by T V Hartwell
“It doesn’t matter,” Amanda said. “I’m not getting back with him. You have nothing to worry about.”
Growing impatient and visibly agitated, Adam snickered and grimaced.
“See, that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Because I didn’t want you to get all worked up and upset over nothing.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“So he called your mom to tell her, what? That he wants to get back with you?”
“Bingo,” Lucy said without looking up from the menu.
Amanda gave Lucy the death stare, but Lucy didn’t look back at her.
“So he wants to get back with you, huh?”
“Something along those lines, and he feels like my parents somehow misled him and contributed to our breakup in some way.”
Adam was incredulous. “Misled him?”
“I know. It’s stupid.”
“Can you believe that?” Lucy finally said, seeming to feel more comfortable jumping into the conversation now that the cat was fully out of the bag.
Adam removed the linen napkin from his lap and threw it down on the table in disgust. “This guy is a fucking piece of work. Seriously…the dude is mental.”
“Riiight?” Lucy agreed.
“Anyway, as I said, I haven’t spoken to Jake. He hasn’t called me. I’m not taking him back. End of story,” Amanda said as she picked up her menu in an attempt to turn everyone’s attention to ordering food.
“But what if he does call you?”
Not able to think of a quick comeback, Amanda continued to study the menu in a preoccupied way. But Adam was insistent.
“Would you talk to him?”
Right at that moment they were interrupted by their waitress, to Amanda’s relief.
“Hellooo, I’m Zoé. How are you guys doing today?”
With the tension at the table palpable, Lucy said, “Hi,” with her best fake smile.
“Fine,” Adam said stoically as he picked up the menu he had yet to peruse.
“Good. How are you?” Amanda said graciously and smiled.
“I’m doing great. Thanks for asking. So are you ready to order?”
“I think,” Lucy said as she continued to look at the menu, clearly not ready to decide. Adam didn’t answer as he too continued to look at the menu with a furrowed brow.
“I think we might need a little more time. We’ve been sitting here chatting,” Amanda answered.
“Okay. No problem. Take your time,” Zoé said before stepping away.
Adam didn’t miss a beat. He glanced over at Amanda. “So…are you going to answer my question?”
Amanda wanted to put the kibosh on this topic, fast. Feeling cornered, she put up a little fuss as a way to push back. “Honey, I don’t want to ruin this weekend and the wonderful surprise of having you here by talking about Jake. I’m already annoyed about the whole thing. Now you’re annoyed and upset too, which is making me feel even worse. I really don’t want to talk about him. Everything’s over between us. Okay? Can we just order food and enjoy each other’s company like we’ve been doing…please?” Amanda became emotional as she spoke. She thought she was being clever at first, but her conflicted feelings about Jake and the trauma caused by their breakup and her miscarriage just surfaced naturally, unexpectedly. It took her to a dark place. That’s not where she was trying to go, but her heart took her there anyway.
Seeing that Amanda was near tears, Adam caved. “Well, I didn’t bring him up,” he said defensively, feeling bad.
“Neither did I,” Amanda retorted as she eyeballed Lucy.
Adam reached over to rub her on the arm and tried to console her. “I’m sorry, princess. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Jake had arrived at The Hudson in West Hollywood to meet Kirby. After not having seen Jake since their steamy reconciliation earlier in the week, Kirby had suggested that they meet for drinks and dinner Saturday night.
I’m here, Jake texted as he walked toward the restaurant.
Me too. I’m inside, Kirby wrote back.
Jake stepped through the door, and there Kirby stood, waiting for him.
“Hey, bro,” Kirby said with a big smile, pearly whites on full display.
“Hey, brother,” Jake said back as they did the slap-grab handshake and pulled in for a hug.
“What’s up, man? Metallica!” Kirby said, noticing the throwback T-shirt Jake was wearing with the rock band’s name written across it. “Man…that’s from back in the day…way back. I forgot that you were once into heavy metal, especially during prep school. You still listen to that stuff?”
“Not really. Not as much as I used to. My tastes in music have evolved, but I’ve got a few metal songs on my playlist still. You know, the classics. It’s like a guilty pleasure I engage in once in a while—blasting my speakers to the max, singing along to those tunes. It can be a good stress reliever.”
“Just the two of you?” the hostess interrupted before escorting Jake and Kirby to their table. Jake followed behind her and Kirby behind him. Kirby was happy as a clam to be back with his best buddy and looked forward to picking up where he and Jake had left off the last time they’d seen one another.
Jake was wearing jeans along with his Metallica T-shirt. The combination proved flattering to his lean, taut, muscular physique, and Kirby liked it. Jake looked sexy, youthful, and strong. “That shirt looks good on you. Your arms and chest are popping, bro,” Kirby said as he pinched Jake’s biceps and then patted him on the chest to feel his swollen pecs.
Jake, slightly embarrassed, chuckled at Kirby’s flirtatiousness as they sat down.
The hostess chuckled along as well but was more modest in her admiration as she checked Jake out too. “Nice T-shirt,” she said with a grin, giving Jake the once-over before placing the menus down on the table before them.
“Thanks. Please excuse his inappropriate behavior, groping me like that in front of you. You pervert,” Jake said to Kirby as he picked up his menu and swiped it at him.
“Oh, you know you like it, boo,” Kirby said back in a girlish tone as he reached over to touch Jake on the arm affectionately while puckering his lips.
Jake played along, pulling his arm back and then slapping Kirby on the hand, “Oh, stop,” he said with a girlish inflection of his own.
“Now boy, you know how much I love you,” Kirby said, waving and bending his wrist in an effeminate way.
The hostess laughed and blushed at the melodrama the two were putting on in front of her. Jake and Kirby were back to their old ways, engaging in gay-like banter to psyche out and confuse strangers about their sexuality, something they’d done since their youth and still got a kick out of doing from time to time.
“I can tell you guys must know each other really well. You remind me of my brother and his crazy friends. They like to act silly and fool around like you guys do.”
“Really? Does your brother like to play catcher or pitcher?” Kirby asked with a straight face.
Jake’s eyes popped open wide and he grinned broadly in shock.
“What’d you say?” the hostess asked.
“Oh, never mind,” Kirby said, laughing. Jake was on the verge of laughing too but held it in as best he could.
“No, I didn’t understand you,” she said, trying to get him to repeat his question.
“It’s okay. Never mind,” Kirby said, now barely able to contain his tickle.
Jake busted out laughing too, bending over the table and covering his face with his hands. He didn’t want to make the hostess uncomfortable, but he couldn’t help it.
“Enjoy your dinner, guys,” she finally said, stepping away with an expression on her face that read that she now found their behavior juvenile and annoying. However, it was unclear whether she understood the euphemism about catchers being bottoms and pitchers being tops in gay sex lingo.
Jake and Kirby continued to laugh for a moment unt
il Jake managed to get ahold of himself. “Dude…you’re so bad. I can’t believe you asked her that. Did you see her face when she walked away?”
“You think she understood what I meant?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. Maybe not…at least, I hope not,” Jake said before they both started to laugh again.
It was as if the imbroglio in which the two had been engaged had never happened. A friendship that had seemed doomed forever now appeared uninterrupted. A few minutes later, after settling down and savoring their reunion, food and beers were ordered.
“Cheers, bro,” Jake said, holding up his beer mug.
Kirby held up his mug too. “Brothers for life?”
“Brothers for life,” Jake said in agreement, and then they clinked their mugs together and took a sip of their beers.
“So are you guys done editing your pilot?”
“Just about. Still working on it, but we’re almost done.”
“I’m sorry—remind me. This is a comedy where an orthodox Jewish man marries a black woman, right?”
“Right. It’s called Blended Family. The Jewish guy is widowed with two young sons, and he starts dating a single black woman with two sons of her own. They eventually marry and become like a modern-day Brady Brunch, but everybody they know is shocked that they end up together, including the kids, at first. So in addition to the kids, the show deals with how other family members and their respective friends react to their relationship and how they work through their cultural differences and the prejudice they encounter as a new family.”
“It sounds interesting, and it must be really funny too, no doubt.”
“Yeah. It’s been fun. I think people are going to like it.”
“So were you able to persuade them to keep in the scenes they were talking about cutting out?”
“Yes…well, mostly. It wasn’t about cutting scenes out, per se. It was more about editing and cutting scenes down to fit the format of a network show where you have to factor time for commercials. So for example, there’s this one scene where the kids meet for the first time and they start talking about the kind of music they’re into. The black kids mention hip-hop and rap artists that we all know, and then the Jewish kids mention some Jewish rapper from Israel that nobody’s ever heard of. So they start to play one of the Jewish rapper’s songs on YouTube so that the black kids can hear it, and the Jewish kids start rapping along and bopping around like this is the coolest, most dope shit ever, and the black kids are like, what the fuck is this?”
Jake started to laugh. “That’s so funny.”
Kirby laughed too. “It was fucking hilarious, but we had to cut it down.”
“Oh no. Really? You cut the whole thing?”
“No, no, we still have the scene, but there are some other scenes that are more important to the storyline, so we had to cut that one down a bit.”
“Okay, good. I want to see that.”
“So anyway, I’m feeling good about the way the final cut is turning out. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that the powers that be like it and that the show gets picked for a full first season.”
“I’m sure it will. It sounds very original and funny. That’s what they want, right?”
“I hope so.”
“I’m so happy for you, bro. I can’t wait to see it.”
“Thanks, man. So what about you? What’s going on in your world?”
“Dude…this has been one of the most stressful weeks ever.”
“Really?” Kirby said in surprise, having no clue of the turmoil in which Jake had been embroiled over the previous few days.
“You have no idea,” Jake said as he shook his head in continued disbelief at the situation.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s all family-related stuff.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Not entirely, but we’ll get through it and put it behind us at some point.”
Kirby was curious and wanted to know more. Jake typically told him everything—that had been the pattern of their relationship—but he could see that Jake was holding back for some reason. Although tempted to probe, Kirby decided not to. He just tried to be empathetic. “My family was always the one that had a little bit of drama going on from time to time. Remember when I thought my parents were going to get a divorce my freshman year of college?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“That was a crazy time,” Kirby said contemplatively, followed by a sip of his beer.
Jake took a sip of his beer too. “I’m kind of going through something similar,” he admitted.
Kirby looked at Jake for a moment, feeling surprised at such news, but he remained circumspect. “Interesting. You know, to me, your family has always been the perfect picture of wholesomeness: white picket fence, apple pie, baseball, and all of that, the model all-American family.”
Jake smirked and took another sip of his beer. “I guess we’re just really good at being posers and hiding our secrets well.”
Kirby chuckled. “Every family’s got issues of some sort or another, I guess.”
“That’s for sure.”
“So how’s Harry?” Kirby asked, launching them into extended conversation and gossip about family and friends.
As the evening progressed, Kirby and Jake continued to catch up after their relatively long hiatus from one another. The whole time, Kirby was looking for an opportunity to put the moves on Jake. His goal was for the two of them to end the night back at his place butt naked in his bed. Kirby sensed that Jake was holding back, however. The fire they’d experienced a few days before after running into each other at the gym and reconciling wasn’t there for some reason. Kirby concluded that whatever was going on in Jake’s family life was more than likely the culprit. Nevertheless, Kirby wasn’t ready to throw in the towel.
“Where do you want to go?” Kirby asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not really in a clubbing mood, and plus, two guys and no girls won’t get us far.”
Kirby snickered. “Connections, man. I’ve got connections. Not to worry. Look at us, man. When have we ever had a problem gettin’ into a club? You can’t have a club full of only girls, anyway. Girls want eye candy too. That’s us.”
“Well, eye candy is all I’m going to be,” Jake said.
“Me too. I’m not looking to pick up girls or anything like that. You know, just a place to chill and have a few drinks. But I want to be around a hot crowd with some good people watching.”
“Well, you pick the place. Whatever you decide is fine with me. You sound like you know where you want to go.”
“How about The Abbey?” Kirby said with a grin.
“The Abbey?” Jake repeated, surprised. “So you’re going to gay clubs now?”
“No. Not really, but I wanted to see what your reaction would be. Have you been there before?”
“No. Have you?”
“I’ve been there once. It’s actually a pretty cool spot. Even though it’s a gay club, I was surprised to see so many girls there. Like, really hot-looking, straight girls.”
I’ve heard that. Actually, Amanda likes going there. She hangs out there with her friend Charlie sometimes.”
“So…you want to go?”
Jake snickered at the thought. “Are you being serious? You really want to go there?”
“What…are you afraid of being around gay people?”
“No. I’m just a little surprised that you’d want to go there. So are you, like, open about being into guys now?”
“No. Not really, but I guess I’ve become a little more open-minded about trying new places different from what I normally would’ve gravitated toward in the past. Oooh, I have another idea.”
“What?”
“There’s this other club that I’ve gone to a couple times now in Hollywood that has a mixed crowed. And when I say mixed, I mean gay, straight, bi, pan—”
“Pan?”
“Pansexual. They don’
t give a fuck what you are or what type of equipment you have. They like it all…”
Jake snickered as he sipped more of his beer.
“…trannies, transgender, gay, straight, bi, they’re into everything.”
“So what’s this place called?”
“The Naked Bunny.”
“The Naked Bunny?”
“Yeah. It’s a spoof off the Playboy Bunny theme. All of the waiters, most of whom are guys, wear these black Playboy-Bunny-like uniforms, except in the back their asses are exposed. Most all of them have pretty decent bodies so they can get away with that, but anyway, some wear their uniforms with fishnet stockings and platform high heels—”
“The guys do?”
“Yeah, man. It’s crazy. It’s all part of the theme. Some of the waiters have this androgynous look, like buff, worked-out bodies but then they’re wearing like full makeup and walking around in heels, and then you have other guys who look like Chippendale dancers. And the female waiters do the same thing. Some look so androgynous that I really can’t tell what they are.”
“Who goes to this place? It sounds like a total freak show.”
“All kinds of people, man. You’ve got celebrities up in there, industry people, models. It’s your typical Hollywood crowd but it has a very avant-garde, edgy feel to it. They’re all about pushing the envelope there.”
“Like a more contemporary version of that club in New York,” Jake said as he snapped his fingers, trying to recall the name. “You know, the one that was really big in the ’70s and ’80s and that they made a movie about…Studio 54!”
“Exactly. I was just about to say it. I knew that’s the one you were thinking of. I swear, the last time I went to this club, there was like an orgy happening on the dance floor.”
“Nooo…come on.”
“I’m serious, man. Pretty close to it. People weren’t completely naked but almost. You had this whole group of people feeling each other up, groping each other, right there in plain view. Guys on girls, girls on guys, girls on girls, guys on guys—all dry humping and kissing each other. I was like, damn!”
“They didn’t care who was watching?”
