Hanging Loose (6 page)

“I’m not,” I confessed, to the still-unconcerned fan.

I had spent an increasingly maudlin evening trying to sort out how I felt, and sorry or sad wasn’t it. I was quiet for a while. Not sure how long—time felt stretchy, like melted cheese.

Eventually the words bubbled out of me of their own accord. “I never called him ‘Dad.’ It was always ‘sir.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘No sir.’ That’s how he liked it.”

The ceiling fan mocked me. Big sissy, it seemed to say. I stared it down. Jez was quiet. That was good. I hate it when people spout banal bullshit at you. Jez wasn’t like that. He was real. And warm. Hot. He put an arm around me and pulled me closer. Like my father never had.

“I hate him. I don’t care if he’s dead. I still hate him.” My tongue was sluggish; my mouth had apparently gone renegade, spilling my secrets.

A long moment passed before Jez spoke.

“You shouldn’t hang on to those feelings. They’ll just make you bitter. You have to let them go.”

I clumsily rolled my head around to look up into his face. “That’s very New Agey from you,” I slurred.

“No, it’s just common sense, stupid.”

With my head on his chest, my only view was up his nostrils, but I could still make out his eyes twinkling at me from above. It dawned on me through my fuddled haze that he probably had some authority on not holding grudges, after all. Darn.

“You’re too damn perfect,” I pointed out.

“What? Trust me, I’m not. Not even close.”

“Whatever,” I said, because he was clearly lying.

There was something I’d wanted to ask him for some time but never had the courage. Now I had the liquid kind.

“When did you know?”

“What?”

“That you were…you know…gay?”

He pursed his lips, and his eyes glinted some more.

“There wasn’t a specific moment. I think I always knew.”

“Was it hard to come out?” I asked, squinting up at him. It wasn’t easy to convey honest curiosity from that awkward angle, but I tried.

“Nah, not really. Adelle figured it out long before I knew what was different about me. She was very supportive. And there was Arthur, of course.”

I wiggled around to get more comfortable. Jez’s arms were still around me. He kept talking.

“Adelle was scary as hell, though, when it came to protection. When I was twelve, she sat me down and gave me The Big Lecture on STDs. She made me swear on my favorite surfboard that I’d never have unprotected sex.”

“She sounds kick-ass,” I murmured, half on top of him.

“She was pretty liberal. It was downright embarrassing sometimes. Boxes of condoms used to mysteriously appear in my room. She always made sure I had some on me when I went out, years before I had actual sex. Hey, stop that!”

That was in response to my hand searching for a way into his shorts. He smelled so good, like summer—salty with sweat and the ocean, and I swear I could smell the sun on him. Beneath it all was something musky and sweet. He was warm and not soft, but pliant. Smooth. I had such an urge to get lost in him, to be surrounded by him, by his smell, his warm skin. My fingers were scrabbling for the spot I knew would be his warmest, but he patted them away.

“What happened to being straight?”

“I’m reconsidering.”

He snorted. “You’re too far gone to get it up.”

“I could give you a blowjob.”

“Thanks, but I’ll take a pass on you drunkenly slobbering over my cock.”

Jez sat to get up, but I got a hold of his arm. He looked down at me with a guarded expression.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything. Just sex,” I pleaded.

He let out a great big shuddering sigh. “It always means something. In the morning you’ll hate yourself, and you’ll hate me.”

“I don’t want to be alone.”

The corner of Jez’s mouth crooked up, and he reached out to brush a lock of hair from my forehead. It was a strangely gentle gesture after turning me down.

“You don’t have to be. Stay here tonight.”

Jez rolled out of bed, and I kept watching him as he moved around the room. He put a wastepaper basket by my side of the bed, then pulled an extra comforter out of the closet and threw it over me. He turned out the lights and climbed back into bed.

“If you need to throw up, try to remember to roll to your left first.”

I rolled to lie on my left. The room spun less that way. It started moving again the moment the lights went out. Also, this way I was closer to the edge of the bed and the wastebasket. I thrust one leg back to hook it around his. Jez let out a deep sigh, but then he rolled over too, and a second later, his fingers threaded into my too-long hair.

“I like your hair this way,” he whispered into my nape.

I fell asleep with his fingertips gently rubbing my scalp. It was becoming a pattern.

* * *

I didn’t throw up, but I woke the next morning with a monster headache and a bladder ready to burst. I made my way to the bathroom. After that, I took the opportunity to brush my teeth and find some aspirin in the medicine cabinet. My reflection in the mirror looked the way I felt.

In the kitchen, the coffeemaker was emitting wondrous gurgling sounds. I poked my head in, wondering how big a fool I had made of myself the night before and how pissed Jez was about it. He smiled without a hint of annoyance. Damn. I was a lousy roommate and a lousy friend; I didn’t deserve him.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Like crap,” I confessed.

Jez put coffee in front of me, with milk and too much sugar, just the way I liked it. I
really
didn’t deserve him.

“About last night… I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

“Don’t worry about it. If I had a penny for every time a drunk hit on me…”

“You’d be rich.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“But I’m still very, very sorry.”

“I said forget it. It’s fine.”

I nodded, shamefaced. There was silence. While I sipped my coffee, Jez mixed up an ominous-looking concoction over by the kitchen counter. He finally held it out to me.

“Drink this. It’ll help.”

“What is it?” I asked with suspicion.

“Hangover remedy. Adelle’s secret recipe. She was quite a party girl back in the day.”

I sniffed it and scrunched up my face. It smelled vile. There was no way in hell I was going to drink it.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you: don’t smell it. Just take a deep breath and chug it down.”

I looked at him warily.

“Trust me?” Jez asked, and I knew I was fucked. I would be the biggest asshole in the universe if I refused now, especially with the way he looked at me, his face so earnest and caring. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and downed as much of the foul liquid as I could before running out of air. The texture was unpleasant, but it didn’t taste half as revolting as it smelled. As matter of fact, it was quite inoffensive, a little bitter. I washed it down with coffee, just to be safe.

Jez’s phone chirped. He looked at the text and thumbed in a quick reply.

“I’ll be out for a few hours. Try to eat something light, okay?”

He had done that a lot—disappear after a mysterious text. It wasn’t my business to pry into his affairs, but it often made me wonder. This time I felt relieved to see him go; the combination of awkwardness and hangover made me unsociable.

Chapter Seven

I forced down some toast, took a shower, and headed out to the beach. The water was as fucking cold as ever, but it actually made me feel better. Or it shocked my system so bad, it forgot about the hangover. It was early enough in the day that the sun was still blotted out by the marine layer, so I lay down on my beach towel and tried to sort out my thoughts. They were in a clusterfuck, as my father used to say. Bitter bile rose in my throat at that. Oh God, Jez was right. This was no good; I needed to let it go. My father and I never managed to connect, and there was no point in hashing it up anymore. I didn’t want to think about it.

It was ironic that I had fled from all that dreary crap I grew up with, but still managed to smuggle an unhealthy portion of it with me. At least I didn’t have to fret about disappointing my father anymore, I told myself. I might as well admit I’d never be the duly dutiful son my mother wished for and that I’d already disappointed my college professors. I had spent so much energy trying to conform to the expectations of everyone around me that I forgot to be me. Even drifting aimlessly felt like an improvement.

And there was that other thing… If I was honest, I’d always been attracted to guys too. I knew that from the day Billy Foster showed up in the sixth grade with his curvy lips and long eyelashes. I didn’t watch
Baywatch
only for Pam Anderson either. I’d just never put a name to it or looked at it directly, because it was far easier to get by that way. Imagine my father getting the slightest scent of it! I shuddered at the thought.

I’d become very good at ignoring the obvious when it was inconvenient. That was a trait of my mother’s I recognized in myself. It was wearing thin though; these days all you had to do was pour a few drinks in me, and the illusion evaporated like morning mist. Like with Mark at the party… The reason for that not going any further wasn’t some sudden sexual anxiety. Not in the state I had been in.

The truth was—if I dared accept it—I had it bad for Jez. I wanted him so much, it hurt. I wanted to touch him, taste him, fuck him stupid. Or have him fuck me—I didn’t care. Hell, just thinking about it made me hard. I turned to lie on my stomach so as not to make a spectacle of myself, and resisted the urge to rut against the warm sand.

Unfortunately I’d painted myself into the corner with him—assuming he could be attracted to me at all. It would be mighty arrogant to presume he’d be interested just because I was suddenly available. He was drop-dead sexy, the California dream embodied, and I was just a plain, skinny guy from Bumfuck, Nowhere. I fell asleep with unhappy thoughts swishing around in my achy head.

I woke a couple of hours later, hungry and without a headache. Adelle’s miracle medicine worked after all. I went home, took another shower, and contemplated my options with Jez. I could be a big wuss and do nothing. Or, I could ask advice from an expert.

* * *

Arthur was happy to see me. It was almost lunchtime, so we ordered Chinese. I couldn’t just come out with my question—needed to warm up first—so I asked how he started out in Hollywood.

“Did you always know you wanted to be a set designer?” I prodded.

“Oh hell, no. I sort of fell into it.”

“How?”

“Well, I was just a stupid nineteen-year-old kid when I got off the bus from St. Louis, like a bunch of others. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew spending the rest of my life in Missouri wasn’t it. I got a job on the RKO lot as a carpenter building sets. It just went from there. It was some luck and a lot of hard work.”

I slurped my chow mein thoughtfully.

“Did you make any plans?”

“Nah. I tried once or twice, but they always went to hell. Eventually I just learned to let life take me where it wanted; it was easier that way. If you leave yourself open to possibilities, a lot might happen that you couldn’t have planned for.”

“Being openly gay, that couldn’t have been easy.”

“The fifties were a bitch, but you are who you are. Hell, I look at some of these big Hollywood stars who twist themselves into pretzels to look straight. And for what? Fame and money? It’s not fucking worth it, if you ask me.”

That reminded me: “Have you ever been with a woman?”

“What is this? Twenty questions?” he grumbled but went on. “No, not me. But plenty of the guys I knew went both ways.” He stopped for a moment, blinking into a distance only he could see. “There was this writer I met a long time ago. He’s dead now. He’d been with women, but he considered himself gay anyway. He told me once that it’s not who you slept with that mattered, but whom you fell in love with.”

That made me pause. I’d never thought of it that way. We finished our meal in silence while I chewed on this new notion. I cleared off the containers and took Arthur’s shopping list. I turned back from the door.

“Do you have any regrets?” I asked him.

“A bunch. That’s life.”

“Any big ones?”

“Just one.” He cast a pensive glance toward the “Wall of Lovers,” but I couldn’t tell which photo his gaze landed on. “If you want the advice of an old man, don’t be afraid of making mistakes. That’s life. Just be sure you’re making them for the right reason.”

It was now or never. “Do you think Jez likes me?”

He stared at me as if I’d announced that I’d joined the Church of Scientology.

“Aren’t you two together already?”

“No, we’re just roomies. I sort of told him I was straight, except I’m not really…”

Arthur laughed so hard that tears ran down his crumpled cheeks. I was miffed. He laughed till he started to cough and had to scramble for his water. He put the glass down and wiped his eyes.

“I’m sorry, kid. I wasn’t laughing at you,” he said, wheezing. “I was just thinking how youth is wasted on the young.”

I gave him a dirty look.

“Of course he likes you. The way he looks at you, that’s not constipation in his eyes. Trust me, I’m old enough to know.”

“What should I do?”

“Tackle him and screw his brains out. There’s nothing like the direct approach.”

Dirty old coot.

Chapter Eight

When I got home, the house was empty. I was puttering around restlessly when Roger called. One of the waitresses was out, and he wanted me to come in for a few hours. I almost said no, but agreed in the end. It was good; being busy, not having time to think, eased my mind.

It was dusk by the time I got home again. I found Jez in the kitchen, fiddling with something at the counter. I stopped in the doorway to study him. He was all warm tones, from his tanned skin to his brown shorts and golden hair. It was very silly, I know, but those colors made me think of an ice-cream sundae. I wondered: if I licked him, would he taste sweet? Suddenly there was too much saliva in my mouth, and my heart beat like it was trying to escape. I was rooted to the spot, in danger of spending eternity in the doorway.