by Daryl Banner
He looks stunned. “I … M-Me? Why me?”
“With Trevor trying to keep our secret, it put this … wedge between you guys. You mean the world to him, and it was shitty of me to compromise your friendship like that.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“No, I do.”
“Really, though. I mean, maybe he kept things from me and lied a lot, but … I knew he was seeing someone,” Elijah explains, “and I knew that someone was giving him a little hop to his every step. Now that I know it’s you, well …” He smiles. “You’ve done more for him than anyone I know. You made him happy.”
I can’t help but feel a stroke of glee at hearing those words. If only Trevor knew how much he’s done for me … “I’ll still apologize anyway for any strain on your friendship. It wasn’t intended.”
Elijah considers it, then reluctantly nods at last. “Alright. I accept your apology, Mr. Gage. Th-Thank you.”
“On a related note …” I lean toward him and lower my voice. “Where is Trevor? He hasn’t come in, which I understand, but he’s also not answering his texts or his phone. I’m worried about him.”
“He’s … He’s at our place.” Elijah licks his lips, nervous. “But I don’t think he wants to see anyone or speak to anyone. He’s waiting out the storm. I … honestly don’t know if he’ll come back.”
Those words hit me the strongest. “Elijah. Please look out for him. And keep me updated, will you? It’s killing me, this silence.”
“I will,” he promises.
46
Trevor has made up his mind.
“It’s nice to be twenty-one at long last,” declares a lazy Elijah, chomping on a slice of pepperoni pizza as he kicks back on the couch.
I’d already finished mine, curled up in the armchair with a glass of cheap wine hanging from my hand. “I feel shitty that we aren’t going out and partying or anything for your birthday.”
“Dude, just because my real birthday is today—a Thursday, of all boring days—it doesn’t mean I won’t celebrate with a big bash. I’m thinking this weekend, maybe. Friday or Saturday. We can all go to that bar down the street.”
“All?”
Elijah glances at me, squirms a bit, then adjusts his statement. “Just you, me, and Ashlee. And a couple buddies from campus, my media buddies from school. No other interns,” he quickly puts in. “I know you’re … probably not cool to be around them. I get it. I totally get it. But Ashlee’s cool, right? She’s angry for you, y’know. She wants Brady to pay.”
I give him an apologetic smile which quickly dies. I hate that it’s even an issue. I know he probably would’ve rather had all the interns going out for his birthday, but has to hold back because of me. Always because of me.
“Anyway, no interns other than Ashlee. Oh, hey, we can hit up a club around the corner afterwards, maybe, because I clearly will not be wasted enough by then. Ashlee said it’s totally a clean place. Clean except for the bathrooms after 1 AM. And then—”
“I’m going home, Elijah.”
He stops cold and stares at me, confused. “Uh, what?”
I set my glass down on the side table, then sigh. “I’m moving back home. I … I made the decision today while you were at the office. I already packed my things.”
Elijah drops the pizza to his plate, his jaw dropped. “No, dude. No, no. You’re not—”
“I called my parents. They’re expecting me.” I can’t quite look him in the eye just yet. “I don’t want to upset you, especially on your birthday, but you’re making all these plans for the weekend and … well, really, I think you should do what you really want to do. Invite all the interns. Have a blast, dude. I … I just need to be home right now with my family.”
“Come on. You’re running away? After everything? You can’t just go home,” he states pleadingly. “I’m your family, too! We were just getting into our groove here. Salamander’s even warmed up to you. Kinda. Not really. Anyway, the paparazzi aren’t outside our doors anymore. The story that’s out there circulating the net is already taking things in a whole different direction.”
I did notice the changed attitude on the news and on the blogs I browsed today, curled up on my bed with my laptop and all my precious, hurt feelings. The headlines made me smile, admittedly. Benjamin Gage is an ass man. Benjamin Gage is a man of few words, but one amazing set of gym-bred cheeks. Benjamin Gage makes his employees work overtime and makes no apologies for it.
The change is so abrupt, and I know it’s the finesse of Ben’s hand and his team—a team I was just, two days ago, a part of.
Not anymore.
And while I’m happy that his image is taking a new path, what am I supposed to do with my own? There are still people out there on both sides of the fence, scouring the net with their trollish opinions that either condemn me for being an office slut who tried fucking his way to the top, or pitying me for being an innocent “kid” who Benjamin took advantage of.
“I’m sorry, bud,” I tell him, “but I need to do this. I’ve been stuck in here for days. I need to be home, sleep in my own bed, and recalibrate. I need to figure out what I want to do with my life. I even spent part of today researching schools …”
“Schools?? Trev … Dude. You are not transferring to another university for your last fucking year.”
“I may have to. I don’t know. I’m weighing … options.”
“Yeah. Well, an option is also to move to China and become a geisha. Or you could take up an axe and chop trees in the snowy wilderness of Canada, build yourself a cabin. Or crack twenty eggs into a bowl and bathe your face in it.”
I squint at him. “The fuck?”
“I’m saying there are options!” he exclaims, maddened. “I wouldn’t pick any of those, per se, but don’t act like you’re up a tree and need some hot fireman to come save you. Or like you climbed up the curtains and don’t know how to get back down. Or like your food bowl is only halfway empty and you gotta meow incessantly like you’re starving and the end is nigh. Or like—”
“Seriously. Enough with the cat metaphors. You’re about to give Salamander an orgasm.”
“You’re emotional right now,” he tells me, “and you just need to calm down, take a few more days, kick back, breathe, jerk off twenty or thirty times, watch a season or two of Friends … and then we’ll come at this and figure out your next move.”
I sigh, sinking in the armchair even more. “I’m a mess.”
Elijah stares at me for a bit, a perplexed look on his face. Then he goes and brings up you-know-who. “Have you talked to him?”
I stare at my phone, which sits on the side table next to me. He’s called me several times. He’s texted even more. I don’t know if I can bring myself to listen to whatever it is he has to say. I’ve done enough irreversible damage to his career just by existing, haven’t I?
Meanwhile, Salamander has hopped onto the couch and is busy investigating the slice of pizza Elijah left on his plate, sniffing it suspiciously. Elijah seems to be utterly ignoring it, still awaiting my answer.
“No,” I finally reply. “I haven’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t.”
Elijah bites his lip, then falls back into the couch. He pulls out his phone and starts tapping away.
“You texting Ashlee?” I prompt him, feeling a bit guilty.
He doesn’t answer, his thumbs feverishly at work.
“Y’know,” I go on, desperate for a change in subject, “I don’t think Ashlee would be opposed to you asking her out. Like, at all. Just saying.”
Elijah finally looks up, his expression lightening. “What?”
“She likes you.” I give him a little smile, then spread my hands like a magician, wiggling my fingers. “Happy birthday!”
Elijah squints suspiciously at me. “Have you been talking to her or something? Where’s this coming from?”
“Since you’re texting her,” I say with a nod at his phone, “I
just thought I’d let you know that you can make a move and … I’m pretty sure she’d make one of her own.”
Elijah smirks, then lowers his phone to his lap, thinking about it. A tiny smile breaks out over his face. “I noticed an odd change in her this past week or so. I just thought it was because I fixed some little thing on her spreadsheet last Tuesday.”
“Your lady awaits.” I give him a wink.
“So does your lad,” he returns.
I press my lips together, then push myself out of my armchair to refresh our respective choices of alcohol. We’re just drinking cheap wine and beer, but it’s really more symbolic anyway, since it’s Elijah’s first day as a legal alcohol consumer. Before long, we’re both watching some random show on TV, for the first time not staying focused on the repetitive, nauseating news.
When I finally decide to go to bed, Elijah speaks up. “At least wait until I’m home from work before you go, will you?”
I stop at my bedroom door, turning to hear him out.
“Just give it the day,” he pleads, “and if you still want to go home … then I’ll drive you. It’s the least I can do.”
Hugging the doorframe, I give Elijah a tired, surrendering nod before ducking into my room and shrugging under the bed sheets. I stare at my phone in the dark, rereading the texts Ben sent me over the past couple days. Then I open an ambiance app, set it to the gentle crashing of ocean waves, and attempt to fall asleep.
No, I’m totally not dreaming of a certain beach in Mexico.
With a certain someone’s arms wrapped tightly around me.
Damn it.
47
Trevor changes his mind.
“I’m partying with you tonight.”
Elijah blinks. “Uh … what?”
“Invite all the interns. Invite the whole damned office,” I tell him. “I don’t care. My best friend Elijah is turning twenty-one and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna miss the celebrating!”
“My birthday was yesterday. I’m already twenty-one.”
“You know what I mean, punk!” I laugh and slap him on the back, excited. “We’re going to have a blast tonight!”
Elijah looks mildly concerned. “Are you … um … okay?”
I squeeze his shoulders and slap a kiss right on his cheek. “I am so fucking okay.”
Now he looks twice as concerned as before.
But who cares? Maybe being holed up in the apartment has made me crazy. Maybe Salamander’s fur is lodged up my nose and has planted a rebellious streak in me. Maybe I acquired a taste for partying in my sleep last night.
The reason turns out not to matter anymore by the time the sun’s down, the moon’s up, and Elijah and I are set up at a very particular nightclub down the road.
The nightclub where this whole mess began.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t crazy anxious about being at the scene of the crime all over again. This is, after all, where I first met Ben. And as the interns trickle in slowly, one at a time, my anxiety only gets worse and worse. Never mind what they really feel about the whole scandal; what if Ben himself shows up?
I interpret every shifty glance my way as a question someone won’t dare ask me. Did you seduce Mr. Gage, or did he seduce you? Is he a bottom or a top? Is Mr. Gage as cocky in bed as he is in the office?
But after a couple of drinks, the amount of shits I give reduces to approximately none.
It’s really remarkable, the magic alcohol can do to an uptight, stick-up-his-ass ex-intern like me. Ex-intern. Is that what I am now? Is my employment at Gage Communications officially over?
That last question is what Isaac makes the mistake of asking me after two full glasses of whatever fruity cocktail the bartender keeps serving me. “Well, I consider my career ‘officially fucked’, actually,” I answer lightly. “But thanks for the cement! I mean, centimeter. I mean … senti-sentiment.”
When you’re drunk and you’re not a drinker, the most normal things become royally hilarious.
Like fingers. “Elijah, Elijah, look at my fingers. They are so … freaking … long.” My observation is followed by laughter I can neither control nor stop, and yes, I do realize I’m being loud.
But when you’re drinking, you assume everyone is loud and totally appreciates your obnoxiousness. They like it, even, and all those stares you’re getting are stares of curiosity and delight. They’re definitely not judging me. Or sneering. Or annoyed.
“Trevor, bro … are you alright?” asks Elijah.
“I’m on top of the world!” I cry out, delighted. “I’m free, and I’m drunk, and I’m—”
“Delirious,” Elijah finishes for me. “And I think you need to maybe pull back a bit, yeah?”
“I know what we need.” I grab his hands. “A dance!”
“Uh, that’s a hard nope.”
“Birthday boy dance!” I pull him toward the dance floor. By now, the others in the club have all become very aware of me—or wary, it’s hard to tell as they’re kinda backing away—and then it’s just me and Elijah on the dance floor. It isn’t long before I get my best friend smiling and laughing again, though I see the flicker of concern in his eyes.
Maybe another drink or two will get that concern wiped right out like an eye booger.
I’m not sure how it happens, but suddenly I’m standing on a block of stage intended for a go-go dancer or a DJ or something. My shirt is off and circling over my head like a lasso.
“What the fuck, Trevor??” calls someone—Elijah, or maybe another intern, or maybe even my totally new number one fan whose name I’d like to know.
Provided they exist.
I’ve spent about four days feeling like total slutty scum, right? Don’t I deserve to feel four minutes of glory, like I’m king of the parties and prince of everything that feels good and completely free of consequence? Oh, wait. We’ve been partying for four hours already? It’s been four years of uprightness, studiousness, and perfectionism in high school that’s been my identity, then all of that wash-rinse-repeated for four years in college? My whole life has been one totally controlled act after another, leading up to me fucking it all up anyway?
Who can blame me? This bomb was waiting to go off since I first enrolled in that Honors English class when I was eleven years old. Each “A” I earned was another tick, tick, tick, tick.
Tonight: boom.
“TREVOR.”
The name cuts through the room impossibly, like the word was spoken by all of the walls of the club, startling me. The volume of the music even seems to cut in half, and the chatter and hollering of the room dampens to nearly nothing.
I search for the voice.
When his figure emerges through the crowd, the people part amidst gasps of shock to make room for him.
It’s Benjamin. He’s standing there in the middle of the dance floor in a pool of light. He wears the same fitted bicep-hugging blue blazer he wore that first night I saw him—in this very room. His dress shirt accentuates his pecs beautifully. With his face framed by the light from above, he practically glows with beauty.
And here I am: sweaty, shirtless, and drunk, standing on a go-go boy block.
Slowly, he lifts a dildo to his mouth.
Oh wait, no, that’s a microphone.
“Trevor,” he speaks into it, his voice dancing all around me and bouncing off the walls. “I called your name a minute ago. You couldn’t hear me. So I had to get, uh … dramatic,” he explains with a little wiggle of the microphone.
I’m stunned. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Whispers scatter through the room, and I know what they’re saying: Benjamin Gage is actually here, and he’s speaking to Trevor Woodard—the intern who had his face buried in his boss’s ass on the evening news from here to the other end of the world. It’s like the next news story has just come to life right before their eyes, and they all have a front row seat.
I hope that’s not pee trickling down my leg right now.
“What are you do
ing?” I ask despite the room spinning.
“What I should’ve done the first night I met you,” he replies, echoes of his words scurrying into the corners of the nightclub like shadows—met you, met you, met you. “In this very room. When we were just two men whose eyes caught one another’s. Before you were an intern. Before I was your boss.”
Your boss, your boss, your boss.
I swallow. It’s not lost on me how many phones in the past ten seconds have just whipped out of pockets to capture—yet again—another moment of our lives. Except this time, it’s public whether I want it to be or not. The world watches us right now, listening to our every word.
Well, all of Ben’s words, more like, seeing as I’m struck dumb at the moment.
“When we’re not at the office, when we’re not in front of cameras, when you’re just Trevor and I’m just Ben, I feel happier than I have in years.” Years, years, years. “All I know is, you can’t control where you fall in love. Or who it is you fall in love with. But when it happens, you gotta own it.”
Own it, own it, own it.
He didn’t just say “love”, did he? That wasn’t my ass that just fell through the floor at hearing those words, was it?
“I mean, I don’t know yet if what we have is love,” Ben adds. “Is it too soon to know? Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t want some scandal caught on tape to take the chance away from us to figure out what we have. We owe it to ourselves to pursue this. You. Me.”
You. Me. You. Me. You. Me.
“So let’s do this the right way,” Ben finishes. “Trevor. Will you go on a date with me?”
My vision may be slightly questionable at the moment, but I see a majority of the interns at the front of the crowd, all of them eyeing us with curiosity, with excitement, with astonishment. I see Ashlee with her eyes full of that “aww” sort of hopefulness, her hands clasped together. I see Elijah right by her with a “go get ‘em” sort of smirk on his face.
I bring my gaze back to Benjamin, inspired, then take a step proudly toward him. “Ben, I’d be—”