Pretty Man

by Ryan Field

  Roland smiled, but didn’t reply. When he opened the envelope and read the first few pages, he was amazed to see how many clients the cosmetic company had lost in only one year’s time. There was a handwritten note from Donna attached to the first page:

  “I know I said I wouldn’t hound you about coming back to work full time,” she wrote. “But I thought you’d like to know, in more detail, what’s been going on since you sold the company. Call me if you have any questions.” Roland rested the envelope on his lap and rubbed his eyes. It occurred to him that if he agreed to work as a full-time consultant, he’d be able to turns things around and save the business. He sighed and lowered his head, wishing Donna hadn’t let him see how bad things were.

  Josh came out of the bathroom and put on his new low-rise jeans and black polo shirt. He was wearing a hint of cologne Roland had bought, and the new Rolex dangled from his wrist. He rolled his old clothes up. “I feel kind of weird about taking all the stuff you bought me last week,” he said. All the new things were neatly piled in one corner of the room; Russell had packed everything into Louis Vuitton bags for Josh.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Roland said. He stood from the desk slowly—the backs of his legs were sore from all the fucking, and Josh had left some large bruises on the right side of his ass. “They’re your clothes, and I want you to take everything.”

  Josh shrugged. “Thank you.”

  “Do you want coffee or something to eat?” Now that Josh was ready to leave, things had become so formal and polite Roland’s stomach churned.

  “No thanks,” Josh said. “I should hit the road. I told Hillary I’d work all day at the bookstore so she can get a little free time.” He was smiling, but his voice was soft and hesitant.

  Roland crossed the room to his desk. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a metal box with a combination lock. It opened and Roland withdrew five neat little stacks of money, each wrapped with a thin paper band. He walked back to Josh. “Here’s the money I owe you.” His voice cracked a few times and he couldn’t look at Josh’s face.

  Josh accepted the bills. “Thank you.” He lifted his arms to hug Roland, but stopped short and crossed the room to get his luggage. On his way, he stopped at the mirrored table where Russell had placed the food and took a huge bite of a warm chocolate croissant. He turned back to Roland with his mouth full, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I guess I’m a little hungry after all.” He shoved the rest of the croissant into his mouth. When he was finished, he looked at Roland and smiled.

  Roland laughed. “Vous avez de la chocolat sur votre dent.”

  “What?”

  “I said, you have chocolate on your tooth. It’s what’s written on that sign in your store in French. The sign above the chocolate counter.”

  “That’s what that sign says?” Josh asked. “Hell, I always wondered about that. Hillary found it at a flea market and just hung it up. I never bothered to ask her what it meant. She’s French Canadian and I figured as long as she knew, it didn’t matter.”

  “C’mon,” Roland said. “I’ll walk you downstairs.”

  Russell was rinsing out the old coffee pot at the sink in the kitchen. He raised an eyebrow and looked down at Josh’s luggage.

  “So long, Russell,” Josh said. “Watch out for those potholes on Eighth Avenue.” He bit his bottom lip and pretended to punch Russell in the arm a few times.

  Russell smiled. “I will, young man.” He put down the coffee pot and reached out to shake Josh’s hand. It wasn’t a casual handshake. Russell squeezed hard, placed his left hand on top, and said, “Take care of yourself.”

  Then Josh pretended to punch Roland’s arm. He said, “Take care.”

  Roland smiled. “You too.”

  Josh smiled and crossed toward the kitchen door. He opened it and stepped into the courtyard. By the time he turned around to close it again, Roland was rushing up the stairs to his bedroom.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Russell was in the kitchen filling a tall, wooden pepper grinder on the center island with multi-colored peppercorns when Roland came in to say goodbye.

  It was a hot, humid Thursday morning. Josh had only been gone three days, though it felt much longer. Roland could feel small beads of perspiration form at his temples as he walked toward Bleecker Street. Another young man passed him as he rounded the corner; his shirt was wide open and his pants were pulled down so low in front you could see the upper portion of his dark pubic hairs. Roland was so focused on Josh, he hardly noticed that the young guy had smiled and flirted with him—something he wouldn’t have ignored a week earlier.

  After Josh had left on Monday, Roland ran upstairs to his bedroom, sat down at his desk, and telephoned Donna. “Is the job offer still open?” Roland asked.

  “Of course it is.”

  Roland could sense from the tone in her voice she hadn’t expected his call so soon. “I read those papers you sent, and I think it was a very sneaky thing to do,” he said, which really meant he thought it was the smartest thing she’d done all week. That’s when he knew he couldn’t just take off to Florida again and let the company dissolve into nothing.

  “When do you start?” she asked.

  Roland was already strategizing on how to reclaim his old clients on the west coast. “You of course realize I haven’t been this excited about anything since I took this job,” his new co-worker said.

  Roland smiled. “I haven’t been this excited about anything in a long time, either.” He thanked Donna and told her he’d stop by her office later that week so they could formalize everything.

  “I’ll get started on your new office today,” Donna said.

  Because it was a little before 9:00 a.m., Magnolia Bakery was closed. But a few of the other shops were already beginning to open for business, their welcome signs hanging in doors and “End of Summer Sale” signs dotting windows. The guy who owned the furniture store next to the bookstore leaned against his doorway smoking a cigarette, and two elderly women walking arm in arm stood staring through the window of an antique store two doors down. Roland shoved his hands into his pockets and crossed the street to the bookstore, where there was already a sandwich board sign out front tied to bright Mylar balloons floating in the stagnant city air. Roland could smell rich chocolate streaming through the doorway. His stomach rumbled. He hadn’t been able to eat much since Josh had left.

  When he crossed through the entrance, Roland looked toward the chocolate counter and saw Josh seated on a tall stool beside the cash register. The cash drawer was open and he was counting loose change. Roland pulled his hands out of his pockets and lifted his right arm high. He jiggled a set of keys in mid-air. “Good morning,” he sang.

  Josh stopped counting and looked up. His eyes opened wide and he jumped off the stool. “What the fuck? What are you doing here? I thought by now you’d be long gone.” He smiled so wide the dimples in his cheeks turned into narrow lines.

  Roland shrugged. “I decided to hang around for a while. I’m going back to work at my old company as a consultant. I’ll be working with Donna.”

  “Fantastic, man,” Josh said. He looked at the keys still dangling from Roland’s fingertips. “What are those?”

  Hillary stepped out of the back room carrying a box filled with books. When she saw Roland, she forced a smile. “Hello,” she said.

  “Nice to see you, Hillary.”

  Josh frowned. “I’m really glad to see you, Roland. But this isn’t the best day for us. Our landlord told us we have to be out by the end of the month. Someone bought the building and we’re screwed.”

  Hillary smiled. “We were only fooling ourselves anyway,” she added. “There was no way we’d ever be able to come up with a down payment in the next year.”

  “I’m sorry,” Roland said. He noticed that her French-Canadian accent became more obvious when she spoke softly.

  “At least one good thing came out of all this,” she said. She looked at Josh and smiled. “Josh
has fully retired from the male escort business.” There was a smug tone in her voice, as if she was telling Roland he was wasting his time if he was there to hire Josh.

  Josh raised his hands and shrugged, not looking Roland in the eye. “I just didn’t feel like doing it anymore.”

  Roland looked into Josh’s eyes. “I’m glad.”

  Hillary turned and placed the box of books on the floor next to the counter. “I’m going into the back room for more boxes now,” she told Josh, “We have a lot of work to do. This new owner, whoever it is, wants us gone as soon as possible.”

  “Please stick around for a minute,” Roland said, “I have to tell you both something very important.”

  He crossed to the counter so he could look Josh directly in the eye. “There’s this great little used bookstore on Bleecker Street where they sell handmade chocolates. When I heard it might go out of business because someone else was going to buy their building, I called the landlord, made an offer, and bought it myself.” He was smiling so wide you could see his teeth; he started to bounce up and down on the balls of his feet.

  Josh looked at Hillary, and then back at Roland. “You made an offer on the building?” Hillary’s eyes opened wide; it looked as if she’d stopped breathing for a moment.

  “This building,” she whispered slowly.

  “I made the down payment on Tuesday and we go to settlement at the end of the month.”

  He dropped the keys on the counter in front of Josh and folded his arms across his chest. “These aren’t the real keys,” he said. “Just a symbolic gesture.”

  Josh jumped over the counter and grabbed Roland by the waist. He lifted him up in the air, twirled him around a few times, and placed him on the counter. Then he grabbed Hillary and twirled her around, too.

  “I want to keep everything the way it is,” Roland said, “and Hillary and Justin can move into the landlord’s living quarters as soon as he leaves—if that’s okay with you guys.” He didn’t want to sound as if he were taking control of their lives.

  Hillary extended both arms and grabbed Roland’s hands. “Thank you,” she said, her eyes moist.

  “Well, your landlord recommended you both very highly, as good tenants who are never late with your rent.” An awkward moment of silence followed. Josh looked at the floor.

  Hillary smiled and cleared her throat. “I’m going in the back room,” she said. “I have to unpack a few things.”

  “I missed you,” Roland said to Josh when she was gone.

  “Me too,” Josh said.

  “Can you get off from work a few more days?” Roland asked.

  “Why?”

  “I thought maybe we could take a ride out to Bucks County today and spend a long weekend.”

  “What about Kenneth?”

  Roland smiled. “He had money problems. The house was going up for sheriff’s sale. I couldn’t let that happen. I bought it back from Kenneth and asked him to leave. He and Marty are on their way to Palm Springs as we speak.” Roland took care of Kenneth’s debts, and the realtor Mike found a small, inexpensive condo for Kenneth in Palm Springs.

  Josh leaned forward and kissed Roland on the lips. It was only supposed to be a quick kiss, but they wound up hugging and sucking tongues right there in the store. When Roland reached down and squeezed his dick a few times, Josh stepped back. “I’ll go tell Hillary.”

  When he returned a few minutes later, Roland was standing in the doorway, staring across the street at the bakery. An employee struggled with the front door.

  Roland closed his eyes and inhaled Hillary’s chocolate truffles.

  Josh walked up behind Roland and placed his palm on Roland’s ass. “We should get some cupcakes before we leave.”

  About the Author

  Ryan Field is a Lambda-Award winning author of more than 100 LGBT works of fiction. Some of his best-known work includes the bestselling “Virgin Billionaire” series and the short story, “Down the Basement,” which was included in the Lambda Award winning anthology Best Gay Erotica 2009. He sometimes writes gay parodies of straight mainstream fiction/films in the same way straight fiction and Hollywood has been parodying gay men for years, without apology. Please check out his website for updates www.ryan-field.blogspot.com.

  Ryan has written the Fangsters vampire mafia series for Riverdale Avenue Books beginning with Fangsters: Clan of the Jersey Boys, followed by Fangsters 2: Gangbang Fangsters, as well as Valley of the Dudes, Dancing Dirty and Stepbrothers in the Attic.

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