Gulliver Takes Five (30 page)

And?

And nothing! I just asked what the fuck you were doing there
.

And I replied?

“Just fuck this bitch and we’ll talk about it later.” Which might be one of the hottest things I’ve ever heard you say
.

I can get kinky. You just need to let me know you want it that way.

Noted for next time. As for the time being...Well, I was so excited to see Rowan I completely forgot about Brendan. I don’t even know what happened to him
...

I think we can guess.

Right
.

We just sorta smiled at each other, nodded, reclaimed our clothing, and went back outside. The rain had stopped. And we walked to the subway.

Holding hands
.

Yeah. Still not really saying anything. Just...looking back and forth at each other.

The subway didn’t come for fifteen minutes. FUCK THE MTA!

We sat in the station, holding hands, mostly without talking.

Until...?

Okay. Yes. Until I started crying.

It was adorable
.

Shut up. Yes. I cried. And apologized. For losing my shit earlier. For forcing him to go to the zoo. For not chasing him after he left the subway. For not calling or texting an apology.

And I apologized too
.

Turns out one single text earlier in the day from either of us could have saved us a world of hurt and a trip to Brooklyn. Stupid, right?

It’s fine. After the Sorry Show, I told him about how I went all Buffy the Thug Slayer on those guys up in the Heights!

Oh. Yeah, that was so hot. I loved hearing about how tough you were. My ass-kicking boyfriend.

That’s what Rowan said, right there on the platform. “My ass-kicking boyfriend.” After the B-word slipped out, awkward silence overtook us. That fucking B-word. Taunting us. Challenging us. Dancing around
.

A giant bouncing question mark. And?

And then...I said, “Ass-kicking boyfriend. That’s a label I could get into.”

And that was it.

That WAS it
.

After a year of bullshit. A year of playing around. A year of pretending we wouldn’t end up back together like this.

And you know what? It felt new. Not like going back, but
...

...going forward. It felt right.

Now, we’re still not talking about marriage
...

Oh, God no. Not now, babe. Why would you even SAY that?

Exactly. And, you know, we still might play around
.

Maybe. But if so, only together now. An amendment to our rules.

Boyfriends that play together, stay together. Who said that?

One of your fuck buddies who broke up with his boyfriend shortly thereafter because shit got way complicated.

Right. It doesn’t work for everybody. We’ll see if it still works for us. But I think, for the foreseeable future, we may just see what it’s like to star in a two-man show
.

Agreed. Because sometimes it’s good to have a partner. In a world with untrustworthy weed dealers and gay-bashing assholes wandering the streets, it’s good to know somebody’s got your back. Whether to help you throw punches or kick in an extra fifty for your weed—or just to listen to your story and hold you when it gets cold in your apartment because the fucking heat is still broken.

Hey, there’s another NYC greeting card! “Sorry Your Landlord Doesn’t Turn On Your Heat Until Mid-December.”

Oh, and I would be remiss to not mention one final bit of irony: the train we rode back to Manhattan from the sex party broke down.

Are we surprised? Clearly the MTA has something against the both of us
.

I dunno. It all worked out for the best, didn’t it? If that train hadn’t broken down that afternoon, we’d probably still be in quasi-pseudo-whatever-land...

You’re giving the MTA credit for that? Hell. I’d rather give props to the rat
.

And that’s a real Manhattan Greetings card we could sell. “Yeah, Everything Sucked Today and Chances Are NYC Will Try to Make Tomorrow Even Worse, but You Still Wouldn’t Dream of Living Anywhere Else, Would You?”

I sure wouldn’t. Not without my Row-Dog
.

Me neither. Not without my boyfriend. I love you, Servando.

I love you too. Muah—oh my God, there’s a rat on the counter!

Aaaaaaagh!

Kidding
.

You ASSHOLE! That is NOT fucking funny!

But you still love me
.

I do.

I do too
.

“Todd? It’s Kenton. I...Wow. I...I just need to talk to you as soon as you get this. It’s important. Please call me. I’ve been texting you, but...I don’t know why you’re not responding. But this is really fucking important. Okay? Just...call me. I know you don’t want to, but we need to talk. Please. I promise it won’t take long.”

Beep.

“Shit! Todd! Todd! Wake the fuck up, bitch! Oh fuck, man! There’s a rat! Oh FUCK! It’s as big as my dildo!”

“It’s bigger than your dildo, Rowan! And uglier! Ahhh! It looked at me! Its fucking beady devil eyes saw me! Kill it! Kill it dead!”

“I can’t! What if it bites me? Those bitches have rabies and shit! I’m too young to die! NO! He’s in the DVD rack!”

“Where’s your bat, Rowan? Hit it! Ahhhh! Todd! Help us!”

Beep
.

And so my Saturday morning begins.

Well...

Maybe it doesn’t have to.

I flip over in my bed, so trashed that the fitted sheet came off in the middle of the night. I was too drunk and exhausted to care when I face-planted at 6 this morning, so I’ve been sleeping on a bare mattress like a squatter. Someone once told me mattresses end up 50 percent heavier after five years of use—fuck, that’s gross.

I roll over to the small, scrunched-up island of sheets, jam my eyes shut, and try to remember how to get back to sleep.

I’ve been so fucking tired lately. Run-down, like I have a cold I just can’t shake. I need to disconnect my landline. Who has one of those anymore, anyway? Fucking discounted cable packages and their slick telephone salesmen. “Oh, Mr. DiAngelo, you’ll save X many dollars if you combine the Internet and the TV with a landline service plan. Can I put you down for the Super De-Duper Triple Play Package? If you don’t like it, you can always cancel at any time!”

So now I have a phone people have somehow figured out how to call. If they can’t get me on my cell, they hit this thing next, and there’s no caller ID, no Ignore button. I won’t turn it off or unplug it, not since my mother convinced me that I never know when there will be an emergency I’ll need it for. The last thing I want is another “told ya so” from her.

I feel for Servando and Rowan, but they can handle a rodent on their own. Right? They’re tough guys. I’ve seen Rowan tackle
dudes a thousand times bigger than the biggest rat. It’s not like that time he got himself caught in a subway turnstile and needed my help to get him out. (I made sure to snap some pictures beforehand, of course.)

The landline rings again, and the answering machine picks up.

“Sup, bro, it’s Todd. Can’t get your call now, probably drunk and/or hungover. Holler at me.”

Beep
.

“DiTempto! It’s Drama. Get back to me. Wanna talk some last-minute things about eWrecksion. Two of the bartenders called out. Fuckers! They’ll never work in this fucking town again! And the pop bitch performer’s pulling a diva act too. She wants a limo to sound check! Who does she think she is? Rihanna? Give me a fucking break. I told them I’ll send a cab, or they can rent a fucking bicycle built for two and we’ll pay them back for it. She’ll never work in this town again! Like any of the gay boys care about some nobody with a single they’ve never heard when we’ve got the Screwniversity there. Oh, that reminds me, we have an issue with the screen projections. There may have been a small typo, they said. They spelled my name Dromo...DROMO! What the fuck am I, a floor-vacuuming robot? A
Star Wars
droid? That’s not a small typo. That’s the difference between a cyborg and a human being. Fuck me! Oh, Jesus Christ, just got another text. We lost a go-go boy from...food poisoning? Since when do those big-dicked toothpicks EAT something besides ass? Should teach him a fucking lesson. You better believe it, he’ll never work in this town aga—”

Beep
.

Oh, merciful beep.

None of that was urgent—right? Crap. All of it was. This party’s a big fucking deal, which means anything involving it is equally gargantuan.

Then again, if Mikey Drama had his way, no one would ever work in this town ever again. It’d be him barking orders at a bunch of tumbleweeds, which by the end of the first day would also probably never tumble in this town again. The man’s the biggest drama queen—but he can also pack any venue he deems worthy of holding one of his events. He’s a legend—and like so many legends, the stardust falling from his shoulders is bound to give you a migraine.

Still so beat. So ridiculously drained. The kind of tired where you’re nauseous and your eyes are dry and your throat burns. I could splash cold water on my face and try to crawl slowly into the morning light, but it’s only 10! Fuck. Four hours of sleep? Even I can’t make that work.

My eyes close.

The landline’s jangling rips them right back open again.

Beep
.

“Todd! Brayden’s lost his mind. I get home from the worst booty call I’ve ever had, and there he is in the living room, flinging
books at the door and screeching at the top of his lungs like he just escaped from
Jurassic Park
.”

Paging drama queen number two.

“Now he’s bawling his eyes out. Something about looking through Christian Robert’s phone, and a dick pic, and how someone named Grant is not long for this world. Or—I don’t know! He’s blubbering too much. Call me back, boo. He may jump out the window, or push someone else out, if you don’t talk him down.”

Beep
.

Okay, it’s time to get up. Fuck me with a Timberland.

I wish I could say this isn’t a typical morning, but that would be total BS. This is exactly typical. Some guys wake up to breakfast and a newspaper and a doting husband or wife; I wake up to enough fires to take down Yellowstone. And nobody ever thinks to dial 911—it’s up to ME to put them out.

I sit up and rub my eyes, which are dry, sore, and fighting not to stay open. My head bangs like it’s getting punched by two punks on either side of me. Oh, and I’m hard. Total morning wood. But I don’t think I have time to pull a load out, even if I started now.

Well, maybe...

The phone rings.

Beep
.

“DiAngelo, it’s Irwin. You gotta call me, brother, we’ve got a problem with your latest futures forecast. Bill rang me up an hour ago, blew up my BlackBerry, screaming his head off. Somethin’ ’bout your percentages being out of whack. Call me
pronto
.”

Beep
.

My dick deflates like a balloon untied. I can almost hear it sputtering:
thhhhhbbbbtttt
. At least that’s one less thing demanding my attention.

I kick my legs to the side of the bed and hoist myself up. Boom, I’m light-headed. From last night, or...? I lean against the wall until everything straightens itself out. Across the room, I catch sight of my reflection in a standing, full-body mirror. I can see my ribs. My face is rough and dark, like someone tied it to the back of a bike and dragged it around the Central Park reservoir. What the fuck? I know I’ve been skipping the gym lately—but as my two jobs demand more and more of me, I don’t have the fucking time OR energy more than once or twice a week.

But really? It’s only been a few weeks since I eased up on my regimen, and it’s like all the work I did for years came undone in days. That’s bullshit! Fuck anatomy.

And fuck this sleepiness. My normal gym routine will kick off again in earnest next week, even if all I want to do is pass out on the elliptical. If my body is a temple, it’s turning into a crumbling, crappy one way too fast—like Machu Picchu. No can do, Picchu. People expect more of me.

In the living room, Señor, my slutty Scottish terrier, is on his back with his legs in the air, snoring like a three-hundred-pound dude. The phone is right next to his head and hasn’t stirred him. What I would give for that deep a sleep.