Beyond Complicated (4 page)

"Twenty-one and two months. And chucklehead over there, is just now taking me out to celebrate."

"You too," she said to me, as if she knew, just knew one of us was up to something. Kel laughed and pointed.

"Wait until you are thirty-eight and see how it feels to be carded," I said as I showed mine. Flattered al to hel is how it felt but I wasn't going to tel the kid.

"I wouldn't have guessed you are thirty-eight, Mr McGuire. Maybe twenty-five." She handed my walet back and jotted down the beer order.

"How old did you think I am?" Kel flashed that perfect innocent schoolboy grin of his and batted his eyes. His lashes were blond and long.

"Twelve, but mostly because of your mouth, fifteen if you didn't try to bulshit me," she snapped back quickly enough that his smile faded. But only for a moment.

"I'm not bulshitting, he realy is—"

"Yeah, yeah, weird older brother. My old man went out and had a second family too. I have a ten-year-old sister and an eight-year-old brother. Now, do you guys know what you're eating or do you need more time with the menu?" She nodded to the unopened menus on the table.

"Fajitas, every kind you got," Kel said closing his eyes in anticipation. The kid always did love fajitas and could eat his weight. I just nodded. It was his party and I wasn't hungry much anyway.

"Okay, be back in a bit with your drinks." She jotted and gripped my shoulder as she walked away.

"Nice looking girl," I said, watching the sway of her hips.

"Sure you're not straight? I mean, come on, she's a chick." Somehow, that I looked seemed to bother him.

"Why does it bother you if I look? I'm not interested in going home with her but she is nice looking. You can be gay and appreciate beauty in the opposite sex too, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, you never did answer what I asked, about your type. Are you seeing anyone? Have you ever been in love? I mean, I've known since I was like fifteen that you were gay but there has never been a guy. I worry that you are, you know, lonely."

I'd forgotten the question. "Wow and gee whiz.

I should feel something besides embarrassed to the core that you care. I mean, dude, way to make me feel old."

"Come on, Liam, for once just tel me something about yourself. Besides the mundane job and little apartment and the car, I don't realy know you."

"Not much to tel, realy, I don't have a type besides wiling and not clingy. I don't want a relationship. My life is too complicated for a relationship. I'm not seeing anyone."

"How about love? Don't you want to find someone to love? I do." He was so young and so sweet and idealistic.

"I hear you found yourself a porn star to fil that spot," I said carefuly. He was leading to it and I didn't feel like discussing my past right now.

"Ah, man, you did see that, I was hoping you hadn't. Sorry, about unfriending you. My friends sort of found out about you and, dude, the picture, do you have to have a professional headshot as your profile? I had to tel them you used to model and that the pic was years old. It's embarrassing."

"That picture is from this year and it's not even realy a professional picture, just a friend fooling around.

You didn't tel them who I modeled for, did you?"

Because then they could track me back to the porn and that wouldn't be good for business at al.

"I don't know what you modeled. Al dad ever said was about how damn queer you were prancing around in your undies. And how I was going to grow up to be just like you. I'm not sure he liked you much.

Sabs wouldn't talk about you at al unless it was on the Sunday after I got home from staying with you. She made me sit and tel her everything. I think she was hoping I'd say you did bad things to me. Kim and Kace always hated that I got to go away on those weekends."

The waitress arrived with our beers while I absorbed most of that. Kel had never been one to talk about his home life. I'd asked if he was happy off and on. He seemed happy. Fed, clothed, never any bruises that I could see, and inteligent. He had things he liked to do. Organized sports wasn't one of them. Surfing, skateboards, he had a guitar at one time and seemed to know how to make decent noise with it. Video games.

Probably the only activity we'd ever had in common.

"So let me get this straight… you unfriended me on Facebook because you outed me as your real dad and al of your little girlfriends went crazy. Is that what I'm to understand?"

I didn't want to touch the other stuff. It bothered me that Sabrina would think I'd molest him.

However, I had checked him for bruising so I guess we were even on that score. We didn't know each other, Sabrina and I. Besides one drunken hour in my car and some heated words in front of a judge, we were virtual strangers. Always have been, always wil be. Amen and thank you, Jesus.

"Something like that. I had to delete the whole conversation. It got out of control. They had me doing gay porn by the end of the evening. Decided I'd gone gay for pay and decided I liked the Kool-Aid, thank you very much. Oh lord." He had the grace to blush and I sucked in a relieved sigh.

"So how did you meet him, it is a him? I haven't missed anything about you putting the gay genie back in the bottle since your birthday?" Kel came out at his birthday party in August. I suspected when I caught him and his best friend jumping apart a few times before they graduated high school. I never saw more than that but after the third time you start to connect certain dots.

I never did that because I was too afraid of the guys at school to make out. Kel didn't seem to have that problem. Different world and al that, I guess.

"He's a guy. I sort of met him when I… okay, promise you won't get mad?"

"Wel, when you say that, my mind sort of flies right to mad. You know that, right? I think I used that when I told my parents you were on the way. Oh god, just tel me I'm not going to be a grandfather. I think I can handle just about anything else."

"Even if I did gay porn?"

I fought realy hard not to react to that statement. Realy hard. "Have you?"

"Noo, come on, how would I even get into that? This is Florida, not California."

And I shot al of my colege videos right around the corner from here in an old warehouse and in a house out in the burbs. "Okay, then what? Before I realy do get mad."

"I sort of met a couple of guys in the summer while a bunch of us were down in Miami. They saw me surf and they liked the way I looked so they offered me a job, sort of like you did, you know. Modeling surf stuff for their catalogs. So I took the job. The money was realy good and I didn't have to get naked or anything." He played with the label on his beer and never met my eyes as he rushed through that. I was just relieved that it was nothing like what I realy had modeled. Just skin and the good dental work of a middle class upbringing.

"And you were afraid to tel me that because?"

"I don't know, I was sort of afraid you'd get mad because I know you hated that life."

"I didn't hate it, not realy, but I didn't exactly love it either. It paid the bils while I was in school. It paid better than what I was offered after school. I didn't have to kil myself doing construction anymore."

"I don't have a kid to support. I don't have any bils, not realy. I'm staying inside my budget. I just wanted the money and the thril of posing."

"Nothing wrong with that," I said, pausing for the arrival of the sizzling pans of fajitas to be placed on the table. Chicken, steak, and al of the toppings. Kel's favorite.

"Ready for another beer?" The waitress asked after setting down the plates. We both nodded. Kel wasn't driving and I was good for at least three, what the hel. "Sure and thanks."

"Not a problem," she said and left us to stare uncomfortably at each other while the food steamed between us.

"But this isn't realy about the job or the money is it?"

He looked away and dragged in a long breath blowing it back out again. "Not realy."

"Tel me about him." There was no sense in dragging it out any longer. He needed to talk and I needed to hear.

"He's older than me."

"How much older?" I grabbed a tortila, forked a few chunks of steak and onions into the bread, and folded it.

"Nine almost ten years." Kel didn't folow, he sat looking at the table, his hand shaking nervously.

"Okay? How did you meet him?" What was I supposed to say? My only real boyfriend was almost that much younger than me. He was the same age as Kel now when I met him then. I'd just be the pot yeling at the kettle if I said anything.

"He was legal representation for the models. He sat with us, read the contracts, and told us what we were signing. He told me later that he did it because he'd been duped when he was about my age and did some things he wouldn't have done. He met an older guy who sort of took care of him so he never regretted what he did but that wasn't his life anymore so…"

"And you outed him as a porn star to your friends." Okay, so the guy was a little like me, so what?

I wouldn't want my lover outing me. I wouldn't tel my lover but that was just me.

"I was stupid about that. I took it down before it went too far. And because I mixed you up in it." Kel stil didn't eat. He just sat with eyes downcast as if he was waiting for something.

"Are you using protection? Do you know if he has anything? You know, the realy hard questions you don't want to hear. I can't say anything, Kel, I haven't made the best choices in my life. I'm not going to yel at you or anything. I just hope you know that he could be

—"

"I know. I'm not stupid. Gawd, Liam. I'm not.

We used condoms and he's going to get tested for me. I told him I would for him. I think I love him. Maybe. He gets me, you know. No one has ever gotten me before, I mean besides you. I'm not looking for a daddy figure.

If you're wondering, I've got too much of that. I'm just looking for someone who likes me for me and is good in bed."

"Okay." The food churned in my stomach. I knew why we were having this conversation. The kid couldn't very wel take it home to his mother and stepfather. I was it. Just me and al of my mistakes and insecurities giving my gay son advice and support.

Fuck. "So he's thirty and he's a lawyer, is that about right?"

"Yeah, he's from California, he came here to go to school and went back for a little while but came back because he loves it here. Close to the beach. He does legal work for talent agencies al over the state and spearheads a watchdog organization to keep young people safe in the entertainment field. I was the oldest model there. Several years older and the only adult.

That's why we talked. Damn, it sounds like he's some kind of perv. He's not realy."

"Kel?" Warning bels were going off in my head.

Loud clanging bels. Every time his eyes slid to the window. Every time his phone buzzed and he checked it. "Did you invite him to meet me?"

"Yeah? I'm sorry, Liam. He's in town for a few days and I wanted… I wanted to see you and I told him about you. How you were so young and how my mom did you dirty and that you're a great person. I think of you as probably my best friend. And I just wanted you to meet him and tel me what you think."

Kel thinks I'm his best friend. Good to know. And the first person you introduce your new boyfriend to is your best friend, right? Right. Crap.

He sat across from me looking like a scared kid. I hated the look on his face. That torn between realy, realy happy and needing to vomit look. I've worn that look a few times with no one to share either feeling with. So I did the only thing I could think of. I reached across the table and laid my hand over his to stil the shakes.

"It's fine. Breathe and eat something, because I sure as hel am not eating al this by myself."

"Okay, um, thanks, Liam. I forget how much I need you sometimes." Kel looked a bit sheepish, a shy smile in his eyes as he reached for a tortila and loaded it with a bit of everything on the table. Guacamole and sour cream. It looked like my stomach felt. Green, soupy and about to explode.

Despite everything, I'm not realy a new people kind of person. Kel is much more outgoing than I have ever been. I am good at my job. But that's business, not personal. I was good at the other job too, after a couple of beers, and a boost to the penile inhibition.

Little blue pils are good for that. "Just so I know, what happened with Bily? I thought you two were crazy in love or something."

"I thought so too, but he was just fooling around, playing me because he liked his dick sucked and couldn't get a girl to do it for him. We haven't talked much in the past couple of years since he found a girl who put out."

"Little bastard. There was always something squirrely about him. He was cute though."

"Yeah, he was, stil fucking gay, just in serious denial."

I tuned out his words but Kel didn't notice. My heart skipped a few beats. Dread ran stringy and cold through my entire body. I couldn't catch my breath. He was just a dead ringer. Nothing to get myself al worked up about. I'd caught sight of him the second he approached the hostess station. Short blond hair, realy short, business cut short, and tan. He towered over the hostess, he wouldn't be quite my height but close enough. With wide shoulders and that face. Lantern jaw with blond stubble. He would have incredible eyes. I knew he would. With laugh lines that wrinkled his forehead and those lips. Wide, lush, and so goddamned fuckable. I knew what his hands would feel like on my body. I knew the sounds he would make as he kissed me. I knew everything about him.