“Sorry. Didn’t mean to accidently hit your head.” My voice came out hoarse and I was surprised at how sore my throat was.
“Heywood, you’re awake.”
“Brilliant observation, Watson.” I croaked.
He looked confused and concerned, “Watson?”
I shook my head. “Sherlock Holmes…, John Watson?” He still looked baffled. “Do you ever read?” I pointed to the water pitcher. “Water.”
Dylan looked at the pitcher. I could see the comprehension dawning on his face. He picked up the plastic glass from the floor and in true Dylan style, he wiped it off on his shirt before pulling out ice chips with his hand. “No water. Not yet, anyway. Nurse said you could have ice chips when you woke up.”
He snatched up a few and held them, dripping, toward my mouth. He saw me frown. “Do you want them or not?”
I opened my mouth and let him drop them in, sucking on them greedily. The moisture felt heavenly. “You did wash your hands after using the restroom, right?”
“Of course, I did.” He flashed me a mischievous smile, “At least, I think I did.”
“Dylan!”
“Well, it’s too late now.” He laughed. “Besides, baby, the way we fuck, my cooties are your cooties.”
I tried to laugh, but that little jiggle made my side hurt. My hands tried to get under the covers to hold the painful area. “Fuck, dude, do not make me laugh. It really hurts.” I groaned as I tried to roll in the bed.
“Just a sec.” Dylan reached across me and pressed a red button. The IV pump next to me whirred and in minutes, I was floating somewhere beyond Venus. I have to admit, hospitals do have the best drugs.
“Damn! Excellent drugs.” I smiled, relaxing back. “You’re a good husband.” I teased. “What time is it?”
“One in the morning.” Dylan yawned.
Even in my current drugged out state I could see the exhaustion on his face. “Go get some rest at the hotel. I’ll be okay.” I smiled sleepily, “Especially if you leave that button where I can reach it.”
“I’m going to stay. No car and no money for a cab and, no, I will not wake Emile and Chris at this time in the morning.”
“More likely they just got done with the bartender from the club down the street from the hotel. He was pretty cute. Just their type for a threesome.” Dylan looked at me, “Have you ever thought about us having a threesome?”
“Right now?”
He laughed. “Sure, there’s this really hot orderly on duty tonight and….” Suddenly, Dylan grew serious. “The surgeon said they got to you just in the nick of time. Your appendix was about to rupture.”
“I assume that’s not a good thing.”
Dylan shook his head. Again he yawned. I could tell he was fighting to stay awake. I tried to scoot over as far as I could, then patted the bed. “Climb in with me.”
“I’ll hurt you accidentally.”
“You are so stubborn.”
The door creaked open and the night nurse crept in. “Nice to see you awake, Mr. Miller. I’m Meela, your nurse.”
I smiled. “And that is my stubborn ass husband, Dylan.”
“I know.” She grinned and glanced at him. “And you’re right about the stubborn ass part.” She leaned over, checking my IV. “I need to check your dressing, too.” She tossed the blanket back. I thought I would help by yanking my hospital gown up. Unfortunately, in my zeal to be helpful, I exposed everything from the waist down.
“Sorry.” I tried to re-cover my dick.
This got me a hearty laugh from my amused nurse. “Oh, honey, trust me, you haven’t got anything I haven’t seen already. I see all sizes, colors and shapes.”
To this day, I blame what I said next on the drugs. “His is bigger.” I looked over to see Dylan, red-faced, slumping down in his chair as he sought to be as inconspicuous as possible.
Meela nodded. “That’s nice. Now let’s check that dressing.”
I still can’t remember much after that until later that morning. Day shift came. My surgeon dropped by informing me that after I was able to eat and use toilet, making sure everything was in working order that I could be released around 4 in the afternoon, if I didn’t have a fever.
Nurses came and went. A couple of student nurses came to look at my incision. I had the funny feeling it was more to look at me, though. They cornered Dylan and made him responsible for my care. Looking at him and at how exhausted he was, I was glad everything was written down. Emile and Chris showed up at noon and they forced Dylan to leave for a few hours. Meds in hand, dressed in the same clothes I arrived in. I rolled out of the hospital, through paparazzi, to the car and straight to a private jet that took us back to New York.
I woke up twice. Once I heard Dylan arguing with Chris, but they were trying to do it quietly so as not to disturb me. The second time was about one hour before we landed.
“Heywood?” Chris gently touched my arm, waking me.
I blinked and tried to push myself up in a sitting position. I knew I must have grimaced when I noticed the look of concern on Chris’ face. It took a moment for the pain to die down enough I could focus on the rest of what he was saying.
“Uh…, run that by me again?”
Chris frowned. “Misha knows.”
“Knows what? About why I was in the hospital?”
“That.” My manager started, then looked away. “And about you two being married.”
“We’re not married.”
“I know, but he thinks you are. Javi called Misha to tell him the news slash gossip.”
“So how bad is the fallout from our little ruse?”
“Well,” Emile chimed in, “there’s good news and there’s bad news.”
I looked over at Dylan. “He thinks we’re married, Hey and he’s thrilled about it. He wants us to walk the runway in his new line of tuxes as a couple. Hand in hand, do a kiss at the end of the runway. Like gay grooms, you know?”
“So what’s the problem? We just keep lying.”
Chris glanced at Emile. “The press has gotten hold of the information as well. A couple of them are calling it fake because they can’t find your wedding certificate registered in New York state. I put out you two tied the knot in Brazil. You remember that shoot we did about a month ago?”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t they have a record?”
Emile grimaced, “My cousin is a government official in that little town we did the shoot in. I made a few calls. With a little money to the right people, he was able to get us a valid, backdated marriage certificate which, with your permission, I’ll leak to the press.”
“So…,” I wasn’t sure I understood everything. The drugs were making me hazy and slow. “You’re saying…,” I looked at Dylan. “We are married.”
Dylan shrugged. “Yep.”
I remember I felt both elated and scared. I’d dreamed of Dylan asking me or me asking him one day then having a destination wedding, preferably on some beach somewhere, but this…?
“You okay with this?”
Dylan got up, came over and squatted down beside me. He took my hand, turned it palm up and kissed it. “I’m okay with this.” He allowed me a small smile. “I know it’s not what we would have planned, but I’m fine.” His smile widened. “We sorta did this a little backwards, but thanks to Emile’s cousin, we made it official. So just to make sure I think I should ask you properly.” He smiled then cleared his throat before putting on a serious expression. Very solemnly he asked. “Heywood Miller, will you marry me?”
I have to admit, I teared up a little bit and I made him squirm a minute or two before I said yes. But then I saw him cut his eyes toward Chris. He took a deep breath and let it out. “There’s something else you need to know.”
“Oookayy?”
“Your surgeon called. They got the, what’s it called?” Dylan look at Chris.
“Pathology report.”
“Yeah, path report back on that part they took out. He wanted to talk to you hims
elf, but I told him you were asleep, so he gave me the info.” He looked down, shaking his head. “Fuck! This is hard.” He took another breath. “It showed cancer. Stage one, he said. I guess we got lucky. Said it happens in young people a lot, but it’s usually not found until too late. He’s sure he got it all, but he wants you to see an Oncologist, a cancer doctor, in New York just for follow up in a few weeks.”
A thousand thoughts rushed through my head. Suddenly, I realized I was swallowing quickly as bile threatened to come up. “Fuck! Grab me something. I’m about to puke.”
Emile grabbed an airsick bag and I lost what little I had in my stomach. Later, I blamed it on turbulence, fatigue and pain. I couldn’t tell Dylan how that news affected me. For nights after that, I would lie in bed, thinking about what I would’ve done if the prognosis had been worse. That was the day I began to re-evaluate everything.
By the end of the next week, I was walking down the runway during Paris fashion week. Dylan and I looked stunning in our Misha designed tuxedos. Hand in hand, we got to the end of the runway, then turned back into the loving arms of Misha and a priest in full regalia who married us again right there. At least, we joked later, we now had professional photographs of a wedding, not pics taken as vacation shots on Chris’ cell phone.
The reception he threw was a fairy tale. The ballroom of one of the poshest and most expensive hotels in Paris played host to the soiree. The biggest plus was that Misha paid for it as long as we signed a waiver for the photos. I tired out early and left with Emile and Chris. Dylan came in, drunk, at daylight. It wasn’t until later I found out he had sex with one of the guests. He paid a lot for their silence. It took another year for me to realize that through all of this, Dylan never told me he loved me.
Just before we headed to Paris, a tabloid broke the news of my cancer diagnosis. I was forced to call my mother while she was at work. About the marriage, the cancer, and the fact I was gay. I never got around to telling her before I left town. She was quiet through my whole rambling, tearful explanation. When I was done, all she had to say was, “I don’t condone your lifestyle, Heywood, but I’m glad you’re going to be okay.” Then she hung up. Those were the last words my mother ever spoke to me. Dylan was out when I made the call. He said he found me sitting in the dark, cell phone still in my hand. I wasn’t crying, but he knew I had been. He held me that night and told me that he was the only family I would ever need. He lied.
One year after that conversation my father beat my mother to death.
****
My father’s trial was the last time I came back to Welling. It took six weeks. Dylan and I were hounded by paparazzi who followed us from New York. It was a full on media circus. Everyone in town, whether they knew us or not, got their fifteen minutes of fame. I didn’t want to see the house. I couldn’t. Part of me blamed myself, but as Dylan’s Dad said one morning on the way to the courthouse, people had tried for years to talk sense into my mother. She would listen, but then she wouldn’t leave. She always went back to him no matter how badly my father treated her and I knew he was right.
My father sat there, still angry, blaming my mother and me for all the injustice he was facing. Never took any responsibility for what he did. He was surprised how stiff of a sentence he got. The records of a hundred domestic violence phone calls to the police. Medical records that showed healed broken bones my mother never got properly set because she didn’t want the police to get involved. Even when the medical examiner got on the stand telling the jury of the healing bruises that painted her body until the day my father had violently shoved my mother, causing her to fall and hit her head. He described post mortem bruising in the shape of a boot where he’d kicked her as she lay dead on the floor. The spit that coated the side of her face and the final desecration of him pissing on her. His defense claimed he was trying to wake her. No one believed it.
Dan Miller was dumbfounded when he heard his sentence. For a man his age, in the shape he was in, it was probably a death sentence. As they handcuffed him, he had to have his final say. The last words he uttered in my direction could be heard by everyone in the court room. “Fucking faggot! Bitch got what she deserved.” If Dylan and his Dad hadn’t been there, holding me back, I would be in jail right now for killing him. I guess that’s one thing I do owe Dylan Greig.
Chapter Four
The next five years passed in a blur. Dylan took acting classes and ended up in a film, which led to a TV series. He continued to model, both of us did, but there were newer, fresher faces gracing magazine covers, print ads, and runways. We’d planned for this transition away from that kind of work. When we first got into the business, I insisted on a good money manager and an accountant which paid off. We weren’t even 30 yet and modeling considered us old. Unlike a lot of others with our smart money management and investments, we were free to do as we pleased.
Brooklyn was our home base. We still had our apartment, but it was getting kind of cramped. I took fiction and screenwriting at NYU. My books sold fairly well, but it was my screenwriting that got the notice of people in Los Angeles. I took meetings in New York and on the West Coast. We were used to flying back and forth. We’d splurged on keeping a small Gulfstream leased, but since Dylan was supposed to go to England to do some ADR-automated dialog replacement for his newest film in a few days, he needed to use it more than I did. My agent set up a meeting with a major production company and they were willing to fly me out first class to Hollywood, so I jumped on it.
“When did 29 become old?” I laughed one morning while at the gym.
Dylan agreed just as his cell phone rang. He looked down at it. I noticed he grimaced at the name of the caller. I was still on the treadmill as he walked away to answer the call. I couldn’t tell what the caller was saying, Dylan was too far away, but I knew my husband’s body language. The last time he looked like that, some hot photographer hit on him. It took a bit to get through the guy’s head that he wasn’t available.
Marriage, a ring, whatever, didn’t stop some people from trying. I remember I watched as he ended the call abruptly. He was obviously upset because he clutched the phone in his hand and pretended to throw it against the wall. As he turned, I pretended to concentrate on my workout. When Dylan flopped down on the bench beside the treadmill, burying his face in his hands. I hopped off and looked at him as I wiped the sweat from my face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
I threw the towel around my neck as I rolled my eyes, “Oh, please, Marie! Don’t make me drag it out of you.”
He looked up at me and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “You could fuck it out of me.”
I laughed. “Yeah, through the haze of post-coital bliss, you’d confess all. That’s a tried and true method of getting the truth.” I grabbed a quick kiss and headed for the weights. “Come on, spill.”
He followed. Head down, frowning. “Do you remember Mason Collins?”
I looked back at him not bothering to conceal my surprise. “You mean the guy who bullied me in seventh grade?”
“Yeah, the same. He’s backing a play I want to do. He wants me to go to dinner with him to discuss it.”
Looking back I should’ve been suspicious. I should’ve asked how Mason Collins had his personal cell number. Not only that, but that he came up in Dylan’s contacts list. We had layers of protection from fans and stalkers. Anyone who wanted to do business with us had to go through our agents and business managers before they got to us. Except for dear, trusted friends, no one had our private numbers, or so I thought.
“So how’s that a problem? We could see him next week. I’ll be back from LA then.”
“Tonight. Just me and him.”
“But I’m leaving in a few hours.” I hated it when I whined, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t like it, but what could I say? Dylan was trying hard to turn himself into a legitimate actor. It wasn’t easy even if you looked like Dylan Greig. “Oh. Okay.” I said as I resigned myse
lf to the situation.
“I really want that part. I’ve been waiting for someone to give me a chance in the theater and this part is perfect for me.”
I had read the play and he was right, it had his name written all over it.
“You’re right. Go. I trust you. Besides, I don’t think Mason Collins ever could beat you up on the playground. Then or now.”
We laughed, then I grew serious. “I mean it. Go. I’ll be halfway to Los Angeles by the time you’re ordering your drinks.”
Dylan looked up. “You sure?”
I frowned, “Do I want you to face Mason Collins alone? Hell no. I’d love to rub our success in his face, but you need to schmooze. Get that part. Go.” I slapped him on his ass and made a run for it. He caught me in the locker room where I got one of the best blowjobs of my life.
Those were the words I would soon regret. I trust you. I realize now I said the word go three times. Only later did it occur to me that doing that was bad luck. Isn’t that how they summoned demons?
“Call him back.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. What’s the worst that could happen?”
I am such a stupid fuck sometimes. We made love when we got home still sticky and sweaty from the gym. He even gave me another blowjob about thirty minutes before my limo came to pick me up for the airport.
“I want you to remember this when some WeHo twink tries to pick you up. I’ll jerk off every night thinking of you with him.”
“Awww!! Aren’t you sweet? Remember rules three and four apply here. LA is three hours behind New York. So call me.”
I remember I laughed. He knew I was as faithful as they come. I looked, hell, we both looked. But when we decided to have unprotected sex, the number one rule of the set of rules we wrote out on a small piece of paper now stuck to our refrigerator forbade sex outside of our marriage. Number two was no lying. Three: No cheating on each other, even online. Four: No matter where we were in the world, we’d call each other every day (we never broke this commandment until that day) and number five: If we wanted to make a large purchase, we had to agree on it (of course, the definition of large purchase changed over the years). What I didn’t know was that for years, that list of rules wasn’t worth the piece of paper it was written on. Do I sound bitter? Yes, for a long time, I was.
Songs of Love : Books 1-3 Page 4
