Secrets and Charms

by Lou Harper

  Mr. Fake puffed up his chest and flexed his pecs—they looked real enough—but didn’t release Dylan. Olly stepped next to Teag in a show of force.

  The arrival of Hunter broke the standoff. He swept in and looped his arm around Dylan’s waist with flawless familiarity. “There you are, luv, sorry I took so long.” He spoke with a British accent for some inexplicable reason. However, it seemed to have succeeded in confounding Mr. Fake, who looked on, lost for words, his grip on Dylan’s shoulder loosening up. Hunter smiled jovially at the man. “Thanks for looking after my boyfriend, mate. Come, luv.” He tugged at Dylan, who obediently slid off the stool to be escorted outside.

  Olly shot Mr. Fake one last unkind glare before he and Teague marched after the others. As they stepped through the doors, they saw Hunter standing at the curb, holding Dylan with one hand and waving the other at an approaching taxi.

  After stuffing Dylan into the cab but before getting in himself, Olly turned to Hunter. “Thanks for the help.”

  Hunter smiled and shrugged. “My pleasure. Maybe I can call you sometime?”

  Olly rattled off his number and slid into the backseat. Dylan was prattling a mile a minute at Teague, who was alternately making soothing noises and looking exasperated. Olly slid into the backseat too, but ignored the one-sided conversation. His mind was too busy taking account of the night. He was surprised at his own self—he’d been so swept in the moment with Hunter. It had come on kind of sudden, as if he’d been the one roofied. Playing with his charm, he remembered Mme. Layla’s warning not to accept drinks from strange men. But he hadn’t, and he felt clearheaded. Even the drinks he’d drunk had only made him slightly sleepy. Odd, he thought, and chalked the whole thing up to the mix of tiredness and aftereffects of paint fumes.

  Olly went to bed thinking about Hunter, but strangely he awoke the next morning with tatters of dreams about red-haired men. He interpreted this as a subconscious anxiety about the day ahead. Checking his phone as he did every morning, he discovered he’d missed Sandy’s call the night before. She’d left a message of apology, going on about how sorry Rich had been. Olly was skeptical about the latter, but hearing Sandy say it helped him relax.

  His return call went straight to voice mail. He took it as a sign she wasn’t up yet, so he picked up coffee and breakfast on his way to her house. He arrived at a quarter after ten but had to lean on the doorbell a few times before the door opened.

  Rich stood there, bleary-eyed and wearing the same paint-splattered clothes as he had the day before. The ginger stubble covering his face glinted in the morning sun. “Hey,” he said, and for once he sounded almost friendly. Or just too worn out to be an ass.

  So Olly decided to make an effort too. “Hangover?”

  “I must look like the dog’s dinner.” Rich’s covetous gaze strayed to the drink tray in Olly’s hands.

  Olly nodded. “You said it. I brought coffee and breakfast,” he added, pointing out the obvious. The cups in the tray and the plastic bag dangling from his hand spoke for themselves. “I didn’t know how you like your coffee, so I got it black, but there’s sugar and creamer in the bag.”

  “Uhm…” Rich shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Look, about yesterday—I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  “And for being a dick to me all day?” Olly snipped back.

  “Especially for being a dick.”

  Olly was wary but happy to agree to a ceasefire. “Apology accepted. Can I come in?”

  “Please do. Let me help.” Rich took the tray from Olly and walked off with it.

  One hand free at last, Olly grabbed the mail from the box and followed Rich through the house and out into the backyard. Seeing an empty sleeping bag on the grass and a pop-up tent next to it, he realized Rich and Sandy must’ve spent the night there. But of course, the house had probably smelled of paint. Even the water-based stuff lingered for a while. An empty liquor bottle lay on its side in the grass.

  Rich knelt by the tent and tugged the zipper down. “Rise and shine, Sunshine, the cavalry is here with coffee and food.”

  There was grumbling, the tent shook and moved like a cocoon, and a few seconds later, Sandy’s head emerged. Her hair was a mess, her eyes puffy, with darkish circles around them. She thrust a hand toward the cups. “Give.” She took a very long drink before looking up at Olly. “Hun, I love you. You’re a lifesaver, the only man in my life I can count on. I will dedicate my first Oscar to you.”

  Olly laughed and plopped down on the grass next to them. “I’ll hold you to it.” He put the stack of mail to one side and took the Styrofoam trays out of the shopping bag. “I hope you like breakfast burritos.”

  “I love ’em.” She grabbed greedily for the closest one.

  Rich snapped up another burrito, but Olly stuck to his coffee. He’d had a bowl of cereal before leaving home. “I didn’t realize you were roughing it,” he said.

  “Was fine,” she said around a mouthful. She swallowed and gulped some coffee. “Just like camping when we were kids. Except for chugging bourbon, not Yoo-hoos. How was your night?”

  “Interesting.”

  “Oh really? I wanna know. Spill.”

  So Olly told her about Ombre and Dylan getting drugged. “Dylan slept it off and is fine now, but it could’ve gotten ugly. Just goes to show you can never be too careful. I don’t get people like that. The whole point of hooking up with someone is the mutual attraction.” Olly’s thoughts drifted to an old memory. He rubbed his lips. “Knowing and feeling the other guy wants you so much it hurts. And you feel the same.” Olly caught Rich staring at him from under ginger lashes, but as soon as they made eye contact, Rich blinked away. Olly pretended not to notice and went on. “Anyway, drugging the other person is plain reprehensible. Only a lowlife loser would do such a thing.”

  “Amen. Your friend’s lucky you looked after him.” Sandy winked. “So, did you have a magic moment with anyone?”

  Olly pursed his lips and thought about it. “Well, there was this guy, Hunter, and at first I thought we did, but now I’m not sure. I need to see him again.”

  She nodded sympathetically. “Take your time. I used to date a guy…what was his name…oh yeah, Rob. So we went out a couple of times, had a great time, and I thought he’d be a keeper, and then we fizzled. He was a lousy kisser—you know, the kind whose lips cover half your face and his tongue’s all over.” She shuddered. “And in bed—”

  Rich dropped his burrito and slapped his hands over his ears. “I don’t want to hear about my little sister’s sex life!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll just say he wasn’t very good, okay?”

  After breakfast, Sandy looked through her mail but didn’t even bother opening any, except for one manila envelope. She pulled the sheet of paper only halfway out and took a brief look before shoving it back and tossing the whole thing on top of the others. “I vote we take today off. No working whatsoever. The house is not going anywhere.”

  “Fine with me,” Rich agreed.

  “My arms feel like they might drop off at any moment,” Olly admitted.

  “Good, it’s settled, then,” she said and stretched out on the grass.

  “How did running into the casting agent go yesterday?” Olly asked.

  She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Pretty good, I thought, but you never know how these things will pan out. I want this role so bad it makes my teeth hurt. Into the Woods Darkly is the title. The script is fucking brilliant—a mix of family drama and murder mystery, with a gothic flair. Dark and funny at the same time, and the dialogue is so good it makes me come in my panties.” She laughed at the face Rich made. “If I get this role, it could be the turning point. I could show people I’m more than just a pair of perky tits.”

  Rich groaned.

  “I know you are,” Olly assured her.

  “It makes two of us,” she replied. “Unfortunately, I’m up against Kat Fontaine for the role, and she has connections—she’s from one o
f those old Hollywood families that was in the business back in the day when movies were black-and-white and had no sound. You know, she was at the party where you and I met,” she added.

  Olly remembered Kat Fontaine, but the only thing he recalled seeing her in was the slasher flick from the other night. “She’s a talentless hack,” he said out of solidarity with Sandy.

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t care for her, but the bitch can act. Have you seen her famous interview? It was mesmerizing—intellectually, I knew she had to be lying through her teeth, but right then I believed every word. She should’ve gotten an Emmy for it.”

  “Oh yeah.” Olly remembered it now. Everyone in Hollywood had heard the rumors of her husband’s fondness for young boys, yet she’d made Clay Carson seem like an innocent and exclusively heterosexual angel. “She was very convincing,” Olly admitted.

  “I told you. Fuck it. I’m better. I’ll show them.” She lay back down and closed her eyes.

  The peace lasted maybe a minute before the sound of foghorns coming from the tent shattered it. She grunted. “Fuck. It’s my agent. The heartless bastard.” She clambered half inside and withdrew with phone in hand. “Hi, Allan. What are you calling me at dawn for? … Uh-huh. … Super. I love you! … What? Now? Are you crazy? It’s Saturday! And I look like shit… Fine, fine. I’ll be there. Make it forty, I need to take a shower. Groovy. See you there.” She hung up and looked at them with excitement radiating from her every pore. “I have a screen test,” she burst out. “Sort of impromptu. Like, now or probably never.”

  “Congratulations!” Olly cried out and hugged her.

  Rich remained calm. “In forty minutes? You better get moving.”

  “I should, shouldn’t I?” She leapt up and rushed toward the house but spun around before going inside. “Rich. Remember what we talked about?”

  Rich said nothing but raised his right hand and with his index finger made the sign of a cross over his heart. As in cross my heart and hope to die. Olly studied him with squinty-eyed suspicion, but Rich stared back innocently and rubbed the stubble on his chin.

  “Are you growing it out?” Olly asked.

  “I dunno. Thinking about it.”

  “A beard would suit you.” The words slipped out without intent or forethought, but Olly meant them. Something about the copper hair was doing funny things to him. The sun made it seem like fire, and Olly’s fingers itched to touch. He wondered if Rich had more on his chest. Did he have freckles? There were none on his face…although…maybe a few on the bridge of his nose. Olly would have to look closer to be sure. Olly realized he’d been staring when Rich cleared his throat. He snatched his gaze away and started busying himself with the remains of their breakfast.

  Rich pushed himself up. “I better clean up too. I smell like a bucket of fish bait.” Olly watched him walk inside. Now that he wasn’t furious with the man, Olly could admit Rich had a nice body, average build but solid, and the loose clothes revealed just enough to make curious minds even more curious.

  Olly knew he should’ve just gone home, but he didn’t really want to. He had hours to kill before his half-day shift at FTP, and it was nice here in Sandy’s backyard. His apartment didn’t even have a balcony. He stuffed the trash into the plastic bag the food came in, but there was still one burrito left. After a moment of dithering over what to do with it, he remembered Sandy mentioning a fridge inside the garage. If he put the burrito there, he and Rich could eat it later. Or Sandy.

  He stepped inside through the small door, flipped on the light and discovered Rich was hiding a secret.

  Chapter Four

  Rich contemplated his face in the bathroom mirror. He could grow a beard. He had once, in college, but his father thought it made him look like a “hippie”, so Rich promptly got rid of it. He turned his head this way and that, trying to picture his chin covered in hair. Yes, it would suit him, he decided.

  After dropping his dirty clothes on the floor, he jumped under the shower. He was starting to feel better, the hangover fading, and the warm water washing off the stink felt so very good. If only he could wash the past away the same. He wasn’t even as irritable as usual; staying up late with his sister, drinking, shooting the breeze had been good. She’d tried to get him to open up about the stuff bothering him, but he just couldn’t. Not to her. She’d backed off, and they talked about her, what she’d been up to. It did him good just knowing there was someone who cared about him—he wasn’t completely alone. Maybe one day he could pay her unsolicited kindness back.

  Even Olly didn’t bug him as much, although the guy had a knack for disturbing his equilibrium just by existing. Hell if he knew why. He slathered shower gel all over his body, and his cock responded to his attentions like an eager pup. Rich wasn’t about to waste the opportunity—he hadn’t had a good wank in ages. He braced one hand on the tiles, stroking his cock with the other. Images of supple, creamy flesh and smooth curves flashed in front of his mind’s eye. He didn’t try to hang on to them. Instead he focused on the physical sensations. The images kept coming—full lips around his cock, a pink tongue licking his balls. His hands on the sharp curves of hip bones, fingers digging. Thrusting. He came hard, his come splattering on the tile.

  When Rich went back outside, refreshed and relieved, he saw Olly nowhere—must’ve left. The twinge of regret came as a surprise, but then he noticed the open garage door, and it evaporated in a jiffy.

  He found Olly leaning over the unfinished sideboard, brushing his hand over the naked wood, even sniffing it. There was something suggestive in the way he did it, in the expression of bliss on his face. “I love the smell of wood,” he said, glancing up. “You made this, didn’t you?” His voice was full of warmth and sunlight, and it dug under Rich’s skin.

  Rich didn’t know how to respond to this kind of enthusiasm directed at him and had a hard time meeting Olly’s gaze. He shrugged. “I did. No biggie.” In truth, he was rather proud of his work—a solid piece of furniture with two compartments with doors to the sides and three drawers in between. All handmade and meticulously put together. He just needed to stain it and put on the hardware. It would look good in the dining room when he was finished.

  Olly couldn’t be shut down so easily. “Are you fucking kidding me? This is some quality workmanship. You could make big bucks with this.”

  “Hm.”

  “When I moved out from my parents’ place, I went to one of those unfinished furniture places in North Hollywood, thinking I’d find something cheap there. Yeah, right. I ended up getting some particleboard stuff from IKEA instead. This”—Olly knocked on wood—“is a whole other class.”

  “What do you know about cabinetmaking?”

  “Not a thing, but I have eyes.” Olly stepped back and squinted at the sideboard, the antique handles and hinges lined up on top, and the doors and drawer inserts sitting to the side. “Same style as the house. Craftsman?”

  “They call it mission style, but yeah, it’s the same thing.” It was strange to talk furniture with someone genuinely interested. His friends in the past, even Julie, had regarded his hobby with polite disinterest.

  “Can you do other styles too?”

  “Sure. Definitely, based on existing plans, though I can make up my own designs. Takes longer, though.”

  “How long have you been making furniture?”

  “Since I made a stool in wood shop in high school.” He fell in love with the smell and feel of the wood and the whole process of taking raw materials and shaping them into something new and useful. “It’s just a hobby.”

  Olly pursed his lips. “Yeah, and Michael Jordan just liked to toss a ball around in his free time. Have you thought of going into business with this? Sounds more fun to me than house painting or whatever general contracting stuff you do.”

  Rich had considered it, especially in the last six months, but there was one little catch. “Starting a business takes money, and I’m dead broke.” All he had managed to rescue from
his previous life were his tools and his bike.

  “Oh.” Olly chewed on his lower lip—he seemed to be thinking hard, but Rich found the sight perturbing for other reasons.

  Rich turned and switched the light off on his way out of the garage. He hoped it would make Olly stop fondling his handiwork. He heard a murmured dickhead from behind—his plan had worked. Now he just had to figure out how to politely get rid of Olly. Maybe he could find something antisocial to do. He looked around. Mowing the grass sounded like an excellent choice—assuming his sister owned a lawnmower.

  He spotted the pile of mail Sandy had left behind. As he picked it up, photographs fell out of a big orange envelope. He couldn’t help but see their contents as he crouched to collect them. The photos showed a road in a forest, or maybe a park, and one of them a trashcan. Totally fucking weird. Unable to resist his curiosity, Rich looked into the envelope and pulled out the single printed sheet inside. He barely read a few lines before he started seeing red.

  The letter was rude and full of vague threats of “exposure”, and its author demanded money. The photos were of the location of the drop-off.

  “Son of a bitch!” Olly’s growl made Rich jump. He hadn’t noticed Olly sneaking up behind him. “Sorry,” Olly added.

  Rich stood. “Do you know who’s blackmailing Sandy and why?” The fact that his normally over-sharing sister hadn’t said a peep about this bothered him.

  “I have no idea.”

  “You’re the one all up in her business,” Rich said in a tone of accusation.

  If Olly were a paint color, right then he would’ve been Pink Fury. “Hey!” He seemed to have more to say, but his lips froze half-parted. They were pink too, but a darker shade—Rich noted. The lips moved again. “Yesterday!”

  “Huh?” Rich took a step back to put distance between himself and those lips and forced his gaze to Olly’s eyes. They were gray. Or maybe green.

  “There was an envelope in the mail just like this yesterday.” Olly grabbed the orange envelope from Rich’s hand and turned it over. “Huh. No address or postage.”