Electricity - 10. Chapter 10

Aubrey

Aubrey woke up with the world’s biggest hangover to the sound of Prince snoozing away right next to his head. He remembered getting back to the room, turning his phone off, taking Prince for a walk, grabbing Taco Bell on the way back, then passing out on the creaky bed in the late night hours. The only perk of the pathetic motel room was the fact that Tom wasn’t here to tell Prince that he couldn’t sleep in bed with them. The dog’s strong scent felt unusually comforting at this particular moment as Aubrey had never felt this alone before. With his relationship crashing and burning, and his job on the line, he no longer had any type of certainty about anything.

He rubbed his tired eyes until the events of the previous night came crashing down on him like a brick house. The discovery of the pictures. The realization that both Tom and Kat had betrayed him. The pain, hurt, and embarrassment. The drinks at the bar. The…crazy drunken sex with the star quarterback. He groaned in pain and frustration. This was not like him at all. And now he might have ruined a great work relationship. Not many journalists had access to Andrew Thompson. Who knew if Andrew would still want him to break the news about the Foundation now. And then what would he have to show Warren? He hadn’t worked on anything else. He could only hope and pray that Kat wouldn’t go running to the publisher to tell him that he hadn’t written any original work in months.

He turned his phone back on to a barrage of missed calls, texts and voicemails from Tom, Kat, and Andrew. He had one from Earl Warren as well. His heartbeat spiked, this could be it. He could be getting sacked for all he knew. He decided to call him back first.

“Earl, it’s Aubrey.”

“I know who it is. Your name shows up on my screen. Where are you?”

“I gotta take the day off. But I have something good coming your way, don’t worry,” he promised, trying to appease the grumpy Professore.

“You keep saying that yet I keep seeing nothing. If there’s something we should talk about, you know my door’s always open.”

“No, it’s nothing. I’m just busy working on something with Andrew Thompson. You’ll be happy, trust me.”

“Alright. Well, take the day off and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Aubrey sighed with relief after he hung up. He never imagined he’d find himself in this circumstance: in his 30’s, alone—aside from Prince—in a nasty motel room, practically homeless, and now with his job hanging on the line. He had to get this Thompson Foundation exclusive out. Everything depended on it. And if Andrew took that away from him now, he’d be ruined.

The anxiety and depression were creeping up on him, and when he felt like this there was only one place he knew he could go to remind himself of what was really important: Ways. To be of service to others meant he didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity or dissect all the events that happened. He could just focus on the work that needed to be done at the center.

But when he got there Cindy informed him that Kat was already waiting for him. He didn’t want to speak to her, but figured it’d be better to get it over with at Ways than to hash it out in front of all of their coworkers at Pride. She was sitting in the art room, deeply focused on something on her phone.

“Plotting how to destroy another relationship?” he asked, walking up.

“Aubrey, I just want to say…” but he cut her off.

“I don’t want to hear it. Whatever the reason, I don’t care. I’ll be cordial to you at work and treat you with respect, and I hope you’ll do the same. That’s all.” He started walking away but she got up and followed him.

“Aubrey please, I want to talk,” she pleaded.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” he stated simply. What was there to say? The friendship between them was obviously over.

“You don’t have to. I just want a chance to apologize,” she said.

“Save it,” he replied and started walking away again, but she grabbed his arm with some force.

“Tom really loves you. He does. What happened between us was dumb. It was sadness and desperation on my part, and uncertainly on his. You have to understand that your sudden interest in Andrew Thompson has made him quite insecure about the future of your relationship. He wanted to marry you, Aubrey. Meanwhile you were avoiding the subject and running around to dinners with a celebrity. You can see how it all looked in his eyes, can’t you?”

“Really?” Aubrey asked sarcastically, even though she managed to make a part of him feel bad. Was he being a crappy boyfriend all this time? He thought he was just doing what needed to be done for work, but then the second things between him and Tom were over he found himself in Andrew’s bed. Was Kat onto something? He couldn’t let her know of course, couldn’t give her the satisfaction.

“Let me get this straight. You’re blaming me for the two of you sleeping together?”

“I’m not blaming you. I’m just pointing out that if you wanted this relationship to work out, you weren’t exactly showing it to him.”

“Well, I’m glad he had the time to share all that with you, in-between your steamy sex sessions,” he replied.

“You’ve treated him unfairly. But it’s not your fault. I told you, this is exactly what Andrew Thompson does. He comes between people. He takes what he wants, then leaves others in the dust to deal with the fallout. He is a selfish narcissist.”

“Projecting much? Andrew has absolutely nothing to do with this,” Aubrey replied.

“Oh it’s Andrew now? You’re on first name basis with that asshole?”

“That’s really none of you business.”

“If you think that, you might want to remember who’s been writing your articles for the past three months,” she replied, lowering her tone of voice. He took his arm out of her grip.

“Don’t ever threaten me again.”

“I wasn’t,” she replied in her normal tone now.

“Goodbye Kat,” he said, walking away from her. The encounter left him even more frazzled than he already was. As if he needed anymore stress in his damn life.

He walked to the library room where he did a bit of organizing and took out the trash. After he was done he went down to the laundry room and began washing and folding clothes. There always seemed to be a never ending laundry pile at this place. After a short while, Nelson made an appearance.

“Hey Aubrey, mind if I join?”

“Not at all, come on in,” Aubrey replied, even though he would have preferred to be alone. He didn’t know if he had any inspiring words to say to Nelson today, and he certainly didn’t want to depress the poor kid any further.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s good. Why?”

“You seem a bit sad, that’s all.”

“It’s been a long week,” Aubrey lied. He wasn’t about to burden a teenage boy who had enough shit to deal with on his own with his personal woes.

“How are you doing?”

“Hanging in there. My mom’s talking to me again. In secret. She said she would try speaking with my dad soon about coming to see me,” he said, and the hopeful tone of his voice made Aubrey’s heart ache. Aubrey hoped more than anything that the old man wouldn’t disappoint his son and would actually come through. “He’s really going to like that shirt Mr. Thompson signed for him. He’s like the only gay man my dad can stand.” Aubrey had a few things to say about that, but he wasn’t going to say them in front of Nelson. So he just said, “Hopefully he can expend to a few more one day,” and Nelson smiled at him.

They folded laundry in silence, until a surprise visitor appeared.

Andrew

To say Andrew was completely confused after his encounter with Aubrey would have been an understatement. He didn’t understand the journalist and his erratic behavior. He just couldn’t seem to figure him out. Just when he thought the two of them were finally on solid good terms—bam!—this happens.

He knew that sleeping with him right after he found out about Tom’s side piece was a bad idea, but he didn’t realize it would be this damaging. He tried calling the writer to no avail, then spent the entire night tossing and turning, only managing to catch a few hours of sleep in the morning. Needless to say he was a useless man on the field that day, and even the usual NFL reporters who were used to his grouchiness were surprised at his surly demeanor towards them. His publicist also got some heat after badgering him to do another interview and having Andrew tell her off.

After work, he received even more bad news. The story he sent out to some close friends about him renewing his contract, in order to find Aubrey’s source, had leaked. He had only sent it to the people closest to him, and one of them was talking. He couldn’t believe it. Suddenly he felt a huge wave of paranoia wash over him. Who could he trust now?

On his way home, he called the only person he could think of that might give him some useful advice on the situation.

“Hey,” Joel answered, dishes clanking in the background.

“You have a minute?”

“I have a few. My dishwasher broke, so I have about thirty dishes to wash by hand. What’s up?”

“I don’t know what to do about this leak. Someone is selling stories about me to the press.”

“Still? Shit. Well, have you asked Aubrey?”

“Yeah, and I’ll ask him again except…” he trailed off. Suddenly the sound of the running water on the other end stopped.

“No…you didn’t.”

“It just happened, I swear! I wasn’t even trying.”

“If you screw up this Foundation announcement I swear I am going to kill you myself. We’ve all put so much work into it, but he can fuck up the whole entire thing, Andrew, you do realize that? This is not the time for you guys to be getting emotionally involved.”

“We’re not. He walked out on me right after.” Joel sighed.

“That’s even better. That’s just what we need right now, the journalist who can make or break this being mad at you.”

“What do I do?”

“Go fix it. At this point you can’t screw it up anymore than you already have,” Joel replied and hung up. Andrew tried calling again, still no answer. He didn’t want to show up at his work or his home like a crazy stalker, so he decided to go to Ways and see if the writer would show up. Luckily when he got there he saw Aubrey’s car parked a few spots away from him.

He walked right to where he knew he’d find him: the laundry room.

“Hey guys,” he said, seeing Nelson folding clothes right alongside Aubrey. He could see Aubrey shooting daggers at him right off the bat. Thankfully Nelson was there, so he had to be cordial.

“Mr. Thompson, nice to see you.” Aubrey could take a few tips from Nelson on courtesy, Andrew thought.

“Good to see you. How are you doing Nels?”

“Good, thanks for asking.”

“I was telling Aubrey the other day, wouldn’t it be cool if you guys could come to one of my games?” Andrew could see Nelson’s eyes light up.

“Are you serious? That would be amazing! Can we, Aubrey?”

“Sure, if you want,” Aubrey replied, smiling at Nelson.

“Hell yes! This is the best news ever,” Nelson shouted. “I gotta go tell everyone,” he said running out the door, then quickly returning to say, “Thank you so much Mr. Thompson.”

“You got it,” Andrew replied and high-fived him.

“That’s called bribery,” Aubrey said when Nelson was out of earshot. Andrew grabbed a shirt and started folding as well. He had to go about this diplomatically, otherwise Aubrey would walk out on him once again.

“Whatever works,” he replied and Aubrey snickered.

“Why are you here?” the grumpy writer asked.

“I volunteer here,” Andrew replied, folding the shirt.

“Really, since when?”

“Since I bought these washing machines,” Andrew replied, gesturing around.

“I thought that was a humble anonymous donor, not an egotistical athlete.” Andrew shook his head in disbelief.

“Alright, I get it. You feel vulnerable because we slept together, so you’re lashing out at me to keep me at a distance and protect yourself from being hurt. It’s smart, it makes sense given what you’ve just been through. But can you please stop taking it out on me? Can we just get back to the good place we were in before I let things go too far?” Aubrey let out a frustrated breath.

“I just want to finish up the Foundation piece and then both of us can just go back to living our lives.”

“What does that mean?”

“You can do what you’ve always done, go back to partying and sleeping with a horde of men, and I’ll go back to writing and keep my nose out of sports news.” Andrew was ready to tear out his own hair. He’d never met anyone more frustrating in his whole entire life.

“Or,” he said, “we don’t go back to that, but we start somewhere new instead. With both of us in the picture.” Aubrey looked at him like he was from Mars.

“I don’t even know what you’re implying there but…no, just no.” Andrew sighed. He decided to move onto another subject.

“Listen, I really need to know who your source is.”

“We’ve already talked about this. It’s not happening.”

“They just leaked another story about me.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Can you at least tell me if it’s a friend, family member, or someone I work with?” Andrew asked, frustrated.

“I really wish I could help, but I can’t,” Aubrey replied after a moment of thought. He sounded sincere.

“God you’re annoying,” Andrew said before he could stop himself, and Aubrey made a surprised face then laughed suddenly. “Why did you leave last night?”

“Because it was a mistake.”

“It didn’t feel like a mistake,” Andrew replied, getting closer to the writer. He could hear the buzzing of the energy between them.

“What are you doing?” Aubrey asked, perfectly still now. Andrew could tell that he felt it too.

“I’m standing next to you.”

“How many times do I have to sleep with you until you get bored and leave me alone?”

“We won’t know until we get there,” Andrew replied.

“Wrong answer,” Aubrey replied. He folded the last garment, then walked out of the room without as much as a goodbye.

Aubrey

Aubrey returned to his motel room feeling worn out and tired. He threw himself on the bed, face down. But right after he heard a knock on the door. He looked over at Prince who looked just as surprised as him, then opened it carefully, hoping he wasn’t about to get robbed. Not that he even had anything anyone could steal now, besides maybe his laptop.

Shockingly, it was a familiar face he saw on the other side.

“What are you doing here?”

“I followed you from Ways.”

“That’s…creepy,” Aubrey replied.

“The answer is never.”

“What?” Aubrey asked, confused.

“The answer is never. I’d never get bored of you. I’d never leave you alone,” Andrew replied right before Aubrey felt his lips smash on his own. He had no choice but to return the kiss—the current between them drowning any other rational thought.