Then, “You’ve never called me that before.”
“What?”
He shrugged, attempting indifference but somehow landing on endearingly nervous instead, almost like he was shy, for fuck’s sake. “Baby doll.” He coughed, and I saw the blush on his cheeks. “You call Paul that. And Corey. And Vince sometimes. But never me.”
“Oh,” I said awkwardly. “I guess. I just… I mean, we’re friends. Sort of.”
“Sort of friends,” he repeated.
I looked down at my hands, wondering the best way to salvage this without giving away the raging figurative hard-on I apparently had for him. “Yeah, I mean. Right? When we have our fake breakup, maybe we could still be friends. Or something.”
“Fake breakup?” He gripped the steering wheel again, knuckles turning white.
“That’s how this ends,” I reminded him, suddenly very unsure about a lot of things.
“Right,” he said.
“But we could be friends.” Because the thought of us going back to the way things had been before wasn’t sitting right with me.
“Maybe,” he said and nothing else. Like a douche.
I snorted. “Great validation there. Thanks for using your words. Would you rather I go back to hating you? Because I can. If that’s what you want.”
“Shut up, Sandy,” he grumbled. “You never hated me.”
“Maybe,” I mocked.
He rolled his eyes, and the silence that followed wasn’t that bad.
It was almost… comfortable. Like two people who’d spent time together and enjoyed each other’s company without the need to fill the quiet. I’d never really had that with a person before. It was… nice. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend that we weren’t pretending and this was just a normal Saturday for us.
Too bad none of it was real.
Chapter 15: Super Gays and Running Away to Bismarck, North Dakota
WHEN ENACTING a plot from an eighties movie, there always comes the point where Someone Finds Out That Everything is a Lie. It’s usually done to move the plot forward while creating hysterical drama for all involved and causing the hero(ine) of the story to flail in an attempt to Keep Things Secret Because of Reasons.
Since my life was cinematically idiotic, the ridiculous thing Darren and I were doing couldn’t be kept secret forever. We lasted quite a bit longer than I thought we would, and while that made me question the intelligence of the people around us (while simultaneously patting myself on the back for Meryl Streeping the shit out of them), I was slightly disappointed that it was me that accidentally spilled the truth.
To Charlie, of all people.
Sweet, loveable, elderly Charlie.
And not really spilled, per se, but more like he caught me in a compromising position where I was forced to reveal the truth and then threaten (read: beg) for him not to expose me for the faking faker that I was.
I WALKED into the club early that night, needing to talk to Mike and let him in on our bachelor drag auction plan in such a way that he agreed with me completely and did not try and murder my face. Mike was not a charitable person on a good day, and any time we’d held some kind of fund drive in the past, he’d always taken a larger percentage of the profits than was actually donated in order to cover what he called his operating expenses. In all actuality, Mike was a cheap bastard who did little without finding out how it benefitted him. In this case, I hoped the overhanging threat of the bar closing could make him see it my way. If not, then there was no hope for him and I was going to be so done with his shit.
Luckily for him, I dispensed with any pleasantries as soon as I walked into his trailer and let it all spill out in a stream of pleadings and extortions.
“…and now we have to do a drag bachelor auction otherwise the mayor will win the bet and the bar will close and isn’t that just awesome because no one can put on a drag bachelor auction like Helena Handbasket, no one,” I finished, panting slightly.
Mike’s face was in his hands. That was probably not a good sign.
“So,” I said awkwardly, trying to defuse the situation. “How are you?”
“You met with the mayor face to face,” he said, voice muffled against his fingers.
“Yes.”