Chapter 7
S
unday brunch at the Duchess was basically a repeat of Saturday brunch at the Duchess, just with more mimosas. I was exhausted. Every time I'd closed my eyes, I'd pictured Steven with some random guy. And I knew it was my fault. I'd driven him to it. He'd never have done it if he hadn't found drugs in my pocket, and there were no good reasons or excuses for the drugs being there. So when Dinah called and asked me to brunch, I figured why not. If I wasn't going to sleep, I might as well get morning-drunk.
Dinah was my girl. Every fag needs a hag, and she was mine. When Aaron and I split and I set off to my new life in the big city, she'd even come along. For the first six months, we'd been inseparable, and she was my only social outlet at all. Movie nights and dinners and cocktails at my place were just enough socializing to keep me from going totally insane.
Then Dinah had gotten a boyfriend. Yes, even hags need love, as strange as it may sound. And although that meant less frequent outings with her gay bestie, Dinah made a point of holding to one of our traditions: Sunday brunch. When Steven and I started dating and he introduced me to the Duchess, Dinah and I gladly relocated our Sunday, and so that's where I found myself, emotionally hung over and Steven-less.
“So what did you do?” She'd never been one to hold back.
“It was ridiculous,” I said, shaking my head. “I don't know what I was thinking. Wednesday night, I stopped in at the Palace for a drink after work and saw the Caterpillar, and figured, why not?”
“You gays and your drugs! On a Wednesday, Alex? Really?”
“It was dumb, I know. So anyway, Thursday, I was over at Steven's, and we'd just finished fuckingâ”
“I don't need the details there.”
“Are you sure? I don't mind. I know you and Twitten probably need pointers.”
“His name is Christopher, and our sex life is fine. More than I can say for yours right now.”
“Oh, my sex life is fine, that's a different story.”
“Alex, you didn't!”
“Guilty.” I had the decency to look shamefaced at least. “Which story do you want first?”
She paused. “Who was the sex with?”
“The twins.”
She choked on her mimosa. “You're kidding me.”
“No.”
“How did you get from wanting to propose to a threeway with Wonderland's wonder twins?”
“Steven found the stupid coke Baggie in my stupid pants after we fucked. He flipped.”
“Understandably. You're an idiot.”
“Thanks. You're a sweetheart.”
“Anytime.”
“He dumped me, Dinah. He said he wouldn't go through it again.” Before me, Steven had dated a total druggie loser named Pierre. This wasn't the same; it wasn't a problem for me, or an addiction. Just a once-in-a-while itch that needed to be scratched. It was the first time since we had started dating that I had scratched it. Well, second maybe.
“Oh Alex, I'm sorry.” Her hand was cold from her mimosa.
“What am I going to do, Dinah?”
“Have you called?”
“I tried. Voice mail.”
“Has he called?”
“It was full, couldn't leave a message.” I took a deep breath. “It gets worse.”
“How can it?”
“I walked by on my way home from the club last night, and he was with someone.”
“He was what?”
“I saw them through the curtains.”
“He didn't!”
“He did.”
“Well, even Steven, right?”
“That's what I thought. It doesn't make it feel any better.”
“Well, you need to go talk to him, that's all.”
“After brunch.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Okay good.” She speared some sausage with her fork and looked at me with a mischievous grin. “Now, tell me about this threeway.”
Â
We had just finished brunch and ordered one last round of drinks when the door from the lobby opened and in came the twins, with Brandon and Allan. Brandon and Allan were still up from last night, as evidenced by their clothes and the glow paint still on their faces. The twins looked fresh as always; nothing tired them out. I knew that from having tried to tire them out just two nights before.
“Well look what we have here,” Dinah said with a smirk.
“You hush your face.”
“Yoohoo, booooooys!” she called out, waving them over. I kicked her under the table, and she laughed even as she yelped.
“Alex! Dinah!”
“Hey boys, what's up?”
“You bailed early last night,” Jesse said, as they pulled up chairs and joined us. “Are you guys just getting here?” Colton asked.
“Just finishing actually,” I said. “We were about to leave.”
“Well, you have to stay now, we have gos-sip.” Brandon delivered the last word with his normal sing-song flair.
“I'm not really in the mood for some faggy drama,” I said, and got up.
“Sit down, Alex,” Jesse said. “It's about Steven.”
A thousand scenarios ran through my head. He was dead! He'd been coming to apologize for overreacting and he got hit by a bus and he was dead! Or the random trick he'd picked up off Grindr had turned out to be a homicidal maniac and chopped him up and they'd found pieces of him all over the gayborhood!
The most likely oneâthat they knew he had a trick and couldn't wait to tell meâof course occurred to me as well.
“What is it?” I asked.
“He's missing.”
Chapter 8
T
he fuck?
I sat there, dumbfounded. Here I thought we were going along in just a normal week of angst and drama in the gayborhood, and now what was this?
“What's this?” I asked. “What do you mean, missing?”
“We stopped by to get him on the way here. We hadn't seen him all weekend, and we figured, just because you two are fighting, doesn't mean he gets to ditch us all.”
Colton carried on where Jesse left off. “But when we got to his house, his car was outside and the door was open. We went in, looked around, nothing. No sign of him.”
“Did you call?”
“His phone was on his coffee table.”
“What the . . .”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Last night.” But was it? I saw two people there, but was one of them him? One must have been. You didn't kidnap a guy and then make out in his living room. Did you? “He was with someone.” I told them what had happened. Dinah shook her head even more judgmentally this time around. I needed a new hag.
“Maybe he just went for a run and left his door open,” Dinah said. “Or maybe his date did.”
“Steven would never do that,” I said. “He was anal about that. Adorably anal.” Brandon snickered at my unintended double-entendre. “Oh grow up,” I snapped. Where could Steven be?
I took out my phone. “We told you he doesn't have his cell with him,” Brandon said. I shushed him and dialed Steven's number. It rang. Oh wait, it was ringing right there at the table? Jesse took a cell out of his pocket.
“We brought Steven's with us,” he explained. “In case he called it looking for it.”
“You don't leave a brand new iPhone on a table with your door unlocked and wide open. Not with so many gay boys in the area looking for a cheap upgrade.”
“Well you'd know about cheap upgrades, wouldn't you, Brandon?” I sneered at Allan.
“Hey now!”
Everyone started talking at once, and I couldn't be bothered to sort through the voices. I got up, took Steven's phone off the table.
“Where are you going?” Dinah asked.
“Steven's place to wait for him to get home. I'll talk to you guys later.”
“Want me to go with you?” she asked.
“No, you stay here and visit. You can get brunch though.” I stuck out my tongue. Yes, I was worried, but that wouldn't stop me from scoring a free meal. I was nervous, not stupid.
The boys had locked Steven's door when they left but I had a key. I knocked, waited, rang the bell, waited, and then let myself in. It was quiet, maybe too quiet, and as soon as I thought that, I realized I was just spooking myself. It was normal Sunday-morning quiet. I turned on his TV for background noise, not even caring that it was some church show. As the TV pastor pleaded for dollars, I looked around.
His keys were in the bowl by the door like always when he was home, but there was no sign of him. There was no sign of a struggle in the living room, nothing in the kitchen either. I walked into his bedroom. His sheets were rumpled, so he'd slept there at least. Well . . . maybe not slept, but he'd used the bed anyway. I went to the small garbage can by his nightstandâno condoms. That was good at least. Maybe he hadn't cheated.
Or had cheated but hadn't played safe.
No, that didn't sound like Steven. Any more than vanishing did, I added to myself. I lay down on the bed where I'd spent so many nights and let out a dramatic breath. I looked at his phone. It was locked, and I didn't know his code. I tried calling it, just to hear it ring, just to hear his voice on his voice mail.
“You've reached Steven. Leave me a message.”
He'd clearly checked it since Saturday morning then. Where could he be? There was nothing really to do except wait for him to get home. I closed my eyes and breathed in his smell.
Chapter 9
“W
hat are you doing here, Alex?” It was Steven's voice.
Oh good
, I thought,
a dream sequence,
and woke up. Well, the wake-up you do when you're sleeping inside a dream.
Steven was sitting there on the bench, and looking over his shoulder at me. The sun was going down behind him, and the river was pink and gold. I'd been here before, many times. It was “our spot.”
“I was looking for you,” I said. “Where did you go?”
“I needed to get away for a while, that's all. This is where I go to think.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“Very! I can't believe you had a threeway with Jesse and Colton and didn't invite me.”
“What? I thought you were mad about the drugs.”
“That too.”
“Wait, who told you about the twins?”
“You did.”
“When?”
“In this letter.” He handed me a piece of paper. It was my writing sure enough, and a long drawn-out and detailed confession of my little Friday sexcapade.
“I didn't write this though.” I handed it back to him.
“Oh.” He ripped it up and threw the pieces into the air. They fell, snowflakes around his head. “Want to go skating?” He held out his hand.
“I can't skate well, you know that.”
“I won't let you fall.” He grabbed my hand and led me out onto the pond. I wobbled, and he braced me. Soon enough, with my arms out to keep my balance (and break my fall), I was circling the pond next to him.
“I'm sorry, you know.”
“For what?”
“For the drugs and the sex.”
“We're gay. Isn't that what we do?”
“Not all of us.”
“What else is there?”
I pulled the ring from my pocket. “This,” I said.
“That's sweet, but you're not ready yet, clearly.”
“I am. Trust me.”
“I can't trust you, remember? Drugs? Sex?”
“Oh yeah.”
“I've always known you were crazy, ever since you stalked me home that first day.”
“It was supposed to be cute.”
“It was,” he said and smiled, “but still crazy.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“Anywhere,” he said, wrapping his arms around me from behind. He nudged my face with his chin. “Come on, take a step forward.”
“We're too high.” I could see below us, down the cliff, where the surf beat the rocks.
“I thought you liked being high.”
“Hey!”
“Well . . .”
“Look, I'm scared,” I said.
“Just one step. You can do it.”
“Yeah, Alex, do it,” came a woman's voice from behind us.
“Dinah? What are you doing here?”
“Came to check on you. I've known you longer than anyone else here. You need me.”
“No I don't. We have our own lives now.”
“She's right, Alex, you do need her.”
“Maybe,” I said with a shrug, and took a step forward, off the cliff. Steven held my hand as we floated through the night sky. “It got late.”
“It's not that late. What time is it?”
Â
I woke up, and checked the clock. It was four. I'd napped most of the afternoon. I wiped the drool off my face, glad that Steven wasn't here to see that, and checked my phone. Dinah had texted, wondering if I'd found Steven. I sent one back, saying no.
I grabbed some paper off Steven's desk and left him a note, asking him to please call me and let me know he was all right. I couldn't just hang out here all day without him. I knew I'd go crazy. I stuck the note on his fridge with a magnet, right next to a picture of us at the beach. I smiled as I looked at how happy we were.
Steven needed to hurry up and get his cute ass back home so we could be that happy again.