Sugar and Spice

by Max Hudson

  “You know, not everything in my life is a joke,” he said coldly.

  Leah’s eyebrows shot up to the ceiling.

  “Jess…” she said, genuinely shocked. Jesse was a lot of things, but mean was not usually one of them. It took a lot to make him lose his temper, at least it did from anyone but his mom.

  “I didn’t mean…” Leah continued. “I’m sorry, okay? Is everything all right? Is there something you need to tell me about?”

  Jesse closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, his anger suddenly dissipating. None of this was his sister’s fault. He knew that. He and Leah could go toe to toe in verbal boxing all night long, but at the end of the day, they really did love each other, even if they didn’t always understand where their sibling was coming from.

  “No. It’s fine,” he said softly. “I’m fine.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but really it was the truth. He liked Oscar. He liked him so much that just thinking about him made his heart beat faster… and he got the strangest feeling that Oscar felt the same way.

  Jesse couldn’t remember ever feeling quite this happy. Of course his family was bound to notice it. They were clueless, but they weren’t that clueless. They still loved him despite their faults, and they wanted him to be happy and in love. That’s probably what caught Leah’s attention. It was easier to notice a change that you’d been hoping for than one you’d never considered. Still, it stung knowing that the only times he became relevant in their eyes was when they thought he had a secret girlfriend, as if he didn’t carry a much bigger secret with him every single day…

  And the teasing. He knew it wasn’t really meant to be hurtful, but it was, and it sort of always had been. People often assumed that because he rarely ever reacted negatively to insults, that made them okay to say. But like, being able to take a beating wasn’t the same thing as deserving one, right? Jesse was only one man. He could only be called worthless so many times before he started to believe it.

  Ugh. He was a mess. He really did need to make an appointment with Jocelyn. Maybe it was time to start experimenting with antidepressants again.

  “Okaaaaaay,” Leah said, suddenly unsure of herself. “Well whoever you’ve been texting, I hope they’re cool and I hope that you’re like, happy and shit... and please make sure you’re being safe.”

  Jesse rolled his eyes, but he appreciated her concern nonetheless. She also hadn’t used gender pronouns in the sentence. It probably wasn’t intentional, and she probably didn’t mean anything by it, but it was still nice to hear. Plus, even though he knew it already, it felt good to get some solid reassurance that underneath all the fighting and the self-absorbed drama, Leah really did care about him. She hadn’t even mentioned anything about the camera crew that was setting up downstairs or tried to get someone in here to film them. This was a one hundred percent genuine sibling heart to heart, and those were growing increasingly rare these days.

  “Nice chat,” Jesse said, not unkindly. “But seriously. You need to get out of my room.”

  Chapter Seven

  Oscar dreamed that he was sitting on the set of Garrett’s Guide. In the dream, he was perched on the edge of the bed in front of a retro camera which was resting on top of a tripod. His mouth kept going dry and cottony as he tried to deliver his lines, but it didn’t matter because behind the camera nobody was paying attention to him anyway. The producers and director and extras, even the craft services people, were facing away from him, lost in their own conversations. It felt as though he was performing a sad monologue for no discernible audience at the end of a long and oppressive tunnel that was continually taking him farther away.

  The scene shifted and he was suddenly wandering down a hallway. It was dark and dreary, lit by flickering fluorescent panels that would have fit in better in a horror movie set than a daytime television lot. Random people were passing by Oscar in both directions, giving him a wide berth as if he carried the plague.

  Most, but not all of these people, had vintage TVs resting atop their shoulders in place of heads. Sometimes the screens would show what the person was actually supposed to look like, and other times they’d be playing cooking shows or trashy reality TV. Sometimes they were just eerily blank, showing nothing but a warped and twisted reflection of Oscar’s own face. Oscar waded through them for an indeterminate amount of time before he arrived at a door. He didn’t know what he was doing there, only that this was his intended destination. Oscar reached out with his hands, which were no longer child sized—somewhere along the line he must have morphed back into his adult self—and turned the cold knob.

  Inside the room was a stereotypical executive’s office. There were awards and plaques hanging on the walls and a large ornate wooden desk in the center. On top of said desk were two adult figures having sex. One of them was easily recognizable as Mikey Anderson, one of Oscar’s old producers. Every section of his face was defined in grotesque detail, probably due to the fact that the man’s predatory gaze was burned into the back of Oscar’s memory forever. The other person was one of the screen-headed individuals from before. She had on a vibrant red dress hiked up to her waist and the top half of her body was dangling limply over the front of the desk. A picture flashed briefly across her television screen of a face. The image was upside down, but still recognizable as his dead mother. As Oscar was watching, she opened up her two-dimensional mouth and screamed.

  Oscar woke up with a gasp. It took him a few minutes to figure out where he was in the dark. His entire body was drenched in sweat and his eyes stung with tears as his lungs worked overtime to properly suck in air. It had been a very long time since he’d had a nightmare like this.

  As soon as he was able to move, he ripped off his sweat-soaked sheets and tumbled out of bed. He stumbled to the kitchen without turning on the lights and pulled a bottle of vodka out of the fridge. He took two sips straight, before putting it back.

  He let himself slide down to the floor with the lower cabinets digging into his spine. He rested his head against them miserably. Every time he closed his eyes he could see his mother’s face, sometimes dead and sometimes alive. Both were just as traumatizing, although admittedly not quite as traumatizing as his dream.

  Needless to say, he did not go back to sleep that night.

  Chapter Eight

  Jesse was heading over to Oscar’s place for what might have been their fifth date. He still wasn’t really sure. There wasn’t a lot of touching going on between them just yet, but there sure was a lot of talking and meaningful eye contact.

  One of the things Oscar mentioned the last time Jesse was here had really struck a chord with him. They’d been talking about Jesse’s morning, which had been spent scouting locations with Ted and Amal at a beach called Sunset Point. Oscar had listened to the story wistfully with his head in his hands.

  “Sometimes I really miss the beach,” he’d whispered, almost too softly to be heard.

  It was a rare slip-up for him. Oscar hardly ever commented on his loneliness or the nature of his isolation, even though they were constant elephants in the room.

  Even though he brushed it off and changed the subject right away, the fact that he had even voiced the thought at all, that it was so present in his mind that he couldn’t keep it from slipping out, dug daggers into Jesse’s heart.

  So, naturally, he had devised a plan. If Oscar wasn’t ready to go to the beach, Jesse was going to bring the beach to him.

  He arrived at the apartment at three, just as they’d agreed upon, with four equipment bags in hand and another three hidden in his car. Oscar was looking at him like he was crazy. Jesse gave him his best disarming smile.

  “I have a surprise for you,” he said.

  Oscar crossed his arms over his chest. He had dark circles under his eyes that hadn’t been there the last time they’d seen each other. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

  “I don’t like surprises,” Oscar said.

  “You’ll like this one,” Jesse
promised.

  Or at least, he hoped he would. The last thing he wanted to do was trigger another panic attack, but he was pretty sure he had a good grasp on Oscar’s triggers at this point. And if not, they were close enough now that he was willing to take the risk.

  “What is it?” Oscar asked skeptically.

  This was the tricky part of the plan.

  “I need you to go into your room for a bit while I set everything up.”

  Oscar narrowed his eyes. Jesse could practically see all the paranoid thoughts running across the other man’s mind. He couldn’t exactly blame him.

  “I’m not bringing anyone else over, I swear. It’s just me and a shit ton of inanimate objects, none of which are cameras.” Jesse lowered his lashes and looked at Oscar the way his movie star friends looked at their love interests onscreen. “Please, just trust me. If you hate it, I promise to never do anything like this again.”

  Oscar bit his lip. No doubt he was weighing how badly he wanted company with how distrusting he was of others. It was a tough sell, but Jesse could see his resolve weakening.

  “Okay,” he relented finally. “How long should I stay in there for?”

  “I’ll text you when I’m done.”

  Oscar sighed and stepped aside to let him in. Jesse set down his bags and looked at Oscar’s weary face. He felt a pang in his heart. He wondered who or what had instilled such weariness in him. Jesse was jaded, sure, but he still mostly thought people were good and he usually liked to look on the bright side of things. With Oscar, trust was not easily won, and based on how he acted around Jesse, it was clear that the man was not used to being treated kindly.

  That was another thing that broke Jesse’s heart. Hollywood had a way of breaking people, and it was never the evil money grubbing bastards that suffered the consequences. It was always the sweet kids full of potential, the ones who came to the city to make their dreams come true... kids like Oscar had once been.

  Jesse wanted so badly to lean in and kiss the worry lines on Oscar’s forehead until they melted away, but he knew he needed to be patient. Oscar had been on his own for a very long time. Jesse didn’t want to overwhelm him. Instead, he just smiled and ushered him into his room.

  “I’ll be quick,” he said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone of voice.

  Oscar waved him off and shut the bedroom door behind him. The gesture seemed to say, don’t make me regret trusting you. Jesse nodded to himself and then got to work.

  He quickly unpacked his bags and ran downstairs to retrieve the others before unpacking those as well. Splayed out in front of him were several heat lamps and natural sunlight bulbs, some tarps, plywood, a backdrop, and several bags full of children’s play sand, among other things. All of it was borrowed from his friends in the art department at Hillenbrand Studios. He’d told Millie, an old set designer what he wanted to do and why—leaving out the details of Oscar’s identity of course—and she’d walked him through the process of building a perfect island paradise in the middle of someone’s living room. “All in the name of love!” she’d proclaimed. Jesse just hoped he could replicate all of it by himself.

  Very carefully, he moved Oscar’s couch aside, trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to alarm him, and then got to work laying out the tarp and setting up wooden barriers for the sand. Once the sand pit was completed, he shoved some fake plants into the corners and sprayed the whole surface down with salt water to make it feel more “beachy.” He laid out two bath towels on top of the damp surface, one green and one orange, the latter of which Oscar had casually mentioned was his favorite color. Behind the pit, Jesse erected the metal support rods that held up his oceanside backdrop. The process was oddly similar to pitching a tent.

  Next came the lights and heat lamps. He’d been kind of worried that they might blow a fuse or something, but they seemed to be doing all right so far. Jesse closed all the curtains and turned off any extra lights in the room so that the focus was completely on his makeshift set. After that, he draped a wet towel over the cage of an oscillating metal fan to provide a cool, faux ocean breeze. He buried two of his wireless shower speakers into the sand and used them to surround the space with muffled wave sounds. He changed out of his street clothes and into a floral pair of swim trunks and finished by coating everything with a generous spray of tropical air freshener.

  At that, Jesse stepped back and gave the setup one final overview. He was pretty proud of it considering he’d put the whole thing together in less than forty-five minutes. It really did look and feel like a beach, minus the annoying tourists of course.

  Heart racing with nervous excitement, Jesse pulled out his phone and texted Oscar saying that he could come out. He then quickly set his phone aside and got situated on top of the green towel, flexing his abs and trying his best to look effortlessly alluring.

  A few heartbeats later, Oscar’s bedroom door creaked open and the man of the hour padded into the living room. Shock was written all over his face. He silently came closer and dipped one of his bare feet in the sand before looking up at Jesse for an explanation.

  “You said you missed the beach,” Jesse said simply.

  Oscar’s eyes drifted from Jesse’s face to his body. Jesse felt a hotness creep under his skin that had nothing to do with laying underneath two heat lamps. Oscar stared at him for a few more minutes, still not saying anything and then bolted back to his bedroom.

  Jesse’s heart sank. Certain that he’d made a huge mistake, he sat up and started mentally preparing to dismantle everything. He had to get it all out of sight as soon as possible. What was he thinking? He had way overstepped his bounds. He needed to think up a way to apologize. Stat. Maybe another cactus? Oscar had said that he liked the last one…

  Then, by some miracle, in the middle of Jesse’s mind-rambling, Oscar returned, blushing furiously and wearing a pair of swim trunks of his own. Jesse let loose a grin so wide that it made his jaw creak. Oscar looked good. His skin was paler than it probably should have been, but not in a bad way. It seemed so soft and delicate, like someone with one of those ten step Korean skin care regimens Katelyn used to be obsessed with. His body was toned, but not overly muscular, just the way Jesse liked it. There were a lot of areas in which Oscar neglected himself, but physique did not appear to be one of them.

  Jesse had to work to keep his breathing even. Oscar took his time lowering himself onto his towel, facing the backdrop.

  “Movie magic,” he whispered.

  “Exactly,” Jesse said. “Just for you.”

  Oscar closed his eyes and visibly started to relax. The creases in his forehead went away, as did the tightness in his shoulders. He took in a deep breath and Jesse watched his Adam’s apple bob slightly. Oscar opened his eyes and turned back to Jesse. The fingers of his left hand were trailing lazily through the sand.

  “Thank you,” he said softly. The words were practically choked with emotion.

  Jesse impulsively dug through the sand to link his own fingers with Oscar’s. He’d done a lot of nice things for people over the last few weeks, but this didn’t feel like one of them. This was selfish. It was for him just as much as it had been for Oscar. It wasn’t about the heartache and misery. It wasn’t about doing good in the world in order to negate some of the awful things he and his family had benefited from. Jesse would have done this regardless, even if Oscar was just some regular rich guy he’d met at a club. It didn’t matter who he was or what he’d been up to all these years. Jesse just wanted to make him happy, even if just for a moment.

  Jesse looked away and swallowed hard. He needed to tell Oscar about his feelings for him. Sure, he’d already made it pretty obvious, but nothing was ever going to happen between the two of them if neither of them made the first move. And Jesse wanted things to happen. Lots of things. Sappy, sexy, romantic things. I like you, Oscar. Maybe even more than like, he thought. He opened his mouth to say just that, but before he could get any of the words out, Oscar rolled over and s
tarted kissing him.

  Jesse closed his eyes and pulled Oscar close until he was practically on top of him. His pulse was uneven and he felt as though all of the air had been leached from his lungs and replaced with desire. Oscar’s lips were fuller and rougher than he’d imagined them. They were warm, insistent, and unmistakably male.

  Jesse had always been very careful about kissing boys. There was Alex O’Neal back in high school and Gabriel the underwear model whom he’d hooked up with a couple of times on vacation in Milan. The rest of the time it was always girls draped over him and smashing their faces into his. This was so much better than any of that. This, this was life-changing. This made him want to take the idea of “straight Jesse” and chuck him out of a window.

  Still, he knew better than most that cameras were everywhere, a lot of the time they were his cameras. If even one person documented Jesse Sugar kissing a boy, it’d be making headlines all over the world in a matter of minutes. As vindicating as that might feel, it wasn’t how he wanted it to happen. Coming out was personal. It was something he wanted to do on his own terms with someone he cared about by his side; also preferably after he’d distanced himself a bit from his family name. He didn’t want his gayness to be something that they could cash in on.

  He didn’t need to worry about that here. He felt completely safe with Oscar. It was like this apartment existed in its own happy little bubble where all the shitty things happening outside didn’t even matter. In that moment, Jesse could understand why Oscar never wanted to leave. If the kissing continued, he was bound to start feeling the exact same way.

  Chapter Nine

  Jesse’s lips were everything Oscar had been expecting and so much more. They were freedom. They were water on a hot desert day. They were the desperation and desire that had been buried inside of him his entire life. Oscar kissed and kissed and kissed him until finally, Jesse had to pull away, gasping for air.