Dreaming of You (15 page)

“I’m not,” he said. “Well, not threatened”—with a smile—“but since we’re being honest, there is perhaps a teeny, tiny part of me that would like to hate you and hopes your relationship with Logan, if that is indeed what it is, falls off a really high cliff and smashes into the very sharp, jagged rocks at the bottom.”

After a very brief momentary silence, we each busted out laughing.

“A very descriptive teeny, tiny part.” I let the whole “if it is indeed actually a relationship” thing slide, since I didn’t even know how to define what was going on between us.

“But it’s nothing personal,” he added, eyes widening.

“No, I understand—I think I can allow you that without feeling personally offended.”

“I’m a bitter fag.” Sam sighed. “I really hate that.”

“You don’t get to be our age and still maintain the sweet innocence you had at nineteen.”

“I suppose not. Wait, exactly how old do you think I am?”

“Oh hell no.” I shook my hands at him. “I am so not going there with you. We’re on precarious enough ground as it is.”

“Fair enough.” He laughed. “I must say. You certainly aren’t what I was expecting.”

“Really, pray tell?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I guess some subservient, boring type of Midwest househusband wannabe.”

“Ouch, now that hurts.”

He laughed, and we both nearly jumped out of our seats as some guy started banging on the driver-side window. I hadn’t even noticed him approach the car and began to miss the boring Midwest, assuming we were about to be carjacked.

“Open the fucking door, bitch,” the guy demanded, putting his hands on his hips.

“Willy!” Sam placed his hand over his heart, seeming more than a little irritated. “You scared the hell out of us.”

Sam opened the door and stepped out of the car.

“Like I care,” Willy said. “I’ve been watching you from my apartment window for the last fifteen minutes”—pointing up to a building—“what’s the big idea, making me walk all the way out to the damn street?”

Obviously miffed, Willy looked like a typical California boy, well tanned with dirty blond hair brushed to one side in that surfer-dude style. He was wearing a tight white shirt tucked into jeans, with a black belt that had an oversize silver belt buckle with Madonna’s cowboy logo from her
Music
CD. He looked, well…gay. Even without the belt buckle. He just looked
too
manicured. It was apparent the boy spent a considerable amount of time in front of the mirror.

“We were talking. When we were actually ready to pick you up, I would’ve pulled up to your building.” Sam leaned over to release the seat.

“Don’t think you can make it up to me by bending over and grabbing your ankles.” Willy slapped Sam on the ass.

Sam stood up, allowing Willy to climb into the backseat.

“First of all”—Sam pushed the seat back and slid behind the wheel of the car—“there’s nothing to apologize for.” Closing the door, he added, “Secondly, save it, bottom boy.”

“Hey.” Willy scowled. “I’m versatile. I give it every bit as good as I take it.”

“Versatile,” Sam said, laughing as he turned the car around, “otherwise known as big bottom boy.”

“Jesus.” I folded my arms. “You say it like it’s a bad thing. I think of it as obtaining maximum pleasure for minimal exertion.”

“All right then, sister!” Willy held up a hand for a praise Jesus. “You toss that hair over the side of the bed and go.”

“I’ll never understand why faggots get all hinky about admitting who takes it up the ass.” I shrugged.

Sam switched lanes and made a right-hand turn. “Probably because straight people always feel the need to ask us who’s the man and who’s the woman.”

“Which is ridiculous”—Willy played with his hair as he looked at his reflection in the car window—“considering everyone knows the only thing fags do with women is go shopping.”

“I hate that question,” I said.

Sam sped up a little to make it through a changing light. “The straights just can’t deal with up the butt.”

“Right, ’cause straight people never do up the butt.”

“She’s a pistol,” Willy said to Sam while patting me on the shoulder. “I like this one. He can stay.”

“Thanks, and I don’t even want to know what you mean by ‘this one.’”

“Oh, honey.” Willy gave my shoulder a squeeze before letting it go. “You have no idea how many not-so-significant others we have all tried to bring into the fold over the years.”

“There it is again,” I said, shaking my head.

“What?” Sam asked.

“Into the fold, what’s that all about? Who are you people, the gay Sopranos?”

“Oh,” Willy crooned, “I like the way that sounds.”

Sam smiled and looked at me as we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. We all got out of the car, and as we walked through the door, the first thing I noticed was how bright the lights seemed to be. I immediately felt self-conscious about the bump on my head. Sam went over to the hostess station to let them know we were here.

“Christ.” Willy looked at me. “What the hell happened to your head? Is Logan beating you or what?”

“Or what.”
Thanks, Mr. Flawless, you would feel the need to point that out
. “It’s nothing…just a little self-mutilation.”

He looked at me funny, and Sam signaled us to follow him. I waited for Willy to go and followed them single file behind the hostess. The dining room was very clean-looking with white walls and light pecan-colored wood floors. There were multicolored hanging pendant lights over the bar, which was in the shape of an S curve and stained to match the floors. It was a bistro-style open kitchen where you were able to watch the chefs prepare the food. I never particularly liked this approach. To me, it took away from the dining-out experience, but then again, it could be due to my disdain for cooking in general. The food just seemed to taste better if it came to you on a plate and you didn’t have to be subjected to watching the work that went into it.

We wove through the dining room to a U-shaped booth where Bradley and Nick were already waiting for us.

One of them was tapping his finger on the table. “You’re late.”

Willy slid into the booth. “Don’t look at me.”

The hostess excused herself, and Sam and I slid in after Willy was situated. Sam made all the necessary introductions. Bradley and Nick made a very attractive couple. Both nicely dressed and clean-cut with short dark hair. They almost looked like bookends, but it was quite obvious Nick was of the more laid-back variety while Bradley seemed a smidge high-strung. I felt very odd sitting at the table with all of them. There was an obvious ease between them, betraying their history, which only furthered my anxiety and made me feel very much the interloper.

“You know how I hate to be kept waiting,” Bradley said.

I put my head down a little as if being scolded by a parent.

“Pull the stick out of your ass, Bradley.” Sam opened his menu. “We’re like ten minutes late, and you’re being rude.”

“You’ll have to learn to ignore him.” Nick looked at me while placing his hand on top of Bradley’s. “He was an only child.”

Bradley rolled his eyes, removed his hand from Nick’s, and began perusing his menu. Nick looked at him, then back to me, and shook his head and smiled. Bradley was a casting director for Warner Brothers, which might explain his slightly edgy behavior, and Nick owned his own business, some type of mountain biking extreme sports retail store. Willy, on the other hand, was a wannabe actor waiting to be discovered, he informed me while looking directly at Bradley. Bradley, of course, never looked up from his menu, giving me the impression that there may be a little tension there.

“So, Aden, what do you think of your trip so far?” Nick asked.

Let’s see, a concussion, being pelted by and then eating insects, and now dinner with a man who’s in love with my boyfriend along with three other complete strangers
. “It’s been great.” I smiled.
Christ, I need a drink.

“We’ll have to get you two out on some bike trails this week,” Nick said with an eager expression.

Oh my hell…this one’s going to put my danger-prone ass in the fucking hospital
. “Sounds…fun; I really don’t know what Logan has planned for us, though.”

“Nick,” Bradley said, “he’s here to spend time with Logan. He didn’t fly halfway across the country to go biking.”

“Oh, well sure.” Nick nodded his head. “It was just a thought.”

Bradley looked at me and winked. I smiled back in an attempt to thank him for saving my life. The waiter came to the table, told us the specials, and took our drink orders. He left, and everyone had their faces stuck in the menus. I wasn’t used to having to make decisions as to what I was going to eat. I thought briefly about Nathan and Finn, desperately wishing they were here with me.

I closed my menu, set it down, and looked around the table. Sam was checking out a wine list. Willy’s face was all scrunched up as he read the menu, as if this were the most important decision he’d been faced with in days. I watched Bradley and Nick as they read different entrées off to one another. Bradley kept pointing to things only to have Nick shoot them down, as if Nick was his personal nutritionist. My first instinct was to make fun of this, but as I watched them go back and forth with their mini power struggle, I began to ask myself, Is this what couples do? Is this what it means to be in a relationship? Is this love?

As I observed them, my perception changed from them appearing silly to kind of sexy. The way they smiled at one another as they went back and forth, the slight touch of a hand, a whisper in the ear. They were flirting with one another in an extremely subtle manner. You’d never pick up on it at first glance, but that’s what they were doing. I wondered if this is what they were like in bed with one another. In the midst of fucking were they catching up on one another’s day, making plans for the weekend, discussing who to invite to that dinner party they were planning in a couple of weeks? It left me feeling uneasy.

The waiter returned with the drinks and everyone placed his orders. I picked up my wineglass, sucked down about half the glass, and asked him to bring me another the next time he came around. Willy started to giggle.

“Somebody knows how to sling ’em back.” Willy lifted his glass and took a polite little drink.

“I have yet to meet anyone that works in a restaurant or bar that doesn’t,” Sam said. “It’s our special gift.”

“You certainly do,” Nick said to Sam. “You drink too much.”

“I know, Mommy,” Sam retorted, “but we can’t all get our kicks from a PowerBar and a smoothie.”

“All I’m saying is you need to start taking better care of yourself,” Nick warned. “You’re not getting any younger.”

“Please.” Sam rolled his eyes. “It’s my bad, unhealthy behaviors that allow you to feel so superior and smug.”

“Rowr,” Willy sniped, with an appreciative, devious smile.

“And who, in the history of the world, has ever gotten younger?” Sam asked. “I never understood that expression, like I’m supposed to be shocked. Oh my God! I’ve stopped getting younger! Shit, man, when did that start to happen?”

I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself.

“You’re awfully pissy,” Bradley said as Nick mumbled something about Benjamin Button under his breath.

Sam stretched, leaning back into the booth with a half smile. “This coming from the man who had an aneurysm because we were a few minutes late.”

Nick and Bradley looked at each other then back at Sam. “We fold,” they relented simultaneously.

I sat through the rest of the meal listening to them all going back and forth with one another. While their banter seemed a bit hateful, it was apparent they cared for one another. I chimed in every now and then, just enough to keep myself from seeming antisocial, but for whatever reason, I felt the need to keep my guard up. They told me a few stories about some of the group vacations they’d all taken together: Las Vegas, Hawaii, a ski trip to Colorado. It was interesting to me because I almost never left the state of Missouri. Short of shopping trips to St. Louis and Kansas City with Finn, and my “business” trip to Atlanta, we never went anywhere. Logan had a life outside of his work. I was a little envious of that.