Seven Deadly Queens (The FuBar Book 3)

by Jess Whitecroft

  17

  The small living room of the apartment was full of boxes. Shoes, wigs, books, make-up. Adam paused in front of the bookshelf and lingered over a photograph of himself and Stephen – two boys on vacation in the Dominican Republic. His face was pink from the sunshine and the fishbowl full of bright green booze in front of them, and Stephen’s three-day beard had already achieved junior sasquatch status. It seemed so long ago now.

  He decided to leave the picture where it was. Something to remember him by.

  “Hey, can I have this if you don’t want it?” said Rose, coming out of the bedroom with Adam’s fake mink comforter in her arms.

  “Sure, honey. It’s not big enough for Ryan’s bed.” Adam felt strangely weightless for a moment. Something that could be blown away on a puff of wind. “My bed. Our bed.”

  Rose wrapped the comforter around herself and gave a twirl, like something from a prehistoric fashion show. Stephen looked up from wrapping shoes in tissue paper, and – sensitive to social atmosphere as always – followed Adam into the kitchen.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I think so. Just had one of those ‘Oh shit, am I really doing this?’ moments.”

  Stephen leaned back against the surface. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. This feels very big, that’s all.”

  “It is big. You’re moving in with your college sweetheart, who came back to you after twelve long years and who worships the tip jar heels you walk on.”

  “Settle down, Helena. You’re going all Disney princess again.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s romantic. And that apartment. With those windows. It’s like Paris.”

  “You’ve never been to Paris.”

  “No, but I’ve been to the pretend one in Las Vegas. They had similar windows.”

  “Similar windows. Is this like your new turret obsession?”

  “It might be.”

  Adam took a breath and resisted the urge to tear open and stress eat the pack of Twinkies next to the microwave. The sugar rush would not be helpful at this point. “I left that picture,” he said. “Of us in the Dominican Republic. In case you forget what I look like.”

  “Yikes. You’re really coming down with separation anxiety, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Relax, will you?” said Stephen. “You’re going to be spitting distance away. You’re not even crossing the river. Either river.”

  “I know that. It’s just…”

  “What? Hard? Letting go?”

  Adam exhaled. “A little, yeah. This has been my…my kingdom.”

  Stephen crossed the kitchen and leaned against the same surface. Hip to hip. “You’re still the queen, honey. You just get your own royal residence. Like Queen Elizabeth’s mom had when she was alive.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. She had her own palace. She didn’t live with her daughter.”

  “Yeah, but her daughter was a grown-ass Head of State. Mine may be a queen but she’s still a baby in a lot of ways. Like Daenerys Targaryen.”

  Stephen laughed. “What? You think Rose is gonna start hatching out dragons?”

  “She’s at a difficult age.”

  Stephen sobered quickly. “I know. But you’re not abandoning her. You’re like thirty minutes walk away. And she can leave the house now.”

  “True.” Rose had passed the last drug test. Or rather Ryan had.

  “I know she keeps things close to her chest. And believe me, I’ve tried having that conversation with her.” Stephen sighed. “But she’s twenty. And I when I was twenty I thought I had it aaaaall figured out.”

  “Didn’t we all?”

  “Yep. I know there’s a lot of horrendous shit she’s probably not telling us, but you can’t force these things, honey.”

  “No,” said Adam. If anyone knew about these things it was Stephen. “I guess not.”

  “All we can do is be ready for when she’s ready to talk.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, Bunny?” Luis called, from the next room. “How do I pack the Elsa Lanchester?”

  “Very carefully. Don’t do anything. I’m coming.”

  Adam and Luis walked down to the new apartment that afternoon, because outdoors was still new and exotic to Luis. Whenever he left the building Luis put on boy clothes and hid his growing hair under a slouchy beanie hat, but his old prison swagger had softened somewhat, perhaps because Rose’s luminous beauty shone through no matter how often he forgot to shave. There was girl in the shape of his waxed eyebrows, in the length of his lashes and the upturned tip of his nose. And something more, Adam often thought, some relative ease in his feminine persona that promised further post-teenage turbulence down the line, but it was like Helena said – you couldn’t push kids. You just had to tell them you were ready for anything and hope they came to you when they needed help.

  “I can’t get enough of seeing the sky above my head again,” Luis said, as they headed down to Fourth Avenue. “I used to have these super vivid dreams about leaving the house and walking down to the magic store. And I’d meet up with Hu and Helena and we’d see how the construction was going, and only later would she be like ‘Oh, why didn’t your tag go off?’ and then I’d panic so hard I woke up.”

  “That’s like the dreams I used to have when I was trying to quit smoking,” said Adam. “I went a whole month without a cigarette and then my sleeping brain was like ‘I know, let’s make you think you smoked. Make that dream super vivid, just for fun.’”

  “And you wake up with a start, thinking you’d blown it?”

  “Yep. Brains are tremendous assholes like that.”

  “It was either Hu’s place or Primanti Brothers,” said Luis. “And if it was Primanti Brothers I could fucking taste every bite of that sandwich. With the coleslaw and French fries, you know?”

  Adam laughed. “You know I used to think that was the height of Pittsburgh barbarism?”

  “What was?”

  “French fries in a sandwich. It was like…carb on carb crime to me. And then I tried it, and I couldn’t get enough.”

  “I know. I would wreck that sandwich right now. We should go.”

  “Now? I’m in the middle of moving house,” said Adam. “Anyway, I’m meeting Ryan at L’arancia for dinner in about three hours. We’ll definitely do it another time, though. Now that I think about it, I don’t think we’ve ever had lunch together.”

  “What do you mean? We used to have lunch together all the time.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you can call that lunch.” He shuddered at the memory of watery instant mashed potatoes. “Or even food, in some cases.”

  Luis laughed. “Yeah, that prison meatloaf was like something from Mrs. Kane’s stories about the Cultural Revolution. Like beef flavored shredded cardboard smushed into the shape of a brick. No wonder I got out and went berserk for Justin’s Elvis sandwiches.”

  “Well, you’re young, you lucky bitch. Empty calories just slide off your silky smooth thighs.”

  They rounded the corner, onto a new street. One that Adam had yet to get used to calling the street where he lived.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever have another sandwich as good as that first one Justin made me,” said Luis. “They talk about the taste of freedom, but that was mine. Or something like it.”

  “Something like it?”

  Luis exhaled. His breath made a little cloud in the air. “It was hard, Bunny. With the tag and all. Sometimes I thought it was worse than being inside, because at least when I was there I couldn’t get so close to the things I wanted. Close, but…no cigar, you know?”

  “I know,” said Adam, thinking of that brief time in early spring when he’d tried to be friends with Ryan. Then friends with benefits.

  “Justin recorded your stand-up for me one night. He thought he was doing me a favor, but I had to make up some bullshit excuse about why I couldn’t watch it.” Luis sniffed and peered up at the pale gray
sky. “I knew I’d cry if I did. Because I couldn’t be there, in the audience. Watching it live.”

  “Oh honey. It’s okay. You’re on the home stretch now. That tag will be all the way off before you know it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And no more slip ups,” said Bunny. “Okay? I’m not going through that drug test bullshit again. You’ll give me a goddamn ulcer at this rate.”

  “Ulcers aren’t caused by stress. That’s a myth.”

  Great. The kid was now apparently an expert on helicobacter pylori. Another symptom of being twenty. They entered the vestibule of the building and stepped into the elevator.

  “I mean it,” said Bunny. “Promise me, Rose. No more weed.”

  “I promise.”

  “Really?”

  “Pinkie promise,” said Rose. “I love weed, but not as much as I love my life now.”

  Bunny blinked rapidly. Was the elevator dusty or something?

  “You didn’t have to do any of this for me,” said Rose. “I was just a kid who used to come round and annoy you.”

  “Meh. You were useful. Good little seamstress.”

  “Okay,” said Rose, with a knowing air that was all Helena. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  “Telling myself what?”

  “That you’re still Pittsburgh’s reigning Queen of Mean. Mommie Dearest meets The Grinch.”

  “I have a reputation to maintain,” said Bunny, sweeping out of the elevator and across the hall to the front door of the new apartment.

  “I know,” said Rose. “I won’t tell anyone that you bought me ice-cream for my sore throat that time.”

  “Please. The doctor told me to do that.”

  “Uh huh. And did she also tell you that my favorite flavor was mint choc chip?”

  Bunny sighed and opened the door. “This conversation is boring.” She smiled at Rose’s reaction to those beautiful windows. It was the same with everyone. They all walked in and looked straight up. “Now…I need your thoughts on how I’m supposed to dress these big-ass things. Swags? Voile? Venetians?”

  *

  As he entered the restaurant that evening, Adam couldn’t help but think they were trying to run before they could walk. After all, Ryan was still a novice at publicly dating a man, and no matter how much he loved it, were they really ready to take it to yet another level? His stomach was still fluttering as he approached the table, but then his misgivings melted, because there was Ryan, looking winter-rosy and all the more golden for the glass of deep red wine in his hand.

  “Hey,” said Adam, slipping into the seat beside him. Warm lips. A flicker of tongue. “You look yummy.”

  “So do you. How was your day?”

  Oh, this was delightful. Ryan pouring him wine and asking how his day had been, like they’d been doing this forever. What if they were about to fuck it all up by being greedy and wanting more?

  “Decisive,” said Adam. “Huge matters of soft-furnishings. I’ve still got that mosaic patterned fabric I picked up on sale and couldn’t figure out what to do with, and I think it might be perfect for cushion covers. For the living room.” He saw the laugh in Ryan’s eyes. “What?”

  “You’re nesting,” said Ryan.

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. You are.” Ryan kissed him just below his ear. “And it’s super cute.”

  “Stop it,” said Adam, giggling. “I’m still terrified, just so you know.”

  “I know. So am I. Slightly. But in a good way.”

  “Slightly terrified, but in a good way?”

  “Yeah,” said Ryan. “It’s the same kind of feeling as when you take a picture of your penis and send it to the bartender.”

  Hell of a dick pic. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “Nope, neither can I. But here we are.” Ryan looked over at the other place setting at the table. The empty glass waiting for wine.

  Theirs was a round table, and Adam thought that was maybe a good omen. Not like if they’d had a table for four and with two on one side and one on the other. That felt like something that would presage disaster.

  “I know it’s weird,” said Ryan. “But we have a way of making weird work, don’t you think?”

  “I do. And I like our kind of weird.”

  “Then why do you look more than slightly terrified?”

  Adam gave a nervous laugh. “I’m okay. I am. I’m more worried for you. You’re a lot more…more conventional than me.”

  “Says the man who spent the afternoon picking out soft furnishings.”

  Adam smiled sweetly and raised a middle finger.

  Ryan laughed. “I’m not that conventional. By now I could have married a nice Catholic girl from Iowa. Taught at a Catholic school. Popped out a bunch of kids named Hayden, Brayden and Jayden—”

  “—and spent every weekend looking for a pole to smoke.”

  “Exactly. And made everyone thoroughly fucking miserable in the process.”

  Adam nibbled on the end of a breadstick. “Even the guy who’s getting his pole smoked?”

  “Well, yeah. Would you want a sad blowjob from an unhappily married man?”

  “No, you’re right. That does sound like a bummer. I like happy blowjobs. Nice and sloppy, and with three fingers up my ass.”

  “Always been one of my lucky numbers.” Ryan looked over towards the door. A waiter was pointing Justin towards their table. Ryan raised a hand and Justin approached. He looked church-nervous in the same button down shirt he’d worn when Adam had first interviewed him for the bar job.

  “Hey,” he said. “Um…why are you meeting me in a restaurant?”

  “It’s time for dinner,” said Adam, gesturing to the seat. Justin sat down and peered at the place setting in confusion. The poor boy really had been raised by wolves. “Or lunch, brunch – depending on what time you got up this afternoon.”

  Ryan emptied the wine bottle into Justin’s glass. “We thought you might be hungry.”

  “Okay?”

  “Also there’s this thing that people do when they’re sexually interested in each other,” said Adam. “They go places. And eat food together.”

  Justin raised an eyebrow at the sarcasm. “What? Like a date?”

  “Uh huh. A date.”

  He sipped his wine thoughtfully and peered from one to the other. “Are you guys trying to…to date me?”

  “We thought it was only polite,” said Ryan.

  “After you tag-teamed me on the couch in the back room,” said Adam. “What do you think?”

  Justin sucked air through his teeth. “You two want us…to date? The three of us?”

  “It was…a thought,” said Ryan.

  “It’s weird.”

  “I know,” said Adam. “We covered that.”

  Justin looked uncertain, but at least he’d stopped looking like they were certifiable, which was progress. “I like weird,” he said. “But I might not be very good at it. I’ve never really had that kind of relationship before. You know…like this. Nice. With wine and stuff.”

  “Well, it won’t be all nice,” said Ryan. “Obviously our previous arrangement was based a lot more on nasty.”

  “We’ll be keeping up the nasty, right?”

  “Absolutely,” said Adam. For some reason the idea of being able to jump Justin whenever they felt like it had been the thing that tipped him over the edge into thinking this new chapter of insanity was a good idea. He’d fantasized about some lazy winter afternoon, when he’d have time to sneak up on Justin in the cellar and bend him over a keg. And then confessing it to Ryan later.

  “There’ll be threesomes?” said Justin, his sharp blue eyes glittering.

  “Oh yeah. And twosomes.”

  “And solos with dick pics for company,” said Adam.

  “Already did that,” said Justin, with a filthy grin.

  “It’ll basically be a depraved and disgusting sexual buffet,” said Ryan. “But with dinner sometimes. And hanging out.”

&n
bsp; “And spanking,” said Adam. “I’m really into spanking lately.”

  Ryan took his hand and kissed the back of the wrist. “I know, baby. But we gotta get you a better paddle. I can’t have you walking about with half a slut on your ass.”

  Justin frowned. “Half a slut?”

  “Long story,” said Ryan. “We’ll tell you over dinner.”

  “And maybe after dinner we’ll show you,” said Adam.

  Justin laughed. “Hotness,” he said, and took a sip of wine. “Yeah. Okay. Why not?”

  “Really?”

  He raised his glass. “Sure. You know me. I’ll try anything twice.”

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