The Funny Thing Is - 9. …Some Things Are Just Never What They Seem

The Funny Thing Is… Some Things Are Just Never What They Seem.

There are certain things in life that are straight forward. You can take these things at face value and they never really surprise you. You will pay taxes. You will gain a few pounds during the holidays. You will turn into your parents as you age. Most of life’s normalities are exactly what they seem. But then, every once in a while, life throws you a major curveball. Just as things were beginning to resemble what they seemed to be, readers, I got tossed one of those inevitable curve balls.

As I stood at the back of the middle boat, listening to Kyle Wriggs and Winston Smith announce their intentions to be married, I knew I had one of two choices. I could stand there, bitter, upset, jilted and angry, suppressing the desire to vomit. Or I could get shitfaced.

I decided to get shitfaced.

I finished the drink I had in my hand and quietly poured myself another. By the time the announcement was done and everyone was clapping along to the plans for a June ceremony, I was halfway done with another Pink Panty Dropper.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, the DJ began playing the ancient sappy song Can You Feel the Love Tonight from Kyle’s favorite childhood movie. I looked around, downed my cup and poured myself another drink.

“You don’t look too thrilled,” Bass said behind me as he dipped into the trashcan for his next beverage. “What gives?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly, forcing a smile on my face. “I’m excited. Surprised, is all. But I am… overjoyed for them.”

“Cooper, how long have I known you?” Bass asked as seriously as someone who was above the legal limit could ask.

“A long time,” I said, realizing that my words were beginning to slur.

“Exactly,” he said with a wink and smile. He pointed at me deliberately. “So how long have you been screwing Kyle?”

I couldn’t tell if he meant literally or figuratively. The two answers were vastly different.

“How’d you know?”

“I knew, buddy. I knew from the first day I smelled his sex all over you at brunch. It doesn’t take a fucking genius. People walk out on you, and you screw someone. It’s what you do.”

If he wasn’t correct and drunk, I would have taken offense to the statement. He was right though. It’s what I’d always done.

“The thing is, Kyle knows you too. We all know you. Hell, I’m surprised Spencer didn’t know ya’ll were fucking, what with all the sleepovers and the woe-is-me nights,” Bass rambled.

“Is there a point here?” I asked, sipping my drink and realizing I was almost done with my third cup in ten minutes.

“The point is, this is a good thing for both of you. He can’t be your body pillow forever,” Bass said, his lips turning sideways like they always did when he was drunk. “He’s moving on and now you need to. Like seriously. And not with Chase. I never liked him much, you know? So smug. And arrogant.”

Bass concluded. I smiled at him, internally acknowledging that he was right. Kyle deserved this. Kyle deserved to be happy despite of me. Or maybe in spite of me. I had dragged him down in my baggage for far too long and for whatever reason, he had pulled the trigger. It wasn’t his fault that he pulled it just as I was beginning to need him again. Our timetables refused to align, and that wasn’t his fault.

But knowing that something was right and caring were two completely different things. On paper, Kyle was doing the right thing. He would have passed the life test with this decision. But in my head, he was giving up on me way too soon. How do you go from being in bed with me one day to being engaged to someone completely different the next? I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a difference between the right thing and the best thing…

By the time I saw the happy couple post announcement, I was a couple drinks in and my tongue was definitely loose. I made a snap decision to reign in my disappointment and put on a happy face.

“Congratulations,” I said to both of them as I approached. They had set up shop on the center barge and people who knew them had made their way to the front to offer their congratulations. I was just one person in a long line of people who were excited for the pair.

“Thanks Cooper,” Winston said politely. The guy didn’t like me and it didn’t take a sober me to see that. “I’ll let you two talk.”

He picked up their empty cups and walked towards the drink station on the first barge.

“We don’t have to do this,” Kyle said quietly. The sadness in my eye was definitely palpable. This wasn’t how I’d expected Kyle and me to go down.

“It’s okay,” I replied with confidence. I mustered a smile. “I’m happy for you and Winston… and… you know what, you’re right. We probably shouldn’t do this now.”

“Cooper.”

“I want to be happy for you, Kyle, I definitely do, but… I just don’t know how right at this second,” I said honestly. It was no use trying to lie to him. He could have read the entire sentence on my face with just one look.

“Try holding that feeling in for twenty years and then give me a call,” he said with a shrug. It wasn’t a cruel thing to say. In fact, it was unbearably vulnerable. This decision that Kyle had made was by far the most mature thing I’d ever seen one of my friends do. He was choosing to move on, no matter how hard it was. And in the back of my mind, I knew I had to let him.

Luckily for me, Spencer wasn’t too far away, holding a bottle of Crown Royal, wearing a smile, and ready to dole out some much needed wisdom.

“Rough day?” he asked. I forced out a smile, took the bottle of Crown, and took a swig. I didn’t take the Coke chaser that Spencer offered. In a way, standing there getting shitfaced with Spencer, analyzing things about Kyle, and generally being confused about my love life, took me back to freshman year in a big way.

“I think you’re making a huge mistake,” Spencer said, echoing his usual refrain.

“I don’t think I am. I have a feeling about this, and I just… he’s the real deal, Spencer,” I said. It was the last Friday in April and the last day that freshman had to resign their dorm leases. We’d talked extensively about our sophomore year living arrangements, and it was finally time to make a decision.

“Besides the fact that splitting an apartment off campus is going to zap most of your room and board scholarship, I just think it’s too soon to move in with him,” Spencer replied. Spence speaking in a serious tone was rare and startling. “You’ve been dating for, literally, three months.”

“Look, when you know, you know, alright?” I said, handing Spencer back the Virginia dorm resigning lease. We’d talked through every scenario of the four of us—Kyle, Spencer, Bass, and I—all getting a house. We’d done the numbers on an apartment in Uptown. We’d even considered all applying to be dorm counselors.

Our last plan involved the four of us splitting a suite in the sophomore complex. Spence and I would room together again. Bass and Kyle would take the room across the common area from us. Four guys. Two bathrooms. One refrigerator.

And then the variations began. Spencer was courted to live in the swimming house which, if he hadn’t signed on, they would have lost to a group of wrestlers. Bass’ parents insisted he keep his job as a dorm counselor in a valiant attempt to keep him grounded and away from the trust fund baby tendencies lesser people born with his silver spoon would have exhibited.

That left Kyle and me. And it was when I expressed my uneasiness to Chase about rooming with only my ex, who I knew was very much still into me, he made the offer to live with him.

“I’ve been thinking about getting an apartment away from campus for a while,” he had told me the night before I broke the news to Spence. “We could split it and rent wouldn’t be too bad.”

I crunched the numbers, decided I could pull it off if I applied for work study, and then it was final. It left Kyle applying to live at the Sigma house, something he had wanted to avoid at all cost, but at the end of the day, we each had to make the best decision for us.

“I just question what will happen when you and Chase break up,” Spencer said candidly. He was an active cheerleader against Chase and me, positive that we were moving too far too fast. He also had a happily-ever-after all planned out for me with someone else, and he was none too subtle about it.

“Dude, Chase and I are solid,” I said. “I know you don’t get it, but when you’re in love with someone, you trust your gut and it all works out.”

He rolled his eyes and said the one thing I hated hearing from him.

“One day, you’re going to wake up and realize you chose the wrong guy, and it’s probably going to be too late.”

I never thought his words would ever actually come to fruition.

“Are you listening?” Spencer asked. He was standing next to me holding a bladder of wine and faded purple teeth.

“Huh?” I asked, coming out of my blackout induced day dream.

“I said I have something important to ask you.”

“I don’t know how you expect me to take you seriously when you’re slapping the bag like that, but yes, I’m listening,” I said, suddenly hit by a bout of sobriety.

“Okay, I’m only going to ask you this once, so listen up,” he began. “Let him be, Cooper. I know you have this twisted connection to Kyle that frankly you both should see a therapist for. But he’s made his choice just like you did twenty years ago. Let him go. Actually… let him let you go. Move on. Or better yet, stay single for a while. Just, whatever you do, I am begging you to let him go and let him be happy.”

Coming from Spencer, the words carried a substantial amount of weight. If I had been struggling to decide before his little speech, I wasn’t struggling anymore. Spencer was right; there was only one thing I could do.

Shots.

With Spencer in tow, we went to the drink counter and took tequila shot after jager bomb, after shotgunning a beer, after another tequila shot. The goal was to erase the day, and by the time the boats took off for a sunset circle around the lake, the day was all but gone from my mind.

When I came to, I was in my bedroom, that much I was sure. The smell of coffee filled my loft and I knew I hadn’t brewed it, meaning someone was there. Despite my throbbing head, I got out of bed, walked as carefully as possible out of the room in an attempt to see who was domesticating my kitchen this early on a holiday afternoon.

“The boy who lives,” he said with a bright smile. He was wearing my robe and pushing down on my coffee press. I could hear bacon sizzling behind him. I should have been happy had I not been utterly confused.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I grogged, my throat too dry to function.

“Good morning to you too, monsieur,” he said. In my hangover, I wished I could have wiped the smug look off his face, but admittedly, the look was beautiful. “I made you coffee. There’s water and aspirin out next to your bed. And you might want to put on some pants.”

I looked down. In my attempt to investigate who the intruder was, I’d neglected to realize I was buck naked. I hadn’t woken up that hung over—or quite possibly still drunk—since my bachelor party seventeen years before.

I took the coffee mug from his hands, walked back into my bedroom and took three aspirin, finished a bottle of water and pulled on a pair of Peruna Mustang sleeping pants, in that order.

When I returned to the living room, Chase was domestically plating two toad-in-a-holes next to some corned beef hash. He was wearing a pair of my sweats, I noticed right away, and nothing else. It was impossible not to notice the distinct outline in the jersey grey fabric as he walked a plate over to me in the living room.

I waited until he sat down with his own plate and cup of coffee before I repeated my question.

“So… are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?”

“You don’t remember,” he said. It was a little game I hated in college, and it was a little game I hated just then. Let’s let Cooper try to remember what happened between the time he blacked out and the time he woke up.

“If I remembered, I wouldn’t be asking you, Pal,” I said playfully annoyed. I guess I couldn’t have a total attitude with someone who had cooked me breakfast, but I was still surprised, alarmed, and nervous about what I’d said or done the night before.

“Relax,” he said, leaning back and making himself comfortable. “You called me from a cab on your way home. I stayed on the phone with you and you kept saying you couldn’t get in. When I got here to check on you, you were asleep on your stoop holding your key, so evidently you were actually unable to get it in.”

I put my hand to my head.

“Seriously?” I asked. He smiled at me and I chuckled. What else could I do but laugh?

“Oh, seriously. You were passed out. You’d given up,” Chase laughed. “So I carried you inside, ran you through a shower, hence my clothes being wet and in the dryer, and I put you to sleep. I slept out here on your very comfortable couch.”

He patted the couch and I noticed a throw blanket under him. The thought of Chase carrying me in with his big, strong, backstroke arms made me melt. The thought of him being gentleman enough to sleep on the couch in the event that I woke up and freaked out at someone unexpected in my bed… well that was downright chivalrous.

“Thank you,” I said simply with a curt smile. I loaded my fork and took a bite of delicious potatoes. The grease coated my scratchy throat, and I could feel the potato soaking up toxins almost as soon as the starch hit my tongue.

“Don’t sweat it,” he said. “I’m just glad you called me.”

I searched for the subtext in his voice, but I couldn’t find any. He didn’t stress me, so I didn’t think he was putting himself above anyone. The lack of stress on glad meant he wasn’t waiting by the phone all these nights for me to call. In fact, the ease in which he said the sentence left me wondering.

Stressing over his lack of stress, I asked: “Did I say anything to you last night?”

“You were pretty incoherent throughout everything,” he said. “I asked you in the shower how you got home, and you said that Spencer put you in a cab. And I asked you about the party and you said something about a wedding. I didn’t understand it to be honest. Did someone get married on the boat?”

I took another bite, relieved that I hadn’t explained that my sudden desire to drunk dial him was a direct correlation between Kyle’s sudden desire to marry his on-again-off-again sweetheart.

“No,” I replied honestly. “I think it was a game we were playing or something.”

“Oh,” he said, not fully believing me, I was sure. “Oh, and Spencer called to check on you both last night and this morning. He asked about some guy named Andrew that was supposed to make sure you got home safely.”

“Andrew?” I asked, mostly to myself. The name rang slightly familiar, but I couldn’t pin point it. It must have been someone I talked to on the boat or something. I put in the back of my mind. “Any other calls?”

“Yeah.” He hesitated. “One from Kyle.”

“What did he say?” I said. I sat up quickly.

“Well, he was obviously surprised that I answered your phone,” Chase replied. I put my hand on my head and shook it. Fuck, I thought. Having Chase over the night I made an impassionate plea, regardless of what we did or didn’t do, was not the way to make Kyle see my point. “He told me to tell you that Devon messaged over some sort of settlement offer.”

I bolted up. As soon as I heard Devon and settlement offer, I was half-way across the living room.

“Cooper,” Chase called out to me as I put my dish in the sink and crossed towards the bedroom to get dressed. I was sort of annoyed that this little announcement wasn’t the first thing out of his mouth this morning. My head pounded with every step, but I didn’t slow down.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to Kyle’s office,” I said as I dug into my closet for a clean shirt.

“It’s Labor Day, gamin,” he said matter-of-factly. “I doubt he’s at work.”

He was probably right, but I had to try him. If he wasn’t at the office, I’d try his apartment. A settlement offer was a big deal, and no matter what it said, I needed to see it immediately.

“I’m going to find him,” I said, pulling a pair of slacks on. “Are you going to stand around looking pretty or are you going to get dressed and come with me?”

I knew what I had said, but I didn’t quite fathom the implications of the invitation until the words were out.

“I mean, you don’t have to. It’s just… I need to see what Devon sent over,” I replied. I crossed to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash the crud out of my eyes. I heard Chase say something about calling someone on the phone, but I didn’t pay it any mind. This was priority number one.

As I left the apartment in a hurry with Chase right behind me, I found myself saying something else that I didn’t stop to consider the implications of. As we got to Chase’s car, parked right next to mine in the fairly empty lot, he asked if I would do dinner with him.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” I replied quickly, pulling my shades on and stepping into my sweltering car. I guess saving me from asphyxiating on my own vomit was the foot in the door Chase had been waiting for, and he wasn’t going to relinquish that position easily.

With a sore head and a heavy foot, I made it across town to Wriggs and Streck in record time. The office building was a ghost town, with every partner and senior associate out on their decked out yatchs or spending the weekend at vacation homes outside of the metroplex. The only people lingering around were junior associates hoping to get their billing hours higher than the next guy. Even assistants and secretaries took the weekend off.

Which is why I breezed past any sort of security when I used Kyle’s elevator code to get me to the top floor. Kyle’s office was second to the last on the far side, and I heard voices as soon as I turned the corner. His was the only light on, and the door was cracked open.

“It’s not something I ever even thought about,” Kyle confessed in a hushed tone even though the building was all but deserted. “Until Jason brought it up, I wouldn’t have even considered it.”

“And where is your head at now?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“To be honest, I’m intrigued by the prospect.”

“I’ll be frank with you, Wriggs,” the deep, masculine voice said in the same hushed tone. I stopped short of Kyle’s floor length window and listened to this man be frank. “The governor’s office is excited about the prospect of an openly gay man running for district attorney here in Dallas and repainting the politics of this city. We’re well behind Fort Worth, obviously Austin and San Antonio bit that bullet ages ago with their district attorneys and mayors, and the fact that a proud lesbian sits on the circuit court in Houston means it isn’t an impossible task. Hell, Lubbock’s city planner is a homosexual, and between you and me, I would be surprised if the mayor isn’t as well, as many hunting trips as those two take.”

There was a long pause, and then the deep voice said the clinching words.

“You have the credentials, the pedigree, and now you’ve certainly got the right companion on your side. You and Winston will look spectacular in that announcement photo, let me tell you. All you need is the proper financing and I think you can give District Attorney Thompson a run for her money.”

“Financing won’t be an issue,” Kyle said confidently. Not when your best friend was undisputedly one of the wealthiest bachelors in the entire state.

“Neither will an endorsement from the governor’s office,” the mystery man said. I got the sense the meeting was coming to an end, so I took a quick step forward and knocked on the door, pretending like I hadn’t heard Kyle just broker an underground deal to run for Dallas DA.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, playing up my surprise to see the tall and strapping black man standing there in front of Kyle, as he sat on the edge of his dark wood desk.

“We were just wrapping up.” Kyle hopped down, shook the official’s hand and led him out. I heard something about dinner or a lunch or a call anytime he was in Austin. The man said something about making sure the announcement made it to the Austin Ledger and a second later, Kyle popped back in.

“Hey,” he said nonchalantly. I thought about asking him what the meeting was about, but every single one of my instincts told me not to. I fought against it and explained the real reason I was there.

“Yeah, I did call you this morning,” Kyle replied. “Chase answered, which was something of a surprise.”

“I drunk dialed him last night and he helped me home,” I confessed truthfully. Kyle raised an eyebrow. I wanted to tell him he had forfeited the right to raise an eyebrow when Winston put an engagement band on his finger, but I didn’t say it.

“Nothing happened,” I told him flatly, taking a seat on the left side of his office, where the casual conversations were held around a coffee table and not an imposing desk with straight leather backed chairs. “So what exactly did Devon messenger over?”

Kyle crossed the office carrying a simple manila file folder. I opened it and was immediately bombarded with legal jargon that made my head ache even more.

“Basically, following y’alls little visit the other night, she wants to amend the temporary divorce order,” he said. “And with this document here, she is waiving any request for financial assistance from you, essentially cutting the discovery proceedings in half. This whole thing could be over in a matter of weeks as opposed to months.”

I looked down at the paper and read where she was waiving her right to financial assistance from me. That was somewhat of a surprise, but probably her way of saying she wanted to proceed in good faith from here on out. What I was most interested in was the amendment to the divorce order.

“She wants to drop the restraining orders and make your children available to you upon request. Basically, you have full access to them as long as you call her and seek permission first,” he said. “It’s lifted when they turn sixteen and they can choose to see you ad libidum. It’s all in there.”

“Parenting by appointment,” I said under my breath. “What’s the catch?” I asked, mildly suspicious at such a generous offer and a complete change of heart.

“From what I read, there is no catch,” Kyle said, sitting up and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. It was his go to lawyer stance, and his tone was all business, regardless of how close he was to me. “I called our divorce specialist here, and he thinks an olive branch like this one could have come from one of two things. First, she might finally understand what a big fight can do to your relationship as well as how it can affect the kids. We were looking at a month long discovery period, and that was just to exchange documents back and forth. It’s tiring, taxing, and with Franklin as counsel, extremely expensive. The other theory he had is that she has some skeletons in her closet that she doesn’t want released when we start digging. If that’s true, you might be able to do better than this.”

Kyle’s eyes were wide. I couldn’t tell what theory he believed or what he wanted me to believe. I knew the majority of Devon’s skeletons, but they weren’t things I would ever hold against her. We’d both had extramarital affairs. I didn’t have pictures or phone records of hers, but a subpoena and an oath would bring out the truth.

There was the question of her commitment to family life when she started a dental clinic when our kids were young, forcing me to play primary parent. At the time, it was a convenient option because I could write from home, but her work log was stacked with trips, eighty hour work weeks, and conferences galore. Those didn’t matter in the first hearing, but Kyle was sure they’d come into play in family court.

Still, the idea of getting my kids back, of not having to hide out in a box at their football games, of getting to drive them to karate on Saturday morning without a proxy there… that thought made everything else moot.

“I don’t think she’s hiding anything,” I told Kyle with a straight face.

“Then I advise you to sign the document and messenger it over to Franklin before Devon changes her mind,” Kyle said, handing me a pen from a drawer in his apothecary table. “This is a good deal, Coop. Especially since Devon makes considerably more money than you do.”

I looked up at him. That was impossible, I thought. I made more money than her. Not considerably more, but it was more. There was no way.

“What?” I asked, not meaning to let my chauvinism show, but I was fairly certain he was wrong about that.

“Yeah, I got the report from your accountant this morning and it matches up with what she sent over. She’s not asking for financial assistance because, basically, she’s not entitled to any. She almost laps you, Cooper.”

“That’s impossible,” I replied. “With the book deal, the column, and my contract with the school. I make a lot of money.”

“Yeah, you do,” Kyle said. “But her clinic is booming. If y’all were to even the score out in court, she’d come out with a loss, even if she did keep the kids.”

Hearing Kyle say that Devon’s clinic, which I had helped her build from the ground up, was booming and that crafty wench was trying to keep my hands off it, put a brick in my belly. My first thought was how dare she? My second thought was that she would mask her desire to keep me away from her profits as an even handed deal. Leverage the kids, keep Coop away from the cash. I could see her and Franklin sitting around with dry martinis and planning the whole thing. I hesitated before I signed.

“Now I kind of want to think about this,” I said.

“Coop.”

“No, Kyle, I put a lot of work into that clinic. If she’s raking it in, I’m entitled to something, right?”

“Trust me, buddy, you’re doing just fine without that money,” Kyle said with big eyes. “This is a Christmas present compared to what a judge would award. I say take it and we’ll even the score when it comes to assets.”

Kyle went on to explain that granting her waiver of financial support didn’t mean the playing field was leveled completely. We still had two homes, two cars, and a substantial amount of stock—including what I’d signed into the clinic—to hammer out. This only waived either of us the obligation to pay spousal or child support, which, as Kyle stressed, neither of us particularly needed. It was simply one less hurdle towards a fairly amicable divorce.

In the end, he explained that it was a no brainer. Seven signatures and three initials later, and my obligation to support my wife was effectively waived, as was the court order to stay away from my children.

“So now you know what I make,” I said to Kyle as I signed the pages. It wasn’t something I’d tried to hold secret, but I didn’t flash money around in quite the same way that Spencer did.

“I do,” Kyle said, collecting the pages as I signed them.

“And… where does that put me from what you know about the four?”

“Well none of us can touch Spencer, that’s for sure. He makes an assload in dividends each month, it’s sickening.”

“I mean, one gamble on alternative fuel and the guy hasn’t worked a day in his life,” I smiled.

“It’s quite absurd,” Kyle said. “You make less than I do, but if you were to hit the touring circuit it again like you did after All Cooped Up, I’m sure that would close the gap.” I nodded along to that one. As a best-seller, as much as I made on the front end, the status as a celebrity put more in my pocket from appearances and select endorsements. The year after the book dropped and people clamored to get it, I was commanding a pretty penny for graduations, conferences, cruises, and basically anywhere people would listen to me tell my tale of bisexual woe. Luckily, my accountant was both sexy and smart and had put that money away for me in a high yield kind of complicated way.

“And you definitely make more than Bass does annually, even if you break up your advance money,” Kyle concluded.

“But Bass has that trust fund,” I said. Kyle nodded. “So what you’re saying is, all things considered, I’m the poorest of the four of us.”

I finished signing the papers, and watched Kyle as he signed the last one under the attorney tab and put them back into the folder.

“You are far from poor,” Kyle responded. He stood up, rolling his eyes as I lamented my status at the bottom of my friends’ heap.

“I’m even poorer than Devon,” I said standing and following him. “If we were to all go to Aspen for Christmas or something, I wouldn’t be able to afford it.”

“Calm down, you’re not knocking on bankruptcy’s door, Cooper. Plus you live a much more modest lifestyle than Spencer and me.”

“Yeah. I’m not trying to run for office or anything,” I blurted, without even thinking. The words came out like last night’s vomit, and Kyle turned around quickly to catch them. I wished I could have pulled them back before they reached him, but they were out there, in the atmosphere, and he knew I knew everything.

“I don’t know what you think you heard,” Kyle said evenly.

“I didn’t hear anything, Kyle,” I replied quickly, closing the gap between us. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Okay,” he replied, clearly flustered. He took a deep breath. “Um… yes. Running or district attorney is something I’m considering. So cat’s out; you’re the only one who knows. Don’t say anything to anyone, not even Spencer or Bass, I am begging you.”

“My lips are sealed,” I replied sincerely. And because there was no way I could let it go, knowing what I now knew, I asked it anyway. “Look, Kyle. This wedding thing… it doesn’t have anything to do with the bid for city hall does it?”

He looked at me with an intensity I hadn’t seen for years. Of course it did, I thought. There was no way it didn’t. Being gay was one thing, but being a bachelor and running for office was a different thing altogether. It would cause a considerable amount of problems I’m sure Kyle had predicted. And in all truth, Winston made a much better trophy husband than I did. But still, I needed to know if that was why Kyle had done it, if only to ease my own disappointment.

“Cooper, I’m only going to say this to you one time, so as soon as I’m done, drop it for good. I’m marrying Winston because I love him. Everything else is… secondary. Can you understand that?”

I challenged his stare for a second. Sure, I thought. But it’s total bullshit.

I could have made an issue out of it, and truthfully, if I hadn’t seen Chase that very morning, I might have. But something about last night and the acceptance of my fate made the fight for Kyle go from uphill to impossible. Even if he was marrying Winston for the picture in the paper, he was still marrying Winston. I didn’t think I could compete with that.

“Okay,” I said, trying my hardest to be sincere. “Consider it dropped. Forever.”

“Good,” he said, turning back around and putting my file on top of his desk.

He couldn’t have ushered me out of there quicker, saying he had to get across town to see Winston and the two of them had dinner plans. I said goodbye, awkwardly, and drove myself home.

The thought of Kyle sticking it out with Winston simply to get elected to the DA’s office drove me insane. Granted, I had heard only a snippet of the conversation between him and whatever handlers he had coming up from Austin, but still. It seemed like a disingenuous proposition bordering on prostitution.

It was the first time Kyle had screwed his way to the top, as evidenced by the second largest Sigma placard hanging in the Wriggs and Streck War Room. He’d screwed Rusty right into the fraternity, following his brother’s advice. Once there, he ‘forged relationships’ for three years until he was awarded the coveted position of Securities Chair, second in command and in charge of the secret fraternity’s overall image, including recruitment. The news shouldn’t have surprised me, but that didn’t stop it from bothering me.

By the time I got home, I had all but forgotten that I’d agreed to go to dinner with Chase. The excitement over Devon’s white flag that would fly officially in the morning and the news that Kyle had dropped me, not necessarily because he didn’t want me, but because he had to in order to further his career had pushed Chase to the back burner. Not a terrible place to be, but still.

I walked into the apartment and went straight to my bedroom, ready to strip down for a much needed shower. As I peeled my shirt off, I noticed the Barney’s box on the bed, black with silver cursive writing. The box was classic and instantly recognizable. It would have taken a team of cleaning ladies to wipe the smile off my face when I approached it.

I sat down, wondering when he had time to do it between me changing clothes like a lightning rod and us leaving the apartment like we were being chased.

“What the hell?” I whispered to myself as I pealed back the shiny grey ribbon. And then I remembered. He had a key. He’d had a key since the realtor gave me two and I handed him one, intending the place to belong to the both of us.

I lifted the lid and saw a small card perched on top of a navy blue, one-button Givenchy suit. The fabric almost glistened when I lifted it and examined the size. I was certain the luxury fabric would fit me like a glove.

“Oh my god,” I let escape as I took each piece out of the box and laid them out. The jacket, the tailored pants, the checkered shirt, the striped tie and finally the red silken pocket square, held to the bottom of the box by a tie clip with a lone diamond stud at the end.

Overwhelmed, I opened the card, and read it.

To Cooper: A car is coming to whisk you away at seven. I’ll do the rest.

It was almost too much for me to handle. Just minutes before, I had been reveling in the thought of Kyle still being in love with me, regardless of what he was obligated to do in order to further his career. And now here I was excited to change into designer duds and meet another man for a date that Vivian Ward would have cried foul for.

It was hard, but as I sat there thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that it was indeed possible to love two men at the same time.

And it hit me that at some point, I would have to choose. It wouldn’t be a, “What do you want for dinner?” choice, but rather a “Who are you going to give your heart to” choice. With Kyle playing husband, I thought that choice would have been easier, but as I stood up and walked to the shower, I realized that what I knew now only made that choice more complicated.

I had no doubt that if I fought for Kyle, I would win. Winston be damned. District attorney aside, he would pick me if I asked him to. But the question was, could I ask him to?

And then there was no doubt that Chase could make me happy. He was amazing and romantic and we worked together. I could love him again. But could I ever trust him the same way?

And just as I was weighing the two options in a lather, rinse, repeat, I made the decision to table the decision. The only thing I decided for sure was that the next time I made a choice, I would stick to it for life. Of that, I was positive I could do.

Forty-five minutes and one designer suit later, I loaded myself and the multiple thousand dollars worth of clothing I was wearing into the backseat of a black town car.

“Any idea where we’re going?” I asked the driver.

“Mr. Pallendrino gave me strict instructions not to say a word, Mr. Carpenter,” the driver said in a thick French accent. Chase would have a French chauffeur, I thought.

As the car drove, I noticed I was getting closer and closer to the center of Victory Park just north of downtown. From what I knew about the area and how I was dressed, I inferred one thing. When the driver stopped right outside the Reunion Tower, my suspicions were confirmed.

I stepped out of the car and in the distance, I saw Chase standing there, holding a single red rose, dressed in a suit as elegant and expensive as mine.

“You didn’t,” I said as I approached him, unable to stop grinning. A maitre d’ opened the door behind Chase as I approached and walked right into his strong hug.

“I did, Gamin,” he said. “I told you I wouldn’t quit trying.”

It was unreal in that he remembered everything down to the last detail.

“That was the cheesiest fantasy date I have ever seen on this show,” he said, jabbing me in the gut as I rolled over and clicked off The Bachelor. It had been our Monday night ritual during the fall. Whereas, Chase had practice until well into the night for the rest of the week, Monday nights were his cool down nights, and the only evenings we got to spend together. It was no wonder we spent them in bed, eating take out and watching something as corny as The Bachelor.

“I know it’s corny and stupid, but come on. If someone did that for you, tell me you wouldn’t cream your pants?” I said.

I wasn’t one to get overly sentimental when it came to romantic gestures, but what we’d just seen was brilliant. The bachelor, granting his favorite girl a dream date, emptied out one of the most elegant restaurants in Greece for the night. The place was deserted and lit with a million candles. They spent the entire night ooing and awing over one another until he finally gave her a rose and they made their way to a private suite where the cameras finally left them alone.

“Well, gamin, you and I don’t need a fancy restaurant do we?” he asked, climbing on top of me, covering me completely with his rock hard body.

“And we don’t need a stupid rose,” he said, planting a kiss on my lips, almost too light to feel. But it was there, and so was he. I closed my eyes and let him lightly trace his tongue down my neck.

“We don’t need a fancy hotel suite,” he whispered as he passed my nipple and traced down my stomach with his lips.

“We don’t need a fantasy date, do we, gamin?” he asked. My torso writhed as he lightly made his way down to my beltline. He looked up at me, expecting an answer and I smiled.

“We don’t need any of that,” I said with a grin. “But it sure would be nice.”

I winked and a second later, he pounced back on top of me and kissed me hard, forcing an adolescent giggle out of me. It was those moments I remembered, I thought. Not the moments that followed.

“This is too much,” I said as we stepped out of the elevator and into the circular dining room. A waiter handed us each a glass of champagne and ushered us to the center of the room. The place was deserted, every table empty except for the one in the very center. We sat down and watched the room begin to move ever so slowly; in one hour, we would have completed a full rotation, seeing the entire city of Dallas in 360 degrees from above.

“I told you I would do anything to get your attention, gamin,” he said quietly. I took in a deep breath and willed myself to enjoy my date. There was no way that Kyle could permeate this fantasy.

And just when I thought I was about to spend the perfect date with the perfect man, the man who’d won the great shampoo debate, my phone rang.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”

I opened my phone with the intention to turn it off. When I saw that the number calling was Britney’s, I looked at Chase. He nodded the go ahead and I opened it.

“Britney?”

“Hey, Coop, it’s Sebastian,” my friend said on the other line. “Look, I hate to scare you like this, but we have a serious problem here. Devon is on her way over, and I think you should come too.”

“Bass, what happened?” I asked.

“Just get down here, buddy, and I’ll explain when you do,” he said. His tone was even, but stressed. I knew it was serious if he was asking me to drive all the way to the suburbs without telling me why.

I hung up, and looked into the eyes of the perfect man and told him I had to cancel our perfect date.