by Peter Styles
Chris climbed into the driver’s seat and stuck the key into the ignition, turning the car on and rolling up all the windows. As he started to back out, he asked, “Where to?”
“Just head out of the park and turn right,” Mr. King said. His fingers scraped against his beard again and Chris began to realize how annoying that was going to be by the time they were done with this. “And then another right at the fifth light.”
“Got it.”
Chris started off, mulling over this opportunity in the back of his mind again. He felt thrown off of his game, unbalanced, and he didn’t like it. There were only two outcomes to this meeting of theirs: either he would be paying for what was probably going to be an expensive meal and with nothing to show for it, or Mr. King was going to generously pick up the tab out of gratefulness for their new connection. Chris would much prefer it be one and not the other, of course.
Suddenly, just before they pulled away from the park entirely, Chris caught a glimpse of something dark and distinctly familiar out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head only slightly, and his eyes widened.
It was the man from before, his face still buried in that damn book. He sat on a bench now, shoulders shaking with unmistakable amusement. He was caught up in his own little world, clearly enjoying himself like no one else there in the vicinity.
Chris had never seen anything more fascinating. He couldn’t look away.
Suddenly, a hand shot out from his right side and yanked hard on the steering wheel. Chris snapped back to himself, gasping slightly with surprise as he narrowly avoided colliding with the rear of a parked truck.
Mr. King pressed his lips together so that they formed a thin, disapproving line.
“Sorry,” Chris apologized again. He forced a wavering grin on his face while carefully pulling out into traffic. “Nothing like a little adrenaline before a big meeting, am I right? Really works up the appetite.”
The client gave a half-hearted, noncommittal sort of laugh. Right then, Chris knew that he was only another half of a screw-up away from losing Mr. King entirely. The rest of this would have to go flawlessly.
He just hoped that his erection would go down by the time he was required to get out of the car again. Waving one of those around in front of the waiters in a restaurant was probably a bad idea.
Chapter 3
“Markus?” Jeremiah called out, pausing as he stepped through the front door of their apartment and looking around. Their expensive décor, cluttered but not distasteful, stood exactly as it had been since he left that morning. Nothing had been shifted and there was nothing new out and on display. Clearly, Markus hadn’t come home yet.
Oh, well. Jeremiah shrugged and moved inside, shutting the door lightly behind him so as not to make a loud noise that would disturb their neighbors. Markus was a busy man. He tended to be home from work before Jeremiah came home from college, but not always. This was just one of those busy days where things were different.
His stomach growled and he dropped his backpack, together with what books he carried that wouldn’t fit into it, onto the couch and headed toward the kitchen. If he was hungry, Markus was probably going to be starving. The least he could do was have a simple meal ready for when he came home. And by simple, he meant a lovingly-made sandwich or an omelet to be refrigerated and then heated up again. It was more special than a frozen pizza, wasn’t it?
Plus, it was the most special thing he could actually do, since he wasn’t much of a cook.
Jeremiah headed over to the fridge while a pan on the stove started to heat up. Gathering up eggs and cheese and sliced ham – he had no idea how long that had been in there but it didn’t smell bad yet and wasn’t green – he started to crack eggs and slice up everything else. He had only just poured the eggs into the pan to an accompanying sizzle when the apartment door banged open hard. He jumped and spun around, heart hammering in his chest.
“Markus?” he called out, voice quavering.
“Jeremiah!” Markus’s voice boomed out, echoing hugely throughout their apartment. Decorative plates rattled on the shelves and Jeremiah had to sigh. He was pretty certain that Markus had no idea how loud he could be sometimes, or how huge of a presence he commanded. It could be rather disruptive to others.
“Where are you, Jerry?”
Yuck. Jerry is a name for old people.
“I’m in the kitchen,” he called out, stepping away from the stove to stand in the doorway. He didn’t want to leave the omelet or else it would burn and that would defeat the whole purpose. “I was making you some dinner.”
“Look at you, being all domestic.” Markus dropped his things on the floor, briefcase popping open and papers scattering around his feet as he crossed the living room. He moved into the kitchen, his huge width gently nudging Jeremiah out of the way and back toward the stove where the omelet had begun to puff up. “Thanks, babe.”
“I thought you might be hungry.” Jeremiah started to add the toppings to the omelet and folded it over. The bottom was a bit on the brown side but at least it didn’t split.
“I am, but I’m more excited than hungry.”
Jeremiah blinked a little and looked up at his boyfriend, surprised to realize that Markus really did look excited. How often did that happen in the aftermath of his long work days? “Did something go well for you today?” He smiled a little, remembering their conversation from a few days ago. “Did you find out that Chris Finley is hacking you?”
“No,” Markus practically shouted. “Even better!”
“Better?”
Markus didn’t answer for a moment. His shoes thumped noisily over the tiled floor, scattering dirt and debris on his journey to the fridge where he slugged back practically half of the carton of milk in a single swallow. Then, he shoved the carton back inside and let the fridge door slam shut again. “Right. Even better. You should take a seat, babe, because you’re going to need it.”
I don’t think I’m actually going to like whatever this is.
“At least let me finish making your dinner,” he said.
Markus grunted and moved back into the living room. After fetching a plate and gently sliding the omelet out of the pan, Jeremiah grabbed a fork and headed out after him. Markus still wore his dirty shoes, having now propped them up on their white ottoman. He held back a sigh as he saw the dirty smudges on its soft surface. Why fill their place with nice things if he was the only one making any effort to maintain it?
“Thanks.” Markus took the plate from him and had the entire omelet gone in about five seconds. Jeremiah wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or impressed.
“So, why do I need to be sitting down?”
“Because you are my ace in the hole!”
Markus beamed, but Jeremiah just shook his head and didn’t understand. “I don’t understand,” he said out loud.
“Of course not.” Markus tweaked his cheek with enormous fingers. “You’re lucky you’re pretty. And I’m lucky, too. You see, babe, I know you were at the park today.”
He was still mystified, unsure if any of this was supposed to actually make sense to him yet. “Well, yes, I was. I had some time between classes and it was a nice day outside. Uh… were you there?”
“No, no,” Markus said, still grinning. “Not me, but Chris was. You see, I decided to have someone tail along behind Chris to see what he was up to.”
“You’re having someone stalk him?” Jeremiah gasped.
“Not stalk. Just… conveniently be in the same place. Chris was there at the park meeting with a client…” Markus made a face, clearly of the opinion that business should be held inside an office “…but before he did, he was looking at someone else: you.”
“Oh…” He didn’t even have any idea what Chris looked like. Was he supposed to have been keeping an eye out for someone he didn’t even know? “Is that a bad thing?”
“No, it’s a very good thing!” Markus spread his hands. “Chris was clearly interested in you. He watched
you until his head nearly fell off! We can use this.”
“We?”
“I have a brilliant idea. Chris has the hots for you, so if you pretend to be interested in him, you’ll get him to spill all his secrets to you. Then, you break his heart and come back to me with everything you learned. It’s brilliant!”
Jeremiah blinked, mulling the words over in his mind as they started to fully sink in. His own boyfriend wanted him to fake a relationship with another man to spy on him? That wasn’t just absurd, it was dirty!
“No way, Markus! I won’t do that. That’s… that’s awful. Why would you think something like that is okay?”
“Because this is business, babe!” Markus leaned forward and stared hard into his eyes. “Think about it. It’s not like you’ll really have any feelings for him, and he gets to have a fun time.”
“A fun time?” Jeremiah gaped. “What exactly do you want me to do with this guy?”
“Take him on some dates; get cozy with him! Use your imagination!” Markus was no longer smiling. An intense grimace spread across his lips to match the seriousness in his gaze. “It isn’t being unfaithful if we decide to do this together, and if you tell me everything you do with him.”
Jeremiah looked down. That made sense, in a backward sort of way. After all, how else did open relationships work for other people? It all had to do with communication. And if this was what his boyfriend wanted…
Why does this still feel so wrong?
“This just seems kind of dishonest, Markus.”
“It’s business!” Markus insisted. Just like that, he went back to smiling. His eyes glimmered brightly. “But I suspect you’re doing business with me too right now, aren’t you, babe? You want something out of this deal, huh?”
That’s not…
Markus took his hand and patted the back of it. “I’ll buy you anything you want if you do this for me, babe. I’ll buy you anything. You want a new suit? I’ll get you the best. And a back-up suit. One for the wedding and one for the reception!”
Jeremiah gasped. “What? Wedding?”
“That’s right!” Markus said, beaming. “If you do this for me the way I know you can, I’ll put a ring on that pretty finger of yours. On all ten of your fingers if you want!”
Jeremiah turned his head away slightly, thinking hard. All this time, he’d been waiting and waiting for Markus to take their relationship to the next step and it seemed like this was the price. They would be engaged, married even, if he did this simple thing.
And it was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? To help his boyfriend beat his rival?
Jeremiah looked in Markus’s eyes and knew his decision.
Chapter 4
“Are you really sure that this is okay?” Jeremiah asked, as Markus had his driver park them out in front of the expensive clothing store. He couldn’t even pronounce the name, and couldn’t even begin to guess what language the words might be from. His misgivings, which he had from the start of this, were only becoming that much stronger by the second.
“What?” Markus said, feigning ignorance as he climbed out of the limo and helped Jeremiah out behind him.
“This!” He gestured around at the strip, at the high-end restaurants that catered to ridiculous tastes such as caviar doughnuts and gold leaf-infused steak marinades. He didn’t belong here, where the music was a weird blurring of techno and hip-hop that somehow managed to embody only the worst aspects of each. This was a trendy place where everything was priced as though popularity was worth, and he wasn’t sure how to deal with that. This place was where culture came to die, especially because he was beginning to have a dreadful certainty that those words atop the clothing store sign were actually in English. Street English. Internet English, the worst kind of all. Oh, he didn’t belong here. “It’s just so… out of my league.”
“Correct,” Markus said. With one wave of his hand, he dismissed their driver to go park somewhere nearby where he could pull up again the moment he saw them emerge. “And that’s the point. Business evolves with the time. And at this upcoming party, there are going to be a great deal of new young folks trying to make connections. We have to ensure that you blend in.”
Blend in? The only thing Jeremiah ever blended into was the background, usually with his face hidden by whatever he was reading. He didn’t mingle with any crowd in particular or pay any attention at all to trends because he just didn’t have the right look for it. He hadn’t grown up with this like a lot of other people his age. Dressing like them, acting like them, made him feel like a poser. And they could sense his falseness from a mile away too.
Still, he really wanted to marry Markus and have all his dreams come true, so he shoved down his misgivings and followed his boyfriend into the dreadful store.
The second he did, he nearly went deaf. Most of the horrible techno music that could be heard all up and down the street was being pumped from a speaker right inside here, and it was almost enough to blow his eardrums out. How did this place still have windows?
It wasn’t just the sound that was a nightmare. It was the colors. Nothing went together, and there was no sense of pattern at all. Everything was unicorn-hideous or tie-dyed, or done in some form of rainbow shading. Everything was too bright, from the fabrics to the lights up above.
Jeremiah couldn’t see a single thing in here that he would call sensible business wear. Even knowing he would be going to a party soon, he wouldn’t be caught dead in any of this. These were clothes to go to a rave in, or a second-grader’s sleepover birthday party.
“Hi there!” a sudden voice shouted from nowhere. Jeremiah practically jumped out of his skin as a black woman with neon pink hair strode up to them. She practically had to scream to be heard over the music. “Welcome to…” Even spoken aloud, he still couldn’t understand the name of this place. “Can I help you two find anything in particular?”
“Suits,” Markus rumbled back, in his normal tone of voice.
The lady nodded and smiled, turning and pointing all the way toward the back of the store. Jeremiah squinted but all he could see was a giant display of shirts covered in emoji faces. “Back in that corner! My name is Shawntaya! Come find me if you need anything else!”
Markus thanked her and then grabbed Jeremiah’s arm, pulling him through the maze of thin shirts meant to be layered and hideous shredded jeans.
Jeremiah pressed up close against his boyfriend’s side and whispered directly into his ear. “This place is horrible.”
“You don’t like dubstep?” Markus chuckled.
“Dubstep? Is that what this horrible music is called?”
“It’s all the rage with the kids these days,” Markus replied, still laughing. “Might as well get used to it. Become it. You need to wear the best disguise you can tomorrow!”
Jeremiah stopped in front of the emoji shirt display. He didn’t want to look past these racks, because out of the corner of his eye he was seeing a whole lot of glitter and it was making his stomach hurt. “How do you even know Chris Finley is going to be interested in any of this? Maybe we should call this off until you know more.”
“Ah-ah-ah!” Markus tutted, waggling one finger teasingly. He leaned in and gave Jeremiah a quick peck on the lips. “The whole point of doing this is so you can find out that information for us, babe. And Finley doesn’t need to be interested in this. You just need to blend in and not look like a spy.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “And what is being here going to do to help with that?”
Markus grinned and strode past him, deep into the disco-ball of suits. He waded in, snagged something, and immediately waded back out again. “Ever see a spy who would be caught dead in one of these?”
Only under the vaguest of situations could that garment be called a suit. Yes, it had all the proper parts, pants and jacket and optional vest, but it wasn’t black or grey or even white. It was silver, yet shot through with light blue and purple and pink in a terrible imitation of some sort of galaxy and
scattering a dust of glitter whenever Markus waved it around. The buttons were five-pointed stars.
My god, Jeremiah thought, horrified, I’m going to look gayer than I ever have in my entire life.
Markus handed him the outfit to go try on. And, horror of horrors, it fit. It fit almost perfectly, and Shawntaya gave them the name of a tailor who would bring in some of the errant seams. At least she put it in a black bag, so that the general public couldn’t see his shame when he carried it back out through the doors and onto the street again.
“You looked adorable,” Markus said, as the driver pulled back around and opened their doors for them.
“I looked like a sexually-confused five-year-old!”
“If Chris Finley is into that, please let me know.”
Jeremiah gave a short, unamused laugh. At least this part of the horrors was over… but, it seemed, there was more to come. Rather than heading back toward their apartment, the driver took them in the direction of the street that he recognized as being part of the tailor’s address.
“Oh, please, Markus. Don’t make me put that hideous thing on again!”
“It won’t take very long at all, babe. Don’t worry. And it’ll be worth it in the end, I promise.”
As it turned out, Markus’s idea of “worth it” was an hour of miniscule stitch work followed by a low-fat ice cream cone from McDonalds on the way home. Jeremiah didn’t share the same sentiment. To him, this whole damn venture would only be worth it when he was finally able to go to bed… with his husband.
Chapter 5
Finally, the party. If such events as this could be called that anyway. Chris suspected the term was used in place of “meet and greet” at the urging of someone who wanted to make their life seem as though it was less boring than it actually was. After all, who wouldn’t be jealous of a real estate employee if he went to work-sanctioned parties every other weekend?