Building Us: A Gay Romantic Comedy and Adventure (Marketing Beef Gay Romance Book 2)

by Rick Bettencourt

  “It’s not what you think.” Javier’s hand clutched a bedsheet to a hairy spot at his crotch.

  Chapter 43

  Evan

  They all gawked at us. Out of habit, my first instinct was to cover the birthmark on my chest. I cowered on the wood-planked floor. I sweated from nerves, the heat of having been wrapped in bed with Javier, or both. Mortified, I imagined their thoughts, especially the men in helmets who’d knocked on the door first.

  Javier fed me slack from the blanket, and I wrapped it around me, looking up at my husband’s dumbfounded stare.

  “We fell in the ice.” My heart thumped so loud. Baseless guilt washed over me—or perhaps realized guilt from an attraction to Javier. “Our clothes are hanging—”

  “Ha! Right.” Adam laughed, and the men beside him chuckled.

  “Javier…caught doing the nasty,” a bald man in a red parka said. “Get lucky?”

  “Shut up!” Javier yelled. “It’s the truth. The lake gave way. We ran out of firewood.” He looked down. “We were trying to keep warm.”

  “…And fell asleep,” Evan added.

  “C’mon, Jav,” Adam said. “You told me you liked him. Admit it.”

  Javier gazed at Dillon, then me.

  “What?” Dillon raked his hands through his hair and turned his back. “Get them some clothes.”

  Chapter 44

  Dillon

  Back at the Settlement Inn room, Deet cuddled between Evan and me in bed. His dog breath wafted as he panted. I flipped on my side. We turned the lights out.

  “I said it was all an accident,” Evan said. “You saw the hole in the lake.”

  “I know. I know.” We’d hashed it out to mere exhaustion. Somehow, I wound up worse off for bedding Vilhelm. Evan said he believed me, but infidelity—or seemingly the want thereof—hung in the air.

  “Could be we need a break,” Evan said.

  I spun around. “What? You want to split?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Evan patted Deet, who rolled on his back, mouth agape, emitting more fumes.

  “It kind of sounds like you did.” On an elbow, I scratched the dog’s belly, and his leg twitched.

  “A break, like a vacation or something.” Evan fell back onto the bed.

  “They want Deet.”

  “What? Who?” The moonlight shined on his face.

  “The production company. The contract.” I figured I ought to bare it all, divert the blame of my supposed attraction to Adam and Vilhelm. “The contract states they have the option to take ownership of him.”

  Evan’s light snapped on. “What!” The sheets whipped back. In blue pajama bottoms and a white tee, he rose from the bed. “You didn’t tell me that was part of the deal.” He stood by the TV with his hands on his hips.

  Deet jumped down.

  “The contract was…I didn’t see that part when I signed it.”

  “You didn’t see that part! You didn’t read that you were giving…?” He raked a hand across his mouth. “How could you not…?” His hands slapped his thighs. “You never even gave me a copy, like I asked.”

  I sat up. “It’s just an option.” My foot touched the floor, and I winced.

  “Dillon, this really tops it all off.” Evan moved to the couch where Deet now nestled.

  “I was trying to help us out. I can fix it. I can get them to renege it, even if they did want to follow through with it. No one’s said it’s certain.” I stood by the fireplace. “I can work it out. I know it.”

  “An option. It’s not a sure thing?”

  “No.” I swallowed and dug at a cuticle—thumb to thumb.

  “Like if he fucks up on the set, they won’t want him?”

  “Um, maybe.” I knelt by Evan’s feet, ready to massage them as he liked. “I’ll take care of it. Trust me.”

  “Like I trust that you just happened to be sleeping in the same bed with—”

  “And like I trust that you and Javier just cuddled naked in a bed for warmth and nothing happened.”

  “We fell in the fucking lake!” Evan flicked my massage away. “How many times do I…?” He stood and motioned for me to move. “I’m sleeping on the couch with the dog.”

  “No. I will. Stop.”

  He fussed with the couch’s padding. “No, I will.”

  “Evan.” I touched his shoulder and he flinched. Deet whimpered. I plopped onto the couch before Evan could.

  “Fine!” He returned to the bed and shut off the light.

  The next morning, we talked little over breakfast. With the return of the electricity, the hotel hummed with rediscovered sounds one forgets about when the power is out. New arrivals checked in to the clack of computers and ding of elevators.

  Evan chatted with our waitress, who he’d befriended the other day.

  I sopped runny eggs with limp toast and gnawed a crusty tater tot.

  The waitress had worn out her welcome. “So you’re a Carolyn Sohier fan too?” she asked Evan. “She’s been here a couple of times.”

  “I heard she likes islands?” Evan gazed my way.

  I downed my orange juice. “I’m going back to the room.”

  Evan nodded and returned to celebrity conversations with the waitress. As I rounded the bend into the lobby, Evan’s exaggerated laugh bit the air.

  We met a driver in the lobby who drove us, Deet included, to the set for Deet’s shoot at noon. They’d be filming in the area where we’d originally found the kid, Mikey, who stole our wallets. The Italian restaurant we’d eaten at had been transformed into a kaleidoscope of color. How vibrant pinks, shades of purple, and neon green signage fit into the film’s period bewildered me.

  “It’s a dreamscape.” Adam came over, reading the confusion on my face.

  “Oh, okay. And Deet?” I held his lead.

  “Javier will take him.”

  I hitched an eyebrow. “Javier?”

  “Yes, Dillon. He’s the dog handler.”

  “Why did you say those things to him yesterday?” I asked.

  Adam scrunched his brow.

  “You know,” I said, “about him liking Evan.”

  He waved me off as Javier approached.

  “Mr. Deiss,” Javier said, “again, about yesterday, I apologize. It was all my fault.”

  Deet jumped up and slobbered him with kisses.

  “Deet!” My hand tugged on the leash as he leaped.

  “He’s okay,” Javier said. “Deet and I get along well.”

  I wanted my dog to hate him—to bite his face off.

  Evan stood back, avoiding eye contact with Javier and me.

  “Evan!” a kid’s voice yelled. “Dillon!” Mikey—the culprit in the flesh—ran across the lot. “You’re still here.”

  “Oh God!” I rolled my eyes. “You?”

  Mikey stopped and looked to Evan.

  Evan extended a hand to him. “Come here, Mikey. I didn’t get a chance to tell Dillon about your note.”

  I lumbered toward them. “Note?”

  Mikey took Evan’s hand. “I know who stole your wallets.”

  “I thought you stole them.” I winced. The Tylenol had worn off.

  He shook his head. “It was Tony, the kid ice skating with his mom.”

  “The lanky teenager who lent me his skates?” I dug in my pocket for a pill, found one, and popped it in my mouth. “The one whose mother is a cop?” I swallowed it dry.

  “You don’t believe me.” Mikey’s eyes drooped.

  Evan held the boy at his shoulders, but looked at me. “Mikey sent a note to the hotel while you were…elsewhere.”

  “Tony. Tony Christmas is a bully.” Mikey’s eyes met mine.

  “And he stole our wallets?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you prove it?”

  “I can’t. But he does shit—” He wiped his mouth. “—um, he does stuff like this all the time. And his mother, being a police officer, covers for him.”

  Evan bent to his level. “His m
other? She covers for him?”

  “She has a thing against my mom, who, quite honestly, doesn’t have the best track record, if you know what I mean.”

  I took out my wallet and rechecked its belongings. “But the money was still there.”

  “She must’ve discovered what he took and put it back.”

  Evan returned to my level, and our eyes met. He took out his wallet and reviewed its contents, more thoroughly than he did when I’d handed it to him in the heat of our argument the night before. “I had a twenty. I know I had a twenty. I got it from the ATM.” He looked at me. “There’s a ten and two fives.”

  I examined my bills.

  “C’mon.” Evan wrapped an arm around the kid’s shoulders. “Let’s get a soda.” They headed for the country store.

  Part III

  Marketing New England

  Chapter 45

  Evan

  Weeks passed. Most of it, I spent home alone while Dillon fulfilled obligations for this new NEFO contract—flying to LA, jetting off to New York, and spending long days—and sometimes nights—in Boston luring producers and investors to film in New England.

  An early spring storm dumped feet, not inches as predicted, of snow upon Conant, Massachusetts. The North Shore bore the brunt of this nor’easter’s unexpected impact.

  With Dillon in California again, preparing to “Bring Hollywood to New England,” Deet and I weathered it out alone by the fireplace. On one cool night, I poured a glass of top-shelf Scotch and wrote in my journal:

  Beneath the snow lay a field of green grass somewhere. I know it’s there. On blustery days you can sometimes witness vestiges of it reaching out to break free. Other times, like today, when Mother Nature dumps her fury, you wouldn’t think it exists.

  Buried.

  Indoors, nestled with nothing to do, we sometimes find these escapes into our inner sanctums—the lairs of comfort we decorate and adorn with fragments of our personality purchased at retail establishments and online stores—to be a welcome relief from the hubbub of the external world.

  But alone, this den is too quiet. There is nowhere to hide worry.

  Since we’d returned from New Hampshire, Dillon’s traveling furthered our divide. He jets around the country, like a salesman trying to hit a monthly quota yet never quite getting there, using distant goalposts as an excuse to avoid family.

  Caught naked in the clutches of Javier Kevin Rodriguez—to keep warm!—a tit-for-tat mentality festered beneath the surface of our relationship. It was worsened by the fact that Javier and I had become good friends—not lovers. Something about nearing death with someone forms a bond between you. That deep view into the needs of one’s spiritual side has you question what’s important and wonder about fulfilling your lot in life. For good measure, you think about the significance of your connection with said person.

  “Have I done it all?” Javier would ask me over weak-reception phone calls, for weeks after our return—me in Conant, him on Summerwind Island. “If I’d died that day, would I have been able to say I did it all?”

  Outside, the snow piled up like stacked mail from forgotten postal hold.

  I rocked in my chair while Deet curled by the fire. I sipped more Scotch, a habit I’d developed. I consumed the amber fluid nearly every night.

  An eerie wind whistled down the chimney. It didn’t faze the dog. The flames danced in the breeze’s song.

  Dill and I had explained away our predicaments. While it all made sense, I guess, the sting remained. A setup to help Vilhelm learn to love and avoid giving Deet to some kook? Even though Javier and I showed Dillon our clothes hung to dry, the suspicions had already been raised.

  “Maybe I do like Javier.” I closed my journal. “Maybe Dillon really does like Vilhelm…or Adam…or whoever he’s meeting in LA.” I placed my pen on the table, sank back the last of the Scotch, removed myself from the clutches of my blanket, and stumbled into the kitchen for more booze.

  I’d never really been a big drinker. Sure, I’d sip my Cabernet and Pinot Noir now and again, maxing out at two or three glasses. Scotch was different, stronger. One glass had the effect of two or three servings of California’s finest, cases of which could be found in our dank cellar—gifts from a vineyard Dillon schmoozed when in Napa. Ironically they sat alongside the ones from Right Stop Vineyards, the new client we’d acquired after rewriting the hokey labels we’d discovered when snowbound in New Hampshire.

  Our financial affairs had returned to status quo. The money Dillon made paid the bills, and the VeriPay trade more than tripled in value and continued to grow.

  As I poured more slop into my cup, the landline chirped in the other room. Dillon wouldn’t call until bedtime—our obligatory once-per-day communication always terse.

  In the hall, I found Deet at the back door waiting to relieve himself. His pass-through was snowed shut. “Hold on, boy.” I advanced to the office and picked up the cordless.

  “Evan, it’s me…Pike!” His voice was choked with emotion. “It’s Madeline.”

  “What’s going on?”

  He cried and uttered a weak word or two that I couldn’t comprehend.

  “Pike, is everything—”

  “Oh my God.” I could hear Madeline in the background whistling through her teeth in rapid staccato.

  “Is she having the baby?” Her due date was weeks away.

  “Yes!” Pike cried.

  “Did you call an ambulance?”

  “They’re on their way. Can you meet us at Salem Hospital? Please.”

  I poured the Scotch down the drain. “Of course….” We’d planned on my being there—in about two months.

  “The baby wants out, Evan,” Pike said over Madeline’s cries.

  Outside, Steven Renault, one of the hockey-playing twins, shoveled a path to his parents’ front door. I knew I was in no position to drive. After a few tries, I pushed open my storm door, leaving a 90 degree sweep of blustery snow in its wake.

  “Hey, Steven!” The wind howled. “Steven!”

  “Mr. McCormick? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Say, how’d you like to drive my new Explorer?” Since the insurance company had replaced my stolen one, Steven had been eyeing it.

  “Now?”

  “Now’s a good a time as any.”

  Steven drove fine. He dropped me off the ER.

  “Thanks, chauffeur,” I said. “I’ll swing by later…or tomorrow to pick the keys up. And don’t forget about Deet.”

  “I won’t, Mr. McCormick.” He shifted into Drive. “Good luck with your friend.”

  Inside Salem Hospital, I was directed to the birthing unit. Outside a closed door, Pike paced the hall.

  “Pike!”

  His eyes were damp. “There are complications.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “She wouldn’t let me shovel the driveway alone.” Pike and Madeline had recently moved into their new home in Marblehead. “And…” His lip quivered. “…and she fell!” His cries were deep and painful to hear.

  “Oh my God.” I hugged him tight, and he clutched my midsection and wept.

  A blue-capped woman stood by the door and motioned him in. I remained in the waiting area.

  “Give her my love,” I said to the closed access and wiped tears from my eyes. I assumed a chair beside a table of People, National Geographic, and Newsweek magazines.

  I called Dillon—no answer—and next dialed Javier.

  While waiting for him to pick up, I paged through People and happened upon a story of Carolyn Sohier’s triumphant return to Broadway. The actress was pictured by a backstage door, and a young man held her loosely by the arm. I was wondering if he was Tim when Javier answered the phone.

  “Ev?”

  “Javier, you’ll never believe what happened.” I didn’t let him reply. “You remember that friend of mine, the one who was pregnant? Well, she’s having her baby.”

  “I didn’t think she was due for several—”r />
  “Exactly.” I swallowed hard. “She slipped and fell on some ice, and now she’s in early labor.”

  “Oh my God. Are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Dillon with you?”

  I shook my head. “He’s in California.”

  “Do you want me to come down?”

  I returned the magazine to the table, leaving Carolyn Sohier’s picture faceup. “Are you crazy? It’s four hours away, plus with the weather it’s not necessary.”

  “Well, I could. Tim’s in New York with Carolyn.”

  “Speaking of Tim”—I picked the magazine back up—“is he handsome, with brown hair, and wear a tweed suit coat?”

  “Did you see this week’s People?”

  “I’m looking at it right now.” I turned the page, looking for more pictures but found none.

  “That’s him. That’s my hubby.”

  “I’ll be damned. He’s cute.”

  “I’m lucky.”

  “You are,” I said.

  “But, really, if you want, I can come down and meet you and your friend.”

  “You’re so kind, but it’s really not necessary. Besides, we’ve been walloped by a ferocious storm down here.”

  “I heard. It’s been all over the news. Here in Bar Harbor, we got nothing. In fact, it hit fifty degrees today. Felt like summer.”

  My mind wandered with thoughts of Madeline.

  “Really, there’s not much going on here,” Javier said. “The inn’s not opening for another couple of weeks. I wouldn’t mind getting down to Boston for a little getaway.”

  “Technically, I’m not in Boston. I’m…we’re…about a half hour north.” What would Dillon think if Javier showed up?

  “Well, have it your way.” His phone crackled. “Are you afraid of what Dillon might think?”

  “A little.” I rose.

  “Actually, Tim’s taking the train—he doesn’t like to fly—back from New York on Thursday. We could all meet up for lunch or something. Dillon too.”