The Best Four Years of Adam Becker - 22. Summer

If you’re just picking up this story now, here’s a quick recap of freshman year:

“Oh my God, you’re wearing a suit,” I said, as I walked over to Kevin Malley, outside of Penn Station. “You look like you’re going to do my taxes.”

He looked cripplingly handsome: a navy blue suit with a red power tie, a crisp white shirt--an outfit that seemed so exceptionally unlike Kevin Malley, but he wore it so effortlessly that I couldn't remember why. His hair had grown out a little bit, long enough to be slicked to the side and precision-parted; I wanted to run my fingers through it, to mess him up.

And he was wearing that little half-smirk on his face. I’d forgotten how much I missed that.

Kevin rustled his fingers through his hair, but it didn’t have the desired effect; instead of looking playfully tousled, it had become crunchy daggers, Kate Gosselin in place of Don Draper.

“Better?”

“Not really,” I told him. “I was kind of digging you the way you were.”

Kevin smoothed his hair back down. “Did you come up the wrong escalator? I just saw Godot get into a cab and leave.”

“It takes a bit to get out, with all the people,” I told him, as he picked up my duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder. “I can take that.”

“I got it,” he said. He smiled at me. “I’m really glad you’re here. Finally.”

The finally was, perhaps, unnecessary, but perhaps not unwarranted. It was my first time seeing Kevin since the beginning of May, and it was already the beginning of August.

There was something uncomfortable about telling people I was going to see Kevin, as if that would invite them into a particular room I wasn’t keen on letting them enter. I got a lucky break when everyone left town at the beginning of August, and I snagged a weekend off work. True to form, no one pried about who I was seeing--“friends” was satisfactory, and accurate, since I was planning to grab dinner with Jordan too on Sunday evening before my train.

Had Philip or Justine been around--especially Justine, who had met all of them, who did not need any more evidence about what may or may not have been occurring between me and Kevin Malley--more questions might have been asked, but they weren’t.

Instead, my parents had decamped for Nevada for the first two weeks of congressional recess, to get their pictures taken at factories and strip malls, and raise money from casino executives; and my siblings were both out of my hair too, flitting away wide swathes of the summer in exotic locales, while I worked at the mall. Justine was sunning at Cap d’Antibes at the moment, under the guise of expanding her cultural horizons, for the Harrington School’s French Club senior trip, and Philip had stolen Lindsay away on an impromptu sojourn in South America after their internships ended last week, with money no one knew he had stashed away during the school year. My parents were initially livid at the seeming colossal waste of their weekly allowance, but they eventually gave him their seal of approval in the affectionate form of Starwood points, because who could outrun the charm of Philip Becker for longer than a second or two.

They were in Buenos Aires at the moment. Philip had sent us photos: Tierra Santa, and the pool at the Sheraton Libertador, and the two of them dressed like gauchos near El Caminito, a twenty-second video of them dancing drunk in a sensually-lit milonga. Philip being Philip, he had seemingly mastered the art of the tango in one lesson; he was dragging Lindsay across the floor like Weekend at Bernie’s.

We had gone to Buenos Aires when I was six; thirteen years later, I could only remember a restaurant called Pizzeria Kentucky, and the feral cats at the botanical garden. Money well spent. It would’ve been December 1994, just before Christmas, three weeks after my dad won his first election to the House. But the trip had been booked before we knew if it was going to be a celebration or consolation; had he lost, it might have been a different trip; we might have been a different family.

But anyway. I was glad I was with Kevin, even if New York wasn’t South America or the South of France.

“I’m happy I’m here,” I told him. We started moving; I watched his suit pants conform to his ass and thighs like molten metal. “You just look so hot. I just want to rip that suit right off of you.”

Kevin smirked at that. “I can’t wait for you to rip it off either. But I only have two suits and I still need them for the next two weeks, so you can’t rip. In September, you can rip.”

We were walking up 8th Avenue: I had been to New York before, but after being in Hamlet for the past three months, it was a cacophony--horns honking, people shouting. A sort of barely-held-together control that threatened to spiral into chaos at any second.

“Fine, no ripping,” I promised, struggling to keep up; Kevin was walking fast. “I never pictured you as someone who has any suits. Let alone two.”

“Well, I had this one already,” he replied. “For Veronica’s formal freshman year.” He put his free hand on one of his lapels. “Vintage pret-a-porter from the Jefferson Highway Salvation Army, do you like it?”

“It looks surprisingly nice,” I told him. “All things considered.”

He smiled again. “I told everyone at Smith Barney they’re both from Saks. No one noticed.”

“Investment bankers,” I said. “I love it.”

He let out one bitter laugh. “They’re all at like Wharton or some shit. Parents own yachts. They asked me for ‘the rundown,’ and I could tell I was going to be this object of scorn and pity if I told them my mom’s a cashier at Sav-on. So I told them I’m from L.A., and figured I’d let their imagination run wild--movie producer’s son, or something. But they pushed, so I just told them that my great-grandfather was Ern Malley, the iconic Australian poet.”

The name did not sound familiar, though I had a mutually-abusive relationship with poetry anyway. “Is that a real person?”

“It’s a real fake person,” he said, with a broad, self-satisfied smile. “He was an Australian literary hoax from the 1940s--some poets wanted to humiliate this publisher, so they tricked him into publishing terrible fake poems from someone named Ern Malley in his literary magazine.”

Kevin never disappointed me with his knowledge of obscure trivia.

“Well, that’s subtle,” I replied. “Did they figure it out yet?”

He was beaming over this kind of glorious long con pulled on scions of New York’s financial elite, and he shook his head. “I was just kidding at first, really,” he said, “but no one called me on it.”

“It’s not like you said your grandmother was Madonna,” I replied. “It’s a little harder to fact check an Australian literary hoax 1940s.”

“Oh, no, they weren’t just being polite,” he said. “They were like, ‘Oh, I love his stuff! I read him in school.’ Acting like Ern Malley was the Australian Mark Twain or something. We were drinking at this one guy’s apartment a couple weeks ago. This gorgeous three-bedroom on the Upper West Side that was his late-grandmother’s, so he’s of course living in luxury for less than what I pay.”

He paused, to rein in his working-class resentment, just a little bit, before continuing: “And so this girl we work with was being flirty, and she kept asking me questions--like had I been to Australia, why did I grow up in L.A. instead of Sydney. So I made up the most ridiculous shit possible, just to see if they believed it, and they did. I told them that my grandmother--you know, Ern’s daughter-in-law--was Rosemary Qantas, heir to the airline fortune. But we had to leave Australia when they nationalized the airline after the Great Aborigine Rebellion of 1965. But that’s how I got my middle name: Kevin Qantas Malley. So I’d always remember where I came from.”

I started giggling; it was contagious; Kevin couldn’t help too.

“They did not believe that,” I accused, finally. “It’s so ridiculous.”

“It’s all about the salesmanship,” he replied. “You can make someone believe anything, as long as you lie with confidence. And booze helps.”

“I’m impressed,” I said. “I never knew you were such a good con artist.”

“Aren’t we all,” he replied. “I had to throw away all the business cards with Kevin M. Malley on them, though. Ordered new ones off VistaPrint. It was worth the six dollars.”

“You’ll have to give me one of those,” I said. “Kevin Q. Malley, Investment Banker. He sounds perfect.”

“No, I just went first and last,” he replied. “And no job title.”

“To hedge your bets against future truths? In case you have to become Kevin Lufthansa Malley, Thoracic Surgeon, in a hurry?”

“Exactly,” he replied. “Safer that way.”

 

We had been the only white people in the car for three stops by the time we got off the subway. The neighborhood didn’t seem bad, per se; like every other part of New York, it was packed with people, meandering through their lives, unconcerned with either one of us. I always pictured bad neighborhoods in New York like the bad neighborhoods in D.C.--empty and desolate, time capsules to a better time that had long ago been forgotten by everyone.

“You look scared,” Kevin said, with a bit too much satisfaction. Kevin always walked quickly, but I felt like he was walking even a hair faster than normal.

“No,” I told him, as we moved down the litter-strewn sidewalk. “It’s safe, right?”

“Safer than where I’m from,” he replied. I must’ve made a subconscious face, because he looked over to me, and added, “Oh, sorry, did you think I learned to sling drugs at cotillion?”

“Ha,” I said. “You’d be surprised.”

Kevin’s face crept into a smile. “Of course you went to cotillion. No, I did it the old-fashioned way: I tricked my way into the rich high school, and then sold to everyone getting allowance from Mommy and Daddy.”

“What do you mean, you tricked your way into a rich high school?”

“Well, I wasn’t really supposed to be there,” he said. “Obviously.” His face reddened, a mixture of beaming and blushing, proud of what he’d done, but embarrassed to be telling me any of it. “But the high school by us is awful--like, you’ll wind up shot, pregnant, or a dropout. So, being the resourceful person I am, I figured out that if the district didn’t offer a class at your school that you wanted, but did at another school, you could petition for a transfer. So, eight semesters of Latin later, and I’m a private school kid interning at Smith Barney and sticking my dick inside the progeny of the nation’s political elite.” He stopped walking, and before I could respond, told me: “This is us.”

Kevin’s apartment was on Malcolm X Boulevard in the East 140s, a beaten swath of Harlem that I hoped my parents wouldn’t notice when they looked at the address my mom made me leave for them. It was a large brick building that took up almost the entire side of the street, with rusty, crisscrossed fire escapes all down the front. There were four storefronts: two empty with graffitied metal gates in front, a bodega, and a sad-looking takeout place called JFK Fried Chicken.

“I bet that place is to die for,” I told him. “Mindblowing.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Nice atmosphere, too. Great place to sit for a while. Deposit yourself with a book.”

“Groan,” I told him. “Mine was better than that.”

“Yours was awful,” he said. He unlocked the door, and I followed him up the stairs.

Kevin’s apartment was a fourth floor walk-up, tiny and dark—a living room with a worn Ikea loveseat and a twenty-inch tube TV, flickering out Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. I could see a black guy and a white girl, both in crumpled business attire, sitting out on the fire escape smoking a joint.

Kevin led me through the small room, stuck his head out through the open window.

“Hey guys,” Kevin greeted, “this is Adam.”

It was maybe the second time I’d ever heard him call me Adam, the other being that time he met Justine. It was still vaguely unsettling to hear it.

“So nice to meet you,” beamed the girl. She handed the blunt off to Kevin, then extended her hand to shake with me. “I’m Lizzie. The roommate. And this is Jesse—we intern together. New York Public Library.”

Kevin exhaled a long ribbon of smoke, then handed it off to me. “They’re really cool people.”

“It pays,” Lizzie said. “Please, you’re the one working a street corner for extra money.”

“God, don’t tell him that,” Kevin told them, his face turning red as Lizzie’s exploded into a smile. To me, he said, “Lizzie makes it sound worse than it actually is--I’ve been busking a little bit. With my trumpet. Just for fun, not for money. I mean, I make money at it, but it’s not why I do it.”

I had never actually heard Kevin Malley play his trumpet--aside from when I could hear the Tulane marching band practicing in the quad. But I certainly could not picture him busking on a New York City street corner for spare change. It seemed even more ridiculous considering he was in a power suit at the moment, his hair slicked to the side.

“Well,” I said, “it’s an interesting professional choice to go along with investment banker.”

“It’s not that,” he told me. Our walls are paper thin, and the freaking neighbors start pounding on the wall if I blow a note, so I started playing outside. And you know, you just put your case out in front of you and people throw money at you. It’s the easier thing in the world when you’re going to be playing anyway. Plus, I would’ve gone insane if I was stuck at Smith Barney all week with a tie around my neck, and I couldn’t play music when I got home.” He looked back to Lizzie. “Anyway. What are you guys up to tonight?”

“We’re going to grab dinner in a bit, and then we’re meeting up with Alison, Mark, and Carver at Whiskeytown in the East Village,” Lizzie said. “I know you have reservations, but you can join.”

“Becker doesn’t have a fake,” Kevin said, “so we might just chill up here.”

“I do have a fake, actually,” I told him. “Philip went to the DMV and ordered an ID card for me in June.”

Kevin handed me the blunt. “See, I wish I had an older brother who looked exactly like me.”

“You have a younger brother,” I said. “Pay it forward.”

“Unfortunately for Nick, he looks like our dad and I look like our mom,” Kevin said. He stuck the blunt back in his mouth. “Plus, he doesn’t deserve to wear the good name Kevin Qantas Malley.”

“Like it’d help him anyway,” Lizzie said. “I can’t believe you’re only twenty--you’re a baby.”

“Lizzie’s twenty-two,” Kevin told me, “so she thinks she’s Mother Earth.” He looked back to Lizzie. “Besides, have you ever seen my fake get turned down anywhere? I got it from this gangbanger I know in Rialto, who makes them for all the illegals. Had to drink heavily during Katrina semester when I was stuck at home with all the townies.”

“Kevin’s fake is magical,” Lizzie agreed. “We went to Eastern Bloc, and I thought it’d get taken away for sure. But you guys should definitely come to Whiskeytown then. Carver kept asking me if he was going to get to meet your boyfriend. I think he’s still jealous you’re off the market.”

What.

My mind stuck on that word. Boyfriend.

Why that word was used, I had no idea. And it was jarring to hear, for just about every reason possible: that a) Kevin had came out to his roommates, told them about me, and c) had discussed things to the extent that they were bandying it about the fire escape with such shameless casualness.

And the fact that the word had come from somewhere—was Kevin using that word? With strangers, but not ever with me?

“Oh, you’re going to make Adam hate Carver before he even meets him,” Kevin replied, airily. “And ruin the experience of him getting turned off by Carver’s personality like the rest of us did.” He looked at me, still smiling, still painfully aware of the linguistic holocaust Lizzie had just casually tossed into the world. “Carver’s at Parsons, and he’s the most pretentious person I’ve ever met in my life. You’ll hate him. It’ll be so much fun.”

Lizzie giggled. “He’s not that bad. He gets the good weed.”

“This is my life now,” Kevin told me, with a smile. “Depending on someone else for weed. Good as it may be.”

I had no idea how I made it through the next thirty minutes, the four of us smoking pot on the fire escape as Lizzie, Jesse, and Kevin launched into long-winded stories about people I didn’t know—interrupted by, somehow, even more painful interrogation by Lizzie and Jesse, asking as many innocuous questions as they could think of: “So you go to Tulane? What are you doing for the summer?”

I was fuming, still, at Kevin—that he would do this, be so casual about everything. I didn’t show it: I gave the pithy, witty answers anyone would expect at that moment; I silently registered how Kevin was smiling at me, happy things were going well, when they clearly were not going well at all.

When we finished the weed, Lizzie and Jesse went to get food—and as soon as the door latched, I turned on him: “I cannot believe you.”

I couldn’t tell if his alarm was genuine, or if he was just that good at hiding the fight he knew was going to come sooner or later, from the moment the word “boyfriend” left Lizzie’s lips.

But, regardless, he was playing clueless. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re out now?” I asked him. “To them? And you’re calling me Adam?”

He wrinkled his nose at me, didn’t seem to know which question he should answer first. “We’re together,” he said, finally.

I wasn’t sure which question that answered, either.

He clarified: “So I shouldn’t call you by your last name. Especially in front of people that don’t know you as anything. But you want me to call you Becker? I’ll call you Becker. I’ll call you anything you want, as long as you let me bend you over the side of the bed and fuck you senseless.”

His face crept into a smile. Mine did not. How effortlessly he thought he was going to chew his way out of this.

“And about the whole ‘boyfriend’ thing,” I said. “You didn’t think--you didn’t think you notified me before you started shouting it from the rooftops? What the fuck?”

I was angry--no, angry was too gentle a word; I was volcanic. Kevin, for his part, just looked vaguely annoyed that I was bringing this up. Which only fueled the fire.

“Look,” he said, as I sizzled. “Okay. I didn't plan on being out at all. Or calling you anything. The first night we all went out, Carver was hitting on me pretty aggressively, and I told him I wasn’t interested. And he was going on and on about how many straight guys he’s converted, so I just told him I had a boyfriend. So he’d back off. And, of course, he doesn’t, and he’s a fucking shit--so he tells everyone. But it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“How on earth could it not matter?”

“Because it’s just for the summer, Becker.” He put extra, petty emphasis on my name. “None of these people go to school with us, and these walls are made of saran wrap anyway, so Lizzie’s definitely going to hear us banging, no matter how much pillow you think you can stuff in your mouth. Neither of us are leaving this weekend with any secrets. Believe me.”

It wasn’t about some girl hearing us have sex through the wall, and I wasn’t sure if he was covering, or if he genuinely believed that it could be distilled to something so minor.

“I don’t like you outing me,” I told him. “That’s a terrible thing to do.”

He threw his head back, a disbelieving grin appearing on his face. “I didn’t out you. Outing you to people that neither of us will ever see again? What’s the difference?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s not about that. You would flip out if I told all of my friends back at home about you.”

“I would not,” he said.

“That’s just because you know I wouldn’t do it.”

“They don’t care,” he said. “They don’t. If anything, it made them realize I’m not just some vapid moron interning at Smith Barney and cashing an allowance check every week. They’re people that actually know me. Maybe they’re a little more open-minded than your Republican circles.”

He kept trying to escape the fight—kept trying to make this about something else, make it about how I was being unreasonable, but I wasn’t being unreasonable too.

No, if he was going to pivot, I’d pivot back. “We’ve never used the boyfriend word, and you’re using it to everyone else.”

“That was Lizzie’s word. I never called you that.” The smile wavered from Kevin’s face. “I mean, to Carver, yes, but that was because he kept trying to put his hand down my pants. And I figured you’d be more angry about that than me calling you my boyfriend. I guess I was wrong.” He shook his head. “We’ve been together for five months. How else would you describe us, exactly, Becker, if not boyfriends?”

Five months was a little unfair, when I hadn’t seen him for the last two, when so much of whatever our relationship was had been so casual and fluid. Even if we texted relentlessly, even if we had something more than just messing around.

“I don’t know,” I huffed. “We’re, like, exclusive fuck buddies with a romantic component.”

“That’s boyfriends,” he replied, exasperated. “We agreed to not fuck anyone else over the summer. We agreed that we’re both into each other. We talk every day. You’ve sexted me from the breakroom at J.Crew. So fuck off. Why can’t you just enjoy the weekend?”

“Because,” I said, and I didn’t have a rebuttal. The smirk curling onto his face meant he knew I didn’t have one. “I’m not ready for that.”

“Look,” he said, shaking his head. “You remember what you said at the beach? Spring break? That when it got complicated, we’d figure it out. Guess what: now it’s complicated.”

“It’s not intrinsically complicated,” I told him. “You’re creating complications. That’s not the same thing.”

“You don’t even know these people!” he said, punctuating each word. “I care about you,” he said. “You know I do. And I just--you and I are in this city together. It’s not New Orleans, these people are not Iota Chi. What does it matter? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just be around people for a change? And not have to pretend to be something we’re not?”

As if Kevin could even comprehend how much pretending this weekend was going to take, now that I knew he had let everyone he knew into our world.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” I said. “The least you can do is fucking apologize.”

“Look,” he said. “What do you want? They know. You have forty-eight hours until train and nowhere to stay that isn’t here. So you can be a pill about it, or I can fuck your brains out, and then we can go have dinner. Because I’m horny and hungry and tired of fighting with you.” His voice softened a bit, his arm came down to mine, he rubbed it gingerly. “Come on, Becker.”

I did not move. I would not move. Kevin was the one to make the move: he leaned in, he kissed me.

I resisted kissing back, as a point of protest. But that didn’t deter him—he went back in for another kiss, his wet tongue attempting to pry my mouth open, until I finally raised my hands to touch his elbows, opened my mouth, and gave in to him.

“There we go,” he whispered. It had been almost three months since I had Kevin in my arms like this. I’d forgotten how perfect he felt. “Tell me you want me to fuck your brains out.”

“I want you to fuck my brains out,” I whispered back. “And then we can eat.”

Kevin was not going to let this detente go to waste. He lifted me up from under my knees, and I wrapped my legs around him. He carried me through the open door into his bedroom—then he threw me back on the bed.

He put one knee between my legs, kissed me again, then kissed me down the jawline. “It’s going to be a great weekend,” he whispered. He kissed me just below the ear. “I’m not going to leave your ass until Sunday.”

“You better not,” I told him.

He leaned in, his mouth inches from mine—his hand on my stomach, pushing up my polo. “I’ve missed you,” he said, and then he leaned in for a kiss. And there was something magical about it, like a fairy tale kiss, where the stress of the day just seemed to melt away.

He threw his leg over mine, so he was straddling me, and leaned in again for another kiss, his hand working its way up to my chest.

I was already rock hard. Three months without Kevin. There had been late night phone calls, speaking obscenities in sensual, hushed tones as we imagined the stroking wasn’t coming from our own hand, but there was no replacement for the physical sensation of Kevin Malley.

He worked his way down to my neck, kissing my collarbone, then beelining to my ear. I exhaled, involuntarily, and he whispered, “Yeah, you like that?”

His hand went up to my armpit.

“Let’s get this shirt off,” he said, pulling it from the bottom. He yanked it over my head, threw it across the room; it hit the wall and slid down onto the floor.

His hands were exploratory; he had waited a long time for this. We had both waited a long time for this. Kevin kissed my shoulder.

“You’re hot as fuck,” he whispered, his hands on my chest. “Fuck, I missed you.”

“I know,” I replied, and his hands slid down to the waistband of my shorts. He undid the button, coaxed down the zipper, and then put his hand on my dick. I was, of course, already rock hard—three months.

“I’ve been waiting for this cock,” he said. “So big.” He slid the tips of his fingers under the elastic, grazing the tips of my pubes, then pulled it down. I sprung up like a jack-in-the-box.

Kevin didn’t say anything. He leaned in so the tip of my dick was touching his lips. He flicked the head with his tongue, then he engulfed the whole thing in my mouth.

I involuntarily moaned again, as he moved up and down, and I felt for a second that I was going to cum immediately. I willed the thought away: I thought of the least attractive things I could think about. Newt Gingrich. I wasn’t sure why that’s where my mind went.

But Kevin kept drawing me back to the moment, his dick sucking skills insistent on being the star. I had my hand grabbing onto his hair, as he bobbed up and down, and I was so close; I felt my back arching, my ass rising up from the bed, which only served to spear my hard dick deeper into Kevin’s mouth.

And then he stopped, and I let out a sigh of relief, that I had made it, that he hadn’t pulled me to the edge.

“You like that?”

I didn’t have words, which he seemed to realize, because then he smiled. He started unbuttoning his shirt. “I don’t want you to cum yet,” he said. “Not before I fuck you.”

He reached the bottom button on his shirt, but he didn’t take it off; it hung open. He unbuttoned his suit pants, pulled down the fly, and out popped his monster over the top, at about half mast.

“Suck it,” he whispered, as he mounted me, his knees on either side of my arms. I was lying back, staring up at him, his dick even larger than it normally was from the angle.

He brought it to my lips. I licked the tip, flicked it with my tongue like he’d done to me, but Kevin was not in the mood for leisure. He put his hands on the mattress above my head, almost crouching, and he slowly thrusted inwards, his dick knocking against the back of my throat.

He thrusted his hips, fucking my mouth; I had my hands on his ass, still covered by his suit pants, my way of having some sort of say in the rhythm, but of course Kevin wouldn’t be told how to fuck me.

Kevin was moaning uncontrollably right now as he continued to thrust into my mouth, one of his hands was rubbing his chest. And then, he abruptly stopped just had he had done with me, and slowly pulled out.

“I’m too close,” he said. His dick seemed so much larger after going this long without seeing it—an elephant trunk, glossy in the dim light from my saliva. “And I want to fuck you.”

I had never wanted anything as much as I wanted Kevin Malley in my ass, that second, and so I told him, “Get a condom.”

Kevin’s face transformed into a look of boyish excitement, a kid on his sixth birthday. He stood back up on his knees, peeled off his shirt, and tossed it in the direction of mine. Back to the nightstand, where he grabbed a magnum and big bottle of lube.

He pulled down his suit pants and underwear, in one swift motion, and then told me, “Get on all fours.”

My dick lurched, harder than it had ever been before. But I did what I was told; I turned over, got into position, my ass facing him.

“Wait, wait,” he said, suddenly. I turned my head, just in time to see a towel tossed at me.

“What?”

“Put this under you,” he told me, gravely. “I don’t want you to cum on my sheets.”

I had to giggle at that. “Oh, you’re such a romantic, Kevin Malley.”

He didn’t say anything, which I assumed meant this would not be a discussion but a fight if I dissented. Which I wasn’t going to do anyway. I would’ve razzed him a little more but I was both horny and hungry, and I wanted to get both urges taken care of as quickly as possible. Which precluded a fight over hygiene with my self-alleged boyfriend.

I spread the towel flat on the bed, then kneeled back on all fours, in the middle of it. “Happy?”

Kevin didn’t say anything; I felt one hand graze from my ass cheek to my hip bone, then the other hand.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he whispered, and then I felt the cold sliminess of the lube being squirted just above my awaiting asshole.

He massaged the lube slowly into my hole, and I couldn’t help but grunt. Just his finger was putting me so close to the edge. I wanted him inside me so badly, but I knew I would just about explode.

“Do you think you can take it?” he asked. “Or do you want a finger. It’s been a while.”

“Just fuck me, Malley,” I told him, and he didn’t have to be asked twice. He grabbed both of my hip bones again; I felt the tip of his dick rub against my asshole, and then he slowly forced it in.

It hurt like all hell, his big cock, as bad as the first time he had fucked me. I was not going to tell him to stop. My head went down to the bed, into the pillow; I muffled my mouth, as I waited for the entire giant to immigrate.

And then it did, passing that point of pain and just leaving me full.

He grabbed my hair, and pulled my head back level, and he started off slow, rocking his hips, forcing his dick deep inside of me. The slow speed didn’t matter much; I was so, so close, and I was getting closer each time he mashed his hard dick against my prostate.

Then, he started picking up the speed, and I knew I would erupt the minute I touched my dick, so I didn’t. I just took it, backing into his dick, biting my lip to keep from screaming, in pleasure, in frustration that I wasn’t able to cum.

Kevin was working against three months of pent up sexuality too; he was breathing heavily; I knew he was well on his way. He reached around, grabbed my dick, stroked it for maybe ten seconds, and then it was a Super Soaker.

I collapsed onto the bed; Kevin, his dick still my ass, collapsed on top of me.

My cum had flown over the towel, sprayed the sheet and the pillowcases like machine gun fire.

“Did you?” I asked him.

Kevin was breathing heavily. “Exactly when you did. I felt you tighten up, and…”

He pulled his dick out of my ass, and then I turned over the face him. He leaned down, and kissed me.

“That was,” he said. “Fuck.”

He slowly shimmied the condom down his dick; he had cum a bucket. He tied the end of it in a knot, and then put it on the nightstand.

“Came a lot,” he said. “Not as much as you, holy shit.”

It was a crime scene.

“Fuck, that was so hot,” he added. He glanced over me. “I’ll wash the sheets when we go out.”

“It’ll dry,” I told him.

He tossed me a scandalized look, as if I told him I was fine with sleeping in a bed made of manure. I did not pursue this argument either, and he seemed to accept that.

“It’s no big deal,” he told me; wasn’t sure if that was to preempt an apology from me (which wasn’t coming) or to convince himself that cum on a sheet was not a biblical scourge. I legitimately couldn’t tell, and didn’t ask. “We should get a move on anyway,” he said, leaning in to kiss me. “I got us reservations at Otto,” he said. “In the Village. I thought you’d want pizza in New York.”

“Pizza and sex,” I said. “Great night.”

“Followed by booze,” he said. “And more sex. Of course.”

“Of course. And I get to kick that Carver’s ass for stepping in on my man.”

“You could take him,” he replied. He added a smile. “Which is not a compliment to you as much as an insult to him.”

“Thanks.”

“I try,” he said. “Shower with me?”

It was an invitation I wasn’t expecting--not in a house with roommates. “Together?”

He looked surprised that I had even asked: “We’re alone,” he told me.

“As long as you serenade me,” I replied. “What are you thinking? ‘Borderline’’ again?”

“Deal,” he replied, with a smirk.

The bathroom was down the hall; we were obviously alone, but we both strategically shielded our syrupy nethers without touching the towel to our bodies—modesty out of habit, the promise that someone could, in fact, walk in at any moment, even if no one was scheduled to.

Kevin creaked the rusty knob on the shower into position, put his hand under the stream of water and waited for it to warm up. He didn’t tell me when it did; he just climbed in, and I climbed in after.

We were facing each other. He poured soap into his hands, slapped them together, then touched them to my chest. “Get you good and clean,” he said, as he rubbed the soap on me. “You’re so hot, Becker. Look at you.”

“Please,” I said. “You’re the fucking hot one.”

“I’m not going to reject a compliment,” he replied. He was lathering up my torso, his hands working with a sensual hunger. He sang the beginning of the “Borderline” chorus, for good measure.

“I was really just joking,” I told him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Turn around. Let me get your back.”

I did as I was told. I felt his hands wander down my torso to my ass cheeks, and I let out an involuntary moan as his soapy fingers toyed with my freshly-fucked asshole, still dribbling out lube.

“Your ass,” he whispered, his lips right next to my ear, “is so fucking hot. So fucking tight.” He was rubbing his fingers up and down my crack, and I looked down: my dick was rapidly hardening, springing back into action, impossibly ready for a second round so soon after the first.

Three months.

“Yeah, get rock hard for me,” he whispered, and his free hand reached around to my dick. His hand tightened around my stiffening cock, and he began stroking it, slowly, gently.

The pleasure, even from Kevin’s light touch, was overwhelming.

“Sensitive,” I managed to get out, and he stopped stroking but didn’t let go of me.

He returned his focus to his other hand, which continued to play with my hole. Then I felt his index finger beg for entry. When I didn’t resist, he slowly slipped his finger inside of me.

“Fuck,” I whispered, involuntarily, falling forward onto my hands against the shower wall. Water was cascading down my back by this point; I closed my eyes, as Kevin finger-fucked my hole, as he began stroking my dick again.

I moaned again, and Kevin whispered, “Do you want another finger?”

And I could barely get the words out; all I could do was nod my head, and I felt his middle finger slip in alongside the other one.

Kevin was picking up speed, getting into a rhythm with his fingers in my ass and his strokes on m dick. He was full-on fucking me with his fingers, pounding on my prostate. I felt his lips fall onto the side of my wet neck, in the torrent of rushing shower water, kiss me once. I reached behind myself with one of my hands and grabbed the back of his head, holding it close to me as he continued the second invasion of my asshole.

And then I lost it; I felt myself going to the edge. I said something that only came out as gibberish, which was fine because I didn’t know what I wanted to say--that he should slow down, that he should take me to another orgasm? It didn’t matter; I let out a guttural moan, and then I spray-painted the shower tiles with thin wisps of cum.

“You’re right,” Kevin whispered to me, as both of his hands retreated over to my hip bones. “I am the hot one.”

 

Carver Alexander was not unattractive, but he wasn’t anything like I’d expected. He was an inch or two shorter than me, twiggy, wearing a teal cardigan despite the nauseating humidity, a black skinny tie, Barry Goldwater glasses, a pompadour. In my mind, I had pictured him grungier, more of a hippie. He was not my type, but I could see how he would be someone else’s.

“Well, I’m an artist,” Carver was telling me, drunkenly, spilling his drink just a little bit each time he punctuated a sentence.

Kevin had gone to wrestle us up from drinks; every second with Carver felt like he’d been gone a century.

“Fascinating,” I told him.

“More experimental stuff. Fusing technology with artistic design. I’m studying at Parsons.” He paused, and seemingly for my benefit, added, “School of Design.”

“He’s a graphic design major,” added Lizzie, tilting her head into our conversation, eagerly awaiting a chance to pop Carver’s pretenses. “He’s interning at BBDO.”

Carver sideswiped Lizzie with his eyes, then looked back at me. “Lizzie drinks,” he replied, his voice slackening. “Well, we all drink. You’re in D.C.”

It was abrupt, and it wasn’t a question. “Home for the summer,” I clarified. “Maryland suburbs.”

“How is it?”

“Oh, you know,” I told him.

“No,” he told me, matter-of-fact. “I don’t.” He didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t continue to engage in the conversation anyway; he was staring off across the bar at Kevin. “A man like that doesn’t belong in investment banking.”

I did not appreciate Carver eye-fucking Kevin from across the bar. In front of me, no less. I wasn’t going to claim ownership of Kevin, but if he was going to throw around the word boyfriend--if that’s what we, in fact, were--then there was a certain level of possessiveness I was allowed to have.

I narrowed my eyes at Carver. “I think it’s a great fit,” I said. “And I think he likes it.”

“He wants you to think he likes it,” Carver replied. “Because you’re the kind of guy who shows up to Whiskeytown in a Lacoste polo. I get it, I get it. I’m just saying, he should be changing the world. Not kissing the asses of lobotomites in pinstripe suits.”

He said everything so matter-of-factly, so laced with judgment.

“I didn’t make him do anything,” I told him. “He applied to Smith Barney. He chose to go here. His decision. And if he doesn’t like it, he can try something new.”

“I just believe in honesty,” he said. “Especially when I get drunk. It’s not everyone’s deal, I get it. I can see why Kevin likes you, though.”

I wasn’t sure if that was following a train of thought, or a drunken non sequitur. I didn’t want to ask.

“Kevin has good taste,” I said, instead.

“No, I mean,” he said. “He told me all about you. He likes you. He really wanted you to come up here sooner.” He stressed every syllable for the next sentence: “You look about what I pictured.”

Obviously, Carver wasn’t being flattering, but I didn’t quite get the subtleties he meant to communicate. Kevin and I weren’t nearly as drunk as everyone else was.

“Thanks,” I said, sunnily, and Carver let out an irritated sigh, as if my lack of comprehension was at all my fault. Since the knowledge that he was interning at an advertising agency seemed to bother him, I pivoted back to that topic. “So do you like working in advertising?”

“Have you seen that show, Mad Men?” Carver said. “On AMC.” When I shook my head, he added, huffily, “Well, it’s nothing like that. It’s much more artistic than that. I mean, you’re commercializing your art, obviously, but there’s a subtle critique in the commercialism. Like Warhol, turning Campbell’s Soup into art? It’s not meant to be taken at face value--it’s not meant to be a mindless promotion of capitalism.”

I wondered, of course, what subtle critique in commercialism Carver was engaging in when he, say, designed a Pampers ad for BBDO, but instead I just twisted my mouth into a disdainful smile.

“Sure,” I said. “That sounds not at all like bullshit.”

The look on his face told me that my condescension was both registered and then rejected, but considering this guy wanted to sleep with my boyfriend, he could fuck the fuck off.

Carver did not have time to fashion a response; Kevin was coming back, tilted smile on his face, two drinks in one hand, four shots in the other.

“Thanks, boo,” Carver said, reaching for the shots; Kevin rolled his eyes, as he pulled them closer to his chest.

“These are for us to catch up with,” Kevin told him, as he handed two of the shots to me. “I’d hate to know how insufferable you all are when you’re drunk and I’m sober.”

Lizzie, still in the other conversation, angled towards to cast eyebrows in Kevin’s direction.

“Except Lizzie,” Kevin said, and she blew him a kiss. “And Jesse. And Alison and Mark. Really, just Carver’s insufferable.”

Alison, Mark, and Jesse all gave a polite laugh at that; Carver smirked: “It’s not easy being green,” he replied. “I’m trying to figure out your boyfriend, Kevin.”

Kevin clinked my shot glass; we knocked back the first round.

“You’re not the only one,” Kevin told him, once we came out for air. “He’s inscrutable.”

“Yeah, and by design,” Carver said. “Look at the way he smiled when you said that.”

I pushed my face down into a frown.

“He likes you back,” Carver said to Kevin, while still staring at me. “Because he knows I want to ride your cock, so he’s being very standoffish to me. It’s a sign of affection. It’s a good thing.”

There were a few things that made me especially uncomfortable in this conversation, but I especially didn’t like that I was having my behavior studied by Carver as if I was on the other side of exhibit glass, like he was talking about the actions of a gorilla species to another zoologist. If that made me inscrutable, that made me inscrutable.

Also, what the fuck, that this guy was so blase about wanting to have sex with Kevin.

“You want to ride everyone’s cock, Carver,” Kevin replied. “What’d you say on Saturday? You love the idea of being a homewrecker?”

“See, this is the trouble,” Carver said, waving his finger at Kevin, as Kevin and I clinked our second round of shot glasses and knocked them back. “I didn’t say those words. I said I’m doing nothing morally wrong by fucking a guy who’s in a relationship. Because he’s the homewrecker, not me. He’s the one with the moral obligation to not cheat.”

“You said you ‘like being bad,’” Kevin told him. “Direct quote.”

Carver smiled at that. “Guilty. So? Everyone loves the forbidden fruit.”

“But you’re not being bad,” I told him, “because you’re not doing anything morally wrong, I thought.”

Carver let out another irritated sigh at me. “It’s society that thinks you’re being bad,” he replied. “Not being morally wrong. Fuck what society thinks--of course. But you can still be bad even if you’re doing something society deems morally wrong.”

“That’s shaky from a philosophical perspective,” Kevin said. He scanned the bar. “Didn’t you have sex with red flannel, ordering a drink? A few weeks ago? Go bother him.”

“Barely,” Carver replied. “He couldn’t get it up because I was there, and I couldn’t get it up because his girlfriend was there. I told you, he’s straight--he’s freaking drinking a Miller Lite, look at him.” He grabbed Lizzie’s shoulder. “Elizabeth Marie, come talk to us.”

Lizzie allowed Carver to spin her into the conversation. “I’m sorry for Carver,” she told me, with a grin. “He’s an acquired taste when he’s drunk.”

“Or sober,” Kevin added.

“Don’t apologize for me,” Carver said, dismissively swatting the air in front of her face. “I’m unashamed.”

“Maybe you should try some shame,” Kevin told him. “I think it would do wonders for your social life.”

Carver was studying the guy at the bar. “See, that’s red flannel’s girlfriend,” he said. “The whore in the Abercrombie jean skirt. She wanted to watch him fuck me, but he couldn’t even get it up over a guy.” He looked at me. “People are really depraved, you know that?”

“Said the aspiring homewrecker,” I told him.

Carver gave me another dismissive sigh. “Yeah, well I had to bleach my eyes after I saw her using this pink sparkly vibrator while she watched the two of us fail at having sex. I’m vanilla compared to some people. Have you met Kevin’s Bear Stearns friends?”

It was such an abrupt transition that it took me a second to realize they weren’t part of the story. And another second, when Kevin corrected him, with an eyeroll, to realize he had misremembered Smith Barney as Bear Stearns. I wasn’t sure if that was intentional, but so much of what Carver said struck me as very intentional.

Lizzie quietly turned back to the other conversation with a look of foreboding terror streaked across her face.

“No,” I told him. “But he told me about them.”

“I’m sure he did,” Carver said. “I ran into them coming out of McSorley’s about three weeks ago, and Kevin literally looked like he was about to shit himself when he saw me. Could not get them all out of there fast enough. Didn’t want them to know Kevin Qantas Malley’s actual friends in the city are a bunch of art fags.”

“Come on, that wasn’t it,” Kevin said, without much conviction in his voice, because it sounded exactly how I would’ve reacted if I ran into Carver while I was with, say, Baker and Erik and Tripp. “It was like two months ago, and I didn’t even really know you back then.”

“You knew me two months ago,” Carver assured him. To me, “Kevin’s not out at work. And I get it, yuppies are neanderthals, but I never get how people can just put on a different face whenever they want, to be someone completely different. And it’s so tragic that they have to.”

“You’re just bitter because I can hide it and you can’t hide it,” Kevin said, a smirk on his face but his eyes sharp and malicious. “Because I’m ruggedly masculine and you’re a pretty, pretty princess.”

“I wouldn’t hide it,” Carver replied. More emphatically, he repeated, “I wouldn’t hide it. But, regardless, I’m not blaming you for hiding it--I’m saying it’s tragic that you feel like you have to hide. That people would like you less if you don’t. You see the difference?”

“Everyone hides behind something,” I told him, stirring my drink.

“Like a Lacoste polo,” he said. “I get it. I’m just saying.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but I tried to play it off: “I don’t bust out the cardigans when it’s ninety degrees.”

“Republican Senator’s son,” he continued. “Tulane frat boy. So far back in the closet you’re in Narnia. You read like stage directions. I’m not saying it’s your fault--I get it. I’m saying it’s sad.”

There was so many individual things I would have punched Carver in the face for, but I wasn’t going to start a bar fight, and I certainly wasn’t going to start one this sober, for a silly reason like defending my honor. I didn't consider myself tough, but I imagined I could do some real damage to a twink in a teal cardigan. Stage directions, my ass.

I did not, and Kevin intervened. “Don’t start shit, Carver,” he said, warningly. “No one forced me into Smith Barney.”

Carver grumbled, like an annoyed cat. “You don’t like it, though,” Carver said.

“I don’t,” Kevin said, judiciously. “One less possibility I have to rule out before I make my own fortune.”

“But that’s the thing,” Carver said, “if you don’t even care about investment banking, why do you care that they think you’re some straight millionaire playboy?”

“Why do you want everyone to think you’re some sculptor when you work for BBDO?” Kevin shot back. “Don’t act like you’re the poster child for living honestly.”

“I’m not a sculptor,” Carver said, a little too defensively. “I never said I was a sculptor.”

Lizzie stuck her head back into the conversation. “Ladies,” she interrupted, “I hate to break up this scintillating conversation, but we’re going to the next bar.”

 

Kevin was preternaturally quiet for the entire cab ride. His eyes were bleary, he was drunk, it was late. We were both drunk.

It was just the two of us, after four in the morning. We went to a second bar, then a third bar, and then the group splintered. Lizzie had gone to Jesse’s for sex, under the guise of giving us the apartment for the night, Carver had gone home with some guy he met at the second bar--not the guy in the red flannel.

He didn’t say anything else; he snuggled up against the side of the cab, and he never looked more adorable. “Are you tired?”

He grunted affirmatively.

“You don’t want to, you know?” I said. “When we get back?”

“I’ll perk up,” he replied, without opening his eyes.

We got home, and the street was quiet--quieter than I had ever seen New York City, almost an ominous sort of quiet. I hadn’t spent very much time in Harlem--any, in fact, before this weekend--and I had visions of thugs jumping out, robbing the two gays as they stumbled home drunk out of a cab.

“New Orleans is a lot more dangerous than New York,” Kevin told me, almost prophetically, as he unlocked the door.

We trudged up the stairs, which seemed substantially more difficult than they had the first time, even with luggage. I couldn’t imagine a walk-up.

“I like your friends,” I told him, finally, once we nested into his bed, in only our underwear.

“Yeah,” he said, resting his head against the pillow. “They’re pretty good. Even Carver, for as much shit as I give him.”

“Even though he wants to bang you.”

Kevin gave me a weak smile. “You know I wouldn’t, right?”

“He’s not your type?”

“No, he is,” Kevin said. “I’m saying you know I wouldn’t, right?”

I didn’t say anything. I just burrowed into him, and he put his strong arms around me, held me close. I could feel his labored, drunken breathing on my neck, feel the warmth of his body against me.

“I’m glad you like it here,” I told him, “job aside.”

“Oh, don’t listen to Carver,” he said. “I don’t hate investment banking. It’s not for me, but I don’t hate it. I bitched about it once and, well, you’ve met Carver. He wants me to hate it, so I let him think I hate it. It’s not a big deal.”

“So,” I said, turning over so I could see his face--the lights were still on. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s easy for you--you can be an English major or a history major or whatever, and your parents will still find you a job and find you an apartment and help you put together some Ikea furniture. I actually have to do something.”

“Thanks,” I said, bristling a bit, though I could go far because his arm was sitll on my shoulder. It’s very flattering when your boyfriend distills you down into an archetype.”

“I’m not saying that,” he said. “I’m just saying you have something to fall back on if everything goes to shit. I actually have to do something, or I’m back to selling pot in Riverside to blonde cheerleaders.”

“Okay,” I said, “so what do you want to do? With your oh-so-practical philosophy and psych majors?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Law school, probably. I don’t know. I don’t have to decide anything now, do I? At four o’clock in the morning?”

I leaned in, to give him a reparative kiss. “I didn’t mean to start a fight. I was making conversation.”

He didn’t say anything on that topic. “I like being here.”

“It’s because you get to be someone different,” I told him. “It’s like role playing for a little while--the person you’d get to be, if things were different, if you were different. And I get it. I’d like it to.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not it. I’m who I am here, and I’m who I am in New Orleans. Maybe different around the edges. I mean, I wouldn’t busk in New Orleans because a) I’d get robbed every thirty seconds if I had a trumpet case full of money sitting in front of me, and b) I’d run into someone with a mouth and everyone would be talking about how poor I was. It’s about learning not to give a fuck.” He grinned. “I’m still working on that one. And maybe I’ll never get there, and I’ll just sell out like you’re supposed to.”

“Even Carver works for BBDO,” I replied.

“Oh, Carver’s a poseur,” he told me. “He showed me some of his actual art and it isn’t even very good. But I mean, I’m not Louis Armstrong either, so it really doesn’t matter. At some point, you just have to give up on imagining you’re going to be the one to make it famous doing something you love, and just become the most boring version of yourself, like everyone else.”

“That’s cynical.”

He didn’t say anything. “You’ve really never heard me play before?”

“Trumpet?” I said. “No. The Boot’s not exactly a jazz club.”

He smirked, propping himself up on his elbow. “We need to open your horizons. In freaking New Orleans, of all places. I’m taking you to Snug Harbor when we get home.”

“It’s a date,” I told him. “I do want to hear you play.”

“What, now?” he asked, and I hadn’t met now--I meant at some unscheduled moment in the distant future, when the mood was right and the level of intoxication not quite so high, but he looked excited about it. I didn’t respond; he leaned over the side of the bed, fished his black trumpet case over from next to the nightstand. He hauled it up to his bed, and placed it between us, like an offering. I sat up.

“It was my dad’s trumpet,” he told me, unlatching the clasps on the trumpet case. “He was going to teach me the basics the summer before I started sixth grade band, but then he got sick. He wanted to be a musician. Well, he told me that once. I don’t know if he really did. He was an Irish kid from South Side Chicago, and enlisting was pretty much the only way out.”

He held the instrument up so the soft brass reflected back the dim light off the street, then turned it back and forth in his fingers, like a young God beguiled by his creation

“I think he would’ve liked you,” he told me. “Assuming he could get over the whole gay thing.”

“I’ll just have to get your mom to like me,” I told him.

“My dad wouldn’t even like her nowadays,” he said. “I don’t even know if he did then--they’d fight constantly. She’d be drunk, screaming at him when poured her whiskey down the drain. But he wasn’t going to leave me and Nick.” He raised the trumpet upright. “What do you want to hear?”

“Something romantic,” I told him. “Not ‘Borderline.’”

He gave me a smile at that. “You didn’t like ‘Valerie’?”

Then he put the trumpet to his lips, and “Can’t Take That Away From Me” purred out

There was almost immediately pounding on the wall.

Kevin put down the trumpet and, with a smile, put on a gravely Louis Armstrong baritone: “No, no, they can’t take that away from me.”

More pounding.

“Fucking go to bed,” he shouted indiscriminately at the wall. He turned back to me and giggled. “See why I have to do it on the street corner?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I played piano when I was little, but I don’t think I’d miss it if I didn’t have a piano.”

“You don’t have a piano.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I replied, completely serious; Kevin giggled a bit at this, and I couldn’t tell who had made the drunken misunderstanding.

“Well, I couldn’t,” he said. “I love music. It gives life soul.”

Has Erik or Michaela said something like “it gives life soul,” Jordan and I would be referencing it for years to come—it would’ve been the peak of their over-embroidered self-delusion, but there was a callow earnestness in Kevin Malley that made it somehow sincere.

“Good,” I told him, because I was too drunk to come up with anything but tacit agreement, at this point of night. “I’m glad."

 

I texted Jordan to tell her I would meet her the restaurant, Sunday evening, rather than the train station: Baciami in the Theater District. The Times Square Shuttle wasn’t running, so I ran the entire way from 52nd and Lexington. I thought for sure someone was going to tackle me, thinking I was a mugger stealing some lady’s purse. But of course, I didn’t have a purse, and the fact was that New Yorkers seemed relatively unfazed by some lunatic sprinting down 45th Street, shoving my way through the angry hordes of summer tourists.

Baciami was an old Italian restaurant in a basement underneath a chic steakhouse; it was dimly lit, with red and white checkered tablecloths, and pictures of famous Catholics on the wall, the kind of place mocked by Buca di Beppo. The primary draw was the food--“Sensational,” gushed Jordan via AOL Instant Messenger the week previous--and the fact that they would undoubtedly serve us wine.

Jordan was already seated, with the requisite bottle of wine chilling in a heavy silver bucket. He was heavily engrossed in the new iPhone that she had told me about twenty times her dad had bought for her, the day it came out in June. (He waited in line; Jordan did not.)

“There you are,” she greeted, looking up, a uncharacteristically broad smile on her face. “I was just beginning to give up hope.”

Absence really did make the heart grow fonder; I had been bracing for a meteoric impact from Jordan, with my being thirty minutes late. Wine undoubtedly helped too.

Jordan looked good. She had lost weight--not a ton, but a noticeable amount; her face was thinner, cheekbones more pronounced.

“Sorry,” I said, fumbling to pull out my chair. “Kevin lives so far uptown. It took me a lot longer than I expected.”

“Harlem is way closer than Westchester,” she reminded, “and yet I made it.” She looked at her watch. “What time’s your train again?”

“Not until six,” I said, “We’ve got time.”

She looked at her watch, then back at me, giving me a disbelieving eyebrow raise, as if our lunch would somehow be rushed because we only had three hours. “How was your weekend?”

“Good,” I said. “Just chilled with Kevin and company. You?”

“Uneventful,” Jordan said. “Bubbe’s birthday last night. Surprise party that she helped plan. You know the drill.”

“Is this Bubbe with the dogs, or Bubbe with the cats?” I asked.

“Bubbe Fleischer,” Jordan replied, as if that answered the question. She clarified: “The one with the dog, singular. Bubbe Himmelfarb and her cats live in Boca.”

“God, you’re such a cliche,” I told her, and she rolled her eyes but didn’t rebut. “Eightieth birthday, right?”

“Seventy-nine,” Jordan said, with a smile, “but I think she’s lying.”

Jordan was someone I didn’t realize I would miss as much as I did, until she was no longer immediately accessible. Of course, I talked to her--I talked to everyone, really--almost every day online, but it wasn’t a substitute for sitting across from her, whenever something popped into my mind that I wanted to tell her.

Our schedules worked out well. She told me that, because of the afforementioned Saturday night birthday party, she was available only Friday night and Sunday afternoon. So I told her I wasn’t coming up to the city until Saturday morning--Sunday it had to be. I wanted to see her, obviously, but I did not want to risk crosscontaminating Jordan and Kevin, want to risk Jordan tagging along on our weekend, forcing us to adopt the old roles. Considering how much Kevin had told Lizzie and Carver and Jesse, it was practically a prophetic reaction on my part.

“Well,” I told her, masking my insincerity as best I could. “Next time, you’ll definitely have to come out with all of us. Kevin’s friends are a riot--they’re all so quirky and artsy.”

“Quirky and artsy isn’t how I’d describe any of us,” Jordan replied. “I feel like we’re all relentless normal. But that’s fun; you get to pretend you’re some starving artist in the Village on Saturday, and then on Sunday, I’ll bring you back down to earth by reminding you that you’re a frat boy at a $52,000-per-year private university, whose father is one of the most powerful men on the planet.”

“Raincloud,” I pouted.

“Someone has to keep you honest,” she replied. “Did I tell you I visited Michaela over Fourth of July?” When I nodded, Jordan twisted on a sly smile. “I met both the Birdrocks and the Bakers.”

I grinned. “Everything we expected?”

“Oh my God,” Jordan said, “and so much more. The Birdrocks have this huge house, first of all. I mean, I grew up in a big house, but you could’ve parked mine in their garage. And Michaela has this ridiculous circular bed, which I didn’t even know was a thing. But somehow, none of that’s surprising to me?” She was right--it wasn’t. At all. “I don’t know. Mrs. Birdrock is kind of insane, in the most ridiculous way. Naomi. She kept telling me to call her Naomi. She’s super glamorous all the time—like even when I woke up, she was downstairs in this beautiful dress and all these diamonds, and all of that. She’s on the board of the Dallas Opera, and you could tell she’s one of those women who feels like she never got her due, because she was literally going around the house singing all day long.”

“She any good?”

Jordan gave a dismissive shrug. “I’ve heard better.”

“Jeez,” I said. “How’s the brother?”

“Oh my God,” Jordan said again, taking the bottle of wine from the middle of the table. “Trevor. So his hair’s not blue anymore, but his girlfriend’s hair is pink. She goes by Sasha, but that’s not actually her real name—her real name is, like, Mary or Ann or something lame like that. And Naomi literally just despises her. She’s amazingly backhanded to her face, and when she leaves the room, she’s just like bitching about minutiae about what white trash she is. It’s so wonderful.” She paused. “But Trevor’s really not as weird as Michaela sold him out to be. Definitely the black sheep, but he’s the only one that actually has some semblance of the absolute lunacy going on around him.”

That didn’t entirely surprise me either.

“The Bakers,” she continued, “are the exact opposite. Especially compared to the Birdrocks--they’re just regular people, caught up in the web of crazy. Mrs. Baker is really good friends with Naomi, but just rolls her eyes at literally everything she says, which is hilarious. Naomi would say something completely ridiculous, and Mrs. Baker would just dish out some incredible side-eye.”

I could easily imagine Chris Baker’s mother, though I only knew her from Facebook photos. She was, like Jordan said, exceedingly normal—dressed in a suburban mom uniform, complete with a blonde bob and a Range Rover. It was hard to reconcile the fact that she was friends with, apparently, an absurd aging beauty queen like Naomi Birdrock, even if it was not quite as hard to realize they had produced kids as stupefyingly different as Michaela and Chris.

“It was an experience,” she said. “I recommend.” She turned to the waiter, who had appeared at our table—and, without missing a beat, said, “I’m going to have the pasta special.”

I hadn’t even looked at the menu.

“Get it,” she told me, handing her menu to the waiter. “It’s three pastas, all unlimited. They dish it out table-side. You can’t not get it when you come to Baciami.”

“Okay,” I said, handing over my menu, just because I didn’t want to bother arguing with another one of my friends on this Tripp. “Pasta special for me too.”

Jordan reached across the table for the wine. “If we finish this, we can order another bottle,” she said. “My mom’s picking me up from the train station, but I don’t care if she sees me drunk. She’d find it hysterical.”

I hadn’t thought about a parental pickup; my dad would be picking me up from Union Station. I’d have three hours to sober up. My dad would care less than my mom, and he was never a strong disciplinarian anyway--he had a pathological need to be liked; why he was such an adept politician. But I couldn’t imagine him letting my stumbling off the Acela go unremarked on; he certainly wouldn’t laugh it off like Phil and Rita Fleischer.

I hadn’t yet met the Fleischers. I felt like I’d like them. Rita was pear-shaped and under five feet with a short blonde bob; loud enough that, when she talked to Jordan on the phone, I could hear every word of her side of the conversation. Phil was wiry, a proctologist with thin glasses and a slim build and a bald head that had once been home to a puff of bushy brown hair like Jordan’s. They did happy hour at the same bar in Rye every Friday, for decades, and their New Year’s Eve party was legendary.

“Well,” I told her. “You know my feelings on sobriety.”

“Vividly,” Jordan replied. “I wish you were here longer--we could’ve seen a show.”

I made a face.

“Or a museum, jeez,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Broadway tickets are hard to get, anyway. For the good shows.My parents wanted to take me to see Jersey Boys at some point, but they’re sold out until December, literally, so I decided Jersey Boys tickets would be for the seventh night of Hanukkah, and the iPhone would be for my birthday.”

“Your birthday’s in November,” I said.

“Early birthday gift,” she clarified. She had her new iPhone sitting next to her plate, in its glossy black glory like it was part of the setting, and she looked down at it fondly. “It’s life-changing. I’m serious. We were at dinner and Mom said something stupid about how Cheers was the longest running show of all time.”

“It’s Gunsmoke,” I told her.

Jordan seemingly did not appreciate the removal of focus, and just continued as if I hadn’t said anything. “Well, I could prove her wrong like that. You can just look it up. It’s amazing.”

“I tried to talk my parents into getting me a BlackBerry,” I said. “No luck. ‘What does someone in college need to check their email for, in the middle of the day?’ So I’m jealous.”

“Jordan Fleischer, object of envy,” she replied, twisting her wine between her fingers. “So how’s Kevin?”

It was an innocuous enough question, but it took every ounce of me not to read nuance into it. Because there couldn’t have been nuance--wouldn’t have been nuance--aside from the fact that she was legitimately curious about the people I had spent the weekend with.

“Like I said,” I told her, as calmly as I could. “Enjoying New York. Harlem. Artsy friends.”

“Quirky and artsy, that’s right,” she said, nodding. “Good getting out of D.C. for the weekend?”

“Kevin’s not in D.C. He’s here. Why would he be here?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s like having a conversation with a freaking pillowcase.”

“Oh.” I paused. “Yeah, it’s nice getting away. D.C. is so dull in the summer. Everyone’s gone. Or horrible.”

“It’s just being home,” she replied. “It gets old--since we don’t all get to hang around the quirky and the artsy. But it’s nice being with my family, anyway.”

“My family’s all gone,” I told her. “But I’ll have plenty when we go back to school. Justine.”

Jordan gave me a sympathetic smile. “Oh, whatever. In the story of your life, she’s not going to be a major character. She’ll have her own shit going own. She’s not going to be hanging onto you every step of the way. You’ll run into her at the Boot once a month while she’s dancing with a bunch of Sharp girls, or wherever she’s living, and you’ll just ignore her until the next time you see her.”

“Monroe,” I told her. “She’s going to be living in Monroe. Not Sharp.”

Jordan rolled her eyes at me again. “Monroe girls, then. You get the point I’m making. Jesus.”

“Jesus?”

“I’m allowed to take that one’s name in vain,” she replied, lazily. “It’ll be fine.”

“I don’t think she’ll bug me,” I said, and I could not entirely understand why no one could understand my trepidation over Justine enrolling at Tulane. Maybe I was the enigma Carver had warned Kevin I was. “That’s not it.”

Jordan did not, otherwise, appear concerned. “It is what it is,” she told me. “Too late to change anything now, isn’t it?”

 

My father’s pied-a-terre, just east of Union Station, was a temple to utility. A 400-square foot studio with nothing on the walls, old furniture and our old big screen tube TV, an unmade bed with my parents late-90s floral bedsheets, from before the master bedroom remodel.

I hadn’t been there since 2001 or 2002: it was my father’s possession, the place he went when he was destroyed from work to migrate back to the rest of us Hamlet.

On the coffee table, an Ikea Lack with two prominent water rings, was a framed family photo of us at my father’s first victory celebration in 1994, and an akimbo copy of Dreams from My Father.

“Do you think he’s going to win?” I had asked my dad, sitting down on the sofa.

My dad had been leaning into the refrigerator in the kitchenette; he made a face, then pulled out a bottled water. “You don’t want to fuck with the Clintons,” he replied, sagely. “They don’t forget. Do you want a bottled water?”

We were at the pied-a-terre on a very particular mission: assembling an Ikea dining table. The old kitchen table, the honey oak one from our kitchen at our old home in Summerlin, had collapsed.

“I really let the mail pile up,” my dad had joked, as we threw the cratered carcass into the dumpster behind the building. “It’s an old table.”

“What were they sending you? Bodies?” I asked.

“Hey, franking privileges are franking privileges,” he replied, with a smile.

The new table didn’t match the old chairs, but my dad was not the kind of person to care very much. The pied-a-terre was not for entertaining, anyway--it was for crashing, in times of high-intensity legislating. He took an almost perverse pride in the shabbiness of it all, a respite from the manicured perfection that my mother had culled for the Hamlet house, from his custom-cut suits of the Senate floor--it was a primordial place, how men were supposed to live outside of socially-imposed captivity.

It was not a place where, as Jordan had put it, “one of the most powerful men on the planet” would seem to be residing. But my dad didn’t ever seem all that powerful, at least to me. I knew he was, of course, in his professional capacity, but power and notoriety never seemed to make him anything other than my dad.

The pied-a-terre was a holdover from my dad’s first term in Congress--before we were firmly committed to being a political family, when we still lived in Summerlin, it was my father’s weekday apartment. Even after we moved, after we traded the Summerlin home for the house in Hamlet and the ranch in Pahrump, he kept it. When he signed the lease, in 1995, it was on the wrong side of Capitol Hill--on the Senate side, even though he was a Congressman--but maybe he was being optimistic even then, looking out for the next, better version of himself: he was only in the House for three terms before Nevada voters gave him the big promotion to the side he always saw himself on.

In the dozen years we’d held the lease, I had only been to the pied-a-terre twice, so it was like stepping back into an alternate version of my life. I recognized the pastel pinks and blues of the sofa, imported from the early 1990s, from our Summerlin house; remembered being tucked in on the couch in front of the TV when I had a stomach virus, when my mom was still a stay-at-home one. I couldn’t remember what I watched--Nickelodeon cartoons, undoubtedly; Rugrats, Doug--but I remembered staring at the radiance of the Summerlin sun streaming through the sliding glass doors to the backyard. The sun even looked hotter in Nevada, somehow, even from an air-conditioned room. I remembered my mom sitting down next to me, stroking my sweaty hair. She had called me “Petey”--she did not, generally, call me “Petey” even when I was younger; it was always “Peter” or, in a rush, “Pete,” but disease changed people.

The assembly of an Ikea dining table was not a two person job. It was barely a one-person job; we screwed on each of the four legs in about two-and-a-half minutes, before standing back to admire our masculinity. I was there more for social purposes, as I gathered after our father-son screwing, when my dad uncorked a bottle of my uncle’s Prairie Chapel pinotage, poured the contents into two mugs with the U.S. Senate seal on them, and hurried me out onto the balcony.

“I know it’s been a crazy summer, Peter,” he said, once we had sat down on the two plastic deck chairs.

It had not been an especially crazy summer, which is why I was free on short notice to sit on a deck chair drinking pinotage on a Monday afternoon. It had been an empty summer, with everyone gone. Empty compared to my life in New Orleans, at the very least. There were no dull moments in politics--with my parents gone for most of it--but there were plenty of dull ones when you worked at the White Flint J.Crew, while you waited for your life to resume once again, in August.

At this point, we were planning on heading back down to New Orleans in three days. By car: we were taking down the old BMW, and leaving it there for Justine and I to share. A car! It had been an unexpected windfall, the first good news I’d received over Justine’s decision to come to Tulane.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I kept busy.”

I stared back out at Union Station down below, its white marble facade stamped on the dying dusky sky. D.C. was a spectacle, but it always left me feeling cold.

My father took a long sip of pinotage. “You know,” he said, swilling the tumbler, “I like this one. I like it better than the 2002.”

I didn’t know what year we were drinking, and I didn’t have the palate to know the difference between the difference between the 2002 or any of the myriad years we could’ve been drinking. I was just happy to be drinking; I hadn’t had any booze since I got drunk with Jordan three weeks ago. The lightheadedness that immediately swept me was like the return of an old friend.

“I like it,” I said. “We should go out there sometimes. California. Maybe in the winter, when it’s cold here.”

My dad said nothing; he was also staring out at Union Station, watching the yellow cabs snake around Columbus Circle in regiment.

“Do you remember when we moved here?” he asked, finally. “January. Of course you remember, you remember everything.”

I was four when we moved to D.C., but I also had a near-photographic memory. I remembered pieces, like surviving fragments from a diary. Dad had gone ahead, but the rest of us changed planes in Sky Harbor: I remembered the brown carpet looked like swirling planes in a vortex, and I remembered that solely because the first leg from McCarran was on an America West Express propellor plane, and Mom had muttered to no one that those were the kinds of “puddle-jumpers that just fell out of the sky.” I imagined it would’ve looked something like the carpet at Sky Harbor.

We flew into Dulles, which I thought was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. I remembered we stayed at a hotel with three gold elevators in the lobby, but I couldn’t remember which hotel--somewhere downtown; I remembered a long car ride to Capitol Hill. I did not remember my father getting sworn in, but I remembered the crowd, the flash of press cameras like explosions, and I remembered wondering if we were famous now.

The memories were very specific, but they only barely told a story. I didn’t remember anything beyond that--I couldn’t remember moving into our waiting house in Hamlet, except for the smell of new paint; I couldn’t remember much of my first day of kindergarten at the Harrington School, except that we were sitting on brown plastic chairs and I had been expecting blue ones, like the ones Philip’s public school had back in Summerlin. I vaguely remembered my parents talking about a botched interview at Sidwell Friends in my dad’s study with the door ajar. I didn’t know if it was me or Philip they were talking about--we had both had interviews with Sidwell, St. Albans, Harrington, and Georgetown Day--but, in the end, we both wound up at Harrington. Being one of 435 in Congress, evidently, did not buy many special favors with the better echelon of D.C. private schools, the way more prestigious jobs could.

“I don’t remember too much,” I told him. “Here and there. Leaving Nevada didn’t make the impact on me it made on you, I guess.”

My dad’s lips curled into a narrow smile. “Nevada’s fine,” he said. “We just kind of wound up there.”

A slogan that probably was not going to make it onto his next direct mail piece. My family had no real ties to Nevada; my dad had been sold to Nevada, traded like chattal by managers of San Diego Padres. We never left, until we had a reason to, and now we were suburban Marylanders claiming a frontier spirit.

“And that’s why you came here?”

“What, are you the Washington Post?” he said, smirking.

“No,” I said. “I just never knew why you ran. Aside from the obvious. You just kind of ran one day.”

“It was a little more complex than that,” he said, leaning back, his mug propped up against his lower lip. “You were little--how could we explain anything? A little kid doesn’t understand why people do the things they do.” He paused, looked wistfully off the balcony. “I couldn’t play baseball anymore, but we didn’t really need the money, so I wanted my next job to give me a sense of purpose--give me something I loved as much as baseball. And so the Lanskys, from down the street, introduced me to Chic Hecht, who put me in touch with people from the state party, and things just took off from there. We all knew Hillarycare had poisoned the Democrats, and the party was looking for someone strong to go up against Bilbray. And I guess I was it. Congress is like the minors--it’s about having a little bit of skill, and a whole lot of timing and luck. And you figure out what’s next from there.”

Another story not likely to make it into the next piece of direct mail.

He seemed to sense that I found his backstory lacking, because he added, with a smile, “It’s nice to make a difference in the world. And you do, in the Senate. It’s nice knowing your words matter, your words impact people. It’s fulfilling to be fulfilled.” He paused, thoughtfully, the wheels turning behind his forehead. “I’d love for one of the three of you to do something like that, if you’re interested. We could be like the Bushes. Without all the nation-building.”

One of the three of us meant Philip, of course. Not that he didn’t necessarily harbor similar aspirations for me, but I was the consolation prize, the nice-to-have. But of course I wouldn’t be a politician; I couldn’t be a politician. A “confirmed bachelor” Republican, rumors swirling around me like quicksand. I could do what my dad’s chief of staff or campaign manager did. I couldn’t do what he did.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “I don’t know what I want to do.”

“You don’t have to know,” he replied. “That’s the point of being young. When I was your age, I wanted to be Cy Young--have an award named after me. Life doesn’t make room for plans. Everything that happens is the sum of bad decisions, and good decisions, and dumb luck. And the best thing you can do is your best. Your mom and I will help you figure the rest out--that’s what we’re here for.”

I smiled weakly. “Get me an apartment, help me put together some Ikea furniture, that sort of thing?”

“Something like that,” he replied. “Spoiler alert: there’s no trust fund with your name on it. But you could’ve interned this summer. I told you. We could’ve found a Western Senator who owes me a favor.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You suggested Craig Thomas, if I recall.”

“Everyone thought he’d make it through the summer, at least,” my dad replied. “May he rest in peace. But there were others. Anyone you could’ve wanted.”

I stared down at Union Station. One of the cab drivers had gotten into a screaming match with his fleeing passenger; the cops had started to mosey over, showing little concern as the passenger’s rollerboard disappeared behind the golden doors to the station. “There’s no one I can think of.”

“Well, when there is,” he said, “we’ll make it happen.”