by Gwen Martin
“This is dangerous,” Annelise states. Black charcoal lines her eyes and her lashes are heavy with mascara. It makes the deep brown of her irises more intense with the seriousness of her expression. “You will get yourself hurt.”
Luke scoffs, ignoring the anxious drumming in his chest. “Please, I get to wear my favorite tie.”
Annelise pushes her burrito away, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Luke.”
“I’m serious. It’s the flamingo one.”
“Fuck the tie!” Annelise snaps. “The tie is not of any importance in this!”
Luke points a finger to Annelise. “Do not disrespect the tie. It’s done nothing to you.”
“Let’s recap what you just told me to make sure I have heard the maximum fuckedness of this shitstorm of a situation: You agreed to pretend to be Jesse’s boyfriend at his ex-fiancée’s wedding. In Vegas. With her friends and family everywhere. You’re doing this, so that his little Instagram groupies still like him.” She pauses for what Luke can only assume is for dramatic effect. “Am I getting the gist of it?”
Luke grabs for his cup and sucks on the straw, slurping the last of his soda. It makes an obnoxious sound and Annelise cringes. He’s doing it just to annoy her because she’s irritating him. “Yup, that’s about right.”
“And he doesn’t know that you’ve been ridiculously in love with him since puberty?”
Now it’s Luke’s turn to slant a withering stare. “First, I am not in love with him—”
“Oh yes you are.”
“No, not in love, just attracted. Two different things. You’ve even said you think he’s hot!”
Annelise’s face twists into an incredulous stare. “Yeah, he is hot, but I’m not in love with him.”
“Dude, did you not hear me before? I just said that I’m not—”
“And you’re lying. To me, to yourself, to God.” Annelise shakes a hand to the sky for emphasis. “So stop doing it and just come to terms with the fact that this thing you have for Jesse isn’t just about how you enjoy his looks. Every single boyfriend you’ve ever had was a near replica of him, for fuck’s sake.”
Luke buries his face in his hands and groans. Why is Annelise choosing now to ream into him about this whole Jesse ordeal? It’s not his fault he has a type. The tall, brooding, dark hair, and blue-eyed type that has a proclivity for wearing leather jackets and being musicians. It’s not as if he’s trying to push his attraction for Jesse onto someone else, it’s just a preference.
A very specific preference.
Luke sighs. He’s not in the mood to receive that healthy dose of Annelise Knowledge™ that she’s so aggressive about doling out. What’s worse is that she’s right. One hundred percent of unadulterated truth. And it blows.
Jesse has always been the brightest light in any room, the widest river of energy, a chasm of talent, charisma, and confidence. Watching him perform on stage is watching sex in motion, fluid and beautiful. No one can take their eyes off of Jesse when he walks into the room, and no one forgets him when he leaves.
Which is why Luke does not understand why Jesse even bothers to keep him around. Luke is the antithesis of confidence and sex appeal. He uses humor to work through his ever-present social awkwardness, and while he gets along with just about anyone, no one remembers him. Luke was a wallflower in school growing up, save for that one time that asshole called Jesse a faggot and he landed a fist into the dude’s face. He deserved it though. No one ever fucked with either of them ever again.
So when Jesse asked Luke to help be his fake boyfriend, he laughed it up like it was a huge joke until he saw the earnest desperation in Jesse’s eyes. It made Luke’s heart do funny things, his fingers tingle with want to touch Jesse, and an embarrassing semi to boot. He had to say yes. How could he say no?
“Hey,” Annelise whispers, her hands wrapping around Luke’s wrists and pulling his palms away from his face. “You okay?”
Luke chokes out a hysterical laugh. “I just agreed to be my best friend’s fake boyfriend. The same best friend I’ve had a boner for since I realized I liked dudes along with chicks. No, I don’t think I’m okay.”
Annelise’s eyes soften, her smile sad. “Why did you say yes?”
“Because I’m the fool. Pathetic. Like that Celine Dion song in Bridget Jones’s Diary.”
Annelise’s nose wrinkles. “Damn, dude, that’s serious.”
“No shit.”
“Okay, really though. Why?”
Luke shrugs. “Because I thought to myself, ‘Well, if he doesn’t want you, the next best thing you can have is have him pretend he does.’” He pauses, frowning at how pitiful he sounds. “And it seemed like a good idea.”
“It’s a terrible idea,” Annelise says.
“Yeah, it is,” Luke agrees. “But at least I can piss Sheila off.”
Annelise tilts her head back and laughs. “God, you do hate her, don’t you?”
“Yup.”
“That’s harsh, man.”
Luke scoffs. “It’s not like she ever made an effort. If I had to hear about her subscriber count for her fucking YouTube channel or how she was having some other MUA over to her house, that was second-hand famous like her, I was gonna piss on one of her makeup palettes.”
There’s no denying that the relationship between Sheila and Luke is contentious. When she and Jesse were an item, they always butted heads, mostly because they have nothing in common. Sheila cared about shit like smoky eyes, and red lipstick, and Kylie Jenner’s newest brand of whatever the fuck that lady was making. She also talked about how she only ate a salad for most of her meals, and how carbs were the enemy.
Maybe the reason they didn’t get along so well was just an acute episode of persistent hanger.
“It’s because she doesn’t eat carbs,” Luke vows. “The whole basis of our acrimonious relationship is contingent on her brain not having carbs.”
Annelise rises from the picnic table and gathers their forgotten food. “Let’s get out of here. I think you’re in need of a terrible romcom and cheap wine.”
“You know the way to my heart, Annie,” Luke says following suit. “I should be fake dating you.”
Annelise laughs, reaching out to take Luke’s hand. “Not a chance, buddy. You’re too high maintenance.”
Luke gasps, bending over as if someone has punched him in the stomach, stumbling a little until Annelise pulls him back and up and says, “Giddy up, bucko, we got a Tour de Franzia to do.”
The apartment is dark and musty when he gets back, everything as it was when Jesse left that morning to go to the studio. Luke pulls his wallet out and sets it with his keys onto the table near the door and kicks off his sandals. Jesse went into a long tirade ages ago about how flip-flops were the most unattractive thing ever on men and women and that Luke was doing nothing but perpetuating the grossness of feet by his persistent need to wear flip-flops. Luke argued that they’re quick to slip on and that it wasn’t his fault that Jesse’s feet were angry from being crammed into the space of his fancy shoes.
The insistent bitching on Jesse’s part led to Luke buying shoes that passed the test. He hasn’t heard a peep since.
Luke turns on the lights and opens the window to air the apartment out. Small dust motes float under the yellow light of the living room, the wine buzz still laying persistent in Luke’s blood. He flops down on the couch, leaning back against the cushions and closing his eyes, thinking about the conversation he had at Annelise’s place over cheap Thai takeout and halfway through one of two on their boxed wine tour.
“What are you going to do if he finds out?” she asked.
“He won’t,” Luke insisted.
Annelise did not look convinced. In fact, she appeared the complete opposite of convinced. The full embodiment of “unconvinced” breathed out of her like a living being. She didn’t press further after that, and refilled his Solo cup of more sugary liquid and handed it back.
Luke pulls out his phone, squintin
g at the bright screen before texting to let Annelise know he made it back safely to his apartment. As he was getting ready to leave her apartment, she ordered him an Uber without a moment’s hesitation, placed a kiss on his cheek and said, “If you need a place to go when all this goes tits up, you know where to find me.”
With a chuckle and a shoulder push, Luke had laughed it off at first before pulling his friend into a tight hug and whispering, “Thanks.”
“Of course. Now go before”—she peered down to her phone—“Estaban leaves you for another ride.”
Settling down into the couch, Luke closes his eyes dreaming about bright blinking city lights, dark hair, and fierce blue eyes.
He wakes to the rattle of the key in the lock, the whoosh of the door pushing inside. A scuffle of shoes, and a small cough lifts Luke out of his slumber on the couch and he hastily pulls the blanket over his hips so that the evidence of his boner can go unnoticed. All the talk and anticipation about this damn wedding has Luke’s dreams floating to the recesses of his mind where his fantasies remain locked away from everyone else. Where Jesse is underneath him, naked and panting, eyes hooded and skin sweaty, gasping for more.
Jesse walks into the living room, smirking when he sees Luke sprawled on the couch. He looks down at his bare wrist and cocks a cheeky eyebrow. “Late night?”
Luke stretches his arms over his head, groaning in pleasure. “You could say that. Hung out with Annelise.”
“Ah,” Jesse says with a knowing expression, before making his way into the kitchen. There’s a shuffle of papers, the clatter of him rummaging in the fridge. “Tour de Franzia?”
“Yup.”
“How many?”
“Only two this time.”
Jesse makes his way back into the living room, setting down the beer on the coffee table before discarding his jacket and tossing it on the chair in the corner. His t-shirt has ridden up on the side, and Luke makes a conscious point to stare at the ceiling to not pay attention to the small patch of skin exposing the line of muscle over Jesse’s hip.
“What was your best score?”
Luke closes his eyes and smirks. “Somewhere around three and a half boxes. I remember little after that.”
Annelise and Luke have known each other since Luke met her at UCLA when they both had shared the same boring pre-req class. Luke was playing World of Warcraft on his computer, and Annelise was giggling every time he got offed by some asshole when he was just trying to fulfill a grind quest. At first Luke was irritated until Annelise slipped him a note (at first he wondered if it would be her number) giving him the name of her server and guild name.
Six years later and they’re still best friends. The Tour de Franzia started when they were just out of college, broke, and living together in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood, when the long days of working exhausted them to nothing. Franzia was always a helpful guide to solidarity and numbness.
Jesse whistles, taking a long swig of his beer. “That sounds dangerous.”
“Never said Tour de Franzia was safe trip, always said it was the Tour—”
“That would get you somewhere, yeah, yeah, I know,” Jesse says, settling down on the chair in the corner where he flung his jacket over. He rubs a hand over his face. He looks exhausted.
“Long day?” Luke asks, turning onto his side and tucking the pillow into the crook of his neck.
“Sheila called me.” Jesse’s eyes glimmer in the dim living room light, and even against the yellow luminescence the intensity shines through.
“Sounds like it went well.”
Jess huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “Yeah, you could say that.”
Luke shifts into a sitting position, resting his elbows on his knees. “You wanna to talk about it?”
Jesse stares at Luke for a long time, both of them sharing a silence that sits heavier than Luke expects. He notices the way Jesse’s eyes flicker to his mouth and back to his eyes. Luke bites the inside of his cheek to stave off the hard thump of his heart.
“Maybe later,” Jesse says, his voice sounding rougher than usual.
Luke nods and pulls himself up from the couch walking towards his bedroom. “I’m gonna head to bed. Got an early day tomorrow at the office.”
He stops when Jesse’s hand reaches out and grabs for his wrist. He doesn’t look at Luke as he turns his wrist over and examines it for a moment before giving it a gentle squeeze and releasing it. “Thank you,” he says.
Luke swallows around the lump in his throat and nods. “Sure.”
The ten steps to his bedroom feel like a hundred miles. The door snicks shut like a whisper, but there may as well have been trumpets blasting for the roaring rush of blood in his ears, the dizzying thundering of his heart.
Three
Jesse
The itinerary comes in an email on a Saturday two weeks before the wedding. It appears Sheila has more in mind than just having Jesse show up with a date to her wedding and taking part of the agreed upon happy-faced photos.
He’s sitting in the living room in nothing but his pajama pants, sipping his coffee and looking through his Instagram feed—a terrible habit, he knows—when the email notification shows up at the top of his iPhone, the subject screaming Sheila and Ross’s Wedding Schedule.
“You've got to me fucking kidding me,” Jesse mutters, and clicks on the notification to open his email.
Sure enough, there is a literal itinerary right down to the half hour starting thirty-six hours before the wedding right through the end of the reception. Also, Jesse is included as a part of some outer wedding party that Sheila has cultivated strictly for her Bridezilla pleasure. To add further insult to injury the email ends with a friendly “And please don’t forget to tag us on Insta with the hashtag RossAndSheilaDoVegas!”
Jesse stares in horror at the screen, reading over the bright highlighted events that range from which casino they will attend her co-ed bachelorette party at, to which spa everyone will join the couple for ‘relaxing pre-wedding bliss’. Not only is it insane, but Jesse knows Sheila’s tastes—they never come cheap.
“I am not paying almost a thousand fucking dollars to go see a Cirque show,” Jesse announces, right as Luke walks into the apartment from one of his morning marathon runs. He ambles into the living room, making a quick left into the kitchen. His skin glistens with sweat, and his shirt is sticking to his muscled back. Jesse takes his time studying the way Luke’s arms flex when he stretches them above his head to reveal a tanned, damp patch of stomach. He swallows hard.
“Who’s making you do that?” Luke asks, opening the fridge and gathering a variety of items into his arms before setting them on the counter. He grabs out his Vitamix and begins dumping ingredients in it.
“Sheila,” Jesse grumbles, staring down at the phone as if it’s the one insulting him. When he turns to look at Luke again, Luke’s hand is midway pouring almond milk over his mixed berries, his lips covering his teeth to hide a laugh.
“Shut up,” Jesse snaps. “You’re in on this too, you know.”
Luke tilts his head back and lets out a dry laugh. “Hardly, dude. She despises me and the feeling is certainly mutual. I’m sure she’d be fist pumping all the way down the aisle if I didn’t show up.”
Jesse levels a stare. “That’s not true.”
Luke returns the stare. “You’re serious, right? You do realize this is the same woman who passive aggressively called me out in one of her videos as ‘the third wheel who doesn’t go away’?” He finishes the prep of his smoothie and presses the button of the blender before Jesse responds.
When he’s finished, Jesse speaks. “I don’t think it was that bad.” Luke narrows his eyes, and Jesse sighs, slumping back onto the couch, defeated. “Okay, it was that bad.”
Luke smirks, walking into the living room on his way to his bedroom, holding his smoothie in his hand. “I knew you’d come to terms with the truth. The truth is out there, Jesse, don’t forget that.” Luke whis
tles the X-Files theme song as he walks into his bedroom kicking the door shut behind him.
“Let’s try it again,” Jesse says to the band from the switchboard before leaning back into his chair. He rubs a palm over his face and sighs. The guys are doing great, but something is missing and everyone knows it.
“Maybe we should take a break,” Aiden suggests when the drummer trips up on the end again. Jesse tilts his head back and closes his eyes, trying to stave off the urge to scream at them. They’ve been working on the same piece for the better part of three hours, and while Jesse is known for his patience with the artist process, today his nerves are frayed.
Sheila called him on the way to the studio asking if he had read the itinerary which led to yet another argument.
“I am under no obligation to attend your wedding,” Jesse snapped. “This whole ‘itinerary’ is something out of a reality TV show. Did you get asked to be on one?”
“Oh shut up, Jesse,” Sheila bit back. “You know you won’t back out because you need the attention and the money from the ads for that little sorry excuse of a YouTube channel you have.”
Jesse scoffed. “Sheila, get the point of what’s your malfunction because I have to do my job which has nothing to do with the latest brush set you got in the mail.”
“Fine!” Sheila shrilled. “Don’t go to any of the shows or any of the activities which I have been gracious enough to invited you to. You can take you and your boyfriend—”
“Don’t,” Jesse gritted. His jaw began aching as he clenched his teeth hard. “You asked me to come to your wedding. You insisted I bring someone. So, I’m bringing a date just as you requested, and it will be Luke, whether or not you like it!”
Jesse didn’t mean for his voice to grow louder by the end of that sentence, to the point he was pulling the phone away from his face and screaming into the speaker. Aiden walked up from his space in the parking lot, lifting a suspicious eyebrow as Jesse hung up the phone. He didn’t even give Sheila a chance to yell back.