A Full Plate

by Kim Fielding

  “No more poverty.”

  “Nope.” The rain was harder now, running down their faces and the back of Tully’s neck. “But my brothers and sisters contested the will. They said he meant to cut me out. Which was true enough but legally irrelevant. Still, I didn’t have the time or energy to fight it out, and anyway I’d realized by then that a person could get by without huge stacks of money. Moderate stacks will do.”

  “You’re doing pretty well,” Sage observed.

  “Yeah. I took a settlement. Enough to pay off my loans and buy the condo, basically. My salary does the rest.”

  “But family?”

  “They can have the East Coast. I’ve got the West.”

  They completed the rest of the walk without speaking, their feet splashing through the growing puddles.

  They were pretty sodden for their journey through the lobby, up the elevator, and into the apartment. After setting the bags on the kitchen counter, they headed for their bedrooms to change. When they met up in the kitchen, Tully wore sweats and Sage was dressed in his work whites.

  “Don’t worry,” Sage said. “I’ll get the floor before I go.” He indicated the spots of wetness they’d tracked in.

  “Forget it. I’m capable of mopping.”

  Sage shot him a quick smile. Tully unpacked the bags and Sage put the food away. The casserole in the oven smelled wonderful, and with the heat on and the rain sheeting the windows, the room felt cozy. Tully wished he and Sage could sit at the table with big mugs of coffee and talk about vegetables or water fountains or chores. But Sage was due at Dolly’s soon, and Tully had Eddy’s knot of legal problems to untangle.

  “So what do you do for Thanksgiving?” Sage asked as he tucked the pasta away. He wasn’t looking at Tully.

  “It varies from year to year.” Occasionally acquaintances picked him up, like a stray, or sometimes he found another abandoned soul and went out to dinner. Carrie and Leah took the week off and made an annual trip to Hawaii. They always invited him, but he didn’t want to third-wheel it. This year he’d made reservations for an inn at the coast near Cannon Beach. He’d bring his work with him, but at least he’d have an ocean view while he slaved away.

  Sage nodded, his back still turned. There was something about the set of his shoulders that made Tully’s heart twist uncomfortably. Damn organ. Weren’t lawyers supposed to be heartless?

  “Do you think you could make something for us?” Tully asked. Sage craned his neck to gaze at him, and Tully blundered on. “I mean, it’s just us two, and I know you have to work the rest of that week, but we could do a little turkey, maybe. And that cobbler you mentioned?”

  Sage’s answering smile twisted Tully’s heart two notches tighter. “Yeah,” Sage said. “We could certainly do that.”

  Chapter Eight

  TULLY and Sage spent the next couple of weeks talking about Thanksgiving. At first they exchanged just a few words in passing—a suggestion for cornbread stuffing, a question about wine—but soon it was an excuse to spend bits of free time together. They’d sit in the kitchen, eating whatever delicious thing Sage had cooked up most recently and discussing various feast options like a pair of lechers drooling over porn. What had started as a simple meal for two ended up taking on a life of its own, and by a week before the holiday, they’d agreed on enough dishes to feed half the Pacific Northwest.

  “Man, I’ve been wanting to try this roasted yam recipe,” Sage would say. Or “How do you feel about a maple glaze on the turkey?” And Tully would nod eagerly, because he knew that anything Sage created would make his taste buds dance.

  Then a funny thing happened. The conversations started with food but ended up all over the place. Sage would talk about his father, who’d been the silent, patient type, the kind of man who’d quietly given free meals to families when he knew they were facing hard times. Or Sage would tell little stories about what it was like to grow up in a town where everyone knew everyone else, where you couldn’t sneeze without half the population handing you a tissue. He had some good tales about Carrie too. She’d always been a perfect version of herself, it seemed, goal-directed from the moment she was born.

  Tully shared too. Sometimes nice little anecdotes about the idiocies of his fellow lawyers, or memories of being a teenager in New York City. Sage somehow pulled deeper things from Tully, like how shattered he had been when his family rejected him and how uncertain he’d been of his ability to support himself. He’d never spoken of these things to anyone, not even Carrie, and was surprised to discover that the telling lightened his heart a bit, removing burdens he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying.

  But it turned out the more time Tully spent with Sage, the more he acquired different heart problems. The sort Leah wouldn’t be able to help him with. Because damn it all to hell, Tully liked Sage. Liked him a lot. That lopsided smile and quiet sense of humor, the stoic approach to life’s problems, the unbridled happiness on his face as he watched Tully eat and enjoy his cooking.

  Stop it. Stop it right now, Tully commanded himself every time he swooned over Sage. He crafted a zillion airtight arguments about why falling for Sage was a sucktastic idea, even going so far as to cite precedent. Remember that crush you had on Jamie Fuentes during your sophomore year of college, Tolliver? Remember how devastated you were when he didn’t want you? But none of that helped, and soon the heart issues were joined by fluttery little sensations in his stomach whenever Sage entered the room. And by a lot of frantic nighttime jerking off, during which Tully steadfastly focused on mental images of men who looked hardly anything like Sage. Nope, hardly at all.

  Two days before Thanksgiving, Tully’s phone rang early in the morning as he was using the treadmill and mentally organizing himself for the day. Harrington, the screen read. Damn.

  Tully turned off the treadmill and picked up the call. “Yes?”

  “Are you at home or in the office?”

  “Why?”

  “So I know where to send my driver to pick you up.”

  Tully rubbed the sweat from his brow with a towel. “Why is your driver picking me up?”

  “You sound out of breath, Tully. What are you doing?”

  “I was running. Now I’m waiting for you to explain yourself.”

  Eddy laughed. “Fair enough. I finally got a meeting with those asshats at Cromwell Williams.” The consulting firm specializing in environmental impact work. Tully and Eddy had been communicating with them via email and phone but had agreed that a face-to-face would be more effective. Unfortunately, between their existing commitments and Eddy’s other tasks, finding a workable date had been difficult.

  “Great,” Tully said. “Send me the details and I’ll calendar it.”

  “No, no. We’re meeting them today. At ten. They had a cancellation and squeezed us in.”

  Tully glanced at the time. “But that’s in less than four hours. And they’re in LA!”

  “Which is why my driver needs to come get you. I’ve got a plane waiting on the tarmac. I was on the river, so it’s easiest for me to drive myself to the airport. I’ll meet you there. Be ready in fifteen minutes?”

  Shit. “Give me thirty. I have to shower.”

  “Probably not a bad idea. Pack an overnight bag too—they’ve got us booked through tomorrow.”

  Tully had intended to play hooky from the office the following day so he could help Sage with the last of the shopping and keep him company as he started preparing the holiday food. Apparently that plan was out the window. “I have plans for Thursday, Eddy.”

  “I’ll have you back by tomorrow night, Cinderella.”

  Tully hurried up to his apartment, where he took a fast shower and threw a few things into a small suitcase. He paused in front of his dresser, feeling obscurely guilty, and then grabbed a pad of paper and scrawled a quick note to Sage, explaining his absence. He could have texted, but Sage was probably sound asleep in Hair Shaker, where cell reception might be iffy anyway. Tully wanted to leave the no
te where Sage would see it as soon as he returned home in the wee hours of the following day. The kitchen? Maybe, except what if Sage didn’t go in there until after he slept? Tully decided to slide the note under Sage’s bedroom door instead.

  When he got to the room, he found the door open a few inches. Sage had been running late when he left Sunday afternoon and must have neglected to shut it all the way.

  Tully hovered in the hallway. He could almost feel the devil perched on his left shoulder and the angel on his right. He could certainly hear them—one urging him to take a look, the other reminding him that doing so would be an invasion of Sage’s privacy.

  The devil won. Which might have been expected since Tully was a lawyer. Just a peek, he promised himself as he pushed gently on the door.

  The room was little changed by Sage’s stay. He’d made his bed neatly and hadn’t spread any clutter. He hadn’t done anything with the somewhat bland photos Tully had hung on the walls—an interior shot of the clock at Musée d’Orsay, a black-and-white of a spiral staircase in the US Supreme Court Building, a vintage image of St. Johns Bridge. The blinds were open, revealing the first light of dawn. The only sign that Sage lived there was a picture frame on the nightstand. And Tully, silently damning himself, turned on the overhead light so he could see.

  The frame was angled to be visible from the bed, which meant Tully had to fully enter the room. You never promised not to, the devil pointed out. The angel shook its haloed head and said, The promise was implied.

  The photo depicted two people standing in front of Sage’s truck, smiling broadly at the camera. Sage wore snug jeans and a fleece-lined denim jacket. He had his arm around the shoulders of a lovely young woman with light brown skin and thick dark hair that fell to her waist. She was dressed similarly, but her jacket was unbuttoned to show a University of Oregon T-shirt.

  Complications, Sage had said. A plate too full. Well, of course. With a girlfriend waiting for him in Hair Shaker, the last thing he needed was to fall into bed with the guy giving him free rent.

  With his chest feeling heavy as granite, Tully backed out of the room, switched off the light, and returned the door to its original barely open state. He checked his watch, then hurried to the kitchen to leave the note before Eddy’s driver arrived.

  ALTHOUGH Tully had flown first class many times, he’d never been in a private jet. It was awfully nice to be driven straight to the airplane and climb directly aboard, bypassing any need for security inspections. A smiling young man introduced himself as Marcus, took Tully’s suitcase, and asked whether he could get Tully something to drink.

  “Coffee. Gallons of it, if possible.”

  “We’ll start with ounces, but refills are easy.”

  Tully couldn’t decide whether Marcus was flirting or just being very friendly, so he smiled back blandly and chose one of the eight plush leather seats. Eddy boarded while Tully was still craning his neck for a good look around.

  “Breakfast,” said Eddy, holding a large paper bag aloft. He plopped down in the seat opposite Tully and set the bag on the table between them. “I figured you didn’t have time to eat yet.”

  Tully wasn’t hungry, but he nodded and tried not to be an asshole.

  “Sorry for the short notice,” Eddy said. “I thought about a video conference, but this will be better.”

  “Sure.”

  Marcus delivered their coffee, the pilot and copilot stepped in to introduce themselves, and then they were off.

  Eddy and Tully talked business for the entire flight, both of them peering at their laptops and comparing notes and ideas. Eddy ate a bagel and some fruit, but Tully nibbled only a few bites of pastry before setting it aside.

  “Watching your girlish figure?” asked Eddy.

  Tully was in no mood for witty banter. “Fuck you,” he mumbled.

  “Wow. Someone’s not a morning person.” But with a philosophical shrug, Eddy dropped the subject and began talking about FONSIs, which were not leather-jacketed characters from a 1970s TV show.

  They landed in Burbank, where a limo waited. Getting out of the airport was easy, but when they merged onto the freeway, traffic was stop-and-go. Eddy gazed dreamily out the window. “Imagine how much better this will be in one of my pods.”

  Tully only grunted in reply, although Eddy had a good point. In the car next to them, a middle-aged lady stared in their direction, probably wondering if anyone famous sat behind the tinted windows. She’d be disappointed to learn it was only a tech magnate and his lawyer; she was better off with her imagination and her hope.

  Hope. Hah. That was a crock of shit. Tully pushed away the image of Sage and his pretty girlfriend.

  Cromwell Williams was housed in a large attractive building with extensive xeriscaping, solar panels covering the electric-car charging stations, and a plaque in the lobby attesting to LEED Platinum status. Tully wondered whether the staff—all young, attractive, and perky—were energy efficient too. He would have bet his soul the conference-room coffee was fair trade.

  As grouchy as he felt, he had to admit the meeting was productive. The Cromwell Williams employees were incredibly helpful, and the interaction over the conference table was much better than they could have managed via distance communication. Lunch was catered, as were some early evening snacks, and it was past seven when everyone packed up their tablets and laptops.

  “Dinner?” Eddy asked as he and Tully climbed into the limo. “I know this great place that—”

  “No, thanks. I’m wiped.”

  “But you have to eat.”

  “Do they have room service wherever we’re going?”

  Eddy sighed. “Sure.”

  Where they were going turned out to be a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills. Tully wasn’t surprised to learn that Eddy had booked them adjoining suites, each of which was undoubtedly larger than Tully’s shared law-school apartment.

  “We’re here for one night,” he grumbled in the elevator. “We don’t need the Taj Mahal.”

  “But why scrimp?”

  They reached Eddy’s room first. He paused with his foot propping open the door. “If you change your mind about dinner, text me. Or maybe you want to go down to the spa. There’s a sauna, or we could book massages. Or what about the bar for drinks?”

  Tully shook his head. “Room service, work, sleep.”

  “Suit yourself. The driver’s picking us up at eight tomorrow. I’ll meet you in the lobby. We’ll be having breakfast at Cromwell Williams.”

  After giving a tired wave, Tully headed for his own suite. It had banks of windows with expansive views of the Hollywood Hills, more furniture than his condo, and a fireplace that was largely unnecessary in Southern California. But it was what perched atop the dining table that made him scowl: a huge fruit basket and equally oversized floral arrangement. They could have been from the hotel—a perk for spending a small fortune on the room—but he intuitively knew they weren’t. And when he stomped into the bedroom, he was angry but not shocked to discover rose petals scattered across the white duvet and a bottle of wine next to another bouquet on the dresser.

  For several moments Tully stood, clenching his jaw hard enough to hurt.

  Then he saw the note on the bed, a plain white sheet folded neatly in half with his name scrawled in blue ink. When Tully tried to figure out the logistics of how Eddy got it there, his head hurt. He opened it to find Eddy’s handwriting.

  T,

  I am adhering to the terms of our agreement. This is not a sexual advance. If you must label it, it’s romantic. Or you can just consider it a little pampering after I’ve dragged you to La-La Land on a moment’s notice. Maybe you weren’t in the right place for us 2 years ago—but maybe you are now.

  We work well together. We make a handsome couple. We’re a perfect fit.

  See you at 8.

  —E

  Tully almost marched next door to land another punch in Eddy’s face, but what would be the point? If one hit hadn’t dissuaded the g
uy, would two? And suddenly Tully was so completely exhausted he couldn’t contemplate even leaving his own suite. He removed the cork from the wine and carried the bottle into the living room, where he could see the Hollywood Sign.

  Wine counted as dinner, didn’t it? It was squished grapes. He drank straight from the bottle.

  He eventually examined the fruit basket, which contained cheese, crackers, and chocolate. But the pretty strawberries were tasteless and nothing else appealed, so he took only the wine with him into the bathroom, which was predictably huge and opulent. It thankfully contained no flowers, and the soaking tub and a TV built into a nearby wall made him grunt with satisfaction. He slowly undressed—and drank—while he waited for the bath to fill.

  He emptied the bottle while soaking and watching a movie. He didn’t know what movie it was or what it was about. Couldn’t have named the actors or setting. It was sound and motion, and that was all.

  Maybe he should reconsider his rejection of Eddy. After all, it wasn’t as if Tully had any other social life. Maybe things had changed over the past two years—although the kiss they’d exchanged a few weeks earlier suggested otherwise. But passion was overrated anyway. Relationships were built on more important matters, such as similar viewpoints and backgrounds. Tully and Eddy had a lot in common—good education, money, experience in legal wrangling, the desire to live in an urban environment. Sage, on the other hand—

  No. Tully shouldn’t even think about Sage, whose plate was full. Who was off the table.

  Tully left the empty bottle beside the tub, eschewed the towels, and wandered naked and dripping to the windows. It was most likely smog making the lights twinkle so fetchingly, and all those fancy houses on the hills were going to come tumbling down when the Big One hit. It was all a fake happiness, a delight with no more authenticity than the false-fronted sets of the nearby movie studios.

  Ugh. He needed more wine.

  Somewhere in this palatial suite, a minibar lurked, no doubt well stocked with tiny bottles of vodka and whiskey. Overpriced bottles to be sure, but then, Tully wasn’t the one footing the bill. He didn’t go looking for the minibar. Instead he dragged himself to the bedroom, swept all the damn rose petals onto the floor, and went to sleep.