by Wiley, John
“Like I said, don’t let me stop you from dancing with your boyfriend,” she says; hands up, once again.
“I’ll see you Monday.” Erick slides out of the booth and waves at his other coworkers still seated there, engrossed in their own conversations.
Adele slides out after him and grabs him just before he steps up on the raised dance floor. “How do you expect me to get home?”
Erick shrugs. “You’re the one that told me to leave.”
“I’m sorry, babe, that’s what I do. When I like a guy, I push him away.”
Erick looks behind him at his friends dancing in a circle, laughing like mad people. He turns back to Adele who is licking her lips seductively. “I’ll see you Monday.” He runs up to the stage and makes his way into the group between Jennifer and Rhys. “Hope you don’t mind me joining you,” he says.
“I told you straight guys can’t resist two women dancing together,” Chloe yells over the music.
“You straight guys are just so predictable,” Rhys says to Erick behind a grin.
“And you think you gays aren’t? Are you trying to tell me that if Zach Norton came in here right now you wouldn’t turn to jelly?”
“Nope,” says Rhys, as seriously as he can.
“Prove it,” says Erick, motioning to the entrance with his head.
“Shit, you’re kidding, right?” says Rhys, spinning around and spilling some of his beer on himself. At the entrance to the bar he sees two college-aged girls getting their hands stamped. His jaw drops in mock anger as he turns back to Erick and punches his shoulder. “You bitch!”
Erick doubles over in laughter.
“It wasn’t that funny,” laughs Cindy.
“It was pretty funny,” says Erick, standing back up.
“You’re like the dog I had when I was little,” says Jennifer to Rhys. “Whenever there was a bunny it couldn’t help but go after it. That’s how you are with Zach Norton.”
“I feel like that’s probably homophobic,” says Rhys, chuckling at the situation.
“C’mon, I need another beer,” says Erick to Rhys.
“Next round is on you,” says Cindy as they walk away.
“I think they’re talking to you, you big, important entertainment paralegal.”
“Please, I spend my days making copies and getting coffee.”
Rhys shrugs. “I spend my day making coffee.”
Erick hands Rhys a beer and they go to the table to sit down while the girls continue to dance. “Really, barista’s should make more money. The world would stop if it wasn’t for us.”
“We can make our own coffee if we have to,” says Erick.
“Yeah, instant.”
Erick nods. “I guess you have a point.” He plays with his bottle cap for a few seconds before continuing. “I’m sorry about how distant I’ve been lately.”
Rhys shrugs. “It’s not a big deal. I mean, it’s kind of lonely, but I’ve started hanging out with the girls.”
“I knew you and Cindy would start to get along.”
“Nah, I still hate her,” Rhys smirks. “Oh my God, did you know Homeless Man has a name?”
“Well I assumed as much,” says Erick, drinking from his beer. “What is it?”
“Gene!”
“Ha!”
***
Three hours later, everyone is standing outside of the bar. “Are you sure you don’t mind taking him home?” asks Jennifer.
“Not a problem,” says Erick. “I don’t want you to have to go out of your way so late.”
“Are you two serious?” yells Rhys; his ears still clogged from the loud music. “How drunk are you should I drive?” He asks, slurring his sentences together. After a moment’s pause, he falls backwards and lands on his backside. Everyone bursts into laughter at the site. “Ouch! Guys, that really hurt! I might have to get one of those inflatable doughnut things to sit on now if it’s bruised too badly!”
“I’m definitely not as drunk as you,” says Erick, helping Rhys up. “Come on, let’s go.” He leads him to the moving truck.
“But I don’t understand why you said you didn’t want Jennifer to go out of her way. She lives next door to us.”
“It was a joke,” Erick laughs.
“Oh. Wait, aren’t jokes supposed to be funny?”
“You’re an ass.”
“You are what you eat.”
Erick stops in his tracks and stares at Rhys. “Gross. You went too far. Go get in Jennifer’s car before she leaves.”
“But I was just joking! I haven’t really done that!”
Erick lets out a snort of laughter and quickly covers his mouth.
“I knew you were kidding,” Rhys slurs as he climbs into the passenger seat. “Hey, Erick?”
“Yeah?”
“I want a taco. Can we get tacos?”
“OK,” he says as he backs out of the parking space.
“Erick?” Rhys says as he yawns.
“Yeah?”
“This is how every night in LA was supposed to be.”
“I know,” he says, smiling slightly at the memories of all the plans they made before they moved. “I know.”
July
Erick unlocks the door to the apartment and tosses his bag by the coat rack next to the front door. The TV isn’t on, which means Rhys probably isn’t home. He knocks on his bedroom door just in case, but there’s no answer. He then gets a juice from the refrigerator and drinks it while looking out of the window with the fire escape.It’s been almost two weeks since the night they met up at the bar, and things have been going pretty well. For the first week of July they hung out together almost every night and went out exploring the city. After that first week however, Erick started going out with people from work as soon as they got off and didn’t get home until late.
Erick finishes the juice and turns to toss it in the trash when he notices a sticky note on the counter.
At the movie with Jennifer
be back late probably
-Rhys
Erick can’t help feeling relieved when he reads the note; the first week when they hung out was nice, but as the weeks went on they had less and less to talk about. He’s been trying to make an effort to be home more often though; he feels like he has an obligation to Rhys to make sure he isn’t too lonely – but it looks like he might finally be making some friends, which would slightly lift the obligation from Erick’s shoulders.
Erick dials his phone and waits for someone to answer. “Hey Lisa,” he says. “I know I said I couldn’t go out with you guys tonight, but Rhys isn’t home, so my night just opened up. Is it OK if I meet up with you guys? OK, see you there.” He puts the phone back in his pocket and goes off to meet his work friends.
***
“Hi, what can I get for you?” Rhys asks a woman in line at Coffee Cafe.
“Oh, it’s a scorcher out today, isn’t it?” she says as she wipes her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Yeah, it sure is,” Rhys smiles.
“I’d like a large caramel mocha blended coffee, please.” She rummages in her purse for her money as Rhys types the buttons on the computer. “I need this to cool off, you’re lucky you get to be in air conditioning all day.” She hands him her card. “They shut off my electricity, so my house is boiling.”
“Oh, yeah, I would imagine so.” Rhys hands the woman her card back as Cindy walks over with the drink.
“Why don’t you save your money for your electric bill instead of spending it on overpriced coffee?” asks Cindy.
The woman tilts her head in confusion. “Hmm?”
“Never mind,” Rhys interrupts. “Have a nice day. Stay cool.” After she leaves Rhys turns to Cindy. “I don’t think you’re allowed to ask people that.”
Cindy shrugs. “You know you were thinking the same thing.”
“Well yeah, who uses their last five dollars on coffee instead of saving it to get their power turned back on?”
***
/> “Hey,” Erick says when he walks into the office the next day.
“Hi,” says Adele, not looking up from her computer screen.
“I haven’t seen you for like two weeks; have you been on vacation?”
“Yeah.”
“Go anywhere nice?” Erick asks.
Adele shakes her head.
“Well anyway, I’ve been meaning to thank you for inviting me out that night; I had a lot of fun.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, sarcasm dripping from her voice.
“Um…did I do something wrong? I would have texted you afterwards but I didn’t have your number.”
“Not now, I’m in the middle of a really intense game of solitaire.”
“Fine.” He walks through the doorway to go to his desk.
“Wait,” says Adele.
“Yeah?” He turns to face her.
“Go get us some coffee. Thanks.” She drops a list with ten different drink orders on the corner of her desk and turns back to her screen.
***
Erick parks the truck in the parking lot of his apartment and walks across the street to Coffee Cafe. “Hey,” he says when he walks in. He sees Rhys and Cindy huddled over a magazine, laughing at whatever they’re looking at. When he walks in they look up.
“Oh hey,” says Rhys. He looks at the clock on the register screen. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have seven and a half more hours of work?”
He holds up the coffee list. “Coffee run.”
“I thought you worked like, twenty minutes away, and that’s why Rhys never got the truck,” Cindy says.
“I do.”
“And this is the nearest coffee shop?” Rhys asks in awe.
“You’re an idiot,” Cindy says, grabbing the magazine and walking to the back room.
“I wanted to take some extra time today,” Erick says. “I don’t want to be in the office; Adele is being a bitch today.”
“Why?” Rhys asks, taking the list from his friend and marking all of the cups.
“I think she’s mad that I ditched them for you guys.”
“That was like a week and a half ago.”
“Yeah. Apparently she holds a grudge.”
“I wish I had people fighting over who got to hang out with me,” Rhys says longingly. He finishes marking a cup and looks back up at Erick. “I have people fighting over who has to hang out with me.”
“You know that’s not true.”
Rhys nods while marking the next cup. “It’s a joke.” He puts the cup down and walks to the swinging doors that lead to the back rooms. “Hey Cindy, I need your help.” He walks back to the counter and begins marking the next cup. “Anyway, I was thinking of trying to take an improv class or something. I thought it might help me get my big break.”
“Do you have any more auditions lined up?”
“No. I feel like I need to work on my craft first; I don’t want to become known around town as a bad actor, otherwise I’ll only get cast in rip-off movies.”
“You mean like Exterminator 2: Determination Evening?”
“Yeah,” says Rhys with a chuckle as he starts to ring up the drinks. “Except for I really liked that movie.”
“HOW?” Erick yells. “Sorry. I mean how? It’s a sequel to a movie that doesn’t exist!”
“Actually, I think it’s supposed to be a sequel to AWOL with the Air Blast.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen that one,” says Erick.
“It’s going to be $47.25,” Rhys says. Erick hands him the company credit card. “I’m pretty sure I own AWOL with the Air Blast somewhere. Maybe we can watch it sometime if you want.”
Erick shrugs. “Maybe. Or we can go explore the city some. We’ve been here for a month and really haven’t explored anything other than this little area.”
“Well, our neighborhood and Franklin.” Rhys hands Erick the receipt and helps Cindy finish the drinks. “But yeah, we should definitely go out more.”
“There you go,” says Cindy, pushing the third drink carrier toward Erick. “How are you going to get these?”
“No idea.”
“I’ll help you get them across the street,” Rhys offers.
“Well hurry up,” says Cindy as she leans against the back counter and opens the magazine. “I can’t handle this all on my own.”
Rhys and Erick look around the shop and notice the only customers are two guys typing their Great American Novels on their laptops and Homeless Guy Gene, reading a gossip magazine in a big comfy chair.
“Gene could ride with you to work and help you carry these.”
Erick shrugs. “I guess, but I’m sure I can manage on my own; I’ll just make two trips.”
“Hey, Gene!” Rhys yells. “You doing anything today?”
“I have a croquet match with Marlon Brando and the Olsen twins this afternoon, but that’s all,” he says, shutting the magazine.
“Um, right. So do you want to ride with Erick to work and help him carry the coffee upstairs?”
Gene shrugs. “I guess if he really can’t manage on his own…”
“I really can manage.”
“Nonsense! Ride with him, it’ll be fun!”
Gene sighs and walks to Erick and grabs two of the carrier trays.
“We better hurry,” says Erick. “I really shouldn’t have taken an hour to get some coffee. See you tonight,” he says to Rhys as he leaves, followed by Gene.
“I’m going to tweet that,” says Rhys and he pulls his phone from his back pocket.
“What? Why?” asks Cindy.
“My followers demand to know what I do in my life.”
“I was here for it.”
“You follow me?” Rhys asks in shock.
“Yeah, and I think I’m the only one.”
“Ha ha,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Why do you follow me though? I thought you hated me.”
“I was going to use it as ammunition to make fun of you, but it ended up just being really sad, so I decided to find other things to tease you about.”
“Aw, thanks.” He sends the tweet and goes back behind the counter. “Let’s finish that article now.”
Rhys @RhysHesPNutbutr 1m
Just got the #TwitterlessHomelessMan a job for the day. I’m like @Oprah except for poor, white, and a boy
***
Joey sits at a large circular lunch table and squeezes some pizza sauce on his Pizza Lunchable. His phone vibrates and he picks it up, looks at the screen and laughs.
“What’s up?” asks Liam, sitting down across from him.
“Oh hey. Rhys just tweeted the stupidest thing. He’s ridiculous.”
“He tweets?”
“Yeah. He has that problem where he tweets before thinking.” Joey sprinkles cheese on his pizzas and then places the pepperoni on them. “Why?”
Liam shrugs. “Just asking.” He takes his peanut butter and jelly out of the Transformers lunchbox he’s had since elementary school. “So what’s his name on it?” he asks as he unscrews the lid on the thermos and pours the chicken noodle soup into the lid. The thermos doesn’t match (it’s Care Bears) because the class bully stole the Transformers one during the first week of school. He insisted he didn’t, but most people don’t have a Transformers thermos to go with their brown paper bag.
“RhysHesPNutbutr. I’ll just text it to you, it’s too hard to spell, which is probably part of why he has so few followers.”
Liam’s phone beeps when the text arrives. He picks it up, and follows the link to Rhys’ twitter. “Oh my gosh, he has twenty followers. I have at least twice that many porn bots following me.” He scrolls through some of the old tweets and chuckles to himself. “Oh my God, he was looking for Paris Hilton in a field?”
“Yeah, he’s really weird,” Joey says with his mouth full.
“I loved The Simple Life. I wish they would have made more seasons of it.”
Joey looks at Liam, eyebrow raised.
“What?”
&n
bsp; “Nothing. I’ve just heard that before. A lot.”
***
Rhys slips out of the apartment and locks the door behind him, just as the sun is starting to peek above the horizon,
“Hey,” says Jennifer.
Rhys jumps and turns around to see Jennifer leaning on the railing surrounding the roof, wearing a tank top and boxers. “What are you doing out here so early?”
Jennifer shrugs and looks back at the street below. “Couldn’t sleep and realized it’s been too long since I’ve seen a sunrise.”
Rhys looks at the horizon with her; the pink sky reminding him of cotton candy. “It is really pretty. Unfortunately, I’ve been seeing too many sunrises lately; I’m much more of a night person than a morning person.”
Jennifer makes a noncommittal sound and watches an ambulance pass on the street below.
“At least I’m not in quite as early today,” he says, desperate for conversation.
“I think I’m going to see about going back to bed.”
“What about the sunrise?”
She looks back to the sky and shrugs. “Good night.”
“Uh, good ni – “ he says to her closed front door. Rhys runs down the stairs and passes Gene at the bottom. “What are you up to today?”
Gene shrugs. “I’ll probably go see Erick; he’s going to let me help him with the coffee and lunch runs today.”
“Awesome!” The crosswalk turns to the ‘walk’ sign, so Rhys runs across the street. “Have a good day!”
“Thanks,” says Gene as he goes upstairs.
Rhys gets across the street just as Jared is opening the door to customers for the day.
“Hey,” says Rhys, as he squeezes by Jared.
“Good morning. Have a nice two days off?”
“Yeah, it was OK,” says Rhys as they walk to the break room so he can drop off his bag. “Ended up going to an audition last minute and did crappy, again. Did I tell you I met Alistair Crosby at my first audition? He took me out for a drink afterwards.”
“Ooh, his boyfriend is hot,” says Jared.
“Yeah.” Rhys gives Jared a sideways look. “I didn’t realize you were into guys.”