“But what are you going to do with it?” Will said when he came home from lunch.
“Do with what?”
“The book.”
Layla sat there, looking at him.
“Look, Lay,” Will said, touching her wrist. “I love you and I’m the closest thing you have to a husband, and that’s why I’m saying this: you just can’t let the book sit here. You’ve got to do something with it.”
“Like go on a book tour?”
“God no!”
“I don’t even think they would do that for poems. And certainly not for mine.”
“No, you’re right,” Will sat down. “But what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, Will,” Layla said. “But are you ready to go to Julian and Claire’s.”
Will nodded and he said, “Julian’s a clever man, and I bet he can think of something.”
“My brother? Managing my career?”
“Can you think of anyone better than Julian?”
“No,” Layla realized. “He’s about the most level headed thing I know.”
As they drove across town to Claire and Julian’s, Will said, “I read once about this poet who used to print his lyrics and tape them to walls. Bathroom walls, office building walls, whatever. And he would leave copies of the books lying around. He became this sort of cult poet.”
“Too bad Lawrence Ferlinghetti isn’t around.”
“We could to that!” Will clapped his hands and lost control of the wheel.
“Baby!” Layla put her hand on the wheel to control the car. “I got excited.”
“What about opening a book shop? What about opening a book shop and having readings and-”
“That’s a very long term plan.”
“Well, you asked for a plan. You didn’t say it had to be long or short term.”
“Actually, I didn’t ask for a plan.”
“Look, Lay!” Will told her. “I’m not going to be with a woman who’s not going to have vision.”
“Shit!” Layla said.
“Huh?”
“The playhouse. We use it for all sorts of things. We could use it…”
“For poetry readings.”
“And shit like that.”
Will patted her leg. “There’s my girl. There’s that vision I knew you had.”
“Will?”
“Yeah?”
“You just ran a red light.”
He nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yup.”
“I don’t want to go with him to the movies.”
“You know what I don’t want?” Laurel said, “I don’t want to have a whole lunch time discussion devoted to boys.”
When Kim and Amanda looked at her, Laurel said, “That’s all we talk about.”
“You never talk about boys,” Amanda told her.
“Well, when I mean all we talk about is boys, it’s my nice way of saying that’s all you talk about. The world is filled with so much more.”
“Like your hot cousin.”
Laurel raised an eyebrow.
“Dylan’s coming this way,” Amanda said.
The boy was trotting toward them, blazer open with that trumpet he eternally carried in his right hand. Eternally, no, only a year, really. But he was so good and it was such a natural fit. Well… Amanda was still talking.
“You know,” Amanda said, “the two of you aren’t really blood related so...”
“That’s disgusting,” Laurel said, and swinging around in her seat turned to await her cousin.
Objectively she noted that Dylan Mesda, with his buzz cut hair, dimples and brown eyes would have been good looking in another world. He had come out to Fenn when he was thirteen, and Fenn of all people had told him that in high school, when he was still not quite grown up, it was foolish to run around telling people he was gay. Much to Laurel’s surprise the entire family agreed.
“I will not have my son endangered for the sake of a principal,” Fenn had said.
Dylan sat down, a smile on his face, and Laurel said, “What the hell happened to you?”
“I don’t know what you mean?”
“Last time I saw you, you were so snarly. And now you’re so happy.”
“I was dealing with Ruthven. You know he called again?” Laurel raised an eyebrow.
“No, it’s alright,” he said. “He wanted to talk. I said later. I wasn’t ready. Then I just called Dad and we talked for a long time and… now I’m all good. Dad makes me all good.
“So, ladies,” Dylan addressed them, “who feels like going to the four o’clock dollar show?”
“Are you paying?” Kim asked.
“Am I a mogul?”
“It’s just four dollars,” Kim counted around them.
“Well, then you shouldn’t mind that I’m not paying.” He stood up, and dropped a kiss on his cousin’s head. “Lance is coming with me. I’ll see you gals later.”
As Dylan walked away, Amanda commented that it was nice to see him walk away and Kim said, “But he is impervious to your charms.”
Amanda stuck out her lip in mock despair.
“However,” she said, “at least Lance is coming along. How lucky are we? I mean, how often do hot guys travel in pairs?”
Laurel snorted and restrained the urge to say, “Only when they’re gay.”
“What are you chuckling over?” Denise demanded.
“Irony,” said Laurel Houghton.
and now he had said it to himself. He was going to Logan. All that evening, after dinner, Sheridan had helped Chay move his things into the apartment, and now here he was, going across town, while Chay rested in his living room.
When he knocked on the door, Logan answered almost immediately. He looked so good. He was in a ribbed tank top. Sheridan knew he was wearing it for him.
“I can’t stay.”
“Why not?”
“Chay’s at the apartment.”
“He moved in?”
“Yes.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“I said I would.”
“But after last night? After this morning?”
“Yes,” Sheridan said.
“And after.. I mean you’re back here now.”
“Yes.”
“You need to stop saying that,” Logan told him. “You need to stop saying that and come inside.”
Sheridan nodded, walked in, shut the door behind him.
“I wanted you to stay with me tonight,” Logan told him.
“I can’t do that.”
“No,” Logan agreed. “No you can’t. Not with Chay over there. Not while you’re making him think you’re a couple. Are you a couple? What are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“No.”
“Would you feel right about telling him you were here?”
“No.”
“Then it seems like you’re a couple,” Logan said. “And if we had what we had last night and this morning, then why would you be a couple?”
“What we had...” Sheridan began, “was sex.”
“Yes, that was what you call sex,” Logan said, mockingly. “It certainly was sex.”
“It wasn’t a relationship. It was for the night. It was… out of the natural realm of things.”
“Out of the natural…” Logan began with a scornful look. He cackled, “What the fuck does that mean?”
“That it makes no sense,” Sheridan said, getting in his face. “But when it’s all over, I go back to Chay and he makes sense. He fits in with the rest of the world. The stuff we’re doing: it’s on the side. It…”
“It doesn’t matter?” Logan guessed.
“It’s passion,” Sheridan said. “Of course I’m attracted to you. You’re Logan Banford. You’re a pornstar. Lots of guys are attracted to you. I don’t know why you feel the same about me. But… it’s not real. It’s just passion. That’s it.”
“Really?” Logan said. “Then why are you here?
“Why are you here right now, in this room if it’s just passion, and it isn’t important and I’m not important.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t important,” Sheridan told him. “And by the way, why are YOU here? You could be in Miami or LA, but you’re here, at Casey’s podunk place. Why are you here?”
“For you.”
Sheridan let out a long breath, and then he put up a hand.
“I’m sorry then,” he said. “That’s too bad.”
Logan said nothing.
“We don’t have a future,” Sheridan told him.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because its true.”
“Fine, Sheridan,” Logan said in the tone that meant he’d heard it all from Sheridan before. “Fine.”
Sheridan didn’t nod or move. He didn’t know what to do.
“If there’s no future, at least there’s a present. Take off your clothes.”
Sheridan blinked.
Logan was undoing his belt, and then he pulled it from its hooks slowly and laid it on the bed. Unbuttoning his jeans he charged Sheridan, “Take off your clothes.”
“I don’t want to move.”
“It’s because you love me.”
Sheridan didn’t say anything.
“I wish you trusted that,” Logan told him. “Get dressed. If this is what we’re going to have for now. I think it’s enough.”
“You’re happy with this,” Sheridan rolled off of the bed, looking for his underwear. “Me coming here or… you’ve got to get a real place soon, and just us… doing this. you’re happy with it?”
“Happier than when we’re not,” Logan said, sitting up. “Now go home. I wouldn’t want Chay to think he’d misplaced you.”
“Now that’s just a stroke of fucking genius,” Claire said, sitting down on the edge of the chair and folding her long skirt under her leg.
“In fact,” Julian added, “here’s a better one. We actually start a bookstore in the theatre. It’s big enough, and you’ve got all sorts of things in there.”
“Yeah,” Milo said, “and it’s Fenn’s.”
“It’s not like he’d say no.”
“True,” Dena agreed. “But we’ve made all these plans for the first floor of Fenn and Tom’s theatre.”
“I don’t see why they’d say no,” Layla agreed with her brother. “Besides, they’ve got enough to worry about with Dylan.”
“Whaddo you mean enough to worry about with Dylan?” Claire murmured.
“Funny stuff,” Layla said, nonspecifically. “I don’t really know. He’s just being a teenager. I’m talking to Laurel right now. She’s texting me from the movies.”
“About?”
“Do we really want to hear about teenage drama?” Julian said.
“I do,” Claire told him.As Julian shrugged, Layla continued,
“Well, Dylan was odd the night the book came out, odd about Todd’s nephew, and now Laurel says he’s at the movies with that Lance boy. Being odd.”
“I thought you said he was with Laurel.”
“It’s Laurel, a bunch of other girls and Lance,” Layla clarified, looking at her brother like he was a little dense.
And then she added, “And Laurel says that Dylan just got up and went to the bathroom… And then when he came back he changed his seat and sat next to Lance. Oh, damn!”
“What?” Claire was caught up in the drama.
“I lost reception. Well, I’ll learn everything later.”
“You worry about Dylan and your niece too much,” Milo said.
“If your parents had worried about you more, I bet you’d hate them less,” Layla replied.
“I don’t hate my parents,” Milo attempted to protest, but Dena noted, “I think you do… A little bit.”
There was a knock at the door.
“It must be reality,” Claire said, getting up, but when she answered, there stood the very tall, very dark form of Mathan Alexander, and he entered the house with uncharacteristic fever and a note in his hand.
“What, Mate?” Dena sat up a little, and he handed her the note saying,
“It’s from Meredith. She says she can’t marry me. And she’s gone!”
