Groomzilla (3 page)

“I look like an adult going to a business meeting.” A flip of Ander’s coat exposed black jeans with the thighs shredded to bits and a white T-shirt with a giant splash of black squiggles over a blurry picture of an astronaut. Daniel assumed it had cost a thousand dollars.

“Pft.” Ander tipped his heavy aviators up on the top of his unmoving ledge of hair. “They’re producers, darling. They’re used to creative people.” Ander popped Daniel on the nose. “You might scare them with your serious suit.”

“This is your tie and your vest from your line. I’m showing creativity.”

“No, you’re showing
my
creativity, and it’s a little… last year.” Ander whispered the last two words as if they were a secret best kept between friends.

“Then get me something this year and—” Daniel checked his watch. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”

Ander rolled his pretty blue eyes. “We’re standing on the sidewalk in front of the office. How are we going to be late?”

“I’m with you. I can’t be sure anything will go as planned.”

The doorman of the posh office building took their names and dialed up to the production office. He kept darting his gaze between Daniel and Ander as if trying to gauge their connection and whether they were armed. Daniel smiled politely, running his hand over his hair—of one shade, brown, and while in need of a trim, entirely natural—then smoothed the neat fabric of his suit.

Ander played with his iPhone while reciting a barely-under-his-breath commentary about needing better tailoring for the bulge on some trousers for his new line. “It’s a cock, not the Loch Ness Monster, Jesus Christ. Can’t I leave the office for five minutes?”

“You can go now. Take the center elevator to the penthouse,” the uniformed man said, his suspicious tone making Daniel’s smile go from stiffly polite to fake charming.

“Thank you so much,” Daniel said, gracious even in his annoyance that the man would look at Ander and think he was—whatever the guy was thinking.

“What?” Ander asked as Daniel manhandled him into the ornate silver elevator.

“You were making that guard uncomfortable.” Daniel regretted the words as soon as they exited his mouth.

The elevator doors opened and Ander huffed inside. “Because I mentioned a cock? Please! Those pants he was wearing were doing him no favors—he should beg me to design a uniform to make his package look better,” he said, smacking the little circle labeled with
P
. “Tiny dick, no imagination. I know the type.”

Daniel locked his hands together behind his back, watching the little numbers light up, higher and higher. “Or maybe he just didn’t think it was appropriate for the lobby.”

“Oh my God, Daniel. You are so exhaustingly Quaker sometimes. How do you sleep with that rod of almighty boring up your ass all the time?”

“Ander….” Daniel sighed. He knew better. And he never learned. Criticizing Ander—particularly with what others were thinking—got his back up like nothing else, and when Defensive Ander came out, it took a while for that self-conscious kid to go away.

“No, you’re probably right. I was making him uncomfortable.” Ander’s baby blues narrowed as the elevator came to rest and the doors dinged open. “And I know how much it bugs you.”

It was a familiar argument, more than a decade old and showing no potential of dying. Daniel felt comfortable “passing,” as Ander put it, living without making a scene, and Ander hid his own insecurities by challenging people with his outrageousness whenever he got the chance—especially to prove they were homophobes.
Not everyone is your parents
, Daniel wanted to say but never did. Some wounds were too lethal to poke in order to win a fight.

Daniel didn’t like discussing cocks loudly in public, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t a homophobe. “I’m sorry. Let’s not do this, okay?” he murmured as he held the door open. “You can yell at me later.”

Ander’s face sank into a more resolute hardness. “Right, because that’s what us queens do. Throw a tantrum. God forbid I actually have a valid point.”

“Ander, swear to God. Not now.” His patience slipped slightly and he felt himself flustering. “This is your meeting, something I’m doing for you. Let’s go.”

Ander said nothing, but his hackles were very clearly in the upright position.

This meeting had disaster potential.

THE WAITING
area of Life & Style Productions didn’t give any clues to their vision of either Life or Style; everything in the small room was sensibly tweed and tan, with black accents.

“Okay, this looks like a Crate & Barrel showroom,” Ander muttered. Clearly he didn’t approve.

“Gentlemen, hello,” said a dark-skinned young woman seated at a small reception desk. Her cultured, faintly British accent and smart brown A-line dress and pearls made her the perfect accessory for the space.

“Hi. Mr. Green and Mr. Valios.” Daniel attempted to pull his head together even as he caught the cold, stiff wind blowing off Ander. “We’re here for Mr. Pierce.”

“And Mr. Grainger. Of course. They’re expecting you.” She stood up to reveal a perfectly articulated tiny baby bump. “Can I get you some coffee?”

“Sure, thanks.” Ander pulled farther away from Daniel’s side, his voice cool. He slid out of his coat, leaving the loud scarf tucked around his neck, and placed his coat on a rack.

“Right this way.”

The receptionist led them around some low, dark wood bookshelves that delineated the space: reception, then a sitting area, and then higher bookshelves that formed a de facto wall with a narrow opening between.

Through there, two antique campaign desks faced each other in the middle of the angled space, with giant windows opening up the one visible wall. Accents of red made the black-and-brown scheme pop, and the streaming light diffused anything depressing or dark about the room. The makeshift office was the homiest corner Daniel had seen yet, and he resisted the urge to pull out his camera and take pictures. This was exactly the type of office he daydreamed of creating for himself one day.

The aforementioned Misters Pierce and Grainger rose to meet them. Ander left Daniel in the dust, approaching the two men with an extended hand and a huge, charming smile.

“Ander, so good to see you again,” the older gentleman said, his posh accent automatically charming to the ears. To Daniel, he was the sixtysomething low-key version of Ander: tight black pants with a silvery sheen, a white silk shirt, and an old George Clooney Cesar haircut, keenly accented with a heavy silver Rolex and shiny Ferragamo loafers.

“Victor, so lovely to see you again.” Ander shook his hand and threw a dazzling grin at the younger man in the room. “Owen.”

“Glad you could make it.” Victor Pierce’s partner looked to be in his midthirties and slightly more conservative in dress and charm—but gorgeous. Model gorgeous. Sculpted cheekbones and piercing gray eyes, a jawline that could cut marble, and a killer mouth framed with a thinly trimmed moustache. A tiny wave of light brown hair spiked in front, the rest close-cropped with arty sideburns. The blue-and-white pinstriped Hugo Boss suit he wore lovingly accentuated his long and lean body, with a coordinating blue-and-white checked shirt and navy tie completing the perfect picture. Daniel recognized the suit from a bout of fantasy online shopping—and while the model on the website had worn the suit well, Mr. Grainger put him to shame. “And this is Mr. Green, I presume.”

Even his accent was different, vaguely European by way of a Hollywood spy film, with a toss of something exotic, all delivered in a husky and charming tone. Daniel’s knees did a wobble as Owen tightly grasped his hand. Warm, smooth, firm.
Don’t lick your lips, don’t lick your lips.

“Yes, the wedding planner.” Ander wasn’t backing down from his snit, judging from his tone, which obliterated Daniel’s delicious fantasy where everyone disappeared and Owen Grainger fell out of his clothing. He swallowed a sigh and reluctantly broke the handshake.

“Nice to meet you both.”

Victor seated them in the leather wingback chairs near the window as he pulled his own wheeled desk chair close into their circle.

“Naomi, thank you,” Owen said, standing immediately to relieve her of her burden.

Owen played host and passed out the coffee. Daniel nodded and smiled and tried not to stare at the handsome, well-suited man with the impressive stubbled jawline and sea-storm eyes.

He was staring.

Owen winked before he took his own mug of coffee and settled onto the corner of one of the desks, ankles crossed to reveal magenta socks. Daniel admired a man who owned magenta socks on purpose.

“Ander, we’re delighted that you and your intended have agreed to do the show. Your sense of style and vitality bring something we haven’t seen yet on our program.” Victor purred his words, almost flirtatious, complete with the angling of his body in Ander’s direction. Daniel wondered if he sounded that way when he ordered his morning latte. The thought kept him entertained for a full second as Ander and Victor chatted happily about Ander’s T-shirt. Apparently Victor knew the designer’s name, which pleased Ander very much.

Daniel sipped his coffee quietly. Ander at full tilt meant Daniel might get through this meeting without having to speak at all.

Except that Owen was standing and maneuvering behind Ander’s chair with polite murmurs of “excuse me,” and then he was behind Daniel’s. Daniel managed not to swivel around like a paranoid owl, wondering if Owen were leaving, but no—no, he was coming round to sit beside Daniel, pulling a small guest chair from behind him.

“Thought I’d let them have more space to gossip on fashion,” Owen said in a conspiratorial whisper. This close, Daniel noticed ridiculous details like his women-would-kill-for-eyelashes-that-long and his charmingly curved smile. Dimples? Seriously?

“That suit tells me you know something about fashion,” Daniel blurted, then took another sip of coffee.

“Oh, this?” Owen laughed with a modest duck of his head, a sound that did nothing to reduce Daniel’s hot flashes. Possibly it made him hotter. “Picked out for me, right down to the shoes. I only had to supply the socks. Don’t know what I would do without my Naomi.”

“She has wonderful taste.” Daniel even managed to sound truthful when he said it, and not bitter at all. His gaydar rarely failed so spectacularly—he almost always won when he and Ander played “Gay or European” in Bryant Park.

“She does.” Owen, it would seem, hadn’t noticed Daniel’s now-dimmed responses or the disappointment he was sure he was broadcasting. Maybe “passing” was a good thing.

“When is she due?” Daniel asked politely. Expectant fathers, in his experience, enjoyed sharing details.

“Hmm….” Owen tapped his loafer against the Oriental area rug. “I’m going to say July. Middle of the month?” He sighed, strong hands tight around the coffee mug. “It’s going to be awful round here when she goes on leave.”

Daniel’s ears perked up slightly. That didn’t sound very fatherly. “How long has she, uh—worked for you?”

“Seven years, since we started up. Right out of university. I actually knew her brother better, but we were always friendly, stayed in touch. It worked out nicely.”

“That’s great—that you work together now. For so long.”

Owen’s smile drifted into “humoring the weird fellow” for a moment. “And you? How do you know Ander?”

“Boarding school. In Maine.” Daniel’s reconciliation of the skinny blond boy with bad skin weeping beside his bed in their shared room with booming-laughter confident-acting Ander always stuttered in his head, like a glitch in the Matrix. He had witnessed the transformation and it still seemed so unlikely. “We were eight. Shared a room until graduation.”

Owen went back to full wattage. “That’s lovely. I mean it, just brilliant. For you two to be friends so long and now you’re planning his wedding.” He leaned forward, entirely too close to Daniel’s personal-space boundary. But Daniel did not back away.

Did this guy have to smell so good? Black tea, wood smoke, and what was that? Gardenias? Illegal and immoral—he smelled illegal and immoral.

“I have to tell you, it truly warms my heart how accepting you are of their marriage. I would hope my friends would be so good to me in the same situation.”

Daniel’s thoughts tripped, all but falling down a flight of imaginary stairs. He realized that Owen assumed he was straight, as Daniel was assuming Owen was straight, and Daniel would like all confusion cleared up quickly for his own peace of mind.

“Well, you know—I love Ander in all his…
Ander
-ness. And Rafe is a great guy. I want this to be a celebration of that.” It sounded like a sales pitch. Daniel stared down at his coffee. “And if I met the right guy, Ander would absolutely do the same for me.” A smile quirked his lips to one side. “Providing Ander ever decided a guy was good enough for me.”

Owen gaped a little as he sat back in his chair. He seemed to quickly process the information, grinning back brightly a second later. “I seem to have a similar situation with Naomi. It’s no wonder I’m still single.”

A twinkle in his eye? Daniel was starting to suspect Owen Grainger was his wet dream designed by Disney Imagineers.

Oh God, they were flirting.

Daniel’s ears got hot as tiny sweat droplets began to explode at the back of his neck.

So of course, he drank more coffee.

“Shame,” Daniel murmured, giving Owen a look over his cup.

“Mmmm.” It wasn’t an answer, but Daniel enjoyed the purse of Owen’s amazing mouth.

Victor’s voice cut through their staring contest. “Gentlemen! Care to join us?” Victor sounded less flirty and more amused. Sarcastic. A little snotty maybe? Daniel tried to simultaneously swallow and turn the chair toward Victor and Ander.

And immediately caught Ander’s direct stare.

“We were discussing locations for filming,” Ander said dryly, his lips twisting into amusement, and Daniel could tell he was forgiven. Forgiven and scheduled for an interrogation when they left this meeting.

Naomi joined them with decadent-looking chocolate cookies and bottles of artisan water a few minutes later. She sat in Owen’s chair and took notes, occasionally reaching up to tuck her long strands of curly hair behind her ears. Every ten sentences or so, Victor would say something far too loud and boisterous and she would roll her eyes in Owen’s direction. He, in turn, sent brotherly-affectionate smiles toward her, stole her pen twice, and began bouncing one leg atop the other clearly just to annoy her.