You May Have Met Him

by Sebastian Carter

  But he was here at the request of one Brianna LaFontaine.

  The Drake hotel had a classic lounge where Theo actually, to his recollection, had never set foot into before, even though he’d lived in the Chicago area all of his life. Coq D’Or was a swanky bar, the kind of place men in suits met for drinks after a business deal or high-class hotel guests came down for a vodka gimlet or martinis shaken with expensive gin. A dark-wood bar dominated one wall, the room accented with red-leather seating. It was a setting all at once rich yet intimate.

  He found Brianna sitting at a table along the wall where she entertained a man Theo had never met before. She spotted him as she spoke and waved him over with an expression that Theo recognized: a rescue-me gleam in her eye schooled behind a polite smile. She and Theo had known one another since high school. They dated for most of their sophomore and junior years—before Theo came out as gay. And afterward, they simply remained friends. Good friends. It was Brianna that Theo called when he got together with Reid, to share his elation, and it was Brianna he called when he found out Reid was cheating on him, to cry over the phone then commiserate over stiff drinks. She showed up at his door with a $400 bottle of scotch from her father’s private reserve, and they talked until sunrise and Theo was able to make himself forget Reid’s name for that little while.

  “Theo,” she said when he approached the table. She stood up and so did the man sitting with her. He was thin, not bad looking, but he had an air of accountant about him, something boring. Brianna reached out to Theo and took his hand, and she leaned in for a kiss on his cheek. Theo suppressed a laugh by biting his lower lip. She must be desperate. “Theo, this is Richard. He’s a distant friend of daddy’s.” Her emphasis on distant was not missed.

  Theo extended his hand. “Good to meet ya, Rich,” Theo said. Richard shook his hand and offered a greeting—his mouth said nice to meet you too, but the glare up and down meant he was clearly sizing Theo up. So Theo played along. He reached out and put an arm around Brianna’s waist and leaned in toward her, but he kept eyes on Richard, a confident grin on his lips that Richard assessed with a grimace. “I’m surprised we haven’t met already,” he said to Richard.

  “We only just had the pleasure a week ago,” Richard said as he took his seat again directly across from where Brianna sat back down. It was a table for two, so Theo swung a chair around from a nearby table and moved in next to Brianna.

  “Yes,” Brianna said. “Daddy introduced us at a cocktail party last Friday, something for a March of Dimes charity.”

  “I won the silent auction for the Monaco week in September,” Richard said. “Thirty-two thousand,” he added. His volley in their bar battlefield. He shot a glance toward Theo almost like he wanted to whip it out and start comparing sizes.

  Brianna put a hand on Theo’s, for which he was thankful. He had nothing to counter that with. “Monaco is lovely. I’ve been there so often, though, it’s almost like going to work,” she said with a shrug, her free hand ringing the rim of her highball glass filled with Dewars, if Theo had to guess. Brianna was the type who could afford a $90 glass of scotch like a Chivas 21 year, but she was fond of saying to anyone who would listen that she preferred to stick to a simple drink. She turned to Theo. “You remember, honey? The lamb at Blue Bay?” She smacked her lips and touched fingers to her chest.

  “How could I forget,” Theo said. He had no idea what she was talking about, but he knew his role. He played along.

  Richard’s eyes hooded in response. He shot Theo another challenging glance as he picked up his glass and took a drink. Even if Theo wasn’t interested in Brianna—not in the same way Richard was, that is—it was still kind of fun to see this guy squirm. And he could almost read it crossing Richard’s face as he turned his eyes to the drink glass still gripped in his hand.

  “Well,” Richard said after a delightfully uncomfortable moment. “I’m supposed to meet a client soon.” He reached out a hand toward Brianna, and she graciously took it between her long fingers. “Certainly a pleasure to see you again, Brianna. Maybe we’ll run into one another again sometime.”

  “It’s possible,” she said with a polite smile.

  Richard stood and gave Theo a curt nod. “Theo,” was all he said.

  “Nice meeting you, Dick,” Theo said. He smiled as Richard stopped like he wanted to say something, but he turned with a huff instead and left them at the table.

  “It’s about time,” Brianna said when Richard was no longer in earshot. She rolled her eyes and put an elbow on the table with her glass in one hand. “I knew even last week Daddy was angling for some kind of future collaboration between me and tricky Dick there.” She took a sip of her scotch and turned her attention to Theo. “So what took you so long?”

  “I’m not that late,” Theo said. He looked at his watch. An hour and a half before he had to head to work and flash his naked torso to the world.

  “If you’d been on time, you would’ve saved me a lot of awkward conversation.” She lifted a hand to get the waitress’ attention. Theo ordered the same as Brianna. He wanted to talk to her about the conversation with his father. She would understand, and she would listen. Brianna had seen how Theo’s father reacted to his son’s homosexuality, and she was there when their relationship turned dark after. But he already knew what she would say, and he knew what she would offer. He didn’t want to go down that path with her.

  So he stuck to another topic that weighed heavy on his mind: “I saw Reid yesterday.”

  Brianna sat back and rolled her eyes. “Lovely. What did Mr. Wonderful have to say?”

  “I caught him in bed with his current.”

  “No!”

  Theo was over feeling sorry for his failed relationship. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. But he wished the waitress would hurry with his drink. “I’m supposed to be out by Wednesday.”

  “What an asshole.” She drained her glass by the time the waitress returned with the new drinks. “What are you going to do?”

  Theo took a swig of the scotch that burned his throat going down. “I have a place in mind, but I’m still working out how to pay the deposit and first month’s rent.”

  “Fine. Done.”

  Theo rubbed his forehead. This was exactly the direction he wanted to avoid with her by not bringing up the fight with his dad. Taking her money always led to guilty feelings that put a strain on their relationship. It had happened before. She never asked about it. She always acted like nothing had ever happened between them, that there was no debt owed. It was part of who she was to help, but it didn’t change that Theo still knew he owed her. And for him, it always made things awkward. He never wanted her to feel like he was trying to take advantage of her and her wealth. He shook his head. “No, Brianna. I’m not going to take your money.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because like I said before, I don’t want to be your charity case.”

  “Please,” she said, and she twirled the ice in her glass to swirl her scotch. “It’s not charity. It’s me helping out a friend.” She took a drink. “If you ever finish your degree, you can come work for me. Then it wouldn’t be charity at all.”

  “Yeah, that’s not happening anytime soon, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re almost done,” she said.

  “I have two math courses and three science courses left to do.”

  She gave him a sidelong look. “That’s not too bad,” she said carefully. But even he could see she didn’t really mean it. Math and science was never her best subjects either, and Brianna LaFontaine was not a dumb person. She was an all-A’s type of girl who made school appear depressingly easy. Of course, she carried the tradition on when she started college. Theo, on the other hand, was a typical jock type, albeit a gay one. Just because he liked dick didn’t mean he was suddenly good at math and science. “Well, what are you going to do?” she asked Theo again.

  Theo took in a deep breath and blew it out. “I tried asking my father for money,” he s
aid.

  “And that apparently went about as well as expected.”

  “Yeah…”

  “You have too many asshole men in your life, Theodore Cooper.”

  “No kidding.”

  “First your father,” she continued, “then that daddy replacement you called a boyfriend for two years.”

  “He wasn’t a ‘daddy replacement,’” Theo shot back. But he was half laughing.

  “Right,” Brianna said. She watched him beneath a raised eyebrow as she sipped her drink.

  But Reid wasn’t. There was something he saw in Reid when they first met. Sure, he was older than Theo, but only by ten years. To some, ten years was ancient. To him, it worked. He looked up to Reid. Reid was a man who was in control, someone who could go out and do something for himself. And early in their relationship, Reid paid attention to him, and it gave Theo hope that maybe, one day, he could achieve something worthwhile on his own. Reid was motivation for Theo.

  At least until he wasn’t and Reid showed his true colors. Their relationship soured. They became little more than roommates who slept in the same bed.

  Theo sighed. “I’ve been having anger sex,” he said. He wanted to change the subject.

  “Anger sex.”

  A sheepish grin spread on his face, and he curled his fingers around the highball glass in front of him. “Random hookups. It’s like I want to get back at Reid, because he’s already found somebody else.”

  Brianna laughed. “How’s that working for you?”

  “About as expected.” Theo sighed. “Such a big city, and the men in this city all seem so empty.” It was likely that he was projecting empty from himself. It didn’t take a degree in psychology to figure it out. There hadn’t been much for him to fill up on the past few months.

  When she drained her scotch and put her glass back down, she motioned to the waitress for another round.

  “I really can’t. I have to work tonight.”

  “Your modeling job?” Of course Brianna knew about his job. At least she had the courtesy to refer to it as modeling and not a low-wage retail greeter with a strict non-dress code. “Then you need another drink. What’s the pay like in a job like that?”

  “Not nearly enough to cover my new apartment.”

  “I wish you would…”

  “No.” He spoke with more force. And he meant it. She took the hint and shut up about giving him money.

  Then Brianna sat up straight in her chair, and a slow grin spread across her painted lips. Theo had seen that look plenty of times before. It meant she had an idea, which usually meant Theo was going to end up agreeing to something he would probably regret later.

  Brianna leaned forward and looked him square in the eye. “What if I told you I had an idea that could help you out with your financial problems, all while helping another friend with his problem?”

  Theo grew skeptical. He crossed his arms as he watched Brianna size him up with her broadening grin. “I’m not taking your money,” he reiterated.

  “You wouldn’t be. You would be, well,” she considered a moment. “A freelancer of sorts.”

  “Like a job? Don’t you hire freelancers at your magazines?”

  “Not this type of freelancer.”

  Theo sighed. He was skeptical, but he said, “I’m listening.”

  She tapped a long fingernail on the wooden tabletop. “I have this friend who is painfully shy. He is newly out, and he has no clue about how to, well, do what you seem to do so well.”

  “And what is that?”

  “He’s never been laid.”

  Theo shook his head. “Come on. How old is he?”

  “Twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven. He’s your age.”

  “I don’t believe that’s possible. A guy my age who hasn’t been laid?”

  Brianna shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “It’s entirely possible. Not all men in the world have the blessing of good genes like the wildly attractive Theodore Cooper. For some guys it’s a little tougher to get out there like you do.”

  Theo was still dubious. He wasn’t sure where this was going. And if it was going in the direction he thought it was, he wasn’t sure he entirely liked it. “What are you asking me to do, Brianna?”

  “I am saying that I will catch you up financially if you perform this one task for me, and that is to show my friend Elliot what a hot night looks like.” Brianna crossed her legs in the chair.

  “You want me to become a prostitute,” Theo said.

  She opened her mouth to protest, but then she closed it again. Clearly, she hadn’t considered that angle of her proposition, but Brianna was the type who took a stumble in stride. She took a deep breath. “I don’t mean it that way, Theo. You know I think you’re amazing.”

  “But that’s what you mean, what this job is.”

  “What I mean is my friend needs help, and I think you’re the one who can help him. He’s a friend from college. We graduated together at the University of Chicago, and he has always been too shy for his own good.”

  “Have I met this guy?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. We split off into different circles when I started college.”

  Theo didn’t answer her. He only watched her.

  “Come on, Theo. You said it yourself that you’re hooking up with strange men.”

  “I wouldn’t call them strange. I have my standards.”

  “Men you don’t know who you’re using just for sex. Why not let this one time be something that can benefit you in more ways than just biologically?”

  “A prostitute.”

  She waved the comment away with a scowl. “Such a dirty way of seeing it.” She shifted in her seat.

  It was Theo’s turn to pick up his drink and sip it while watching her squirm. But, as he sipped his drink, he thought it over. It wasn’t like he never considered being an escort. A guy like him, he knew, could make some serious bank in that line of work. It was just, he didn’t like what it represented, the way it would make him feel. “How is this different?”

  “It’s different because I’m helping out two of my good friends in their time of need.”

  “Oh, so it’s about what you can do for someone.”

  Brianna smiled. “Of course.”

  Theo sighed. “How much money are we talking here?”

  “How much do you need?”

  The waitress finally brought their new drinks, and Theo wrapped his hands around his glass. He sat still for a second. Was he really about to agree to this? Part of him said it was a bad idea, that it was him sinking to a new low. Reid talked down to him when he discovered Theo had taken the job at the retail store to stand shirtless outside. What would he say about this?

  But did he care anymore what Reid thought? It wasn’t any of Reid’s business anymore what he did for money, now was it?

  “Okay, fine,” he said. He put his hands up in the air as he worked out some quick math. “Maybe $5,000?”

  “Five-thousand dollars?” Brianna arched an eyebrow. “Never let it be said Theodore Cooper doesn’t have an inflated sense of self-worth.” But she smiled, and then she leaned forward. “If I agree to $5,000, then you need to stay all night. One of the things he said is he wants to wake up next to a man in the morning. You give him that, along with everything in between, and I’ll happily pay you the $5,000 for you to get back on your feet again.”

  “And all I have to do is help this guy get off by sleeping with him.” In the end, it wasn’t all that difficult of a proposition. She was right. He’d gotten off with guys for much less these past couple of months, sometimes for the price of a drink. Sometimes not even that much. The night he found out Reid had a new boyfriend even while they were still living together, Theo went out and had sex with two guys. Revenge sex. “This guy isn’t some snaggletooth troll, is he?”

  Brianna rolled her eyes. “No. He’s a sweet guy. A little on the nerdy side, but he’s cute. You’ll be fine.” She waved the thought away with a
hand. “But would it even matter?”

  Theo shrugged. “I guess not.”

  She smiled. “Good,” she said and took a long sip of her drink. “I’ll set it up.”

  Chapter Three

  Elliot

  On Friday night, after work, Elliot allowed himself to be dragged out for drinks. It wasn’t like he had a choice. It all started two days ago with a series of text messages from Brianna where Elliot tried his level best to squirm out of it with lame excuses like he had a raid planned on his game. He said there were people expecting him to be there—surely she would understand that one. But she persisted. Then he tried the I’ve been working so hard lately, suggesting that he just needed a little time to unwind by blowing up some pixelated monsters for a while. Pretty much his standard plan for any evening after he got off work. Sometimes he might break it up with a little television, but most nights, he played his game.

  But Brianna, being Brianna, insisted. She did this to him at least once every couple of months. And Elliot, as was typical, found himself powerless to resist. He agreed to show up at the appointed time in her office. She worried that if he made it to the front doors of the building on his own, he’d make a mad dash for home instead of to the bar. And, he conceded, she probably wasn’t wrong.

  Though for now, she was on the phone at her desk. She held up a finger to indicate she wouldn’t be long and motioned him to sit while she talked numbers and revenue and advertising space. He sat with his hands folded in his lap and a churn in his gut at the idea of sitting soon in a populated bar. He really wasn’t one for a night on the town. At a bar. With people.

  “Sorry for the wait, darling,” she said after she hung up. She gathered up her Prada purse and the white Dior coat from the armoire she kept in her office, and she walked over to Elliot to give him the kiss-kiss face. “Daddy is insistent that I keep the advertisers happy with constant updates on their ad placement.”

  “All of them? Don’t we have account execs for that?”

  “Oh no. Just the special ones, the ones with the big names and even bigger accounts. I spent all afternoon on the phone with Audi’s director of marketing.”