True Blue

by Connie Bailey

  Peyton smiled amiably at Heydn. “What are you going to do about it, stud?”

  “Borrow your mirror?”

  “Just don’t crack it.”

  “You’re the crack head.” Heydn shot back, pretending to misunderstand.

  “What’s that, sonny? You want to give me crack head?” Peyton cupped a hand around his ear as if hard of hearing.

  Heydn turned to Blue. “I give up. He’s too quick for me.”

  “Sure he is, Deadeye.” Blue took his drink back and toasted Peyton. “To a great director,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Peyton said, without a trace of sarcasm. “Did you see my mom? I thought I was going to die.” “She’s just proud of you,” Heydn said. “I wish my mom was here to embarrass me. However, when she does come home, she’ll be bringing an entire suitcase filled with manga books and DVDs. Since Blue won’t take my money, I’m gonna repay him for my bail with anime.”

  “Nice,” Peyton said, trying hard to sound like he meant it.

  Blue chuckled. “I know you don’t get the appeal, Peyn, but thanks for faking it.”

  “I’m an actor; it’s what I do.”

  “Still planning on heading for Hollywood after graduation?”

  Peyton did a broad double take. “Oh…my…God! If I’m at the Shindig that means…graduation is in three days!”

  “Hence the timeliness of my question.”

  “I don’t know.” Peyton shrugged. “New York is looking very attractive to me right now. I’m an East Coast guy; maybe I should stay here and, you know, do theater instead of film.”

  “Who is he?” Blue asked.

  “He who?” Peyton returned.

  “The hottie who lives in New York.”

  “Oh, him. I’m afraid I can’t divulge that name.” Peyton paused. “All right, I’ll tell you. Just stop badgering me, please.”

  “Go on,” Heydn sighed. “You’re clearly dyin’ to tell us.” Peyton leaned toward the other two young men. “Alan, I mean, Mr. McIntyre, thinks that Menagerie is good enough for off-Broadway. He’s tinkering with it to make it more universal, as he puts it, and we’re changing the title, of course. He believes in it so much that he’s going to take a sublet in the Village with some friends of his and shop the play around to some friends of theirs.”

  “And you’re going with him,” Blue said.

  “Peyton, you dog,” Heydn said. “I had no idea.”

  “Are you kidding?” Blue said. “I saw this coming months ago. I told you.”

  “Did you? I must not have been listening.”

  Blue punched Heydn before returning his attention to Peyton. “You’re not being…inappropriate, are you?”

  “I’m offended by the question.”

  Blue fixed his dark gaze on his friend and waited.

  “Oh, all right,” Peyton said. “We might have kissed a couple of times.”

  “Peyton! Don’t you know how much trouble you could cause for him?”

  “I’m eighteen, and besides, we haven’t done anything yet. No touching below the waist.”

  “If you’ve kissed, you’ve done something.”

  Peyton’s smirk evaporated. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “But graduation’s in three days,” Heydn reminded him.

  “That’s right. Then I can be as inappropriate as I want.”

  “It won’t be inappropriate after graduation,” Blue said.

  “You take all the fun out of everything,” Peyton complained. “But I’ll miss you when we all go our separate ways.”

  “We’ll be getting back together for Logan’s trial,” Heydn said. “Unless his lawyer bargains.”

  “But that would surely be seen as an admission of guilt, honey child,” Peyton said in a florid Southern accent.

  “I still say they’ll send him to a cushy rehab center,” Blue said.

  Heydn sighed. “You’re probably right, Cookie, but at least we faced up to him.”

  Peyton nodded. “Getting that kind of prejudice out in the open is the first step to ending it. Once most people see how ugly it is, they’ll turn against the bigots.”

  Blue scrutinized Peyton. “Those don’t sound like your words.”

  “Well, Alan, I mean, Mr. McIntyre, is a closet activist.”

  “You’re kidding,” Blue deadpanned. Peyton smiled. “I know you’re shocked that I could give up my dream of the glitz and glamor of Hollywood, but being famously famous and envied the world over isn’t as important as it used to be. I’m more interested now in smashing some conventions that perpetuate the mistreatment of minorities.”

  “Boy howdy,” Hedyn said. “He sure does talk fancy, don’t he, Blue?”

  “Yeah. I don’t always know what he’s saying, but I usually like the sound of it.”

  “Mom’s waving me over,” Peyton said. “Shit! She’s talking to Alan!”

  “You mean Mr. McIntyre,” Heydn said.

  “I cordially invite you to bite me,” Peyton said as he walked away.

  Blue laughed and then sobered again as a thought struck him. “I wish Rolly was here,” he said.

  “Poor guy,” Heydn sympathized.

  “You’re kidding, right? I don’t envy him the convalescence, but the idea of being home-schooled sounds like heaven to me.”

  “Well, there are always correspondence courses and—hi, Astor.”

  Astor dropped his inhaler in the pocket of his jacket as Blue turned toward him. “Hi, Heydn. Blue.”

  “Astor,” Blue said warmly. “I’m glad you came to the party.”

  Astor shrugged. “Peyton sent a personal invitation.”

  “You’ve been missed.”

  “I have?” “Of course. You’re a great actor. Any of the plays we did after you left would have been better with you in them.”

  “I see. The Drama Club missed me.”

  “We all missed you,” Heydn spoke up.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “So am I.” Heydn held out his hand. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but what you did took real guts, man. You’re a stand-up guy in my book.”

  Blue nodded. “If you hadn’t taken Logan on, he would’ve thrown Peyton off that roof.”

  “Instead, I managed to throw myself off.”

  “Come on,” Heydn said. “Own it, Aldrich. You kicked Logan Newcombe’s ass and you saved Peyton’s into the bargain. You did good.” Moving stiffly in his back brace, Astor gingerly took Heydn’s hand. “Thanks.” He glanced at Blue. “I see the two of you together and I know any chance I had is gone. I hope I don’t have to elaborate, this being a party and all, but I’d like to say…bottom line: I just want you to be happy, Blue.”

  “I’m happy.” Blue put his hand over Astor and Heydn’s. “But thanks for saying that. It means a lot to me.” “I learned how to be gracious from my mom. Maybe if I had more of my dad’s backbone, we’d still be together. Anyway, I’ll never forget you. You made me feel like the world wasn’t such a bad place after all.”

  “It’s not,” Blue said. “Unless we make it bad.” “I suppose. All I know is that my dad is thrilled that I’m majoring in engineering and mom is in seventh heaven over the promise ring I gave Cecelia. I’ve made my parents happy and proud. That’s not so bad, is it?”

  “No,” Heydn answered. “But you deserve some happy too.” “Right now, I’m concentrating on the rehab for the back surgery. The rest of it is happening almost by itself, just falling into place like clockwork. Once my mom and Cece got together, it was out of my hands. With any luck, I can use the back injury as a get-out-of-sex card. I should thank Logan.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say,” Blue told him.

  “It’s just a joke. Listen, I’m taking off in the morning to go to Cece’s graduation, and I won’t be back until ours, so try not to burn the place down while I’m gone.”

  “No guarantees,” Blue said.

  “You stole my line,” Heydn complained. “You’re lucky,” Astor said. “He st
ole my heart. See you in a couple of days.” Heydn and Blue said goodbye and Astor waded across the floor rubbing elbows with the crowd, but none of the joy stuck to him. As he disappeared from view, Rhodes Vaughn and his dance partner gravitated over to Heydn and Blue.

  “Hello, lovebirds,” Rhodes said. “You’re not worthy, but I’m going to introduce you to my girl anyway. Brooke Barclay and Heydn Case, I have the honor of presenting Miss Elizabeth Claire Brandeis.” “Hi, I’m Betsy,” said the petite brunette girl. “I’ve wanted to meet you since Rhodes first started talking about you.” She leaned forward and confided charmingly to Blue. “I’ve always wanted to be called Rosie. I use it as my pen name and I’m ramblinrosie on the ’Net.”

  “Betsy’s impressed that you chose a name and made it stick,” Rhodes told Blue.

  “It’s surprisingly easy when no one talks to you anyway,” Blue said.

  Betsy giggled. “Sorry to interview you, but where are you going to college?”

  “I’ve been enrolled at Harvard since before I was born, but I’m not sure I’m going.”

  Heydn shrugged. “I’m living dangerously; playing it by ear.”

  “Go ahead,” Rhodes said to Betsy. “They won’t be offended.” “I’m putting together a group,” Betsy told the other two young men. “I should have started by saying that I’m an aspiring set designer, but the group would be a workshop where creative types could get together and sharpen themselves on each other, if that makes sense.”

  “I’m in, obviously,” Rhodes said. “What Bets would really like is…”

  “What I’d really like,” Betsy took over, “is to establish an artists’ colony, but that’s a dream, of course.”

  “I like it,” Heydn said.

  “Me too,” Blue said. “I’d love to live in a community like that.”

  “There you are, Bets,” Rhodes said. “Two more citizens for Fantasy Island.”

  “I asked you to stop calling it that. It’s not funny to me.”

  “Sorry. What should we call it?”

  “You think all my ideas are too girly.”

  Heydn laughed. “What does he expect? You’re a girl. Sometimes I wonder about Rhodes.”

  “What would you call the colony?” Betsy asked him as Rhodes and Blue groaned.

  Heydn threw them a look of wounded reproach. “Have a little faith. You act like I’m goin’ to suggest somethin’ vulgar or childish.”

  “Only because we know you,” Rhodes said.

  “Hey, I’m not a penis-brained jerk twenty-four hours a day. I have to sleep sometime, you know.”

  “Okay, what’s your idea then?”

  “Well, I know it’s overused, but I like the name Pegasus and what it represents.”

  “I love it!” Betsy said. “To keep it from being cliché, we can call it Pterippus.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s the generic name for winged horses,” Blue said. “Good call, Betsy.”

  “See, we’re already working great together,” she answered. “I’m serious about this and Rhodes is impressed with both of you.”

  “I’m touched,” Heydn said.

  “Where will the colony be?” Blue asked.

  “Ideally, it would be itinerant,” Betsy said. “Different parts of the country have a different feel, you know? Mountains affect your creativity in a different way from the beach.”

  Blue nodded. “The seasons have completely different energies,” he said.

  “Yes! We’d have to hold our workshops at different times of the year,” Betsy said. “I’m really starting to feel like this could happen.” “I’ll host the first one,” Blue said. “At the end of summer. I own a big-ass house on Lake Huron, complete with cottages and servants’ quarters. This will be a good reason to open it up. There’s a town nearby that doesn’t allow any motorized traffic within city limits; at least it didn’t when I was five. And when autumn comes the trees are so beautiful.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Betsy said.

  “Great. Now let’s go talk to Peyton,” Rhodes said.

  “Just a minute.” Betsy smiled at Blue and Heydn. “I hope you don’t mind, but Rhodes told me that you two are a couple, openly. I thought you were awesome before I even met you, but now I think you’re…”

  “Fabulous?” Heydn suggested and Blue punched him again. “Ow!”

  “E-mail me at blue at bluesmeanies dot com,” Blue told Betsy. “We can set up the Pterippus in cyberspace while the house is being aired out. I’m totally serious.”

  “Oh. Well, if you’retotally serious, I’ll come, too,” Heydn said.

  Blue gave him a strange look. “You’ll be there already.” “I will? Oh, yeah. Of course, I will.”

  “I’m so excited,” Betsy said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Harvard, huh?” Heydn said, as Betsy and Rhodes left to talk to Peyton.

  “Forget Harvard. Unless you want to go.”

  “I’d love to go to Harvard, but it’s a little out of my league. I’m more bush than ivy.”

  “Heydn.”

  “What is it, Cookie?”

  “I’m serious. If you want to go to Harvard, we’ll go.”

  “I can’t let you pay for my education.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I just…”

  “Look, buckaroo, I’m not letting you out of my sight again. Wherever we go, we go together.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Heydn put an arm around Blue’s waist and whisked him behind a piece of scenery. “I love you, Blue,” he said. “I love you too.” Blue pulled Heydn closer and brought their lips together. He felt the spark of the same sweet fire that had melted him the first time he’d kissed Heydn. Now it was attended by the glow of embers that Blue was certain would burn for all time.

  Heydn returned the kiss with equal ardor and relinquished Blue’s lips with great reluctance. “You are spared for now, my beauty,” he growled. “But when this feast has ended, you will be mine.”

  “Yes, I will,” Blue answered. Epilogue

  “Willyou please put down the damned joystick and get dressed?” Blue Barclay, half of the design team of Hey Blue Hippogriff, put his hands on his slim hips and regarded the other half.

  Heydn Case didn’t look away from the screen until the eerily realistic swordsman he controlled cut the last head off the guardian of the necromancer’s tomb. “Yes!” he exulted, bouncing out of his custom-built captain’s chair with built-in speakers among its other conveniences. “This rocks immensely.”

  “That’s what you were mumbling when you finally dozed off around four this morning.”

  “No it wasn’t.” Heydn stopped in front of Blue. “The last thing I remember saying was something along the lines of ‘oh God, Blue, oh, God, that feels so good, oh, oh, oh, I’m cumming, snore.’” Blue chuckled, putting his palms against Heydn’s bare chest over the heart with wings tattooed there. Heydn put his arms around Blue and rested his hands on the tattoo’s mate just above the declivity of Blue’s butt cheeks.

  “I stand corrected,” Blue said. “And it is a brilliant game, isn’t it? The graphics are just as good as the movie. I realize we did the special effects for the movie, but still…”

  “We’re both good designers on our own, but when we work together…critical mass achieved!”

  “Just like the sex.”

  “I can’t help noticin’ that you aren’t dressed either,” Heydn told his naked lover.

  “Your grasp of the obvious never ceases to astound me.”

  “What about my grasp of this?” Heyden squeezed Blue’s ass.

  “Still gets me hotter than summer on Mercury in about zero point zero seconds. However…”

  Heydn groaned as he pressed his crotch against Blue’s. “That’s about how quick I’ll be. Just touch me once.”

  “No. We’re already going to be late.”

  “Like it matters. No one’s going to send us to bed without supper if we get there
a little late.”

  “Aren’t you looking forward to this as much as I am? We haven’t seen most of them in a year.”

  “I guess. It’s kind a different for me, Blue. As long as I have you, the rest of it is…not inconsequential, but…I could do without it if I had to, you know?”

  “I feel the same, but I love our friends and I miss them. And since the Pterippus is at Peyton’s this time, we have to fly.”

  Heydn rubbed his nose against Blue’s and kissed his forehead. “I’ll get dressed,” he said. “What am I wearing?”

  “It’s on the bed, as always.”

  “Thanks, as always.” Blue watched Heydn pad away, admiring the sculpted muscles rippling under smooth tanned skin. “I’ll be right there,” he called and went to get his phone from the kitchen counter. The acid green cell phone was on the oak butcher block where he’d left it when Heydn got home last night. As he picked it up, he smiled at the photo displayed on the tiny screen: a high-resolution shot of Heydn’s arousal with the Blue Heaven tattoo prominently featured. He went immediately to the computer to move the pictures to his private photo file and opened his mail while he waited. Typing a quick message, he clicked send, picked up his phone, and went to the bedroom.

  Heydn was nearly dressed in the wide-wale wheat-colored corduroy trousers and a chocolate brown long sleeved silk T-shirt Blue had chosen. He looked up from pulling his boots on and saw Blue in the doorway. “Thought we were in a huge-ass hurry,” he said.

  “Just finish getting dressed. You look good, by the way.” Blue quickly donned a pair of black slim-cut trousers and a white linen shirt with French cuffs. He put on the large onyx cuff links Heydn had given him a couple of birthdays ago and tied a bright red scarf around his neck. “Done,” he said, turning to see Heydn watching him.

  “You look like a movie star,” Heydn said. “Or a particularly sweet vampire.”

  “Thank you,” Blue said as he picked up his overnight bag. “Let’s go. You know Andrew doesn’t like to wait once he’s filed a flight plan.”

  Heydn snatched his bag off an antique sea chest and held it up. “All set.” A short ride in the Land Rover over country roads lined with snow-frosted trees brought them to the small airport where they kept the smallest of their corporate jets. They drove into the hangar, parked, and crossed the cavernous space to the shiny Sabreliner with the bright blue hippogriff emblem on its sleek flank. Andrew glanced at his watch, nodded to his copilot, and took his seat. Blue and Heydn strapped themselves in for takeoff and the jet taxied out to the runway. They were cleared by the tower and left the earth of Vermont for California, the waters of Lake Champlain glittering behind them.