Building Us: A Gay Romantic Comedy and Adventure (Marketing Beef Gay Romance Book 2)

by Rick Bettencourt

  “He did?” Her brow knitted. “Only Minnie Tonka’s seen it. He wouldn’t even show me. And I’ve known him for over ten years. He must’ve really trusted you.”

  Emotion bubbled up inside me. I truly had lost a friend, and it hit me. “I’m going to miss the guy.”

  Carolyn gripped my hand. She smelled of rose petals. “Me too.” She tapped my knuckles. “Me too.”

  The plane taxied down the runway.

  Evan poked his head between us. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I held up Carolyn Sohier’s hand. “I think so.”

  She spun around. “Fear of flying?”

  “Just takeoffs.”

  Her bracelets rattled and she gripped my hand tighter.

  Chapter 67

  Evan

  While I stayed behind to mind the office, Dillon flew to Maine to meet with Carolyn Sohier and Minnie Tonka for a multiday collaboration on a new film project—Vilhelm Strom’s legacy.

  On a chaise in our bedroom, I meditated squatted in lotus position. Fifteen minutes in, a tingling sensation came over me—a kundalini buzz from my base to my head. Sell VeriPay, the words bolted in my skull. My eyes popped open, and I checked the market on my phone. VeriPay soared on news of a merger with Apple. A few clicks later, daringly, I sold all 10,000 shares. In the less than two minutes—from decision to sold—a sell transaction dashed out into the market.

  “Holy shit.” My heart pounded.

  Still in a bit of a trance, I followed my inner guide and dialed the real estate office for the property Dillon liked in Salem, and a woman answered at once. I told her I was inquiring about the property for sale on Old Farm Road. She placed me on hold to check with the broker, and I shuffled into the hallway wondering what it might be like to have a bigger place. The money from the VeriPay sale would make for a hefty down payment and then some.

  Deet met me in the hall with pleas for a walk.

  “Hold on, buddy.”

  He wagged his tail.

  “Hello, sir?” the woman returned to the phone.

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  “I’m sorry. That property is under agreement.”

  My stomach soured. “Really?” My inner guide failed me. “Well…that’s fine. I was just checking.”

  “We have other properties. Would you like me to have the agent call you back?”

  “No. No thank you.” I hung up.

  Deet rubbed against my leg and I patted him. “Oh well, Deet, so much for that idea.” I moved into the hall. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  On the way to Salem Common, we drove down Old Farm Road. The For Sale sign had been removed. “It would have made a nice house. Wouldn’t it have, Deet?”

  Carolyn Sohier and Dillon “whooped it up” on Summerwind Island, according to a conversation I had with Tim on the way back from my walk with Deet. I regretted my decision to stay back and run the office.

  “Maybe next time,” I said to him and hung up.

  Meanwhile, I’d missed a call from Mikey, who left no message. He wouldn’t pick up or return my call. “Unusual.”

  The next day, with still no response from the kid, I drove to Settlement. It was a gorgeous summer day—sun shining and low humidity—and I’d finished up work and could use the break.

  The shades were drawn at Mikey’s house, and no one answered the door. I drove to McDonald’s, figuring his mother might be at work.

  “Is Dina working today?” I asked the manager who had provided me the ice for Dillon’s foot months back—a handsome black man with thick glasses.

  He informed me that she hadn’t worked there in some time. He looked over his shoulder and whispered, “We had to let her go. Not very reliable. You’re his father’s… Well, your husband is Mikey’s father, right?”

  I grimaced. “Come again?”

  “I guess that makes you the father too. I didn’t mean to offend.”

  “Father? Um, no.”

  “Yeah, it’s you. I remember you from that movie last spring. Your…partner…broke his foot.”

  “Well, sprained it but…” I tilted my head. “What do you mean, father?”

  “Mikey going ’round telling people he’s his dad.”

  My shoulders slumped. “Mikey?” The poor kid…making up stories again. “Well, I hadn’t heard from him. I thought I’d catch her here.”

  “Dina’s gone.” He motioned me aside to avoid incoming customers. We hunkered by a trash barrel near the exit. “You hadn’t heard? She moved to Seattle a couple weeks ago. I shouldn’t say anything but….”

  “Seattle?” Why didn’t Mikey tell me? I stepped aside as an old man tossed a coffee cup into the trash. “Seattle? Mikey too?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “He’s with his grandmother, Darlene Jonas.”

  Detritus shoved his snout between the seats. “Deet, get in the back.”

  “You took Deet?”

  “Yes, I’m not going to leave him home alone all day.”

  “Is it hot out? Don’t leave him in the car unattended.”

  “I know that!” I rolled my eyes. “He’s fine. I left the windows down when I went into McDonald’s. Besides, it’s a cool, beautiful day here.”

  “It can get very hot in the car, even on a warm day…in a matter of minutes.”

  “Dill, I know. I’m not stupid.” I drove over a bridge and it rumbled underneath the wheels. “Another thing…Mikey’s been telling everyone you’re his father.”

  “His what?”

  “His father!” I shouted.

  “I heard you. His father? Where is this coming from?”

  “He’s obviously making up stories again. You know how kids are. The poor thing wants someone to care for him. He’s probably being harassed in school or something.”

  “School’s out,” Dillon said.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, you get my point. He’s probably being bullied. It better not be Tony Christmas.”

  “Is that kid still bothering him?”

  “That’s what I just said…I don’t know.” The road narrowed, and I banked left.

  In the backyard of a massive home, Mikey sat beside an old woman I assumed to be Darlene. A pitcher of lemonade sat atop a settee overlooking a pond. Cattails and grasses swayed in the breeze. Deet ran to the boy.

  “Evan!” Mikey darted toward me while the old woman stared out at the water.

  I opened the gate and Deet ran to the boy.

  “Deet!” Mikey hugged the dog. “What are you both doing here?”

  “I’ve come to check in on you,” I said.

  The lady didn’t bother to acknowledge me.

  “Ms. Jonas?” I shuffled over to the graveled area where she and Mikey congregated.

  Her hair was matted and oily like it hadn’t been washed in weeks. “I couldn’t go,” she muttered, eyes still trained on the pond.

  Mikey rose from petting Deet. “Gram’s been depressed.”

  “Are you all right?” I said to him. My concern lay with him rather than Darlene Jonas.

  He nodded, and Deet wandered over to the old woman, sniffed her arm, and returned to my side.

  “Ms. Jonas? I hadn’t heard from Mikey and was concerned. I don’t mean to interfere.”

  Her vacant eyes shifted and returned their forward gaze. “I couldn’t go to the funeral.”

  “Oh?” I lugged an Adirondack chair closer to her and sat. “Too much, huh?”

  “Grammy doesn’t like to fly.” The boy stirred the container of lemonade. “Can I get you a glass?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “It’s fresh,” Darlene said. “Mikey just made it.”

  “Well, all right, then.”

  Mikey ran inside and Deet followed him.

  We sat in silence for a time.

  “Lovely day,” I offered. “By the way, I’m Evan McCor—”

  “I know who you are.” Her lips were chapped, and saliva clung to the edges of her mouth. “You’re Dillon’s partner.” She smirked
and faced me. “I wanted him and Vilhelm to be together. I tried to break you up.”

  I wrenched my head back. “You did? Why’s that?” Was she the culprit spreading lies about Dillon being his father?

  “For Mikey’s sake. Or my own selfish motives.”

  Mikey returned with a glass, and Deet carried a bone-shaped biscuit in his mouth. “I gave him a treat.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Deet curled up in a spot by a free chair and chewed on his treat while Mikey poured me lemonade.

  “Mikey, why don’t you take Deet for a walk so your grandmother and I can chat?”

  The kid looked to her for approval. She nodded. “C’mon, Deet.” He set my drink down. Deet swallowed the remainder of the biscuit and followed him. “I’ll take him ’round the pond. He can chase the ducks.”

  Once the two trailed out of sight down a beaten track flanked by tall grasses and red brush, she stared at me. “The initial results were inconclusive.”

  “Results? What results?”

  “Dillon’s saliva. It wasn’t enough.”

  “What?” A chill ran down my spine. “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s Mikey’s father. I told you.”

  My mouth fell open. This couldn’t be real. In her mental state, she must have been delusional.

  “The DNA tests came back.” She moved to the lemonade. “His hair clippings, sweat, and ultimately his semen did the trick.” She glugged her drink.

  “His…his what?”

  “Oh, he didn’t tell you?” Darlene smirked eerily. “I tried to get Adam or Vilhelm to turn your boy on and get a good sample from his gonads.” She chuckled. “I needed to prove he impregnated my daughter Dina, but he’s a tough nut to crack.” Her chuckle bent maniacal.

  My mind blurred. “He impregnated?” I knew depression could cause aberrations. This couldn’t be true. Dillon had never been with a woman. We’d discussed it.

  “There’s more to your husband than you know.”

  I took out my phone.

  “Don’t bother. There’s no cell reception here.” She took out Mikey’s phone from her sweater pocket. “Why do you think the kid hasn’t called you?”

  “What do you want?” I snarled.

  Her eyes glistened. “Now?” She licked her lips. “I want what’s best for Mikey.” She faced me. “I’m sorry. I never thought Vilhelm would die before me.” She swallowed. “He was all I had. I wanted him and Dillon….” She shook her head. “Now he’s gone.” Her voice broke, and she rubbed the heel of her hand against her chest. “And I couldn’t even manage to go to his funeral.” Her face crinkled, and she sobbed.

  I hesitated, but rubbed her hand in support. The lady was out of her mind. Her skin was dry and clammy.

  “Mikey was supposed to go with Vilhelm. That’s what I’d intended, anyway. But Vilhelm passed before I could ask.” A tear slid down her red cheek. “He died too soon. Then, my two-timing daughter ran back to Renton and left me with the kid because my plan was ruined.”

  “Renton? Renton, Washington?” It was where Dillon grew up south of Seattle. “Is that where she went?”

  “That’s where we’re from. When I left him to nanny for the Stroms in Europe, her father raised her. He worked for Boeing.”

  “Dillon’s from Renton,” I said more to myself, but the woman heard me and turned with a nod.

  An eerie silence fell, save Deet barking in the distance and Mikey laughing.

  “She tracked Dillon down a few years ago when he was working for a marketing firm in Boston.”

  Corridor Marketing was the agency he worked at before coming to the firm where we’d met. They’d given him the Rolex he still wore.

  “I told her to leave him be, to not interfere. But then my wicked ways got the better of me.” The right side of her mouth tugged into a half smile. “It’s his fault after all…the more I learned. He’d provided her with the heroin that caused her addiction to it.”

  “Heroin? Dillon?” I stood to dial my phone, but the woman was right about the lack of service. I had no bars.

  “There are some things our spouses never tell us.” Her brown teeth showed. “My man had wenches at the local bars. All the time, I thought he was faithful to me.”

  Dillon had never mentioned drug use. Then again, he did pro bono work for a rehab clinic in Beverly. “No. He wouldn’t hide this from me.” Would he?

  “We needed to get him here to prove it.”

  “Is that why the movie…?”

  “My daughter’s memory isn’t the greatest. Before using heroin, she and I…she toked cocaine. I prefer ether.” She laughed and pointed to a perfume spray bottle nearby. “Adam’s husband is so kind to provide it for me.”

  Dillon always did have a soft spot for addicts, but he’d never done anything harder than a gin and tonic with me. “You’re wrong, woman.”

  “Hmm. My instincts were right. He would have been better with Vilhelm.”

  “Who the hell are you to say that?”

  “I have my ways.” She sipped lemonade.

  “So you didn’t want Detritus in the movie. You wanted Dillon.”

  “I needed to prove what Dina suspected. She vaguely remembered him from some orgy drug-fest she’d been involved in, in Seattle.”

  “Orgy drug-fest?” Dillon?

  “Admittedly Dina and I haven’t been the best of mothers. She wandered back into my life a few years ago with Mikey. She wanted money for drugs after I’d landed an inheritance.”

  I felt dizzy and deposited myself in the Adirondack again. “It can’t be. Tell me about the DNA test.”

  “When he was staying here making the movie, he stained his sheets in more ways than one.” She giggled. “He also left some specimens in the wardrobe we had him wear—sweat and traces of things only men leave behind.”

  “The union suit.”

  She grinned her brown, toothy smile. “We had to be certain my daughter wasn’t lying. She is, after all, pathological.”

  Chapter 68

  Dillon

  Carolyn Sohier’s aura was palpable. One day with the actress and I realized why success followed her. I’d been around many celebrities with my new gig, but she was different, almost magical.

  Her home on the north side of Summerwind Island had floor-to-ceiling windows, offering panoramic views of the Atlantic. Tim, Javier, and I listened to her latest revision of a song entitled “Centaur” she’d written for Vilhelm’s script—oddly autobiographical—about a half-man, half-horse who falls in love with a human.

  As the diva sang, I followed along with a copy of the lyric sheet Tim handed me.

  There’s no one to find,

  So stop the searching.

  Call off the dogs.

  It’s not so sad.

  There’s nothing there to hunt,

  Chasing illusions all this time.

  There is no love to find in someone else,

  Only in me. I’m content alone.

  Like a wild beast, I’ll fight the fight.

  I’ll climb the hills and battle your ills,

  And I’ll do it for you.

  I can’t do it for me.

  I don’t know if I’m good enough to love.

  I don’t know if I’m meant to know

  The beauty in you and the beast in me.

  Hooves are galloping. I’m stampeding,

  Missing lovers in my arms.

  Solitude once again,

  Like I’ve never left the gate.

  But you make me feel like there’s something…

  Something more to me…

  Something more to us.

  Like a centaur, I’m only half a man.

  Carolyn stopped midway down the page. “I’m not sure about that last lyric, coming from a woman.”

  “I think it’s perfect,” I said.

  The star rose from the piano. “Well, thank you. It’s still a little rough.” She etched a note on her score.

  Tim poured
wine. “You’ll nail it, Carolyn. You always do.”

  “You’re too kind.” She held a hand up in refusal of the drink Tim handed her. “Watching the calories.”

  “Please,” Tim said. “You look divine.”

  “And you’re looking for a raise.” Carolyn winked. “Speaking of which, you and Jav should take a vacation and spend time in Salem. Go visit Dillon and Evan in Conant.” She meandered around the piano.

  “We were there a few months back.” Tim topped off his husband’s glass. I liked the two. Javier wasn’t anything like Adam rumored him to be.

  “I insist. You need a vacation.” Her high heels clicked their way across the music room’s hardwood floors and toward the exit. “I think that about wraps it,” Carolyn said. “Thank you, Dillon, for staying. We got quite a bit done.”

  “My pleasure,” I said and watched Tim pour me more Cabernet.

  “Tim, would you give me a hand in the kitchen?” she asked, and the two removed to the other side of the large home to check on a stew the actress had prepared for our final dinner together.

  I inserted notes into a manila folder labeled Vilhelm’s Project. Minnie Tonka had taken the last ferry out. I was spending another night, at the Summerwind Inn, to catch a flight on a private jet home in the morning.

  Javier sipped his wine. “Life’s not too shabby on Summerwind Island, eh?” He rested his glass on a small marble table beside the cocoa chair he occupied.

  “I like it here. You and Tim…Carolyn and the folks over by the inn…are all very nice.” I sunk into a leather wingback across from the piano, giving me a direct view of the handsome Venezuelan. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.” He leaned in.

  “It’s about Adam Lehman.”

  Javier rolled his eyes and grabbed his glass of wine back. “Of course. Lumberjack gone PA. What’s he saying about me now? That time with Evan and me at the cabin…nothing happened.”

  “I know that now.” I crossed my legs and hitched a hand on my ankle. I believed the story. Evan wouldn’t have lied. “It must’ve been horrific for you both, falling through the ice like that. I get your bond.”