by McCoy, Sky
Payton didn’t divulge his status to Elliot because he wasn’t comfortable telling strangers anything. Because Payton had matured, he didn’t think that was anyone’s business but his own, and besides, he wouldn’t be there long enough for it to matter to anyone but him.
And Payton thought that the reason Elliot did tell him was because he was young, and trusted the world, and by telling someone, he would let them know that he wasn’t ashamed of being gay, and then there would be one less thing that he wouldn’t have to hide.
Well, that was how Payton felt, and he thought that was what Elliot was thinking as well.
Payton looked over to Elliot. “Do they have other rentals around here?”
“They may have, but I know they have plenty for sale. If you’re interested in that.”
“I’m not sure. I’m getting a divorce soon, well maybe, I’m not sure. It’s a long story.”
Elliot held up his half bottle of beer and saluted Payton and said, “When you’re ready to talk, that’s okay with me. I don’t like roommates that talk too much anyway.”
Payton didn’t think that they were roomies because he would leave the minute he could get a rental and a phone. Oh shit, I left the phone in the car.
“You can take the room upstairs. It has a bathroom and laundry room. Everything you need, except a kitchen, and it’s down here. After you get situated, come down and I’ll fix something for us to eat.”
Elliot seemed to be a nice guy. Very trusting and happy, Payton thought.
Chapter Nineteen
TAYLOR DROVE INTO SAN Francisco in the rental the same day he’d left Jane’s home, but later than he expected. He had eight hours to think and he did. He pumped gas along the way and thought of Payton. He drove and arrived at his destination without feeling the long tedious hours of the drive because he thought of Payton and Jane.
Jane had a way of enticing him with her wonderful food and soft manner. And being there with her made him feel as if Payton was there too.
Taylor recalled he’d awaken early in the morning to the aroma of brewed coffee, and to his delight when he entered the kitchen seeing Jane standing placing plates on the table and silverware, he’d walked over and said good morning. Jane smiled, turned and brought him in for a hug. The same way Payton would greet him in the mornings.
As Taylor recognized the skyline of San Francisco, he recalled how he’d reached for a familiar chair he imagined Payton had sat in many times, and how he’d taken the same seat as Payton, and his heart raced because at that moment he’d never felt that close to him in his life, and he couldn’t remember when he’d been happier sitting and having coffer with Payton’s mother.
He’d thought about how he tried to get in the car and leave without breakfast, but Jane had prepared a country breakfast and had it waiting for him, and when she glanced at him, it was like looking into Payton’s eyes and he couldn’t tell Jane no. She knew how to get to him the way Payton would when he had days off, and he’d cook a breakfast of bacon and eggs, and the eggs were light and delicious with white toast and strawberry jam. He hadn’t eaten like that since Payton left, and since he was a child in his parents’ home.
As he reached his late twenties, the partying and fucking women, and his job as district attorney in San Francisco, had taken a toll on him. He never had time to eat healthy until he settled down with Payton.
And now Payton had disappeared, and he’d flown and driven hundreds of miles to find him, and he didn’t know where to look in a city like San Francisco.
AS TAYLOR DROVE TO San Francisco, and into the city, his eyes were focused for any signs of Payton or his father’s car on the highway. He knew he should have left as soon as he had spoken to Jane, but he stayed and departed a day after Payton.
Finally, after hours of driving, eight and a half to be exact, and a stiff neck not to mention a stiff cock to accompany his tiredness, it hadn’t been difficult finding Max’s apartment. Driving through the heavy traffic had been the hardest part. He hadn’t done that in over two years. It had been taxis and an occasional subway ride which he could had done without that experience, but driving eight and a half hours that was something else he could do without.
Looking up before approaching the underground parking, the building was one of the tallest structures in the city, and the façade trimmed in gold, with a black emblem on the front, M. Gold Apartments. “This is it,” he mumbled before driving down to the parking entrance.
The apartment building was new and located in one of the oldest and richest districts in San Francisco. It looks like Max must have torn down an old mansion to build that, Taylor thought, and probably a home that belonged to his father.
In true Maxwell form, his apartment had to be luxurious, and why not? He owned the fucking structure.
Driving down into the garage, Taylor used the code key Max had given him. And when he found the parking space with Max’s name on it, the elevators wasn’t far away as Taylor looked to his right and there they were.
When he entered the elevator he hit a button and it took him to the first floor.
Security sent him to the elevator which would take him to the very top of the building. The Penthouse suite. Taylor smiled. Where else would Max Gold stay if it wasn’t at one of his own buildings, and atop a building in one of the wealthiest and high-priced cities in the world?
When he passed the security key card over a panel in the elevator, the door opened into a huge apartment, and he stepped inside. Looking around he could see the place was overwhelming. He could never live in a place like that only because there were too many rooms and he wasn’t going to spend his time counting them. He was too tired.
Being without Payton had made his apartment in New York feel enormous, but this fucking place made him feel as if he was the last man left on earth.
Taylor dropped his bag and plopped down on a large T sofa that took up half the room and still there was room to add another gigantic one. “What the fuck do I do next?” he murmured. “How am I supposed to find Payton?” He had been driving eight and a half hours and he was bone tired, so he closed his eyes for a minute with the thoughts of hiring a private investigator to track Payton down.
He probably could get someone from his company, but the idea of everyone knowing all his business made him cringe. They were already laying bets that he wouldn’t find Payton in time. This would just give them more fodder for their water cooler gossip.
When Taylor opened his eyes, he felt as if he had just closed them, but it was ten p.m.
“Fuck no.” I’ll be up all night looking at the ceiling. And then he thought about calling Max. He checked his watch and it was one a.m. in New York. This is not a good time to call him, he thought. Fuck it. I’ll throw caution to the wind.
“Max. This is Taylor.” He closed his eyes and waited for the cursing he knew he deserved.
Max’s voice sound groggy to Taylor. “What time is it?” Max questioned.
Taylor hesitated before he would answer. “It’s ten here.” He wouldn’t dare tell Max that he had awakened him early in the morning.
“Never mind. I dozed off while feeding little Matthew. I had just put him in his bassinet when I sat down for a minute, and then you called. I have to go to bed,” Max’s voice sounded to Taylor exhausted and when he spoke, he slurred his words. Yes he had succumbed to what all new parents had—loss of sleep for months or maybe a year.
“I thought you hired a nurse, dude.”
“We did, but we had to give them time off, and Jami insisted that he could handle it. But when the babies cried tonight for a bottle, and a diaper change, I couldn’t wake him.”
“That should be great for your sex life. I hope you fucked enough and got in all the blowjobs on your honeymoon because you won’t be doing much of anything now.”
“Look, Taylor, stop with the sex jokes. I’m a married man for Christ’s sake,” Max said, and Taylor could hear the irritation in Max’s voice before he sucked his teeth.
“Sorry, dude, didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers,” Taylor said.
“I hope you didn’t call to torture me, Taylor, because I’m not in a fucking good mood.” That was an understatement.
“I thought you should know that this apartment is off the charts.”
“Speak English, Taylor. The minute you land in California you’re talking another language. Since when do you call me, dude?”
“Again sorry, Mr. Gold.” Taylor was still fucking with Max. “I’m enjoying the fuck out of this place.” He really wasn’t. He wanted to at least make Max think that he was grateful.
“Call me tomorrow after you get some rest, or I do. Better yet call me after your vacation is up and you’re bringing Payton back to New York.” The phone went silent.
There was no way Taylor could sleep. This was San Francisco of all places. He knew his way around here like he knew his dick. This was a great time to see what he had missed while being a married work horse in New York.
Taylor decided that he would take a shower and then head out to a club. Maybe he would see some of his friends. It had been over two years since he’d been gone. He really didn’t expect to see anyone, and he was hoping he didn’t run across them because he didn’t want anyone asking stupid questions, like, how was married life.
Since most of the men he knew who hung out with him then were single, well, at least they were when he left San Francisco. But after two years, the single ones probably had partners, or the ones like him who fell in love quick were married.
AFTER TAKING A SHOWER and unpacking and tossing his clothes into an empty drawer, he stood and looked at his choices. “Now what to wear.” All he had was the jeans and tees and his flannel shirts and his black leather biker jacket. They would have to do. The jeans were tighter now that he had eaten enough at Jane’s house to feed a bear. Tight jeans and tees to show off his tattoos and muscles. “Why not?” he said as he glanced at himself in the mirror.
Because all he would attract would be twinks looking to catch someone like him—thirty, handsome, lonely and desperate, he thought looking up into the mirror at his reflection.
Hell he wasn’t going there to pick up anyone. He needed to get out, have a drink, and see what was out there. He didn’t know if he would be able to find Payton, and he damn sure wasn’t going to look for him tonight.
Taylor drove up to a club that was popular back in the day. Now it seemed that the only one standing outside were young bottoms, with their colored hair and tight shorts with their ass cheeks displayed for desperate men who wanted to hook up for a night. Someone looking for a quick fuck or blowjob. Whichever came first, Taylor thought, but he could be wrong.
When he and the boys discussed Max and Jami, they discovered that looks could be deceiving because Jami looked like a bottom, but he was far from it.
And Taylor was looking for neither when he parked his car in the lot next door and sauntered into the crowded sweaty club with young men wall to wall. Yes indeed it was raining men that night.
The difference, apart from the customers, inside the interior of the club someone had the bright idea to add something new. The bar had been extended forward and enlarged, and on each end there were dancers wearing skimpy clothing of black leather shorts and strips of leather with studs crisscrossing their chests.
Nevertheless, Taylor convinced himself that it was familiar ground, and he knew the bartender and a few of the waiters, so he sat at the only seat left at the bar as the eyes of hungry men followed him and the young dancer twerking and shaking his ass on his right.
Taylor could appreciate a pretty hard ass when he saw one because after all he was a man who hadn’t been laid in weeks. He turned and watched the ass that belonged to a pretty blond with a plump wide mouth and long legs.
When the bartender strolled over, and stood before Taylor and then leaned forward, taking Taylor’s attention to him, as the bartender stared at Taylor with a pair of darken penciled eyes, and then asked Taylor, after he swiped his tongue over his bottom lip, “What can I get you?” The sound of his voice purred like a cat.
“A beer. Heineken.”
“You got it. And anything else just call me.” The bartender switched on his heels and came back with the beer and sat it in front of him and said, “Anything else?” His eyelashes were long and appeared to flap like wings when he batted his eyes at Taylor.
This was a bad idea. I need to finish my beer and get the hell out of here. Just about now he felt as if he should have something stronger.
Taylor didn’t dare order a shot of tequila because he remembered what happened last time. Not because of one shot, but because he’d had one too many, and he didn’t want to wake up with his dick in a stranger’s mouth after crying over Payton.
Taylor took his beer and placed the money on the bar, and then turned around on the stool wishing Payton would walk through that door. When he turned to the right of him, the seat was empty, and before he could face the bar, a young man who reminded him of himself when he was that age plopped down beside him. A boy about twenty-one who just got permission to drink, and he was there doing something he had wanted to do as a man.
When Taylor’s eyes perused the young man he realized that he was one of the dancers and had taken a break. Up close, Taylor could see that the blond hair had been dyed. He was really a brunette with blue eyes and a pretty face. Not handsome because he was too young to be handsome. “Can I buy you a drink,” he asked Taylor.
“No, thank you.” Taylor held up his bottle. “I haven’t finished this yet. And I don’t plan on being here long.”
“Are you new in town? I haven’t seen you in here before. My name is Jay. Jay Even.” And he offered his hand and Taylor knew by the softness of his hand, and the way he shook his that he was a bottom. That came with experience knowing that about a man because Taylor was a diehard top now that he’d grown up and since he left Dylan. And until recently when he offered Payton that part of him to keep him from leaving.
And he knew Jay was a bottom because he had been on the gay scene longer than most. However, when he first came to Frisco, he was so fed up and unhappy because of what happened with Dylan that he didn’t want a gay relationship. There was only one man he’d want anything with, and it was the man in the picture who he’d initially traveled twenty-nine hundred miles to find. But until then he thought maybe he would try a woman because he knew he could never get serious with one.
Women are so different from men, he thought. He wouldn’t have to worry about his heart breaking because they weren’t his first choice, but they were more understanding, and sensitive than some of the men he’d met lately.
As Taylor thought about a broken heart, he came back to the now and realized that he hadn’t introduced himself to the young man.
“Now that’s an interesting name, Jay Even.”
Jay smiled and his eyes brightened as if no one had ever complimented him on anything.
“My name is Taylor Knox. I’ve been here before. But you were probably still in high school when I was on this scene.”
“I think I’ve seen you before and that name Knox. It sounds familiar,” Jay said narrowing his eyes, and slanting his head, as if those gestures would make him think better.
“I doubt it,” Taylor said. And then Jay snapped his fingers.
“Yes, you were once a district attorney in San Francisco. Yes, Taylor Knox I remember,” Jay said smiling broadly. “I saw you on television when you came out and got engaged. I was watching with my father and he swore at the television set and said some ugly things about you being gay. But what he didn’t know was that he had a gay son. You were my hero, and you were the one who made me feel as if I could announce to my friends and family that I was indeed a gay man. ”
“And what happened when you told your father?”
“I never told him. I just left one night and ended up here and met someone the same way I met you. I went home with him. It lasted for a few months
and then it was over, and he kicked me out.”
“Well what have you been doing since then?”
“I work here a few nights a week, and sleep on friends’ sofas, and when that goes south, I move on and sleep on another friend’s sofa. I can’t find a job because I have no skills and no permanent place to live. If you let me come home with you, I’ll fuck you, or you can fuck me, whatever position you want and I can clean and cook, too.”
Taylor’s mouth opened and hung there because he didn’t believe what Jay had just proposed to a stranger. Jay would have to be awfully desperate to proposition him after just meeting him.
Taylor looked at the young man who wasn’t as fortunate as him. “Don’t you know you can’t ask just anyone to go home with them, and give your little ass to them for a few nights for a bed to sleep in?”
“I’m not just asking anyone. You’re a celebrity in the gay community. You came out and announced it to the world, and then you quit and took another job in New York,” Jay said to Taylor.
Jay knew all about him and Taylor wondered if he knew that he was married too.
“You have it wrong. I had plenty of resources and I’m not someone that can be emulated. Everyone is different and they have to do what is in their interest.”
“It’s in my interest to have a place to sleep tonight,” Jay said his mouth curving downward as he turned away and tried hiding that sad pathetic look from Taylor. But Taylor had seen it before he spun on his stool to the right.
“I don’t want you to do any of that,” Taylor groaned. “I must be crazy, but what time do you get off?”
“In about an hour.”
“You can come home with me for one night, if you have no place to sleep. But you will have to find someplace because I don’t plan on being in town for long.” Before Taylor knew it he had committed himself to having a roommate.
