Citywide

by Santino Hassell

  “Mere,” I said calmly. “Where’s Oli and Caleb?”

  “Oh sorry. They’re upstairs messing with the computer. Apparently a work thing came up.” Mere shook her head. “At their fucking engagement party.”

  “Work never stops.” I nodded at her and started to retreat. “I’ll catch you—”

  “I’ll go with you,” Stephanie said. “I haven’t said congratulations yet.”

  We turned from Meredith to walk the weird spiral staircase up to the second floor, and I refrained from touching Stephanie.

  “You look gorgeous,” she noted casually. “As usual.”

  I snorted. “Thanks.”

  “You just need to accept that you’re a beautiful man and quit scoffing every time someone brings it up.”

  “I’m not being fake modest. I just know I’m no Raymond.”

  Stephanie grabbed my wrist, frowning. “You’re not. You’re Angel. And you’re beautiful.”

  Don’t kiss her, León. Don’t fucking touch her.

  “Thanks, nena.”

  She smiled, and we found Oli and Caleb hunched over an iMac in a big glass office. Their house was like some shit out of a movie. I couldn’t believe it was real, let alone that people I was vaguely acquainted with lived here.

  “Knock, knock,” I said, looking between them. “I’m not staying long, but I wanted to say congrats and give you a cheap card I picked up from Rite Aid.”

  Caleb straightened, grinning like someone had brought him a box of treasure, and walked over to shake my hand. I immediately liked him more. Maybe it was old fashioned, and too much of my grandfather in me, but I loved a strong handshake.

  “Thank you for coming. I’m so glad to see you.”

  I nodded, watching as Stephanie hugged him, then gave Oli a half hug as he kept glaring at the screen. “Hello you two,” he said, finally spinning away to stand. He looked Stephanie over, then me, one dark brow arched. “I’m not sure I appreciate how many devastatingly sexy couples there are at my engagement party.” I opened my mouth to correct him, but Oli kept talking. “Soon-to-be husband, we need uglier friends.”

  Caleb flushed a little at the title and smoothed the lapels of his jacket down. I immediately noticed a shiny black band on his ring finger. If that was his engagement ring, I liked them even more. “There’s no such thing as ugly, darling,” he said to Oli. “People just look differently.”

  Oli gave him a dull look, but I couldn’t help a smile. I never got the chance to interact with Caleb much, but I had the feeling he and I would be on the same page about a lot of shit. I had a hard time sitting with the Meres and Jaces and Charleses of the world, hearing about their sex lives in gory detail, but Caleb was all right.

  I waved my envelope at him, and he snagged it, beaming. Inside was a card that said: Congratulations. Shit just got real.

  Caleb’s smile widened, and he showed it to Oli, who laughed delightedly.

  “Thank you both.”

  “Oh, that was—” Stephanie halted when I gave her the I put your name on the card, estúpida look. “Angel picked it out.”

  “I was thinking about giving you a $5 Amazon gift card, but times are hard.”

  “Oh, we didn’t want gifts,” Caleb said quickly. “No awkward registry or anything. I hate presents.”

  Oli made a handjob motion. Stephanie winked. “I’ll send you a fun link later for a new purchase you can make yourself.”

  “Oh really.” Oli rubbed his chin. “Is it from my favorite store? That sells my favorite machine?”

  “Yup. There’s a new model.” Stephanie’s grin turned naughty. “I’m saving up for it.”

  I looked between them, mystified, but judging by the splotches of color on Caleb’s face, they were talking about something sex related. Of course.

  “Put it on your registry,” Oli advised. “If you two ever decide to make shit get rea—”

  Caleb’s eyes widened. He laughed awkwardly and abruptly enough for Oli to catch on and clam up. Caleb was definitely my dude. The quiet ones were always the most observant.

  “I was joking,” Oli said quickly. “I just like teasing them about being together because they’re very aesthetically pleasing.” He gave us his cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. “And I’ll save the fucking-machine talk for later. For when me and Steph and Jace can discuss the pros and cons . . .”

  He said other words, but my mind was stuck on fucking machine, and now my gaze was stuck on Steph.

  I had an absolute obsession with making women come. It was partially why we’d delved into all the sex-toy talk after she’d dragged me into that store. Just listening to the matter-of-fact discussion she’d had with the sales person about intensity of orgasms depending on which type of toy, and which could make her gush, had destroyed me. I’d stared at her, and fantasized about seeing her bring herself to that state, for hours afterward.

  Now, I was fantasizing about her and a fucking machine. There were entire porn subcategories dedicated to people being plowed to kingdom come with those things, and as weird as it was, it did it for me. Watching a woman lose her mind as she was fucked relentlessly by a dildo, or even imagining a woman using it on me . . . Not just any woman of course. Just this one.

  I cleared my throat and snapped back to reality just as a random dude walked into the room. I had no idea who the hell he was, but he looked like an older and douchier Tom Hardy.

  “Scott.” Stephanie did a double take, looking between the Hardy look-alike and Oli. “Wow. You two know each other?”

  Dirty thoughts were cleared away, and I hyper-focused on the new guy. He was bulkier than me, but strong, and wearing a suit that looked like it’d been tailored just for him. His silver hair was slicked back, and he had on fucking cuff links, but his expression was the picture of awkward. Half-hearted smile as his gaze flicked between us like a panicked animal. This was not a guy who loved small talk.

  “Scott DeFrancis is my brother-in-law . . . twice removed?” Oli tilted his head, and I saw the internal trigonometry at having to figure out his own familial relations. “Basically, he’s the brother of my sister-in-law. My own brother wants nothing to do with me, but oddly enough his in-laws think I’m great. Very active on the QFindr social media pages.”

  “Got it.” Stephanie was still eyeing Scott like he’d just wandered in off the street. Then she glanced at me, but she had a weird look on her face, and that weirdness spelled reluctance. She did not want me to meet this person. “Scott is my boss. He’s the, um, DeFrancis of Berger & DeFrancis.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I stared at her hard, waiting for her to introduce me, and watched that panic grow. What the fuck? There was absolutely no way Stephanie was banging her boss. She had too much integrity. And besides that, she’d often complained about the inequity of salaries, and how her fellow paralegals and the legal assistants irritated her by obsessing for years over her not having a boyfriend or girlfriend. She’d never once said anything to imply . . .

  But it wasn’t my business. She did not belong to me.

  I pasted on a half-assed smile and held out my hand. He had a limp, damp handshake.

  “I’m Angel León. Nice to meet you, man.”

  Scott nodded, cocked his head, and then awareness sparked. “Oh, you’re Stephanie’s fiancé.”

  I stared. “What?”

  Beside me, Stephanie’s face was flaming. She seemed close to exploding right there in the glass-encased office as Caleb and Oli looked between us in confusion. They, wisely, didn’t speak.

  “Stephanie’s fiancé,” Scott awkwardly clarified. “We don’t, uh, well, that is, I don’t talk about personal things with my employees, but—” Holy fuck, would he ever get a sentence out? Stephanie appeared ready to melt into a puddle of humiliation on the floor. “She said she couldn’t come to the company retreat in Lake George next weekend because she had plans with her fiancé. Angel.”

  The effort to not crack a smile was monumental. This was stupid. I knew it
was stupid. She’d thrown my name in the fray at work to keep them off her back. It had nothing to do with some actual desire to ever be engaged to me. But even so . . .

  I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pulled her in with a shit-eating smile. “Gotcha.”

  Across from us, Oli was also turning red from an obvious effort not to laugh. Caleb looked like he wanted to die from secondhand embarrassment.

  “Um . . .” Stephanie shuffled besides me. “Right . . .”

  “But you know what, Scott?” I dug my fingers into Stephanie’s arm. “Those plans may dry up. Is it too late for her to go along?”

  Oli had taken a sip of his drink and choked. Stephanie gave me a hateful glare. I kept smiling at Scott.

  “No, not at all. We’re going to have cabins, do team-building activities, and there will even be a hike.” Scott listed these activities as if in theory they were awesome, but his voice barely made it to semi pleased to be participating. “There are a lot of couples going, so you’re more than welcome to attend. We still have one room available.”

  This time it was Stephanie who brightened like her wattage had suddenly received a boost. “Well, we might just take that into consideration, Scott. My Angelito loves outdoorsy stuff.”

  I kept my mouth sealed into a smile even as I saw this plan backfiring. Caleb took pity on us and whisked Scott into a conversation about what type of law he practiced (immigration law), before going off on a glowing review of Clive Baptiste, their QFindr attorney, and the recent legal efforts to obtain subpoenas for the social media accounts that had participated in doxing them.

  As awkward as I felt with Stephanie glued to my side while she practically vibrated with the need to kick me in the nuts, I paid attention long enough to glean some details. Apparently, the legal process was slow but steady, and it could take a year or two to confirm the identities of the people behind the cyber threats, since they had to wait for subpoenas from various social media and email platforms. However, Caleb and Oli seemed confident that their suspect would eventually be caught. Considering the doxing had caused Meredith to be physically assaulted, I fucking hoped so. Even though everyone seemed chill, I had not missed the not-so-discreet armed guards by the door when I’d entered the loft.

  “Hey, Angel, I forgot Raymond wanted to talk to you,” Stephanie piped up about five minutes in. “If you guys will excuse us . . .”

  She dragged me away from the office, halted by the stairs, and then made a beeline for what I could only assume was Caleb and Oli’s bedroom. She shoved me inside with enough force to make me stumble, and shut the door behind her.

  “What the fuck, Sharky?”

  “What?”

  “What?” Her voice reached a higher pitch. “Why did you say I’d go on that stupid retreat! Have you missed the parts where I complain your ears off about how my coworkers are irritating to work with, let alone be on a three-day retreat with?”

  “I did not, but . . . I also didn’t miss the parts where your primary complaints were related to them always clucking their tongues about how you’re single. And now . . .” I smirked, “you’re not anymore. Apparently you’re engaged.”

  That blush covered her face again. The desire to kiss her nearly consumed me. I had to shift my attention away from her and surveyed the bedroom.

  “Angel, I only said that because—”

  “I’m not stupid. You said it because of all their annoying questions about your love life.” I studiously avoided meeting her eyes and kept visually snooping. “I don’t think you actually enjoy pretending to be mine.”

  Stephanie made a sound beside me, but I ignored her. That comment was supposed to have been dropped in a lighthearted manner, but my chest had hollowed out as soon as I’d said it. So I avoided meeting her eyes and studied the elegant but understated bedroom before noticing a device in the corner. A device that could only be . . .

  “Holy shit, is that the fucking machine?”

  I moved closer without thinking, eyeballing the apparatus. It was aggressively . . . mechanical. It kind of looked like a tripod for a camera, but with a big dildo attached to it. I didn’t touch it, but I could easily see how it could be adjusted for height and different positions. The visualization instantly turned to me adjusting it for Stephanie.

  “Fresco,” she murmured, coming up behind me. “It’s so easy to tell when your mind has gone down into the gutter.”

  “How could it not?” I licked my lips as she put her hands on my shoulders. “So, you’re saving up for one, huh?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Let’s get engaged for real and put it on a registry like Oli said.”

  She burst out laughing in my ear and wrapped her arms around me, hugging me to her chest. “Seriously, papi. I’m sorry I put you in a lie without telling you. I really was sick of them always giving me sad looks and worrying about the status of my womb and ring finger.”

  “They want you to have kids?” I made a skeptical face even as I stared at the dildo. “For what?”

  “Right?” Stephanie squeezed me tighter. “This is why I used your name. You get me.”

  Uh-huh. Not because she liked me. Nah, couldn’t be that.

  “Go on the retreat.” I turned away from the machine so I could look at her. “I know you only like being around us or your new friends, people who get you, but trust me—you’ll benefit from going along.”

  She wrinkled her nose.

  “You know you have to play those games to get ahead sometimes, Steph. We talk about this shit all the time with Ray and Tonya. How they are physically unable to be fake and go with the motions, but you can. You’re charming. Schmooze them into kissing your ass and giving you a raise.”

  Groaning, she said, “I guess that’s true. But . . .” She bit the side of her lip, searching my face. “Would you go with me?”

  “Uh . . . I dunno . . .”

  “Please?” Her hand tightened on me. “It’s going to be blazing this weekend, and Lake George will be nice. It’s cooler there, and you’ll get to do outdoorsy stuff.”

  “While pretending to be your fiancé.” At her nod, I said, “And you don’t think that will muddy the waters? The we’re-no-longer-fucking waters?”

  “No. Why would it? Just . . . be there with me, and we’ll act like how we always act.” She smiled, as if any of this made any sense. “People always assume we’re together, anyway.”

  I wanted to shake her. I really did. But I could deny her nothing, so I nodded. “Let me see if I can switch my day on Saturday.”

  She drew me into a hug. “Thank you, Angel.”

  I hugged her back, even though this was going to be a mess.

  My reactions to the Lake George trip were giving me continuous cases of whiplash. I smacked myself for perpetuating the stupid I-have-a-fiancé-named-Angel lie for over a year, then I was pleased with myself for not jumping out the window in mortification after being busted, but then I’d been thrilled by his response, and ultimately mystified by the turn of events.

  We met up with the rest of the firm at the crack of dawn on Friday morning, boarded a charter bus, and promptly sat next to each other in dead silence. It was over a three-hour drive to upstate New York, I was undercaffeinated and unfed, wanted to do nothing other than listen to my music in peace, and because Angel was my fucking Patronus, he did the exact same thing.

  At some point, I leaned my head against his shoulder, closed my eyes, and woke up over an hour later to find myself burrowed into his side. He’d put an arm around me and was watching sports clips on YouTube as if this was all the most natural thing in the world.

  Because I was half-asleep, and caught in a fondness spiral, I looked up at him with what was likely a sickeningly sweet smile. He flashed a tiny one of his own, light eyes hidden behind aviators, and kissed my forehead.

  My stomach fluttered. I reminded myself we were pretending.

  “Go back to sleep,” he said.

  I did. Or at least, I closed my eyes and t
ried to stop thinking about how good he smelled, and how solid he felt against me, for several minutes before dozing off again.

  The next time I woke up, it was for a pit stop. It was around ten in the morning, and I felt vaguely more alive, so I stumbled off the bus to stretch my legs. Also, to greet my coworkers now that I was more of a human being.

  For the most part, they were okay. Just irritatingly “helpful” about my personal life. It was almost as though they thought it was their duty because I was the youngest person in the firm. If some of my own friends didn’t get my lack of interest in relationships, there was no way I was going to try to explain it to colleagues.

  I waved half-assedly, joining their group in the shade. Scott was in the store with Angel and Melanie Berger—the other attorney at the practice—but everyone else was either still on the bus or mingling. Scott’s wife Ryanne and Melanie’s husband Daryl were chitchatting about their own lives (corporate attorney and stay-at-home dad), but the other paralegals and legal assistants were bitching about the heat. As usual.

  I leaned against the side of the building, fanning myself, and watched as Marshawn showed off a backpack that came with tubes and huge jugs of water for him to drink on a hike, as Kip and Corrigan (who looked like they’d sprung from the same yuppie fountain) took selfies for a Snapchat story. Marisol, the bad-ass legal assistant who basically ran the company, sat on a crate and ignored us all.

  There were people still on the bus, significant others and the antisocial office manager, but this was my work crew. As semiannoying as they were, I sometimes liked them. I even liked some of their significant others, except for Kip, who rapidly cycled through girlfriends and still managed to somehow evade the “poor you, single person” talks.

  “Hey, Kip,” I said. “The lady on the bus—is that Veronica?”

  His fake tan turned crimson “No. That’s Dee. Dude, keep up with the program.”

  “Dee? Like the letter?” Marisol’s contempt was obvious even without a tone. “Hmm.”

  Kip made a face at her. “Be nice. I just met her last week, and she’s hot as fuck.”

  Good God. Although, did I have room to judge? I was dragging my on-again off-again fuck buddy around pretending he was my fiancé. Who cared if Kip was taking a Tinder hookup on a work trip?