Flare (12 page)

For years, Peder had set up what Kevin now called his
social networking
friendships. He spent time with the kids of business associates his father approved of—not because they were good people, but because they were potential business contacts. Kevin was a means to an end, a product to use to help close the deal. What all of Peder’s meddling had done was turn Kevin off to a lot of friendships, especially if they appeared at all like networking opportunities. Kevin did better sitting on the sidelines, getting “close” through other people—his wife, his kids—than on his own. That was why all the couple-friendships he and Erin had over the years were so comfortable, and also why they were fairly easy to let go of after the separation. Those people had been close to Erin. Even now, Kevin was hanging out with Summer and Gilbert more than anyone who lived right there in Edina, so he’d done it once again, this time with Hugo’s best friends.

At sixteen, Hugo had been the first close friend who was Kevin’s, and Kevin’s alone. Peder’s hand hadn’t been involved at all. That had turned out well. It was time to open himself up to more friends, for Hugo’s sake, if nothing else. Kevin could use some too.

He couldn’t just rely on Summer, Russell, Gilbert, and now Rowan to get him through the lonely times when Hugo was off working. He had to do something, even if saying yes to some of the people who always seemed to invite him to the club seemed intimidating.

Kevin considered a few invitations he’d recently gotten and ended up agreeing to an after-work tee time with Andrew and Steve. Kevin knew them from when he used to spend his free time at the country club. Prior to his separation from Erin, Kevin spent a lot of time there. After the separation, when Kevin realized how absent he’d been as a father, he stopped hiding on the greens, even if he’d continued to pay his dues.

He used to head to the clubhouse for drinks after work on a fairly regular basis too, but had made a ton of excuses for the last year or two. When Erin was ill, that was easy, but now it was getting harder and harder to come up with a plausible reason that he wasn’t available. Kevin was still surprised that he was even remembered, but maybe he was just stuck on someone’s e-mail contact list.

So much had changed in his life. He wasn’t sure the people he used to be friendly with would understand that. Kevin was a different man, and the type of friendship he now wanted was different too. He wasn’t looking for someone to just shoot the shit with over eighteen holes, though maybe that wasn’t so bad, either. Anything was better than spending evenings at home in a too-quiet house while Rowan drove the kids to gymnastics and Hugo sat on some coast so involved in his work that he didn’t have time to talk or even text.

Andrew and Steve were two pretty decent guys who had always seemed less “country club” than a lot of the other people Kevin had met there. They were a little more down-to-earth, and they both had kids fairly close in age to Brooke and Finn, so they wouldn’t bitch if Kevin needed to back out because of the kids. In the past, some of the guys he’d golfed with joked about Kevin being collared and leashed when he’d been called away by Erin when Finn needed stitches in his forehead. Finn had only been three. Kevin was positive Andrew and Steve wouldn’t ever stoop to that.

He also suspected they would probably be more open to Kevin’s redefined sexuality—redefined in their eyes, at least. Kevin wasn’t about to start talking in code around these guys when he referred to Hugo. He was going to call Hugo his boyfriend or partner, not dumb anything down.

So he went and golfed for the first time in ages one evening when Hugo was in New York working on an ad campaign. Rowan was taking the kids to a painting class, so Kevin had the night free.

It felt wonderful to swing his driver and watch the ball soar down the fairway, even if it landed in the rough. Kevin stunk and Andrew and Steve playfully chided him, telling him he was rusty. “Look what working behind a desk does to a man’s game.”

Kevin chuckled back. They were right. “I can improve my game. What are you two going to do about those mugs of yours?”

“Oh ho! Kevin’s found some fight in the last few years,” Andrew said as he slapped Steve on the back.

“Either that or he just hit on us,” Steve said with a broad smile and then he looked over at Andrew, as if sizing him up. “Nah. Somehow, I don’t think we’re his type.”

“You’re right,” Kevin said with a quirk of his brow. “Far from it. Not really into beer guts, even if it’s from expensive craft beer rather than Grain Belt Premium.”

They both laughed and motioned Kevin to head back to the golf cart to ride to the ninth hole. As Steve drove, Andrew asked a little more about Hugo. Kevin ended up pulling out his phone and showing them both a photo as soon as the cart came to a stop.

“What does he do?” Steve asked after taking a quick peek.

“He’s a director and actor, but mostly a director,” Kevin said with a smile.

“Locally?” Andrew asked as he squinted at the screen in the bright light and then used his hand to try to shade it for a better look.

Kevin knew what they were really asking: was Hugo a successful actor? “Mostly, but he does a lot of voice-over work, and he was in LA in June for a movie.”

“So he’s decent, is what you’re saying?” Andrew asked.

“From everything I’ve seen him in.”

“Enough gabbing. Let’s play,” Steve said.

Kevin started saying yes more often after that. He enjoyed being outdoors and taking advantage of the summer sun. Over drinks in the clubhouse, they got to know each other better, and soon Andrew’s wife, Sarah, was asking if Kevin and Hugo would like to get the kids together to play sometime. That seemed like a good idea. And then Kevin’s friend, Dena, called out of the blue because she was good friends with Sarah, and Sarah had told her all about the kids’ playdate.

Dena was the first friend Kevin had come out to, aside from Hugo. It hadn’t happened under the best circumstances. Dena’s husband, Mike, had been wasted, and Kevin had thrown him in a cab and sent him home after he’d verbally harassed Hugo, who’d been in drag at the time. Miss Cherrie had just finished her performance at the Uptown Art Fair, and when Mike started spewing hate speech at Cherrie, Kevin had lost his temper. It was after he’d calmed himself and called Dena to make sure Mike got home okay that Kevin came out and told Dena he was dating the guy her husband had called a faggot.

Then the one time he had contact with Mike after that, Mike had chided Kevin for calling himself bisexual, insinuating Kevin wasn’t brave enough to come out as gay. That led to a pretty important revelation on Kevin’s part, though. People wouldn’t see him as bisexual when they saw him with Hugo, and Kevin had to get used to the idea that he’d be automatically labeled as gay. It sucked that Mike had to be the one to bring that up and force that revelation.

So did Kevin want to get together with Dena and Mike? Not really.

He used to be quite friendly with both of them. They’d met in parenting classes when the kids were little. Dena, Kevin could handle, but he wasn’t sure he could stomach Mike after what he’d done to Hugo.

When the perfect combination of Kevin’s loneliness and Dena’s persistence collided, he decided to say yes to meeting her for a drink after work one night. She called Kevin just as he was leaving the office and dreading going home to an empty house, so they met at Beaujo’s Wine Bar. Over a glass of a nice smoky Pinot Noir, Dena apologized for Mike and told Kevin that her husband had gone through a lot of changes recently. She didn’t go into details, saying he wanted to be the one to explain. Mike was determined to make amends, not only with Kevin, but especially with Hugo. It almost sounded as though Mike was going through a twelve-step program.

After talking to Dena, Kevin agreed to meet with Mike a few nights later. He wanted to get a feel for this supposedly
new
Mike. Hugo didn’t need to be there for any awkwardness, and Kevin knew there’d be
a lot
while patching things up. Kevin could easily say no to Mike’s request to apologize to Hugo if he didn’t think Mike could behave himself.

Coming straight out and telling Mike he wasn’t sure what to say to him after what Mike had said a year ago was how it started. As Mike shared his rambling story over a few glasses of wine, Kevin realized Mike truly had been in a bad place at the time he was acting so out of character.

“Anything I saw even remotely close to being ‘dishonest,’ including a man trying to pass as a woman, set me off back then.”

“Hugo wasn’t trying to
pass
as a woman,” Kevin eagerly defended.

“I know. This isn’t coming out right. It just seemed like hiding to me that day because of everything else I already told you about. And I was stressed and wasted at the art fair, but that’s not an excuse at all.”

“It better not be. Drunk doesn’t equal automatically forgiven, but Hugo has to be the one to forgive you for that, not me.”

“I really need to apologize to you too, Kevin. I didn’t realize I was biphobic until I talked to my therapist about what I said to you about being too chicken to say you’re gay. Yes, I go to a therapist now. I was confused, and rather than accepting that I was the one with the problem, I lashed out. I’m sorry.”

“Okay. You know, you saying those things helped me face reality too,” Kevin said as he reached across the table and gave Mike’s shoulder a hearty slap.

If Kevin could get Mike and Hugo to sit down and talk, it might do them both a great deal of good to clear the air. Hugo deserved Mike’s apology at the least, and it seemed like it would be a genuine one.

CHAPTER NINE

Disconnected

H
UGO
TRAVELED
to both coasts for more and more work as the summer continued. Most of the jobs were completed quickly, sometimes in a day or less, and the travel time often took longer than the job did. He loved the days he could walk into a sound studio and do five or six voice-over jobs with the same producer. He often managed to squeeze in a few auditions while he was there too.

His name and reputation seemed to be on the lips of casting directors everywhere. It was both thrilling and terrifying to him, because he had no desire to leave Minnesota. He wasn’t cut out to be the typical LA actor. He was a Midwestern boy who liked to be able to go into his favorite coffee shop and only be known for the coffee he drank and his name, not his face because it was plastered all over magazines and gossip rags. That was one of the reasons voice-over work, directing, and drag had always appealed to him—they afforded him anonymity in his work, which was like an oxymoron for most actors. He wanted to be famous, but he enjoyed being facelessly famous even more.

With everything happening with his career, Hugo wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep that facelessness up. His agent was calling and trying to talk him into taking even more acting jobs away from home. “Strike while the iron is hot,” she’d said, “because it won’t stay hot for long.” Those impending deadlines his agent was setting out for him didn’t help Hugo’s desire for more work. It probably made him even more reticent to take jobs.

Kevin was extremely supportive, doing everything he could to make sure Hugo could take the jobs he wanted, even after Hugo admitted his fears to Kevin. They started talking about possible roles in a more methodical manner, rather than the pressure-filled way his agent talked to him. After all, she made money based on Hugo working, not on him refusing to take a job.

“A recurring role on a television series would take me away a lot. I’d probably have to move for part of the year.”

“Yes,” Kevin said. “So you’d rather take movie roles, because they’d take less time in the long run? Or are you worried about being too visible?”

“Sorta.”

“A television role would let you be home each weekend where a movie could take you away for weeks or months at a time,” Kevin said. “I don’t want you to turn down roles because of me or the kids. You’re an actor. That’s always been your dream. Can you try to look at this by which roles you’d like to play and forget about the time away?”

“I don’t know.”

“One of the reasons I hired Rowan was so you could have the freedom to work again, Hugh.” Kevin palmed Hugo’s neck and waited until Hugo looked at him before he continued. “I don’t want us to be the reason you say no. This is your passion, and I’ll do anything to make sure you get to work where you’d like.”

Kevin was really and truly amazing.

“I miss you guys when I’m gone,” Hugo admitted.

“We miss you too. A lot. But school is going to start again in the fall and life is going to be more buttoned-down. The kids will be gone more and more of the time. Rowan will take care of everything when you’re gone. Plus, I have my golf game with the guys at the club to entertain me when you’re away, so don’t worry about me sitting at home and moping anymore. Do what you want to do.”

Something about Kevin golfing again made Hugo relax.

R
OWAN
HAD
taken on nearly everything Hugo had done for the kids, so saying yes to jobs started to become easier. Those rare days he was home, he watched as she made breakfast and packed a small bag with snacks and books and toys and games so the kids wouldn’t be bored while one waited for the other’s lesson to finish up. She drove them everywhere and even took them out for treats at their favorite restaurants. Even though Hugo felt bad about no longer having those responsibilities and for missing some of those special moments, he was happy he had someone trustworthy to rely on. To think he ever had objections to hiring her was crazy now. Rowan was a lifesaver, and it was her mere presence that allowed Hugo the ability to thoughtfully consider taking on new roles.

Rowan’s presence allowed Kevin to socialize with even more friends when Hugo was out of town too. That was good and bad, especially once Hugo found out one of the friends Kevin had gotten together with was Mike. It had only been once, but now Kevin was encouraging Hugo to give Mike the time of day so he could apologize.