by J. M. Snyder
“What’s up, Boss?” Carter asked, flouncing up.
“Well, so, this here’s Francesca, I think,” Spencer told him, looking at the card she’d given him for confirmation. “She works for Yum!TV.”
Ever peppy, Carter squealed. “We’re gonna be on TV? Finally, my big break!” He struck a pose and introduced himself to Francesca. “Carter Martindale, future celebrity.” He offered his hand, wrist hinged, for a kiss. Francesca was tickled to oblige him. “You may recognize me by my drag name, Helena Handbasket? I assure you, we are the droids you’re looking for. Oh, Spence, we’re famous!”
“That’s what we are. Look, do you even wanna know what she’s offering?”
Carter shrugged. “Do we get to go on TV?”
“Honey, the camera’s gonna love you.” Francesca knew a way in when she saw one.
“Then who cares what she’s offering? I’m in.”
“I’ll beat both of their gay meat on TV,” the bald dude piped up. “I don’t care.”
Francesca pulled Spencer the littlest bit aside. “Please,” she urged, “don’t deny me the chance to put a guy on TV promising America he’s going to beat your gay meat.”
Spencer shared a snicker with her. “I don’t know…”
“So here’s the deal,” Francesca said. She turned to include Carter in the huddle and filled him in on the details of her proposed show.
Meanwhile, the man of Spencer’s dreams reappeared, lumbering back onto the scene with a beer. Dammit, he was at the beer booth. I could have stood in line behind that ass…His attention strayed.
“Hiya, Pop,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a knife in my heart, is what,” the bald dude replied. “You know I don’t like to see you drinking, Ethan. It’s a sin, for starters, and you’re not exactly running on a calorie deficiency. Are you trying to worry your mother and me to death?”
“You got me, Pop.”
“A knife,” the bald dude repeated. “Oh, and also we’re gonna be on TV.”
“TV? I was gone for twenty minutes. What the hell happened?”
“Don’t say ‘hell.’”
“Sorry Pop. What the fuck happened?”
“A knife! It’s one of those cook-off competition shows. Us against those faggots.”
“Don’t say ‘faggots.’”
“I say what I want. You know people love my ribs. We’re gonna beat their gay meat, and hard.”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be saying that,” Ethan said with a laugh. “What’s in it for us?”
“Well…what do you mean? Exposure. Vindication!”
“Vindication? What did these guys ever do to you?”
Francesca piped up. “There’s also a ten thousand dollar prize for the winner. Did I forget to mention that?”
“You did,” Spencer said.
“Oh. Sorry. Well, there is.”
Carter swooned. “This is it, Boss. Our ticket out of here!”
“Is it? And where you trying to go?” Spencer asked, by turns perusing the twelve-page contract on the clipboard and hot Ethan. The mischievous smile/double chin combo was more than Spencer could take in without the need to adjust himself arising. He was as sly as possible. He knew Carter would notice, hoped hot Ethan wouldn’t. Kind of…
“Spencer.” Carter put his arm around his best friend’s waist and walked him several steps away from the unexpected confab, offering Francesca a gentle Give us a minute finger. “She said ten thousand dollars. Even after you reward my lifetime of unswerving loyalty with a trunk full of new shoes and the diamond tiara Helena so richly deserves, that’s money. As in, restaurant money, Honey.”
“I know.” He loved working outdoors and watching people wander by—street fairs and Pride and the occasional catering gig were great. But all Spencer had ever really wanted out of life was to run his own restaurant. The perfect spot, with room out front for a little patio and a couple umbrellas tables, had just opened up on Pikes Peak Avenue. He and Carter had looked at it twice last week; Spencer wanted it bad. He had some money socked away, but he always seemed to need a new grill or a better trailer or a new transmission for the van, and he just never seemed to be able to scrape together the start-up scratch. He loathed reality television, but he understood start-up restaurants don’t just magically fill up. Win or lose—and he knew he could win—Francesca was offering him a level of exposure money could never buy, on top of the chance to open his own place, which it could. Or, well, with the infusion of her ten grand, money could lease it, anyway, which was all he needed.
“Do you think we should?” he asked. Mostly to see the joy dancing in Carter’s eyes when he madly nodded, Yes.
“We have to ask Claudia.”
“Can do,” Carter cried, scampering back to the Bone Lickers booth and vaulting the table. Spencer chuckled to himself watching Carter’s histrionic arm-waving recap, but by the time he’d strolled up to the booth himself, Claudia was on board. Less excitable than Carter, she just shrugged her willingness with a “Why not?”
And still Spencer hesitated. “I don’t know. We don’t know this prick. I’ve never even heard of Adam’s Rib until today. Are we really trying to start some kind of televised turf war?”
Carter casually played his trump card. “I figured you’d be in just to for the chance to get Big Ethan there on your DVR, but what do I know?”
When Spencer handed her his signed form, Francesca kissed him on the cheek.
“This is gonna be fun!”
* * * *
The week rolled along at a boil. Spencer didn’t remember Colorado having these stretches of scorching temperatures when he was growing up. Sure, there were hot days in the summer when they were kids, but by the time they ran through the sprinkler and ate a Popsicle from the ice cream truck the rain would roll in; in his memory it seemed like half their summer evening baseball games were called on account of mud. Now if they hit the nineties in July, they’d stay there for weeks, and along with everybody else on the Front Range, Spencer checked the Western sky for smoke five times a day. Three summers ago he kicked two packs a day cold turkey after Carter’s mom’s house went up like a pile of dry twigs in the Waldo Canyon fire, and he never cooked so much as a S’more over a birthday candle without a fire extinguisher at arm’s reach. The Springs was a tinderbox in the summer lately, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the jackass that started the next fire.
It didn’t help that he filled in some of his financial blanks helping Claudia with her landscaping business. Well, Claudia did most of the actual “landscaping”—the snipping and shaping, the planting and weed-pulling. Spencer pushed a lawn mower over hill and dale for nine hours a day, which wore real thin by the time the mercury was bubbling over into triple digits, as it had done three days this week. He guzzled water by the gallon all day, beer by the six-pack when he got home, picking the grass that fell from his beard and his chest out of the big stone mortar as he pestled his carefully chosen spices into the rub that would help him win the cook-off.
Francesca from Yum!TV had called him at least twice a day, always with a new programming note or detail to hammer out. The show would install two outdoor kitchens in the park and pay for the meat, which he could buy for himself and prep in advance as he saw fit; the show would provide Crosstown Smackdown shirts, would he please send her the Bone Lickers logo he wanted her to use; could his “little partner” do the show in drag, oh pretty please?
“Not if it’s this hot,” Carter said. “I’m not going to have my face sliding off onto the grill during my debut.”
By Friday Spencer felt like a duck in the window of a Chinatown market, sunned to a leathery crisp on the outside, his insides juicy and cooked. When he first sat down on his bed to wrestle his shoes off, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get up off of it. He felt the physical strain in his abs of resisting the urge to just collapse and sleep until September, but he’d promised Carter—well, Helena—that he’d swing by The
Nut House for the drag show. When he was eventually able to haul his grass-smelling ass into the shower, he figured going out was probably a good idea. Lord knew he was about ready for a beer, for one thing. He was ready for the showdown in the park, too—his meat was rubbed and resting and his sauce had simmered for three nights in a row and would be blended to sweet-hot vinegar perfection—and if he stayed home he was liable to overthink his strategy, get a wild hair to add anise or powdered peanut butter to everything and blow his shot at the cash. He’d gotten a haircut, and when he got out of the shower, he cleaned up his beard. It still hung to his collarbone, naturally—he hadn’t shaved in six years—but at least it wouldn’t look like a tangled tumbleweed on TV, as it otherwise tended to. Clean clothes, clean hair, he could barely even smell the lawnmower gas on his hands—it was a handsome and magnanimous Spencer indeed who rolled up at The Nut House in the middle of the first set and put a pitcher of blessedly cold beer on Helena Handbasket’s tab.
If he was going to be honest, Helena Handbasket wasn’t Spencer’s very favorite facet of Carter’s admittedly dynamic personality. She was haughty and aloof and every time she opened her mouth a pussy joke fell out of it; not to put too fine a point on it, in drag Carter was kind of a bitch.
But she was a fan favorite at the Nut House. Like Carter, she had a fine-boned, feminine face with razor-sharp cheekbones and a pouty mouth; like Carter’s, her waist nipped in tight and her hips flared into a pert, round butt. Her costumes seemed to come from a steamer trunk that Cher and Liberace had packed together in anticipation of a world tour then left behind at the railway station, and she could high-kick a cowboy’s hat off his head and pound his beer without missing so much as a “Whoo!” with her lip-synching. Spencer wasn’t a huge fan of drag, and certainly never bothered with any shows Helena wasn’t in, but he would admit it was kind of fun to come every once in a while and watch a packed house lose their shit in a frenzy to flat-out revere his best friend. He’d just as soon sit at home and drink better beer for less money in front of the TV, but on the nights Carter asked him to come, he came, and more often than not he had fun.
And apparently you never knew who you were gonna run into. Scanning the room for eye candy, his attention was naturally snagged by the love handles on the biggest blond in the bar. He never forgot a gut—even before the guy turned his head, Spencer knew he was drooling over Ethan from Pride. He was huddled around a table close to the stage with a bunch of buddies, and when his eyes met Spencer’s, he cocked his chin with a half-smile of recognition. Oh, hey.
When he approached the bar with one of his buddies to load up on another round, Spencer tracked his path across the bar. He tried not to gawk as he handled his business at the bar, but no shit he was the hottest guy Spencer had ever seen. Guys this good-looking never let themselves get this heavy. Or guys this heavy were never this good-looking—there was a distinction there that Spencer always found hard to nail. At all events, he tried not to gawk; he failed.
And Ethan noticed. He paid for the drinks, helped his buddy balance them, then sent him across the bar with a Good luck and a slap on the back. He took a slug of his own beer, then sidled up next to Spencer on his stool. “Pride, right?” he said. “The barbecue guy?”
“Yeah. I thought that was you.” Like a cucumber, Spencer was cool. He offered his hand. “Spencer.”
“Ethan.” They shook hands, then clinked plastic beer cups.
“So is it a sin or isn’t it?” Spencer asked with a nod towards Ethan’s beer. A cheeky throwback to a conversation he realized too late had probably been none of his business.
But Ethan laughed and took another slug. “Believe me, my pop hopes this is the biggest sin I get up to tonight.”
“So is this a scandal? Seeing you here?”
“You mean in light of the show? Is my ‘God versus the Gays’ television career over before it begins?”
Spencer nodded with a grin.
Ethan said, “God, I hope so.”
“So you are gay?”
“Oh, Heavens no.” Ethan clutched at an imaginary strand of pearls at his neck. Perish the thought! “Straight as an arrow, this queen. There’s just no place else in town to get a halfway decent Rolling Rock.”
Spencer laughed. “So whose side are you on, anyway?” he asked, trying to be playful.
But Ethan grimaced. “You mean tomorrow? Egad. I can’t believe my pop got himself into that. Did that producer woman hypnotize you guys or what? No, I’m staying out of it. The only reason I’m even gonna show up is to make sure my pop doesn’t drag the church down with him if he goes on some crazy rant. You know, in Jesus’ name.”
“Like about beating my gay meat?”
This got a genuine guffaw from the big guy. “For example. God, surely they won’t let her put that on TV.”
“Put it on TV? I’m pretty sure she wants to rename the show. ‘Welcome to another episode of Beat That Meat!’”
Ethan shook his head with a groan.
Spencer laughed. “Hey, I’d watch it.”
“I’m pretty sure I watched it on XTube last night.”
Spencer snapped his fingers. “Shucks. So you’re saying there’s gonna be a whole trademark thing?”
“I hope so.”
“Okay, wait.” Spencer shifted on his stool and reached for the pitcher of beer. He topped Ethan off, then refilled his own glass. “So you are gay?”
“What, do you want me to prove it to you?” Ethan cupped Spencer’s crotch, gave it a squeeze, made a show of lecherously licking his lips.
Spencer tried to laugh, but his mouth had gone dry. He gulped at his beer, then tried again. Success. “I believe you,” he said. “But you’re part of the church?”
Ethan nodded. No big deal. “I’m the youth minister.”
“You’re a minister?”
Ethan laughed. “I minister. To youths. I’m not a minister. No vows, no collar, none of that. ‘I run the youth ministry,’ I should have said. You know, youth groups, Sunday school, day care, that stuff.”
“But…”
Ethan waited a beat for Spencer to say what he was going to say, then cocked an eyebrow when he said nothing. “But what?”
“But you just said you were gay.”
“Uh huh.”
“And you work for your dad’s homophobic church?” Dang: the hot ones were always crazy.
But Ethan laughed. “A-ha. No, I do not work for ‘my dad’s’ homophobic church. I work for a church. When you saw me on Sunday I was helping out my homophobic dad. Big difference.”
“But…”
Ethan smiled. “But what?”
Spencer rallied his thoughts. “But your dad’s booth looked all affiliated with the church. There were banners.”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah, well…the church helped him start his restaurant. He’s a big fan. And he’s a big believer in bringing people into the fold. You know, If you advertise it, they will come.” He chuckled. “It was actually my church first, and he got so excited. ‘Oh, son, you’re gonna get saved!’ He definitely wanted a piece of that action, so he joined right up.”
Spencer still didn’t know what to make of this. “And did you get saved?”
Ethan shook his head, grinning. “It’s not that kind of church. My pop brought all this ‘sin’ mess with him from his old church. One of those mega-fundraiser ones, you know? Being gay is a sin, doing drugs is a sin. Getting caught doing coke out of the ass-crack of an underage male prostitute is a ‘lapse,’ please tithe for my bail money. I’m not some kind of closet case, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No, of course not.” That’s exactly what Spencer was thinking.
“I’m out at work. We have lots of gay members. Nobody’s going to Hell. Much to my pop’s disappointment. The church isn’t homophobic, my pop’s just the kind of guy who takes everything he hears on Fox News at face value and thinks my ex made me gay.”
“But you were helping him out on Sunday…?”
>
Ethan shrugged. “Hey, he’s still my Pop. Pride was my idea, actually. Figured it’d help him come to grips. You know, We Are Everywhere?”
“And how’d that go?”
“He wants to beat gay meat on TV tomorrow. You tell me.”
Shifting gears, Spencer said, “Your ex, huh?”
Ethan shook his handsome head again. “Louis. God, my pop hated that guy.”
“But you are single?”
Ethan smiled. “Why do you think I was watching Beat That Meat on XTube last night?”
Shortly, amid some fanfare, Helena Handbasket shimmied onto the dance floor. Spencer laughed. He’d never watched Helena tuck, but it must have been quite a process; Carter was a swinger, yet here he was sashaying through the crowd in a vinyl miniskirt that barely covered his hip bones without so much as a fleeting reference to manhood. No wonder he’s a bitch in drag. Spencer excused himself and hopped off his stool, squeezing into one of the three lines of swooning fans scrambling for the chance to stuff Helena’s beaded bra with bills. When he got to the front of the line, Spencer brandished a folded twenty. Hitting every syllable of his lip-synched lyrics, Carter made a show of slowly jackknifing into a dramatic backbend, and when he was folded nearly in half, Spencer trailed the bill like a feather from Carter’s navel to his shiny plastic waistband before tucking it inside. Carter dangled for a tantalizing second, teetering on glittery heels, his exposed abs pulsing with the effort, then on a fortuitous drum beat he snapped upright to wild applause.
“She’s good,” Ethan said when Spencer reclaimed his spot.
“She’s the only reason I came out tonight,” Spencer said. Then he met Ethan’s eye and felt a tingle wash through him. “I thought.”
Ethan smiled.
Geez, it was hot. Spencer noticed Ethan’s dark blue T-shirt was darker under his arms and where it cradled his heavy chest. Ethan’s blond curls were beginning to stick to his face, and Spencer felt sweat trickling down his own back. “You wanna get some air?”
A flimsy fence on the front sidewalk delineated the Nut House’s “patio,” which was basically just a place to stand around and smoke. The bump and thump from the sound system shook the bar’s brick façade, and for Colorado the night air was downright oven-like, but they made their way to a street-side corner and it was a million times quieter and cooler than it had been inside.