Adam’s phone chimed. He read it. “Vilhelm.” He held up his phone. “That reminds me.” He took a pull of his drink. “We’ll need your dog in Settlement, New Hampshire, first thing Monday morning. Are you familiar with the area?”
“It’s near Mount Washington.” Evan and I had been to nearby Conway several times.
“The crew is leaving tomorrow. You’re welcome to join the caravan.” He winked. “It’s a party train.”
I nodded slowly. I doubted we would. Evan had made an appointment to get a haircut, and I knew he’d need the whole day to prepare for our trip. Evan didn’t transition well. “We’ll probably get there Sunday.”
“Have it your way.” He sank back the rest of his drink. His white teeth strained ice cubes as the brown alcohol drained from the glass. When he finished, he shook it for the waitress’s attention.
“Two?” she asked.
I hadn’t finished mine. “Ah, n—”
“Sure, give him another.” Adam faced the bar.
I sighed and chugged the rest of my cocktail.
The second round progressed faster. By the time the third one arrived, my head spun. Adam’s Apple Watch informed him Vilhelm wanted us to visit him upstairs. The star feared paparazzi and holed up in his room.
“I really need to deposit the check,” I slurred to myself.
Adam pshawed. “Can’t you deposit it electronically? Snap a picture of it with your phone. Get with the times.” His knee hit mine as he leaned in. “You New Englanders are so backward. Cute, but backward.”
I smiled nervously and drank more.
When my Rolex stuck three, I texted Evan about the delay.
“Is hubby jealous?” Adam’s tone hinted at flirting. His knee tapped mine again, this time ostensibly longer, then his leg rested against mine.
“No.” My nose was buried in my phone.
“C’mon, let’s deposit that check.” He reached across the table and into the pocket of the coat I still wore. He took out the envelope before I could stop him. “Here.” He removed the check. “Sign. You got your bank’s app?”
I’d deposited checks through the app before and yanked the check from him. “Yes!” The waitress walked by, and I asked for a pen.
“God, you’re cute.” For a second, I thought Adam meant the waitress who’d loaned me a Bic.
I jerked my head back. “What?”
“Oops. Did I say that out loud?” He pulled Scotch, smile never fading.
Oh boy. What’ve I gotten myself into? I signed the check, opened the bank app on my phone, snapped a photo, clicked a few options, and deposited it. “Happy?” Evan preferred large checks handled through a teller.
“I am.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “All right. Vilhelm wants to meet you.”
We were back on that again. I huffed. I supposed it was only right. He was paying me to be in his movie. “Is this like an audition or something?” Between my unsated sexual needs and the booze, I feared I’d get myself in trouble.
Adam shook his head. “No. Not at all. You’ve already got the part.”
The waitress dropped off our bill. Adam signed for it and soon enough we were in the elevator.
“Vilhelm’s a little shy.” Adam watched the floor numbers light up.
“I am too.”
He smirked, eyes dazzling. “I don’t think so.”
“I am.” I wobbled as I read a message from Evan. Something about new medication from the doctor.
As Adam and I walked the sixth-floor hallway, I thought back to Evan luring me into the shower the day before. Hot and heavy at first, it turned sour as usual. Evan still wanted me to fuck him, but his state of arousal had wilted, again. I knew he felt bad. If he wasn’t into it—limper than the overcooked linguini he often prepared—then I wasn’t, even with an erection so hard it could cut glass.
“Vilhelm,” Adam said when the door to 626 opened. “In the flesh…here’s Dillon Deiss.” He held an arm out, and I entered.
Chapter 9
Evan
Doctor Johnson jabbed me with a testosterone injection and wrote me a prescription for gel to place along my neckline or underneath my armpits once a day.
I picked up the medication at the CVS near the house and remembered I’d turned my phone off and flipped it on.
“Mr. McCormick?” the pharmacy assistant said. They still had my premarried name.
“Here.” I raised my hand while a parade of notifications buzzed on my phone.
“Any questions for the pharmacist?” she asked after ringing me up.
“No. I’m good.” I took out my wallet.
“Sign the keypad here.”
I had Dillon’s Audi. He promised to get the Explorer cleaned on his way back from picking up the production company’s advance. I read the messages on my phone—a text from him saying he was meeting with the film coordinator. The bank app showed a pending deposit of the customary one-hundred dollars until the check cleared.
“Shit.” I stopped at the gas station and added to our increasing credit card debt.
Chapter 10
Dillon
Vilhelm Strom had boyish good looks. In real life, his platinum-blond hair didn’t look as unnatural as it did in the tabloids. I wondered if they’d darkened it for this movie. After all, in the 1800s Sun-In didn’t exist.
From across the room, his chestnut eyes combed me over.
In the ’90s, Vilhelm rocketed up the charts with the song “I’m Your Boyfriend” and had every teenage girl in the US ogling him. After a few years of more top-charting hits, he hit a rough patch. “Ferraris, drugs, and alcohol,” touted the rags. A stint in rehab followed. He finally got acting notoriety when he appeared in an HBO film playing an Amish man who fell in love with an older, married woman.
In his room at the Hawthorne, My Amish Lover played on TV. I judged it self-indulgent, Hollywood egotism.
“You won an Emmy for that role,” I fed his pride as he offered me a seat by the window and paused the film. The snow had picked up outside and painted a winterscape on the Common.
“He did.” Adam propped himself against the windowsill. “Best Supporting Actor.” He strummed his black logger boots, laced with thick yellow ties, along the wall.
My phone buzzed. Evan. “Excuse me.” I made a mental note to buy Evan a pair of those sexy boots for dress-up. Hot.
“The husband?” Adam asked me. “On the phone?”
I caught Vilhelm’s stare. “Uh, yeah.”
“He’s dickwhipped,” Adam said to Vilhelm.
Vilhelm cut a dimple and the corner of his mouth rose. “Cute.”
Part II
The Hot Dog
Chapter 11
Evan
Late Sunday morning, we set out for New Hampshire. Dillon had packed the SUV earlier, but that didn’t warrant an on-time departure. My doctor had informed me that my new medication might have an immediate effect. It did. We fucked ourselves to sleep and had at it again when we woke up.
Two hours later than planned, we left the house.
I carried out a see-through plastic bag with our toothbrushes inside. “Dill, we can’t leave without these.” I held them up at the front stoop—my fluorescent green and his royal blue rattled in the Ziploc. “Did you take the other toiletries?”
“I thought you already packed them.” Dill held Deet at the collar.
“No, I didn’t.”
He rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Deet.” Dillon tapped the floor of the open hatch. “We’re going for a ride.” The poor dog was confused. Typically, suitcases signaled a business trip.
Back in the house, I rummaged for the small toiletry bag we kept in the nightstand. Alas, it wasn’t there. Eventually I found it in the bathroom vanity’s bottom drawer—shoved behind a pack of cotton balls and Q-tips.
When I got back outside, Mick Jagger blasted from the Explorer’s radio. “Good God, he’s going to wake the neighbors.” The late-sleeping Renault boys were already out pla
ying stick hockey at the dead end, further reminding me of our slow start. I took forever leaving for an extended period—something about transitions and didn’t sit well with me. Dill and I usually ended up in an argument over it.
The passenger window lowered, and the music grew louder. “You coming?” His voice scaled over The Stones’s “Going to a Go-Go.”
“Just a minute.” I checked off the toiletry list in my head while staring back at the house. “Oh right, my new medicine.” I ran back in. I could sense another eye roll from Dillon as thuds from the stereo infiltrated the house.
I retrieved my prescription and got into the car. “Okay, I’m ready.” I shut the door.
“And we’re off.” He wasn’t going to pursue an argument. Funny how a spot of lovemaking—well, does hot, sweaty sex count as lovemaking?—can change a man. Dill whistled as we pulled away, and Deet panted with his face hanging between us.
Dillon hadn’t bothered to bring the Ford to the car wash like I’d asked. Deet’s fur caked the dash, and mud splattered the hood. The snowstorm that had blanketed the area on Friday had melted into slushy roads and soggy grounds. “Don’t you think we should have this thing washed?”
“Now?”
“I suppose it’s too late.” I hated a messy car, but keeping it clean in the winter and early spring proved futile. While Dillon drove us north, I reached in the backseat for a cloth and a bottle of Windex I kept in the Thule cart and wiped down the interior.
“It smells like ammonia now.” Dillon coughed. “You’re going to kill us.” He lowered his window.
“Hey.” I was smitten with him.
“What?” His fingers strummed to AC/DC.
“Did I tell you I love you today?”
Dillon beamed. “I love you too.”
I pecked him on the cheek.
The car chimed from me not wearing my seat belt. “Belt,” Dillon reprimanded. He’d reminded me before, but the hard rock music, now in a lull, had masked the car’s insistence.
I snapped myself in and placed the cleaner in the door’s cupholder.
We drove farther along I-95 and stopped at Newick’s—Dillon’s favorite place for fried clams. We ate takeout in the car. The restaurant didn’t allow dogs.
“What time did you tell them we’d be there?” I asked, chomping a scallop.
“We’re okay.”
After eating, we drove an hour or so in relative quiet. Along the interstate, ice sheets clung to walls of granite—cut through midcentury to make way for the highway. Dill flipped the heat on. By the time we reached the Kancamagus Highway, a winter storm—the one we’d experienced previously—spit snow from gray clouds. The local radio station suggested sheltering in. With all the hubbub of getting ready, we’d never checked the forecast.
“I thought the storm went out to sea,” I said.
Dillon shrugged.
“Of all times to be driving this road,” I added. The Kancamagus was a desolate stretch that ran east-west across New Hampshire. In the summer, we’d camp by the river that ran alongside it.
The car’s wipers swooshed across the windshield. The dog whimpered, and I considered the need for a little levity. I sang the opening note to Detritus’ favorite road-trip song, “The Wheels on the Bus.” He started yelping before I got past the first verse.
“No! No singing,” Dillon said with a smile plastered to his face.
I launched into the second verse and Deet yelped louder.
“Oh God!” Dillon looked into the rearview mirror.
Deet continued to howl as if imitating me. Actually, with my singing, he sounded better.
Dillon chimed in, and the three of us sang and howled our way a mile deeper into the Kancamagus.
When Dillon beeped the horn in beat with the song, the SUV spun out.
“What the—” I grabbed the dashboard.
Deet slid into a door panel, and the car halted on the shoulder of the highway.
“Holy shit,” Dillon said. “I hit an ice patch. Are you okay?” He placed a hand on my thigh, knowing my fear of collisions. Who wouldn’t be afraid?
“I’m fine.” I squeezed the hand he kept on my leg.
“Deet, buddy, are you okay?”
The dog’s snout sniffed between us.
I scratched his ears. “Maybe we shouldn’t be singing Raffi songs on this trip.”
Dillon shifted the drivetrain into a lower gear. “I don’t think we need to be singing anything.” He hunched to view the sky. “The weather’s pretty bad.”
The loud clang of a plow truck lowering its blade onto the road startled us. The driver blared his horn as it neared.
“What the fuck!” Dillon slammed the transmission into reverse, gunned the gas, and we sped backward into a snowbank to avoid a collision.
My heart pounded.
The snowplow passed, with its metal scrape and honking horn trailing off into the whiteout.
“Are we stuck?” My heart thumped. I swept aside my childhood nightmare of car crashes. With Dillon by my side, I felt safer.
“I hope not.” Dillon shifted into Drive. The wheels spun. “C’mon, Betsy.” We’d named the car. After a bit of back-and-forth, Betsy shot back out onto the highway. Dillon turned the wheel to get out of a spin, and we followed the clear path the plow had left.
The dashboard clock read five fifteen.
“I can’t believe it’s that late,” Dillon said.
“What time do we have to be there in the morning?”
“We can find a motel for the night. There should be vacancy in town at the end of the highway.”
“You sure?” Relief came over me. I didn’t want us to drive much farther.
“We’ll get up extra early tomorrow morning to get there on time.”
Chapter 12
Dillon
In Lincoln, New Hampshire, we checked into the first motel we could find. Evan and I were the only guests—at least the only car, save the manager’s, in the lot. I parked in a shoveled spot in front of our room—number 12 with its view of the street.
A busy road fronted the Maple Lodge Motel. Trucks sped past in wet glugs.
I left a message for Adam that we’d meet up in the morning instead of for dinner, like we’d discussed. “He’ll understand.” I hung up.
The storm howled. Even the drapes shimmied from a draft coming in through seams in the window. The room wasn’t much—a scratchy polyester bedspread, a dark carpet with a stain by the entrance to the bathroom where cracked tiles edged the floor.
“Is there any heat?” Evan rubbed his hands together while clicking the thermostat on the unit, which looked more like an air conditioner than a heater.
Watching Evan bent by the window rendered me randy. “We can make our own heat.” The fucking we’d done earlier only intensified my desire for him.
Evan turned and smiled sheepishly. “You’re an animal”—hands on hips—“but I love it.”
“Me?” I sat on the bed and spread my legs as he neared. “You’re the one who attacked me this morning,” I reminded him. “And last night!” It felt good to find our rhythm. For so long, with his illness, he’d been depressed. The lift to the corner of his mouth, the flush on his cheeks, and his dimples all warmed me. A tingle ran down my spine. “You haven’t been this affectionate since—” I had a tendency to ruin the moment with poorly chosen words—the wrong thing at the most inopportune time. But as Evan approached, I realized my awkwardness hadn’t soured the situation.
He stood between my legs, leaned down, and kissed my forehead. “Mhh. You smell nice.” His nose traced the side of my face and sent a shiver through me that peaked in my crotch. My head fell back, and his lips met mine.
I was rock-hard. On elbows, I kissed him back. His mouth tasted sweet, like he’d just brushed his teeth, yet I knew he hadn’t. “God, I want you.” I lifted a hand and held his nape.
“I want you too.”
Deet jumped on the bed and a cold nose came between us.
Evan laughed and sat beside him. He scratched the dog’s ears. “He’s hungry.” He looked at the alarm clock. “In fact, we should all eat.”
I dropped back on the bed. “I had other things in mind.” I adjusted the bulge in my Levi’s.
“After.” Evan slapped my thigh. Deet jumped down. “Let’s feed Detritus and see if we can scrounge something together before they roll up the sidewalks around here.”
The convenience store across the way closed in a half hour. I let Deet do his business in the snowbank while Evan shopped.
On his way out, he clutched two hot dogs in a cardboard holder wrapped in aluminum foil. “It’s all they had.” He shrugged. “They’ve probably been there for days.” He also carried a paper bag with other goods.
Detritus tugged me toward the store’s entrance. “Hot dog, huh?” I skipped over an ice chunk.
“It’s better than Cheez-Its and raisins.” The snacks were all I’d bothered to pack.
Inside our room, we squirted ketchup from little packets onto our meal, shared a Diet Coke, and belched. An overweight newscaster on a fuzzy channel advised us to stay put for the evening. “The worst part of the storm has yet to hit us,” he said.
“Are we even going to make it for tomorrow morning?” Evan licked ketchup off his thumb. “When are we scheduled to show?”
“Around eight a.m.” I stood and clicked the television’s Power button. Its static buzz grew on my nerves.
“Eight!” Evan crossed his legs at the ankles. He was outstretched on the floor with no table for us to sit at.
I checked my phone—charging on the bureau by the door— to see if Adam had returned my call. The lack of reception caused me concern. “Well, hopefully the film crew is running behind too.”
Building Us: A Gay Romantic Comedy and Adventure (Marketing Beef Gay Romance Book 2) Page 5