that might answer that question but it was just a void. A big, gaping black hole in his timeline.
The next picture was of Robby in his cat hoodie sitting among a group of girls, his cheek smooshed up against a pretty girl with red hair and a tiara on her head and a sash across her white tank top that read BRIDE in big pink letters. The other girls’ tank tops designated them as various members of the red-haired girl’s wedding party, but he didn’t recognize the location.
“Where the hell am I?” Robby asked.
Several pictures flashed across the screen. All of them contained half-naked men. “That would be The Hollywood Men strip show,” Charlie said.
As humiliating as it was, he was relieved to see he stayed firmly planted in his seat, though he couldn’t say the same for the ginger-haired girl who was on stage in several pictures, looking like she was having the time of her life. “That isn’t so bad, I guess.”
“Buckle up, buttercup, ‘cause here’s where the road gets bumpy.”
Once more, Robby appeared at a table. This time, he was seated among a group of hairy, barrel-chested men in leather while an amazonian drag queen dressed as Cher spoke to him from the stage. Charlie hit play on the YouTube video.
“I know you, doll. Aren’t you that sweet-faced kid from that show? Are you even old enough to get in here? Do your parents know you’re here? Or did you bring your daddies?”
The crowd laughed, but Robby just randomly shouted, “It’s my birthday.”
Robby’s face burned as Wyatt, Charlie, and Calder all looked at him. “That was your birthday?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “My birthday is in September.”
Wyatt and Charlie laughed again before everybody turned their attention back to the screen. Robby was now face down over Cher’s lap while she spanked him with a paddle and the crowd counted the blows. When they hit twenty-one, Robby jumped back up to his feet and put his hands over his head, cheering for himself before promptly falling off the stage. Charlie audibly gasped.
Suddenly, Robby bounded back to his feet, thrusting his arms into the air. “It’s my birthday!” he shouted again. The crowd cheered. The video ended. Thank God.
“I don’t think I can handle anymore of this trip down memory lane.”
“Oh, don’t be sad, pumpkin. Drunk Robby is a blast. You’ve got a shit ton of likes. Tons of celebs would kill for these numbers. This is Hollywood. There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
Robby’s breath caught as Calder’s thumb began to caress the inside of Robby’s wrist. Neither Wyatt or Charlie could see what he was doing from this angle but Robby was almost positive they’d notice a boner if he popped one in the joggers he wore. How could such a little touch affect him so much? How did Calder do this to him? He really liked Wyatt and Charlie but he’d never wanted to kick two people out more than he did right then.
Another picture caught his eye. He was lying on a chair in a tattoo studio, his jeans pulled down low enough that pubic hair was visible. Robby silently prayed he’d worn underwear. The tattoo artist was predictably covered in ink, but it didn’t hide his gorgeous face, his perfect teeth, or his sparkling blue eyes. He appeared to be laughing at whatever Robby said. The group next to Robby looked like they’d escaped a rodeo. Five men of various ages stood around their friend, all wearing checkered shirts, Levi’s, huge belt buckles, and ten gallon hats. Was there a rodeo in Los Angeles? Tourists maybe?
“At least I know I got my tattoos from an actual artist and not some weirdo in a back alley,” Robby managed.
The image on the screen changed again. “Okay, this is where things get…confusing. There are a ton of sightings of Robby at the club where he beat up that cop with a sex toy, but in most of the videos, it’s too dark and smoky to see. Then I found this.”
There was no way to hear the sound over the music blaring from everywhere, but Robby could see the police officer he’d assaulted poking his finger into the chest of a woman. Well, a drag queen. It was Cher from the club. They both seemed really angry. There were a lot of head wobbles and finger pointing from Cher and the officer had his hand hovering over his taser like he was afraid for his life.
Suddenly, Robby was there, pushing his way between Cher and the officer poking the man in his chest. The police officer shoved him back hard enough to topple into Cher who—to her credit—simply righted Robby onto his feet and handed him something from her handbag. Robby flushed. It was the sex toy. If it was possible, he would have melted into a puddle of shame right there on the floor. He watched himself slap the officer with the dildo hard enough to send the man reeling backwards into the crowd, hitting the man with the camera and sending it flying to land lens down, the screen going dark.
“And there you have it. That’s your lost night,” Charlie said. “It definitely could have been worse. It’s hard to look for sub-tweets, but I’ll keep searching through those too. Not that I doubt Webster’s skills, but when it comes to social media, I just work faster.”
Wyatt helped her to her feet. “What are you going to do with this information?”
“I think you should retrace Robby’s night and see if any witnesses remember him,” Charlie volunteered.
Calder sighed in exasperation. “Yes, Barbie, that’s the plan. Robby and I will retrace his steps and see what we come up with.”
“Excellent. Happy hunting.” She grabbed Wyatt’s hand but stopped short with her fingers on the doorknob. “Oh, and if you ever want to party like that again, I’m always your first phone call. Toodles.”
Then they were gone, leaving Robby and Calder alone with only Cas between them.
Neither of them said anything for so long that Robby’s nerves started to fray at the ends. “Are you mad at me,” he finally blurted.
Calder glanced over at him, startled. “What? No, angel. Why would I be mad?”
Robby shrugged. “Because I humiliated myself on a global scale?”
Calder frowned. “What? That?” he asked, waving vaguely towards the television. “When I was a Ranger, I lost entire weeks to drinking. For a while, it was my way of coping. I was never an alcoholic but I wasn’t far off.”
Robby lo
oked up at Calder, his deep chocolate brown eyes looking more like whiskey in the light. “It’s hard to picture you as a cop.”
Calder’s lips twitched. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
Robby shrugged. “I always picture cops as strait-laced rule followers. Boy scout types.”
“Are you telling me I don’t seem like a boy scout, angel?” Calder murmured in that low sexy purr that went straight to Robby’s cock every time.
Robby shook his head, scooping Cas up and gently placing him on the sofa, before climbing into Calder’s lap, calves resting along the outside of his thighs. “Uh-uh,” he whispered, lips hovering just above Calder’s.
“What’s on your mind, sweetness?”
A million answers raced through his mind. Kiss me, fuck me, love me, keep me. Instead, he just shrugged.
“Did you need something?”
Robby shifted his hips closer so Calder could feel how hard he was already. Calder’s hands slid up under Robby’s shirt, just teasing along his skin, not really touching him anywhere that counted. Robby whined.
“If you want something, angel, you gotta say it. I want to hear you ask for it.”
Robby dropped his head to the crook of Calder’s shoulder with a groan. “Haven’t I been humiliated enough for one day?”
Calder pushed him back gently until he was looking at him. “Why would you be embarrassed telling me what you want?”
“Because what if I say it wrong? What if you think I’m weird or perverted or a total freak of nature?”
Calder gave Robby a grin that rocked him to his core. “Damn, angel. What exactly is it you’re into? Spanking? Bondage? Daddy kink? Furries?”
“What are furries?” Robby asked.
“Never mind. The point is, I might not be into everything you’re into, but I’m certainly not going to kink shame you and I’ll try to give you whatever I can. But I can’t until you tell me because I like to hear dirty things come out of this innocent little mouth of yours. It turns me on.”
Robby caught his bottom lip between his teeth, examining Calder for any sign he was lying or somehow setting Robby up to laugh at him. Before he could say anything, Calder grunted, tugging Robby’s lip free to nip at it, whispering in-between kisses, “That. That right there. When you look at me with those wide green eyes and that bashful fucking look, all I can think of is you saying ‘yes’ and ‘please’ whenever my hands are on you. It makes me want to drag you into the bedroom and fuck you into my mattress. Because it’s hot. You’re so hot and sweet and perfect.”