Building Us: A Gay Romantic Comedy and Adventure (Marketing Beef Gay Romance Book 2), Page 4

  I stepped out of the SUV.

  “Are you with Cantor Productions?” the driver asked.

  “No.”

  “You can’t park here.”

  “Why not?”

  The driver looked over his shoulder—into the rear of his car—as if interrupted by someone in the back. His gaze returned. “Never mind.” The window rose, and the car drove off.

  “Good riddance.” I lifted the Ford’s tailgate. “What was that all about?” I snapped the leash onto Detritus’ collar. He jumped down and tugged his way closer to the field. I locked the SUV.

  With Frisbee in hand, we stepped through a break in the wrought-iron fence.

  “Excuse me, sir.” A woman carrying a clipboard scurried toward us. “You can’t be here.”

  “Huh? What the f—”

  “We’re filming.” The petite woman with striking dark features wore a Cantor Productions baseball cap and stopped on the pebble walkway.

  “But this is public property.”

  “I realize that, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience but—”

  “Hold up!” A man in a red-and-black checked shirt trotted across the grass. He resembled a lumberjack with his dark spiked hair, five-o’clock shadow, and broad shoulders. “He’s all right,” he told the clipboard-carrying girl. The shirt’s top two buttons were undone and revealed a hairy chest.

  “But Cantor wants—”

  “Vilhelm says he’s fine,” Lumberjack said to her.

  She pursed her mouth.

  Vilhelm? Vilhelm Strom says I’m fine?

  The black sedan had double-parked a few lengths ahead of me.

  “Sir,” Lumberjack said, “could I have a word?” His eyes bore through me.

  “Ah, yeah.” I ripped my gaze from him and caught the chauffeur of the sedan opening the rear door to the car.

  Platinum-blond Vilhelm Strom—usually splashed all over the grocery-store rags—exited the rear.

  “Oh my God.” I didn’t want to appear starstruck, but the words came out, nonetheless.

  Lumberjack put a hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  Embarrassed, I brushed him off.

  Detritus tugged the leash. The poor thing longed to play with the damn Frisbee.

  “Look, I need to give this dog some exercise.” I held up the disc.

  Lumberjack’s white teeth practically blinded me. “Understood.”

  An awkward silence followed.

  “Can I go?” I asked.

  “Have at it.” Apparently, his “word” with me could wait.

  Something about him unnerved me. Yet his chiseled features allured at the same time—his eyes, his mouth too. Dillon, you’re a married man. “C’mon, Deet.” I jogged toward the greenery. I didn’t like feeling attracted to a man other than Ev. It’s natural. You’re a guy. As he retreated, I glimpsed his ass.

  Deet yelped.

  I tossed the Frisbee. Deet ran back and forth unfazed, though I sensed being watched.

  Sure enough, crew members beside parked trailers gawked and followed it up with a quick turn away when I stared back. In the middle of the field, generators rumbled—making electricity for the production—and masked their whispers.

  “What the fuck.” I threw the disc to Deet’s downward-dog pose, and he leaped.

  After several minutes of group stares, which now included Lumberjack, my anger got the better of me. “Can I help you?”

  Several of them dispersed, leaving Lumberjack alone.

  While Deet fetched my throw, the man stared. A cocktail of emotions mixed inside me—guilt for liking being liked and an attraction to the handsome man.

  I threw my arms out, palms up. “What?” My irritation grew, sparked by an annoyance with myself for being drawn to the man’s magnetism.

  Deet plowed into me with the Frisbee.

  Lumberjack neared.

  “Deet, let’s get out of here.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Lumberjack said. “I’m Adam.” He put out a hand.

  Reluctantly, I shook it. “Dillon.”

  Another spot of awkward silence followed. The guy’s eyes practically undressed me.

  I held up my left hand and thumbed the band on my ring finger, shameful of the pressure occurring in the crotch of jeans. Don’t throw a woody!

  “I see,” Adam said. “You’ve got a lucky…wife?” He flashed another toothpaste-commercial smile.

  “It’s none of your fucking business.” I snapped a finger at the dog. My eyes remained on Adam. “C’mon, Deet.”

  We left. Yet as I loaded the truck, I intuited a watchful gaze on my butt and basked in the admiration.

  Chapter 7

  Evan

  I burst into the kitchen with the Brooks Brothers’ statement in my hand. “Dillon! You bought a new suit?”

  My husband nearly spit out the water he’d chugged. “Last month…” He coughed. “Before we let Madeline go.” He leaned his backside into the kitchen island. A petrified expression raked his face, hands held out and eyes wide. “It was for the Hawthorne meeting. You even said—”

  “I said we needed to put our best foot forward. That didn’t mean….” I sighed, shoulders dropped. “I’m sorry.” My nerves seared. The bills kept mounting and we had no income.

  “It was on sale.”

  “Dill, that’s six hundred dollars I had earmarked for the mortgage payment.” I hated that we now had a mortgage—my fault for tapping the equity for a dumb IPO. I wanted to cry, but staved it off with a quick inhale.

  “I can return it…I think.”

  “No.” I slapped an open palm to the counter. “Look, I apologize if I’ve been testy.”

  “I’m trying, Evan. I’m trying.”

  “I know.” I kissed his cheek.

  “I have a meeting with Tramwell Farm tomorrow.”

  “Um…” I hated to tell him. He’d worked hard arranging the appointment. “They just called and canceled.”

  “What?” Dillon’s face reddened. He trembled and slammed the water bottle to the floor. “Son of a bitch!”

  Detritus ran from the room. He hated when we raised our voices.

  “Who called? Was it Smith’s admin?” Dillon kicked the bottle, and Detritus scampered down the hall.

  “Dill! The poor dog!”

  Dillon leaped toward him. “Deet, I’m sorry.”

  The pet door flapped. The dam holding back my emotions cracked, and I bawled.

  “Ev…babe…” Dillon pulled me into him. “I’m sorry.”

  I cried into the crook of his neck while he petted my head and kissed my ear.

  Guilty, Dillon took Detritus to the park. I stayed back to man the never-ringing phones and make a few calls to verify client contact information. Sometimes I could finagle an appointment for Dill to go see them like Madeline had done flawlessly.

  “No, we’re all set,” said Laura from Roland.

  “Well, if you need anything, let us know.”

  “Will do.” She hung up.

  At the porch window, I leaned against the jamb and crossed my arms along my chest. The lake glistened in the sunlight. “I should’ve gone to the park with them.” I toed the Berber carpet with my loafers. Across the water, the roof to Mrs. Johnson’s old house peered out behind budding maples. Soon enough, with spring coming, I wouldn’t be able to see it. Her always-in-view dock—the setting of the watercolor she’d painted of us—had me reminiscent of when Dillon and I first met. The new neighbor’s rowboat was moored to a post and undulated in a ripple as geese landed a few feet away.

  I worried about the neglect I’d shown toward my husband—the man I loved. My temper not only got the best of me, but situational depression, brought on by my bout with cancer, had me medicated and numb half the time.

  In the bedroom, I sat on the edge of the bed and opened the bottom drawer of my nightstand. I hadn’t written in my journal since my diagnosis. Even being cleared of the disease didn’t pull me from my funk. “Survivor’s guilt,�
� said one therapist.

  I slipped the journal out from under old magazines, grabbed a pen, and set both on the bed. “I can’t.” I thought of the boy whose life wasn’t saved, like mine, from immunotherapy. Why me? Why did I deserve to live and that eight-year-old boy didn’t?

  “Because I could afford the treatment.” The guilt weighed heavily.

  Last week, my PCP ran blood work. The results were clear: cancer-free. Yay. But as he said, “A Ken doll has more testosterone.” He suggested hormone therapy.

  Low T could explain a lot: my depression, frequent naps, and pretending to be unconscious with my back to Dillon while he masturbated himself to sleep.

  I lay down with a shoed foot dangling off to the side and a socked one on the bed. I picked up the journal. But by the time I yanked the pen out from under me, I grew sleepy.

  The bed shook. This time, Dillon wasn’t tweaking his nipples and jerking off. Instead, he fucked a faceless man while I crouched handcuffed to the bedpost, forced to watch. Dill pounded the man kneeling on all fours—a position I hadn’t assumed in a long time. Sweat sopped the bed, and my head smacked the backboard.

  The scene changed. In the shower, I lathered myself up and went to clean my crotch. I was all smooth down there, like a Ken doll.

  “Ah!” The shower curtain ripped back and Dillon, naked with an erection the size of a tree trunk forced his way in. We could barely fit in the stall, the thing took up so much space. He spun me around and pushed me up against the cold tile. “Yes!” I yelled. My dick reappeared hard and strong. “Fuck me, Dillon. Fuck me!”

  The office phone rang. Its annoying pulse filled the shower. Dillon entered me. I groaned and backed into his pressure.

  The phone grew louder. And louder.

  “Shit!” My pants were undone, and I held my erection in hand. “What the—”

  The office phone continued its ring. I realized I’d been dreaming and apparently aroused myself.

  Bleary-eyed, I shot out of bed so fast my head spun. It could be a client! “I’ve got to get it before it goes to voice mail.” I staggered out of the bedroom. My pants fell down, and I stumbled, with only one shoe on, into the hall. “Son of a….” I bent to pick up my pants, but stopped when the phone blared more. I knew voice mail would kick in soon, and I needed to beat it. “Dillon’s gonna kill me.”

  I hopped into the kitchen and skipped around the island when my boxers slid down. I kept hobbling and grabbed my balls so they wouldn’t slap around painfully.

  Ring. Ring.

  I leaped across the hall, landed in the office chair, and spun over to the phone. “Conant Marketing.” I breathed loudly. “This is Evan.”

  “Hi, um, my name is Adam Lehman with Cantor Productions.”

  “Oh, good morning…um, afternoon, Adam.” I rolled my eyes. Cantor Productions? I yanked my underwear to my knees.

  “Is Dillon available?”

  “Dillon isn’t here right now. Can I help you with…?” My ass stuck to the leather chair, and I stood. My skivvies slid back down.

  “He and his dog were in Salem last week.”

  “Our dog?”

  “Oh, he’s your dog too?”

  I hesitated to offer up personal information to a stranger. “He is. Is there a—”

  “There’s no problem.”

  A string of preseminal fluid oozed out of me. “Oh, geez.” No tissue. I crooked the phone in my shoulder and wiped my penis with the back of my hand.

  “We’d like to make you an offer,” Adam said.

  The front door flew open. Detritus ran in.

  “Shit!”

  “I’m sorry?” Adam sounded irritated.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that for you,” I said and nearly fell with my ankles cuffed in khakis and Fruit of the Looms.

  “We’re bac—” Dillon’s mouth fell open.

  “It’s for you.” I held the phone out. Surely my face matched the color of the birthmark on my chest.

  Chapter 8

  Dillon

  After hanging up, I scratched my jaw, not knowing what to say. “Well, that was interesting.” While I hadn’t given Adam my number, I figured he’d learned of my business connections through the locals—commerce boards and North Shore clients. I wasn’t famous but had the feeling I was about to be.

  Evan tucked his shirt into his pants and rubbed his nose, like he does when he’s nervous.

  I crinkled my brow. “That was the studio making the movie in town.”

  “I know.” Evan cleared his throat and sat down at the computer.

  “Why did you have your pants down?”

  “Um, I…” He tapped the mouse, and the monitor came to life. “I was…going poo, and the phone rang.”

  “Oh. Anyway, get this.” I pulled a chair up next to him. “They want to use Deet in the movie.”

  His head spun toward me. “They do?”

  “Yeah, apparently he’s a shoo-in for…” I looked down. “Speaking of shoes, why do you only have one on?”

  “Oh, I was napping.”

  “I thought you were crapping.”

  “That too. Anyway. Tell me.” Evan wheeled the chair closer and rubbed my knee with his hand. “Tell me about this movie.”

  His touch turned me on, and I edged even closer. “Yeah, he’s a near-double for this dog in New Hampshire where they’re filming some maple-syrup-tapping scene.” I chuckled. My dick got hard with Evan caressing my inner thigh.

  “Yeah?” His knee brushed my crotch.

  I swallowed. “Yeah.”

  The phone rang again and we both jumped.

  “God, I hate that ring,” I said and picked up the phone. “Conant Marketing. This is…oh hi, Adam.”

  “I got a number for you,” he said.

  “Oh, okay.”

  Evan inched closer, whether to hear Adam or to send my libido into overdrive. The latter happened, and I adjusted my erection.

  “Fifteen hundred a day,” Adam said.

  Fifteen hundred! I needed a level head in negotiation, paused, and spun away from Evan to avoid the distraction. “Let me think about it.”

  “We’ve been searching for a good stand-in, Dillon. The lead in New Hampshire is temperamental.”

  Perfect. I’ve got him right where I—

  Evan leaned in behind me. His warm breath sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Two thousand,” I said to Adam.

  “I can’t go higher than—”

  “Two thousand a day, buddy.” I knew they could afford it. They were Hollywood.

  “Hold on.” The phone silenced.

  I spun in the chair and lip-locked Evan. “Oh, baby.”

  Adam’s end clicked. “Two thousand it is.”

  “Great.”

  “But…,” Adam said.

  “What do you mean but?” I leaned back in the chair.

  “Vilhelm wants you…wants you to be in a scene with him.”

  I looked at Evan. “Vilhelm Strom wants me in a scene with him.”

  Evan’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “He likes your looks,” Adam said.

  “Oh.” I smiled. I had been jealous of Deet for a second. Adam blabbered on about paperwork and other details I couldn’t pay attention to with my never-randy husband horny.

  We hung up.

  “Can you believe this?” I said to Evan.

  “No.” He kissed me hard. “Let’s take a shower together.”

  The next day, Adam had a check waiting for me at the Hawthorne Hotel’s front desk. The hotel manager, who’d dissed our sales offer, wasn’t around. A clerk with a whipped-up hairdo informed me the manager had the day off. Coincidentally, the cast and crew for Tapped in New England were staying there.

  “Dillon!” Adam exited the elevator as I was about to leave.

  Evan had asked me to get to the bank before it closed. “Oh hey, Adam.” I tapped my coat pocket. “Thanks for the check.”

  “All the details are in there too. Hotel to stay at, e
tcetera.”

  “Got it.”

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Come. Let’s imbibe in the tavern.”

  “I should really get—”

  “I won’t take no for an answer. C’mon.”

  With an arm on my shoulder, he escorted me across the lobby to the bar, where a fire crackled in the hearth. March in New England had turned cold once again and a dusting of snow covered the streets. He rubbed his hands together. “Nice and warm in here.”

  “It is.”

  We chose a table near the fireplace. The smell of pine filled the air. On an iPad, a cocktail waitress tapped our order—two Scotches—and left.

  “So.” Adam raised his eyebrows.

  “So.”

  “You’re gonna be in our movie.”

  “Apparently.” The thought still weirded me out, and I leaned back in my chair with high-school nervousness. A log crackled and I turned toward the hearth.

  “Tell me about your husband.”

  I never told Adam I was gay. He must’ve figured it all from his conversation with Evan. “Why do you ask?”

  He shrugged a shoulder and licked his lower lip. “Just making conversation.”

  “Well…” I fidgeted in the wooden chair. “He’s a good guy.”

  Adam listened as I droned on with something about the business and our entrepreneurialism. I considered bring up the cancer, but refrained when the waitress arrived with our drinks.

  When she left, we clicked glasses and sipped.

  I looked at my Rolex. Salem Five Bank closes soon.

  “Nice watch,” Adam said.

  “Thanks.” I fiddled the clasp. “It’s a cheap one.” I felt the need to apologize for having it. I’d won the watch in a sales contest when I managed a team at Corridor Marketing in Boston. It really wasn’t cheap, but I didn’t want him to know.

  “An inexpensive Rolex, that’s a first.” He bent his wrist toward me. “Apple Watch here. Under five hundred.”

  I flipped my chin toward it. “You like?”

  “I do.” His chiseled features were quite becoming, and I lost my train of thought.

  “Um. I…I have a Fitbit at home.” The situation frustrated me. I felt like I was cheating on Evan or something. I sipped my drink and glanced at my watch again. A deposit before two meant we wouldn’t have to stretch funds over the weekend.