Spanish Fly Guy

Spanish Fly Guy Jordan Castillo Price Petit Morts #5

Chapter One JP McMahon was sick and tired of being Googled. It was getting harder and harder to find a place where people weren't always on the Internet. Especially now with smartphones, it seemed like no sooner did you meet somebody then they were trying to look you up on Facebook. And so JP was pleased as punch to kick back along the boardwalk of a scenic little town, a safe hamlet with an oceanfront view. A town not far from Wilmington where the salt air continually corroded any attempts by the local cable company to provide Internet for its inhabitants, and the 3G network was down more than it was up. Thus, in a world where the economy was normally based on bandwidth and pixels, tourism and fishing kept the darling little seaside town named Brightside afloat. The most intriguing thing about the village was that this lack of Internet, this dearth of cell phones, meant that the local newspaper industry was positively thriving. Most local, small-town rags featured stories about who was celebrating a silver anniversary, which church was hosting a spaghetti dinner, who had died, of course, and a police blotter filled with break-ins, speeding violations, and the occasional tavern brawl. Not so with the Brightside Chronicle. That little gem featured actual stories that went beyond news about the girls‟ high school volleyball team making the finals at State. And the classified section was a work of art. Without Craigslist to provide an outlet for everyone's steamiest and most lurid anonymous desires, the folks of Brightside had resurrected—or perhaps had never actually lost—the art of advertisement writing. JP folded his paper into quarters so he could settle into the boardwalk bench and cradle it in his lap like a beloved paperback. Men seeking women. Women seeking men. Alternative lifestyles—that section was sorely underpopulated; undoubtedly there were plenty of “alternative” people in Brightside—but airing their laundry with wood pulp and ink was probably a lot more daunting than sneaking a quick text to Craigslist. Too bad. JP was an alternative kind of guy, and he would've been interested to see what sort of pitch an alternative pleasure seeker might come up with in Brightside. He scanned the various ads. The writing quality was pretty good. A bit stilted, but definitely better then the typical drivel he usually saw on the dating sites. Life without Internet access might have made it harder to find free porn, but it certainly had preserved the literary ability of Brightside's population. He unfolded the paper and turned the page. Another full page of ads? He turned back to see if it might be a duplicate. It wasn't. He turned the paper over. Another page. How was that possible? The sign on Main Street said that Brightside had a population just over twelve hundred. JP counted the number of ads in a column, then multiplied that by the number of rows on the page. Then he multiplied that by the number of pages. Was it possible that almost 1

twenty percent of the population of Brightside was looking for love? One in five? That had to be some kind of record. And...that had to be something that JP could work to his advantage. If JP had been a kindly older lady, he would have hung out a shingle and advertised his services as a reputable and discreet matchmaker. But, since JP was young and sleek and predatory, he somehow doubted that the fine folks of Brightside would take him into their confidence, not until he lived there for another twenty years or so. And by then, no doubt even Brightside would have the Internet. Since JP would meet with little success in any business venture that required his new customers to place their immediate and unquestioning trust in him, he decided instead to do what came naturally to him. Brightside, with its lack of cell phones and nonexistent Internet, struck JP as an old-fashioned kind of town. And so he indulged himself in an old-fashioned kind of idea. All he needed were a few simple supplies. He shielded his eyes from the sun and scanned the boardwalk. The bathhouse? Closed. The canoe rental stands? Closed. The souvenir stands full of postcards, tanning oil and cheap sunglasses? Closed. Even the ice cream shop. Closed. JP wondered what the deal was. Maybe Brightside had some kind of ordinance that said all the shops had to shut down at six for a siesta. He was debating whether or not to tilt back the passenger seat in his Miata and take one himself when a tiny bell jingled. He whirled around. On the whole boardwalk, a single shop was still open. A candy store. Ideas arranged and rearranged themselves within the well-oiled machine of JP's mind. A candy store? He could work with that. He schooled his features into the most innocent look of profound sincerity he could muster, opened the door and scanned the shop. No doubt a gray-haired, ample-bosomed spinster covered in flour would be working the...JP stopped short. The young man behind the counter in black and red would have no need at all for an ad in the classified section of the Brightside Chronicle. Though if he did, with his porcelain skin and his wickedly arched eyebrows, JP suspected it would go in the alternative section. The day was definitely looking up. JP strode toward the counter, all swagger. Not only might he find the pieces here for his latest puzzle, but if he played his cards right, a bed to fall into at the end of the day. And someone to fall into it with. He was midstride when his confidence simply evaporated. It drained right out of him as if it were a liquid running through the hollows of his bones, down the circular tunnels of his vertebrae and ribs, through the marrow of his femurs and tibia, and out the bottoms of his feet where the earth drank it up. By the time he actually reached the cash register, he could barely put one foot in front of the other—he could barely even move. It was a strain to even lift his head. He planted one hand on the display case and forced himself to meet the candymaker‟s eyes. The candy man arched one raven black eyebrow. “Yes?” “I....” JP strained for breath. It felt like his heart was being squeezed by a giant fist. He was barely thirty, and he kept himself in fabulous shape—but he supposed there could be some congenital defect in play. He took a careful breath. Oh well. No time for regrets. “Let's get one thing straight, honey.” The candymaker tossed his perfectly black hair out of his eyes. “You couldn‟t handle me.” JP realized he was gawking. “No,” he said, dazed. “I would never presume....” “Of course you would. So, aside from that…what else is it you want?” Beneath the glass, the candies swam in and out of focus. Perfect little rows. Like skulls. JP blinked. Why on earth would he think that? “I can see you‟re busy.” “There's no one here but you and me.” JP glanced behind him as if a crowd might have obligingly appeared. It hadn't. “It's...I...” “Come on then, spit it out.” If he wasn't looking at the candymaker, JP realized, that squeezing sensation inside his ribcage abated somewhat—enough to permit him to speak, at least. “Vanilla.” The candymaker said nothing. Of course not. How could anyone glean meaning from that single word? JP turned, humbled now, struggling to stand upright and speak as normally as possible, and explained. “Those small bottles. I need some. Not many, two dozen? Three? I just figured...being a business and all, you might have some empties lying around. If not, maybe you could open some up, pour them out into a different container so I can use the bottles. I know, I know, it‟s a strange request, but you'd really be helping me out.” 2

“I buy my flour in fifty pound bags. The flour at the store? Five pound bags. I buy my sugar in hundred pound bags. The sugar at the store? Tiny cubes. So what makes you think my vanilla comes in those precious little bottles?” JP felt his cheeks burning. “How stupid of me. I never thought....” “Oh, you think plenty.” The candymaker reached across the countertop, placed two fingers under JP's chin, and tilted his face up, as if for a kiss. His fingertips were icy. He was smiling—not an entirely friendly smile, either. “I‟m teasing,” he said. “I save everything. I have just the thing. And if you promise to be nice, I just might give it to you.” *** In the end, Chance would not accept any money for the bottles. And that made JP uneasy. A simple financial transaction, he could understand. Not that he had any money at the moment, but he could have jotted down an IOU. The candymaker wouldn't hear of it. He suggested—no, actually, he insisted—that he do it for free. Free—was that the word? No, even worse. He said it was a favor. It was just as well he hadn't been interested in exchanging any other “favors.” JP could tell from their five-minute conversation that any entanglement they might have had would've ended messily. And JP didn't do messy.

Chapter Two “Make sure you don‟t put it too high.” Ryan pointed at the dog-eared chart. The customer couldn‟t see it, not from where she was standing, across the counter and upside-down. But he hoped he was assuring her that he was following tried and true procedures, and not just winging it. “Small design—that‟s this, anything under five inches, and especially horizontal—top edge goes three inches from the neckband.” He smoothed the petal pink T-shirt in the press again, in case a wrinkle had popped up while he was trying to reassure the customer that he knew what he was doing. He did. He‟d been printing Tshirts for the past three summers. But he couldn‟t say he‟d ever mastered the art of coming off as reassuring. “Because I‟m full-figured. It‟s got to fall in the right place.” Ryan stole a glance, avoiding her eyes, then avoiding her ample chest, and eventually settling on her jaw. One long hair grew from her cheek, just at the jawline. He looked up at the clock instead and answered her. “I get it. But three inches really is the best….” What he wanted to say was, “You really don‟t want a garland of pansies directly on top of your boobs.” Since he figured that wouldn‟t go over very well, he simply trailed off and turned back to the press to smooth out some more imaginary wrinkles. Most of the customers at “Copy That” were easy. They were on vacation. They‟d just been to the beach. They were enjoying the quaint little town without Internet. And they were probably itching to check their email—but unless they were full-blown Type-A personalities, they didn‟t usually take their frustrations out on Ryan. That‟s because, Ryan‟s dad would have said, he was too easy of a target. No challenge. The woman shopping for the pink T-shirt with pansies on it had frustrations that went a lot deeper than falling behind on her RSS feeds. She was fifty pounds, and probably ten years, over what she wanted to be. And the crease between her eyebrows hadn‟t etched itself there from an overabundance of smiling. Plus, there was that creepy stray hair…. People like that, miserable people, didn‟t seem to mind the fact that Ryan was an easy target. They reveled in it. Ryan pulled out the ruler and measured, even though he technically didn‟t need to use it since the distance between the first and third knuckles on his forefinger was exactly three inches, and he could find the proper placement of a heat transfer just by putting his hand on the garment. “You‟re sure that‟s not too high?” Ryan knew the transaction wasn‟t going to end well, but he figured he should at least try. “I could put it at three and a half, if you want, but I wouldn‟t go any lo….” “Four. How about four? I hate it when designs are all up around my neck. It looks ridiculous.” “I really think three and a half….” 3

“Or we could forget about it, and I could go to the souvenir shop off Main Street.” Where she would see that they didn‟t have the pansy design, and probably come back in an even bigger huff looking for a pink T-shirt that would make her look ten years younger and fifty pounds thinner. And what if Ryan‟s boss was working then? No doubt the customer and Mrs. Marsh would share a serious bonding moment over Ryan‟s incompetence. Ryan sighed, set the ruler on the shirt and measured. Four was far too low. He placed the transfer on the jersey knit, aligned it to the center of the neck ribbing, re-measured the four inches, then snuck the transfer up another half inch while he pretended to smooth it out. “Hello?” the woman said. Ryan looked up. He thought she was talking to him, that he‟d been busted moving the transfer up, but she was just trying to use her cell phone. “Hello? Stan? Can you hear me?” Cell phone service was so patchy in Brightside that most people never bothered trying. The signal was nonexistent to spotty all the way up to the suburbs of Wilmington. The press dinged, and Ryan opened it. It released the smell of cooked plastic. He let the backing cool slightly, peeled it off, then folded the T-shirt as flawlessly as a 3x could be folded. “Okay. That‟ll be $15.28 with tax.” “Wait a minute.” The lady stuffed her phone into her purse, snatched the shirt off the counter and shook out the careful fold. “This isn‟t right.” Ryan‟s stomach sank. The woman held the huge shirt up to her bosoms. “I can‟t wear this. Look at where the eyes of the pansies fall.” Ryan was never one to say “I told you so,” but some days it was all he could do to resist. “If you wash it in hot water, it‟ll shrink enough to move them up another quarter of an inch….” “I don‟t want this. I can‟t wear it.” She wadded the shirt into a ball, shoved it towards Ryan, then turned and left the store in a huff, punching numbers into her cell phone with her thumb. Ryan stared down at the shirt. A 3X was pricey, six dollars wholesale. The transfer cost a dollar. That was seven dollars Mrs. Marsh would take out of his wages, leaving him with a little over a buck to show for his last hour. He shook it out, smoothed it, and as he folded it carefully so the flowers showed across the chest, the front door opened. He kept his eyes on the shirt. He was in no mood to go head-to-head with the pansy woman for another round. “Oh. You print T-shirts.” Ryan looked up, startled, because he‟d been expecting a woman‟s voice, but it was a guy. A hot guy. Ryan swallowed and looked away, but he‟d seen enough to get his mind racing. Young. Slim. Casually hip, like a socialite who‟d been out clubbing and was on his way home the next morning. Dark hair, finger-combed back. Eyes—well, Ryan hadn‟t looked long enough to see what color his eyes were. Intense. Lively. Smart. He‟d seen that much. Ryan found his voice, somewhat belatedly. “Yeah. We do.” “I just thought with the name Copy That you might be a print shop.” “Oh. Right. We make copies. That equipment‟s in the back room. The T-shirts and mousepads are for the tourists.” The customer smiled. Ryan glanced at it and looked away. He couldn‟t look at that smile and think at the same time. Not without sitting down—and there was nowhere to sit behind the counter. Mrs. Marsh didn‟t want him to look lazy. The man put a USB drive on the counter and slid it toward Ryan. It was a common enough gesture, but the way he did it, with only his forefinger on the memory stick, seemed somehow…sensual. “Can you print from this?” “Sure…unless you have missing fonts. But I might be able to fix—” “In color?” Ryan nodded, keeping his eyes on the flash drive. “What about labels? I don‟t want it to look like it came off an inkjet printer.” Ryan slipped out from behind the counter, locked the front door, and turned the “Open” sign to “Closed.” It wasn‟t as busy as it would‟ve been during Spring Break, but teenagers seemed to get a big kick out of shoplifting T-shirts, and Ryan didn‟t want to finish his workday owing money…which had actually happened a time or two. He gestured for the customer to follow and ducked into the copy room. 4

A pair of computers and a color laser printer hugged one wall. A massive black and white copier that had printed almost every flier in Brightside spanned another. The half of the room that doubled as a breakroom held a secondhand couch, mauve; a shaky card table; and a microwave that smelled like nachos. Ryan sat down at the fastest computer, plugged in the flash drive and opened the file. A kitschy logo with a cartoonish insect and the words “Spanish Fly” arched over the top opened up. “Is this the font you wanna use? ‟Cos I think we have one that would look cooler with this logo, a little bit retro.” “Retro? Sure, that‟d work.” The customer leaned into the back of the chair, clutching the armrests. Ryan wondered if he should have invited him to sit. Or to pull up the other chair. But the other chair was nasty and sweat-stained, and Ryan couldn‟t think of any way to switch them that wasn‟t obvious. “I mean…if that‟s what this is supposed to…what is this, anyway? A band?” He fiddled with the font instead, feeling every inch of the other guy‟s forearms pressed along his biceps, and keeping his head completely and utterly still so it didn‟t brush back against the guy‟s chest. “No, not a band. A drink.” The guy straightened up and Ryan allowed himself to breathe. “Seriously? Like a party shot?” “Not exactly.” Ryan dropped his voice. “Is it like X?” “That‟s a pill. And no. Not a designer drug. More like a…a gag. A novelty. A good luck charm.” “But you drink it.” “That‟s right.” “O…kay. That‟s different.” Ryan filled the letters with a white to aqua gradient and gave them a fat black outline. The lettering popped. “If you need a rectangular cut, I could do that for you on the paper cutter. But if you need anything in a special shape, you‟d probably have to go to Wilmington and have a die made.” “I can work with that. How much‟ll it run me to print the rectangles here?” The customer was attempting eye contact, heavy eye contact. Ryan could feel it burning through his peripheral vision. He also stood a lot closer than Ryan was accustomed to. He didn‟t talk like a local. Ryan figured he came from a city where everyone stood close and looked you in the eye. He swiveled in the chair, turned toward the price list and pointed. “Labels. Three fifty a sheet.” “Three fifty.” “Right. That‟s pretty standard.” Ryan chanced a small glimpse at the customer. He was scowling in thought—at least Ryan hoped it was thought, and not anger. Technically, Ryan was also supposed to charge for the cuts, but it wasn‟t as if Mrs. Marsh could monitor how many times he‟d touched the paper cutter—at least, not that he knew of—so what else could he do to keep the customer from getting annoyed with him? He added, “I mean, if you want to drive to Wilmington and pick up your own label paper, I can run these for the cost of a regular print. But since label paper‟s pretty pricey, and color laser prints are a dollar apiece, you won‟t be saving all that much money.” The customer gave a small nod, as if to himself, then leaned over the front of Ryan‟s chair and placed a hand on each armrest, pinning him to his seat. “Listen…what‟s your name?” “R-Ryan.” “Listen, Ryan. Every business has its operating expenses. I know. I‟m an entrepreneur myself.” “Oh. I kinda thought you looked like you might….” “But here‟s the thing. I‟m having a little cash flow issue.” He leaned in harder and the chair wheeled back a couple of inches until the computer table stopped it. The edge of the customer‟s sportcoat was brushing against the zipper of Ryan‟s hoodie. Ryan shrank back into his seat and wondered where on earth people got this close to each other when they talked. A place with a much higher population density than Brightside, he figured. The customer leaned forward, as if he was doing a push-up—and he had a secret to tell. Their cheeks brushed. He whispered. “I love what you did with the lettering. And I was hoping you might be willing to cut me a good deal on the printing.” A slick guy like that wanting anything to do with a small-town nobody like Ryan? Impossible. Ryan never, ever got lucky over summer break, not in Brightside. And yet, as the guy straddled Ryan‟s thighs, eased a knee onto the seat of the office chair, and a hand along his jaw, nudging him toward the kiss…. Ryan turned 5

his head to the side and swallowed his gum. “I don‟t even know your name.” Ryan felt lips brush against his ear, and then the whisper, “JP.” “What‟s that stand for?” Even lower, so softly Ryan almost didn‟t hear it, JP replied, “Don‟t ask.” Although Ryan hardly knew the person whose breath was playing over his cheek any better than he had mere seconds before, the simple exchange of names—or initials—had raised the bar for the encounter from anonymously seedy to merely impulsive. He‟d always admired impulsiveness, though he‟d never successfully cultivated the tendency in himself. Impulsive people seemed to get what they wanted. And if not, they looked like they had a lot of fun trying. JP trailed kisses from Ryan‟s cheek to his mouth. Warm kisses. Wet. Deliberate. Like he‟d committed himself to the act and he wouldn‟t dream of being ashamed of his choice. Like he did that sort of thing every day—and the thought that he did might be a turnoff, if you were to look at it the wrong way. The way Ryan saw it, JP was bold enough to have anyone…but had chosen him. JP‟s lips parted and the shock of tongue made Ryan catch his breath. He gripped the armrests now, so rigid he trembled. JP broke the kiss only long enough to say, “This is okay, right? You seemed like you might be into guys.” “Yeah, it‟s….” Ryan didn‟t know what it was. It didn‟t seem to matter. JP was already taking up where he‟d left off, coaxing Ryan‟s tongue out of his mouth, sliding his own in. Wet. Soft. Hot. JP ran his hands up Ryan‟s arms and shoulders, settling them on either side of Ryan‟s face. Ryan had never been touched quite like that before. It felt surreal. And while he had no delusions that a complete stranger actually cherished him as much as his technique might imply, the mutual agreement—that they could pretend he did—felt nearly as satisfying. Ryan was almost sad when JP let go of his face…even though he‟d only done so to start undoing the front of Ryan‟s jeans. “Just so you know…” Ryan tried to catch his breath. He sounded like he‟d just run a fifty-yard dash. “I can‟t really give you any freebies. Mrs. Marsh checks the copy counts. I think she even counts all the expensive paper.” “Not every night, I‟ll bet.” JP pushed up Ryan‟s shirt and grazed his stomach with warm, eager fingertips. “I‟d only need you to spot me for a couple of days.” Probably not every night. JP eased off Ryan‟s lap and dragged a slow, wet kiss along the path his fingers had just traced, and Ryan‟s mind quietly short-circuited. Suddenly everything was hyper-real: the buzz of the old electric clock that was five minutes fast; the cries of the gulls circling 99 Flavors in hopes of a stray piece of waffle cone; the decadent warm wetness of JP‟s tongue tracing his navel. It almost tickled. Almost. But it also sent a zing straight down to the bottom of his nuts that gave him an instant boner. A big one. JP crouched in front of Ryan and nuzzled the bulge in his jeans. Ryan stammered, “You don‟t have to…I‟ll make you the copies.” He was so accustomed to looking down that it didn‟t occur to him that all JP needed to do to lock gazes was turn his head. Blue. His eyes were blue. Like the bay after a storm. “It‟s not about the copies.” JP straightened up and cupped Ryan‟s face in his hands again, and as long as he kept on doing that, Ryan decided, he could make copies until the toner ran out. Ryan had a few bucks on him, he‟d pay for the copies himself. It was a much better transaction than the one he‟d just had with the pansy lady. Instead of kissing him again, though, JP made Ryan look at him, and he said, “Copies can wait. How about living for the moment? Just you. Just me. Doing this.” He kissed Ryan again, less forcefully this time, but with exquisite slowness, letting his tongue glide over the edges of Ryan‟s teeth, along the slickness of his lips. And only when Ryan was too transfixed by the unhurried insistence of JP‟s mouth to move, did JP release him and drop a hand down to work its way beneath the waistband of his jeans. “I love how hard you are, just from kissing.” That‟s what Ryan thought JP said, at least. The sentence, “Oh my God, he‟s touching my dick,” had hijacked most of his conscious thought. And not just touching it. Caressing it. Learning the shape of it. Sweeping a thumb over the…. “Oh my God.” 6

JP let his other hand drop, and used both hands to lay Ryan‟s jeans open. There was a moment of blind panic while Ryan wondered which underwear he was wearing, and whether it was too late to lunge for the light switch, but JP didn‟t even look. The motion of stripping off Ryan‟s jeans brought his lips in range for another kiss, and he seized the opportunity to taste Ryan‟s mouth again. Kisses slid askew as Ryan wadded the jeans and underwear past the edge of the seat and down around his knees just in case he had on a particularly ratty pair. JP took it as a sign of enthusiasm, and let his own jeans drop. “Take yours all the way off,” he panted against Ryan‟s lips, which were tingly now from all the kissing. “I want to feel the hair on your legs tickling my thighs.” Ryan stepped on the hems of his baggy jeans and worked them the rest of the way down with his feet, hoping his underwear went along for the ride. The kisses had grown abstract now, wetness trailing over their chins and jaws. They both sucked air, desperate, needy. As soon as Ryan stopped squirming out of his Levi‟s, JP disentangled one foot from his own jeans and straddled Ryan‟s lap. His inner thighs were incredibly hot. Something warm and firm poked Ryan and left a tiny trail of sticky dampness on his hipbone. As those sensations registered, JP wrapped a sure hand around Ryan‟s hard dick again, and the stroking began. “Put your arms around me,” JP murmured, low and sweet, so the words buzzed against Ryan‟s ear. “Let me do us. You just hang on and I‟ll listen to you enjoying the ride.” Ryan slung his arms over JP‟s shoulders, and JP pressed their foreheads together. Too much looking, Ryan thought, and he ducked away from the stare with a kiss, then pressed his forehead into the crook of JP‟s neck so he no longer had to struggle with where to avoid looking. Ryan could never imagine himself moaning and groaning like those guys on the Internet—the ones in the clips he downloaded at school and hid away in a file called “Early American Pottery,” just in case his father had a hankering to play a little solitaire while he was on shore and got to snooping around Ryan‟s laptop. But despite the lack of moaning and grunting and entreaties to do things harder and faster and yeah, yeah, yeah…there were noises. The chair creaking and smacking the table edge. Breathy sounds. Hisses every time the stakes were raised, and the perfect stroke brought both of them one notch closer. Tiny gasps, when their cockheads bumped, or when JP did another one of those thumb swipes. Contented hums, when they slid into another lazy, wet kiss. JP shifted his grasp and Ryan‟s body lurched closer to the brink. No. Not so soon. Not yet. He did his best not to let on how good it felt so the encounter didn‟t need to end, but JP seemed to be able to read the sudden stilling of his breath and the tremble in his thighs. JP didn‟t go back to that stroke he‟d been using before. He did the new thing, the awkwardly angled stroke that would drag an orgasm out of Ryan any moment. And then he did it harder. Ryan understood, suddenly, why people tended to blurt out “I love you” when they were having sex with someone. Because in a way, it was true. For one perfect, shining moment when everything coalesced and his whole mind and body soared, when his hips leapt despite his attempt at holding still, when his world imploded with the poignancy of release, he loved everybody. Even the 3x pansy woman. JP swung a leg off Ryan and angled his body away. A breathy laugh rode in on his kisses. “Ohmigod.” Ryan pulled back, mortified. “Did I just, uh….” He couldn‟t say “come on you.” Despite the fact that he probably just had. “No worries. Indoor/outdoor carpeting hides a multitude of sins.” “Did you…?” JP gave him a wolfish smile and turned his hand palm-up. His fingers were webbed with jiz. “I hope you‟re not planning to enforce that „Employees Only‟ sign on the john. I could stand to freshen up.”

Chapter Three Luckily for JP, Brightside was not a wealthy town. If it were, it's true, there would have been more vacant homes. But those homes would've been equipped with security. Brightside, thoroughly working-class as it was, was still home to a few vacant vacation properties. Trailers. Someday, JP told himself, he'd never set foot in a trailer again. But for now, his upbringing in a sprawling trailer park south of the Twin Cities would serve him well enough. After sundown he coasted in with his headlights off and parked the convertible, top up, beneath the shielding leaves of an ancient weeping willow. 7

He then began the task of checking the units with no obvious residents to see which of them had a cheap, plastic-cornered window screen that could be torqued and popped out with the aid of a simple bottle opener. The third trailer was the charm. He climbed in the window, scanned for blinking red electronics, reminded himself that there was no Internet access in Brightside—so of course a teddy bear babysitter cam was not watching him—and he opened the back door to load in his gear. Because the residents were gone for the season, the water had been shut off and the pipes drained. But JP was prepared. He worked by the light of a tiny flashlight with a precise bluish white beam. First he set out the bottles, thirty-three in all, and he uncapped them. Briefly, he considered rinsing them with his gallon of distilled water, but then he decided, why waste it? The bottles had held a food-grade extract, so it wasn't as if it was dangerous to include the residue. Besides, it might help cover up the disturbing tang of the herbal liqueur that would form the basis of his concoction. For uniformity‟s sake, and also for ease of decanting, JP decided to make his magical philter in one large batch. He passed over a bucket in the cupboard that smelled vaguely of old french fries, and found instead an aluminum bowl attached to the base of a vintage stand mixer. He poured in the fifth of aloe leaf spirits, distilled in Mexico by day labor that was undoubtedly descended from Quetzalcoatl himself, only slightly sampled. Two airline bottles of gin for that juniper essence. One thawed freezer pop for color—red, of course—and a good measure of plain old H2O to keep his customer base from keeling over. Carefully, JP brought his nose above the bowl and fanned the fumes in its direction. Medicinal. He supposed that was a good thing. JP never considered himself to be a particularly good singer, but in this particular case, he couldn't help himself. “I held my nose I closed my eyes...I took a drink.” He wished he hadn't. The taste would probably live with him until he had enough money to leave Brightside. Still, he decided it was probably for the best. If his love potion tasted too good, people might be leery of it. He dug through all the drawers until he found a funnel. It was a well-equipped kitchen, for a snowbird home. Probably owned by a retiree on a pension who‟d been moving from the Snow Belt to the Carolinas every November for years. He‟d be sure to put the window back together just so. If the screen snapped when they aired the place out, well, what do you expect from a thirty-year-old trailer, anyway? They weren‟t exactly bastions of craftsmanship. “When I kissed a cop on Forty-Third and Vine….” JP topped off the final bottle. He considered pouring the leftover brew down the sink, but he wasn‟t sure the old trailer‟s plumbing could take it. Instead, he opened the back door and dumped the dregs over the side of the peeling deck. He caught a whiff of herbs, juniper and fake cherries, but then the briny smell of the ocean whisked it away. *** Ryan had noticed that Mrs. Marsh‟s “pop-ins” never occurred between two and three in the afternoon. After some debate, he and his friends decided she probably had a standing date with her TV to watch People‟s Court. Mirya had suggested she might actually be watching Oprah, but Chance said—in that casually authoritative way in which he said everything—that she was too spiteful to enjoy watching Oprah give things to her audience, and undoubtedly she‟d rather be watching people squirm under the gaze of Judge Milian. And so, at two on the dot, he scrawled “Back in 10” on a sheet of looseleaf paper (which he would later put through the shredder), taped it over the Open sign, and went down to the pink picnic table for his afternoon break. Chance was always the first one there. He stuck out like a sore thumb in black and red among the tourists in their oceanside blues, pastels and whites. Today Andy from the canoe rental stand was with him. Mirya‟s clogs clip-clopped down the boardwalk toward Ryan, and he stopped and waited for her to catch up. Since she was a seasoned pro, she carried four ice cream cones with ease. At the start of the summer they‟d experimented with different flavors, but now they‟d all settled into their routines. Mint chocolate chip for Andy, cookie dough for Mirya, marshmallow fudge for Ryan and plain vanilla for Chance, who said it helped him clear his palate of chocolate and coffee. Mirya handed Ryan the marshmallow fudge and the vanilla to carry. As he slid the plastic bag he‟d brought along onto his forearm so he could take the cones, he noted that of the two cones she kept, neither one was green flecked with sharp-edged bits of chocolate. “What‟s that? “Tutti-frutti.” “But….” 8

“Don‟t make a federal case out of it.” She clip-clopped away from him before he could mention that maybe he would have liked to try tutti-frutti himself. And that he didn‟t want to give Chance his ice cream cone, because…. Well, he didn‟t want to think about why, exactly. Just because. It was with immense relief that he realized he could position himself on the other side of Andy and pass the vanilla cone to him instead. Andy passed it to Chance, who continued to stare off into the bay. Mirya sat across from all three of them with her back to the water and gave Andy the beige ice cream striped with pink, yellow and acid green ribbons of syrup and mysterious chunks of candy. “Sorry. We‟re out of mint.” “Whoa. Muchos gracias,” he said, with no attempt to make the accent sound like anything other than pure North Carolina. “My taste buds are up for the challenge.” “So, uh, Mirya,” Ryan said. “How‟s your grandmother?” Still alive? No, he couldn‟t say that. “Still at Oceanview?” “Where else would she be? You should come visit. A lot of „em still ask about you.” “Yeah, I dunno. It‟s little weird to visit the nursing home when you don‟t have any relatives there anymore.” He slid the plastic bag across the table. “Here‟s a T-shirt for her.” The pansy transfer might be low, but the shirt would look fine on Grammie. Gravity had long ago pulled her physiology out of the range of the pansies. “Pink? She‟ll love you forever. You know she thinks you‟re my boyfriend.” “I never told her I was.” True, two summers ago—before Ryan lost his grandmother to a sudden, and fatal, bout of pneumonia—he and Mirya had a standing date every Wednesday to go admire the handiwork of the visiting hairdresser. Ryan hadn‟t been going out of his way to give anyone the impression he was straight. It just felt too awkward to go through the front door of Oceanview alone. Ryan twirled his ice cream over the flat of his tongue to try to get the melting under control, then found a seam of pale, sweet marshmallow shot through the chocolate. He followed it with his tongue tip, pressing a zig-zagged crease into the cool, smooth surface. “I really need to start seeing someone else, or you‟re never gonna shake the reputation of being my fake boyfriend.” Chance snorted quietly. “I didn‟t know I….” “Maybe it‟d get you off the hook if Andy went somewhere with me for a change.” Andy‟s cone was nearly gone; he‟d been working the ice cream like a competitive eater. His tongue was bright red from the artificial dye in the red syrupy part and he‟d probably have brain freeze in a few minutes, but since he got paid by the job for giving surf lessons, not by the hour like the rest of them, his ten-minute break was the only one that was actually ten minutes long. Or less. “Okay,” he said between big, gouging licks. “Like, the Clambake.” The table fell silent. If your parents took you to the Brightside Friday Night Clambake, it meant dinner. But if you went with someone your own age, it meant you wanted to sneak down to Coral Cove and get to know each other…really, really well. Ryan was so shocked he actually looked at Andy, and found Chance doing the same thing on Andy‟s opposite side—only Chance had an odd little smile on his face, while Ryan was scrambling to figure out exactly how mortified he should be feeling at that very moment. Until Andy took his final lick of the top of the ice cream, the one that mashed the remaining tutti-frutti down into the cone and leveled the top off flat, and said, “Okay.” Just like that. He stood up as if it was the most natural thing in the world that Mirya would have just invited him to sleep with her—in front of Ryan and Chance—and for him to say yes—and he resettled his baseball cap on his sunbleached hair. “Later, kids.” Ryan, Chance and Mirya all watched him amble back to the boardwalk with the sand sifting through his sport sandals and disappear into the canoe rental stand. Even though he was long gone, Mirya still whispered. “Oh. My. God.” Ryan said, “I can‟t believe you just….” “Omigod, omigod, omigod.” She stood up and did a little tapdance on the beach in her clogs. “It‟s not like you to be so risqué,” Chance said around a lick of vanilla. “I‟m impressed.” “Okay. I‟m gonna tell you guys a secret. But you‟ve got to promise me you won‟t tell anybody.” 9

Ryan fidgeted. Chance made the motion of zipping up his lips and throwing away the key. Mirya climbed onto the bench between Ryan and Chance, glanced over one shoulder, then the other (as if that didn‟t make her look totally suspicious) and then pulled a small brown bottle from the pocket of her 99 Flavors apron. Ryan knew the label right away, but seeing it on a bottle tripped him up for a second and left him too tongue-tied to mention that he‟d done the lettering himself. And that it was a gag. A novelty. A joke. Mirya held up the bottle like she was modeling it for a game show and said, “Today‟s flavor of the day had a little special kick.” The Spanish Fly label looked a lot more sinister now that it was stuck to a real bottle…a bottle one of Ryan‟s friends had actually purchased. Chance bit into the edge of his cone that was starting to go soggy. “Maybe you should‟ve waited until after you got lucky to poison him.” His comments rolled off Mirya‟s bubble of optimism like they always did. “How long have I been hinting for him to do something with me? All summer, right? And now, just like that, just like it was his own idea, he said yes.” “Because you finally stopped hinting and actually asked him,” Ryan said. “I know that as my fake boyfriend you‟re obliged to be jealous, but don‟t worry about it. I‟m on the pill.” “I really didn‟t need to know that.” Mirya gazed lovingly at the Spanish Fly, then tucked the bottle back into her apron. “Maybe you should get some for yourself. Then you wouldn‟t have to go around with that sad-sack look on your face.” “What?” “The guy who sold it to me told me to keep it quiet.” She stood, then slung one arm around Ryan and one around Chance to form a huddle. “But since you made a T-shirt for Grammie, I‟ll let you in on it. If you see a black convertible with Illinois plates in the municipal lot on Second and Main, that‟s him, the Spanish Fly guy. He‟ll hook you up. Just don‟t tell him I told you.” She kissed each of them on the hair, said, “I‟m gonna go call Judy,” tossed her mostly-untouched cookie dough into a trash can where two seagulls started warring over it, and ran back toward 99 Flavors. “Oh my God,” Ryan said. Because it seemed to encompass everything he was feeling at the moment without being too specific about any of those emotions. He disentangled himself from the picnic table bench, caught his foot, staggered, and said, “Well, I guess I should get back.” Chance caught him unawares with a cutting over-the-shoulder glance and met his eyes. “I see she‟s not the only one who‟s stepped up her game,” he said. Quietly—because he never raised his voice, and even so, the words carried over the crash of the surf and the gulls buzzed on ice cream. Ryan was so stunned—and so terribly certain that somehow, Chanceknew exactly what had happened in the back office the day before—he held Chance‟s gaze for a long, agonizing moment before it occurred to him to turn his head and tear his eyes away. “What do you care?” he said in the general direction of the empty lifeguard chair. Chance didn‟t reply, but Ryan was fairly sure he‟d heard. “I mean, if you‟re so crazy about me, you wouldn‟t have blown me off back in June when I asked you to the Clambake.” “I didn‟t blow you off…I said no. There‟s a difference.” “Yeah, okay. Whatever.” Ryan stomped off toward the boardwalk. As he did, he was forced to admit that sand made stomping nearly impossible.

Chapter Four “Supplies are limited. Look, you sound like a good guy. Tell you what. I‟ll hold one for you ‟til six—you can make it by six, can‟t you? But after that, I‟ll need to make it available for a walk-in customer. You understand.” Cell phones might not work in Brightside, but thankfully, pay phones did. And they only cost one thin dime. JP wondered if he should run some numbers and meet with the folks at the local telecom to explain how charging fifty cents—like the rest of the world, if they even bothered with payphones at all—would enable all the principals to retire wealthy, wealthy people. He strode back to his Miata and popped the trunk with the remote. The phone company might or might 10

not agree to chat with him, but laying out the spreadsheet would give him something to do while he waited to see if any of the latest lonely hearts who‟d listed phone numbers on their personal ads were man (or woman) enough to take their love-seeking game to the next level. The vanilla box sat wedged between the laptop and a duffel bag of clothing. JP decided he might as well replenish his stock while he had the trunk open. He pulled out the corrugated cardboard partition fully expecting there to be another layer of small brown bottles, but instead he found the bottom of the box. He stared at the cardboard seam and did a quick calculation. Had he really sold out? He‟d been so deep in the zone that he‟d lost count. He patted his inner coat pocket. It bulged with cash, and he was sorely tempted to break his own rule and count out before sundown—but was too superstitious to risk it. Of course there was no set price for Spanish Fly. It varied anywhere from twenty to fifty dollars based on the car the buyer pulled up in and the condition of their shoes. He attempted a quick mental tally. Fifty, thirty, twenty-five…. It was no use. He‟d been too busy reading people, their gestures, their nervous laughter, the tenor of the pauses between their words, to keep track of a minor detail like how much he‟d been charging. Luckily, JP did have a single bottle left. Not one that he would normally have sold, given that the label had landed crooked and off-center, but he figured it was better business to offer up the slightly imperfect “last one”—perhaps at a discount—than to call back the 6-o‟clock and cancel altogether. Daydreams of setting up shop along the beach kept JP too busy to open up the new spreadsheet he‟d been brewing, let alone to notice the passage of time. Of course home-brewed Spanish Fly wasn‟t legitimate enough to carry a whole store…but maybe if he outsourced it and hung “for entertainment purposes only” signs prominently enough, he‟d blend in with the other cheap thrills the boardwalk had to offer. And he could think of just the person to help him with that signage. Oh, who was he kidding? Physical properties involved too much hassle: paperwork, taxes, licenses. The overhead would be phenomenal. And while JP was not averse to spending his hard-earned cash on necessities (such as the Miata he pledged he‟d own by the time he turned thirty), he wasn‟t one to squander money on all the piddling red tape it would take to launch a traditional store. Quarter past six and no customer. JP took it in stride; the lovelorn man hadn‟t been the only person to succumb to cold feet, and besides, in the long run it was better to keep damaged merchandise out of circulation. The Miata‟s tank now held enough gas to get him to Wilmington. If he spent the night there, he could source a bedmate for the night and a big supermarket to restock his Spanish Fly supplies. He closed up “shop” and headed down to the beach bathhouse, where a mere four dollars would score him a key on a bungee cord for a day. The facilities that key would allow him to access might not be the penthouse suite at the Ritz Carlton, but he did have a pair of flip-flops in his duffel bag, and a shower was a shower. He ran through his shopping list as the cares of the day swirled down the drain set in the concrete floor. Aloe liqueur, vanilla bottles, gin, freezer pop. Labels? Nope. He‟d already run enough extra labels for a second batch—too bad. That sentiment surprised JP. Given that he owed Ryan the cost of three pages of labels…four, if you counted the sheet they‟d destroyed by loading it upside down because they were giddy with kisses…it was downright shocking, even to JP himself, that he wasn‟t already watching Brightside recede in his rearview mirror. JP lingered over his toilette. If he stayed in Brightside, he‟d need to ask that smug candymaker for more bottles. The grocery-lotto-bait shop had exactly five vanillas, and no more. He‟d checked. There was one consolation, though. Sweets to the Sweet was right next door to Copy That, and if it was closing time, one never knew who one might run into. JP didn‟t typically do second dates; the thought of falling hard and fast for someone was scary. But who could be scared of Ryan? That kid was about as threatening as a melted cherry freezer pop. And twice as sweet. *** Dregs of ground cocoa curdled at the bottom of the mug. They formed the shape of…a stag? A tree? Chance sighed and swirled the cup. The image was obliterated—whatever it might have been. He considered fixing himself another batch. Someone might as well be enjoying his wares. Beaches and chocolate went together like rollercoasters and martinis. Both were fun, but not necessarily at the same time. He‟d been there all summer long, too, wondering how no one noticed that if money actually kept his 11

business in business, he would have soaped his windows and filed for bankruptcy months ago. Maybe all the shops ran that way in Brightside. How strange. Seeing as how Chance was so eager to move on, he should have been relieved to finally meet The One. But he wasn‟t. Didn‟t like the guy. Simple as that. Chance looked up just before the bell on the door chimed, and JP McMahon strode in smelling of eagerness and foil-wrapped cologne samples. “Say, you wouldn‟t happen to have a few more of those little brown bottles, would you? They were a really big hit.” Certainly, Chance had thrown in his lot with more despicable souls—and found them to be perfectly fascinating company. So why did JP get under his skin? “I can pay you this time,” he went on. “In fact, here. Here‟s a double sawbuck for the last batch, and I won‟t take no for an answer.” The back room pulled at Chance as he stared down at the twenty dollar bill and made an effort to keep his lip from curling in disgust. This JP McMahon was The One? Very well. Chance would go through the motions, and when he and McMahon were done, when whatever was about to happen actually happened, then he would leave this sorry little town and its decaying boardwalk far, far behind. “Maybe I have more, maybe not. I‟ll check.” Chance slipped into the back room and opened the pantry door on hinges stiff and stubborn with the sandy grit that insinuated itself everywhere. Backlighting formed a perfect wedge on the single cardboard box in the center of the pantry floor, pointing at it like a great, pale arrow. Fine. Chance crouched beside the box and opened it, just in case it was filled with something festive, like a bunch of annoyed ghost crabs. But no. He found a tier of empty brown bottles instead. He stared at them for a moment and considered: a bad batch of Spanish Fly would shake things up, either by launching JP from Brightside for good, or by landing him in the county jail. His fingers hovered over the glass. It would be so very easy. Through the far wall that the candy store shared with 99 Flavors, Mirya‟s laugher rose and fell. Chance rolled his eyes. Easy? Hardly. As much as he‟d love to taint the snake oil, he couldn‟t do it…not in Brightside. He was simply too attached. Rime bloomed on the bottles as Chance fingered them, one by one, and channeled the sweet sadness of love into each one instead. And while he would have at least enjoyed making JP beg for the damn things, he didn‟t even bother to barter. JP was so tickled that Chance had found more bottles, he could hardly get out the door fast enough. The bell chimed behind him as Chance dropped the pair of twenties he‟d tendered as payment into the trash. *** The light was on in the upstairs flat Ryan shared with his father. Ryan might not have noticed if it was still light out, if he hadn‟t stopped at the chocolate shop for a drink with Mirya and Chance. It‟d been an awkward drink. Some tourists started pawing at the windows like Night of the Living Dead even though most of the lights were out and the “Closed” sign was showing. Mirya couldn‟t stop babbling about what she was going to wear to the Clambake. And it had been beyond awkward figuring out where to look to avoid meeting Chance‟s eyes. But even if it hadn‟t been dark out with the living room light showing through their thin plastic roll-up shades, and even though Ryan had indulged in an extra shot of Jaeger, he would have known his father was home before he even got halfway up the stairs, because you‟d have to be dead to not notice the smell. Dad smelled like the ocean. It was a matter of semantics, really. Ryan used to think he smelled like seaweed and dead fish. But in an attempt to put a positive spin on his father‟s hiatuses from the trawler, every time he caught that whiff of brine, Ryan had reminded himself that he was smelling the ocean. And then he forced himself to stop thinking about it. His father sat on the couch hunched over a TV tray. Light from the table lamp bounced off the chalkwhite ceiling and cast a glare on his deeply bronzed scalp where his hair was wispy-thin. He was looking at bills. What else would he be looking at? It wasn‟t as if he ever read because he enjoyed it. Ryan longed to sneak to his room, shut the door, and leave his father to contemplate the bills in peace. But 12

his mom always used to make such a big deal out of it when his dad was on shore. “Being a fisherman is dangerous work,” she‟d remind him each and every time his father shipped out again. “You never know which time you say goodbye to him might be the last time.” Ryan never realized he should have been applying the same logic to his mom. The last time he said goodbye to her, she had an encounter with a distracted driver trying to figure out why her cell phone didn‟t work. Obviously, the lady wasn‟t a Brightside native or she wouldn‟t have bothered trying. Ryan‟s father looked up from his bills and squinted—the squint was permanent—and he sighed. Which also seemed permanent. “They cut your hours again at the T-shirt shop?” “Uh…no.” “Your last paycheck seems about twenty dollars short. I thought maybe she let you go early a couple of days.” Ryan thought back through the last pay period. “No, I burned a shirt, melted the decal right through it. You need to use a lower setting for glitter and I forgot to—” “Ryan.” Ryan trailed off. It was a relief to be able to stop re-living the failure even though he didn‟t like the way his dad had said his name. Sadly. Like he was being crushed by the weight of the world, and because he had no choice he would endure it…but he hadn‟t expected it to be quite so demoralizing. “Sit down a minute.” Ryan sat on the couch and wished he hadn‟t done that final shot of Jaeger. “I‟d been hoping to hand all the rent you‟ve been paying back to you at the end of the summer so you could pay your tuition with it…but now it turns out we owe back taxes, fines….” “We? Who‟s we—you and me? Because I checked those taxes and they were right.” “The boat.” Ryan planted his elbows on his knees and dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Ever since you took a partnership with them, they‟ve been using it as an excuse to make you work harder and pay you less.” “What do you want me to say?” From anyone else it would have sounded like a challenge, but from Ryan‟s father, it came off as more of a plea. “If I knew then what I know now, yeah, I wouldn‟t have done it. But I figured I should try to make something of myself—I‟ll be fifty in a few years—instead of bringing home an hourly paycheck like a kid your age.” Ryan wasn‟t so sure about that. Some of his hourly earnings were negative numbers. “So there is no tuition.” “I used your rent money for rent. I didn‟t want to, but I did it. I‟m sorry.” Ryan stared at a cigarette burn in the carpet. It had been there since they moved in. Neither he nor his father smoked. “You know if I had the money….” “Yeah, I know.” From the kitchen, the weather radio droned the barometer and wind speed. Sounds of shuffling paper on a TV tray accompanied the weather announcer‟s monotonous voice. Ryan smelled his father‟s boots from out on the landing. They reeked of rotting fish guts. Jaegermeister tickled at the back of his throat. “I‟m sorry too,” Ryan blurted out. His father sighed. “You know, if it‟s cheaper for you to stay in Wilmington year ‟round, I‟ll take a room at George Starlton‟s place and we won‟t have to pay to keep this apartment.” “And what about Christmas?” Ryan snapped. He never snapped at anyone. He blamed the alcohol, and the notion that he might need to drop all his fall classes because he had nothing to pay for them with…and then what? “Where am I supposed to stay for Christmas?” The weatherman announced that the offshore visibility was at half a mile, with light fog and a relative humidity of 94%. “Maybe you can go to school half time. Get a part-time job in the city. An internship.” “Oh. Right. Because designers fall out of the sky begging me to come and intern for them.” Ryan could have kicked himself as he said it, because how would his father, with his split knuckles and his tenth-grade education, understand what it was like to be one visual communications major out of hundreds, and all of them battling it out for the same dozen crappy internships. Ryan stood, turned toward his room, and swallowed the 13

herbal sting of Jaeger, chocolate and stomach acid that danced over the back of his tongue.

Chapter Five JP locked up the old trailer, crept to his car, and cruised down to the beach with a trunk full of Spanish Fly and a stomach full of butterflies. He didn‟t get nervous. He wasn‟t wired that way. But the thought of seeing Ryan again and figuring out how to coax him away from his post left JP squirming in his seat. JP attempted to tell himself that Ryan was just another one of those big-eyed, soft-voiced southern boys. Not exactly a dime a dozen, but not on par with PT Barnum‟s Feejee Mermaid, either. It didn‟t work. He knew himself pretty well, and while he might have been mildly interested in knowing he was going somewhere a sweet young anonymous thing might be, or even better, the Feejee Mermaid, JP felt like someone had pumped his veins full of helium at the thought of seeing Ryan again to make good on his debt. He pulled up in front of the store, tucked his USB drive into his pocket, swaggered through the front door…. And stopped short at the sight of the cougar behind the counter. She was stick thin like she‟d never once enjoyed a good burger or a piece of saltwater taffy, and her blonde-streaked hair was casually tousled in a haircut that JP would price at anywhere from fifty to a hundred and fifty dollars, depending on the local economy. She looked up in annoyance from the register, but her flinty eyes softened as she took in JP. Slowly. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes. “What can I do for you?” she purred. “Well, hello there.” He somehow managed to drop his voice and add a respectable “you‟re so sexy” lilt to his greeting without transmitting the depth of his disappointment. “Say, I wonder if you can tell me when your employee will be in next?” The woman‟s gaze began to harden. JP course-corrected. “What was his name? Bryan? He gave me the name of a website but I forgot the address.” She‟d relaxed noticeably when JP fudged Ryan‟s name, but she still had a look in her eye that suggested JP might not have been quite as slick as he‟d hoped. “I can‟t imagine where you‟d check it around here anyway. No Internet connections.” JP let his gaze linger at her cleavage, then lifted them to meet her eyes, casually, so she didn‟t see he was kicking himself for being so sloppy. She smiled when he met her eyes. One predator to another. “How about that? Glad I‟m staying in Wilmington.” “He‟ll be in later.” She glanced at the clock, and didn‟t bother to correct Ryan‟s name, or to give JP an exact time. “I sent him out so I can do inventory.” JP wondered if she would well and truly spot the three sheets of missing labels. Or four. And how he could make it up to Ryan…and that particular train of thought made the helium-veined feeling start up again. “I don‟t suppose you have his cell number.” “I don‟t suppose he has one.” Damn it. JP did his best to act besotted with her cleavage. “Gosh,” he said regretfully, cognizant of the fact that anyone who actually knew him would steel themselves for an outrageous line of bullshit at the mere utterance of the word. “That‟s too bad.” He stared and waited for Ryan‟s boss to offer his landline. Then he smiled vapidly and looked at the T-shirts on the wall—Life‟s a Beach—then let his eyes wander back to her chest. He supposed it was a nice enough chest, if you were into that kind of thing. And evidently Boss Lady liked younger men who were into that kind of thing, enough so that she relented and said, “He probably didn‟t walk all the way back home. You might find him in the shops on the boardwalk with one of his little friends.” She managed to make it sound both dirty and humiliating. In the event JP should ever need to charm her again, he forced himself to linger and exchange a few more empty observations about the Seahawks and the traffic on Route 17 before he excused himself. He stepped outside into the briny humidity and looked up and down the boardwalk. Sweets for the Sweet—he‟d be sure to look there last. The bathhouse. A sandwich shop. A clothing boutique that specialized in bathing suits, sun hats and wraps. The canoe rental stand. And right next door to Copy That, an ice cream parlor called 99 Flavors. It wasn‟t even lunchtime, too early for ice cream, but the popularity of iced coffee—and its undoubtedly 14

low overhead—had the tiny store crowded with beachcombers, both pale tourists and tanned locals. JP spotted Ryan seated at the far end of the counter by the restroom with the overenthusiastic Customers Only sign. He was hunched over a massive banana split, picking at it listlessly. JP would have liked to slide into the stool beside him with a smooth opening line, but that spot was currently taken by a supersized Midwesterner. He ambled over and leaned on the wall instead, and said, “If that‟s breakfast, I can‟t wait to see lunch.” Ryan flinched, did a double-take, and said, “Oh.” He looked away quickly, in his charming can‟t-meetyour-eyes fashion, and said, “I didn‟t know you were still around.” The bleached blonde girl behind the counter found an excuse to wipe down the pineapple slushy machine across from Ryan, even though it probably hadn‟t seen any use since the night before. “Ryan—remember yesterday‟s flavor of the day? This is him. The guy.” She attempted a wink at JP which was overdone, and painfully cute. Obviously, a satisfied customer. “Maybe he can set you up.” “We already know each other,” Ryan said into his banana split. JP had hoped for a more enthusiastic reception. For all he knew, though, the kid couldn‟t wave his Pride flag on the boardwalk, so he did his best to rein in his “I want you naked, five minutes ago” demeanor—which was no longer a put-on to score printing services—and aimed for casual interest instead. He waited for the waitress to be called to the other end of the counter, then said, “Looks like you were right about the whole inventory thing. Hopefully this‟ll smooth it over—I‟ve got a return on your investment for you.” He slipped a pair of folded twenties under the hand Ryan was holding flat to the countertop. Ryan looked at the money. “It‟s fine. I paid for the copies myself. You only owe me fifteen dollars.” He slid back a twenty and pulled out his wallet to hunt for change. JP pushed the twenty toward him. “Don‟t be ridiculous. Your aesthetic contribution made all the difference in the world. I insist.” “No, it‟s…I couldn‟t.” The waitress came back with a tall iced coffee mounded with whipped cream and slid it over to JP. “On the house,” she said. “And if Ryan won‟t take your money, maybe you should show your appreciation by treating him to dinner, instead.” “Mirya…” Ryan groaned. JP took a better look at her. If he ever needed a wingman, he could do worse than to find someone like her. “Oh, really?” “The Brightside Clambake is tonight—how about that? It‟s a big deal around here.” JP shrugged. “When in Rome.” He turned toward Ryan, who was still focused on his melting scoop of pistachio. “What time should I pick you up?” *** Normally, Mrs. Marsh made Ryan so nervous he couldn‟t think straight. But today he hardly even noticed her. In fact, she‟d had to ask him three times where he‟d put the new shipment of postcards before he heard her, and eventually she grew tired of browbeating him and went home to watch People‟s Court. The thing Ryan was having a hard time wrapping his head around was this: the laws of probability were apparently meaningless in Brightside. His father had been returning the “rent” every September ever since Ryan started college three years before. And now, suddenly, no tuition. And yet JP, who Ryan had never taken for anything other than a ship that passed in the night, was taking him to the Clambake. The Clambake. Tonight. Mirya was blessedly silent about it during their ten-minute break, which included only her, Ryan and Chance since Andy was giving a lesson—but she did force Ryan to meet her gaze on the way back to the boardwalk so she could lavish a very knowing smile on him. JP was already parked in front of Copy That, leaning on his fancy convertible, when Ryan locked up the store. When JP rounded the car and opened the passenger door, Ryan thought at first there must be something wrong with it, some trick to the latch. Then he realized JP was opening the door for him, and he felt his cheeks grow hot. “Nice…car.” JP climbed into the driver‟s seat, started the engine and gave it a couple of affectionate revs. “She‟s a beaut.” 15

“So, um, we don‟t actually have to…” “Are you keeping the whole gay thing on the downlow?” “What? Not really. No.” JP leaned over and tucked a strand of Ryan‟s hair behind his ear. Ryan could feel JP searching to meet his eyes, but it was too raw, too intense. He stared hard at the sleek, James Bondian dashboard, and JP said, “So we‟ll go eat some baked clams. That‟s what they do around here. Right?” “They‟re fried. Actually.” “Clam Fry doesn‟t have the same ring to it, I suppose.” Ryan had never ridden in a convertible before. The ocean air was a sharp, tangible thing that stung his cheeks, chilled his teeth and dried out his eyeballs. And it actually smelled like the ocean—not a euphemism for seaweed and dead fish, either. The ocean. He was so lost in the scent of the night air and the feel of the wind on his face that it hadn‟t even registered why JP had slowed down until he dropped a hand on Ryan‟s knee. “Is this the place?” Ryan looked out at the mass of cars. “Oh my God. Where are...is this...?” Ryan checked the sign. It was the Brightside Friday Night Clambake all right, but the parking lot was full. The driveway leading up to the parking lot was full. And the street leading to the driveway, normally deserted, had a line of cars hugging each curb from the beach to the Senior Center. JP waved to an older couple as they climbed into their sedan, then pulled into the freshly vacated spot. “You do live in this town, don‟t you? Is this, or is this not the most infamous Friday night hotspot from here to Wilmington?” “Well, yeah. But it‟s really…crowded.” JP swung out of the car and headed around the shiny black hood as if he was going to open the door for Ryan again, but Ryan slipped out of the car before he got the chance. It wasn‟t that he was embarrassed; it produced a squirmy anxiety in him that was too complicated to dissect with the heat from the citronella-fueled tiki lights beating down on him. They walked side by side up the shell-inlaid walkway, Ryan painfully unsure of what to do with his hands the whole way, rounded the stucco wall…. And nearly crashed into the backs of a couple of sunburned tourists in “Beach Bum” T-shirts. There was a line of people waiting to get in that extended from the front door to the edge of the patio. “This is crazy. It‟s never like this.” “The clams must be in season.” About a dozen people ahead of them, a thirtyish couple whispered and pointed. Ryan felt his face to see if maybe he‟d had something hanging out of his nose all the way there, then glanced over his shoulder to determine if maybe Dancing with the Stars was filming over by the bike rack. The couple waved, and Ryan was well and truly baffled. Until JP gave them a sly salute. “You know them?” “They look pretty familiar. A lot happier now that they‟re together…and waiting in line for the event of the year.” “But that‟s the thing. It‟s really nothing special. The cole slaw is good, but it‟s just a bunch of stupid—” A few heads farther down the line, another couple turned, spotted JP, and waved. He gave them a coy nod. Ryan lost his train of thought and seized upon another. “There‟s not a band, or even a jukebox. It‟s just a boombox with a CD box set called Hits of the 80‟s and 90‟s that used to belong to the public library.” The next couple in line turned to see what the people behind them were so excited about, saw JP, and joined in on the waving. JP waved demurely back. “So you…know….” The ripple of excitement moved through the line as more people turned, smiled, waved. “…all of them?” “Satisfied customers, one and all. Just look at those beaming faces.” A commotion started near the front of the line as the group began to motion for JP and Ryan to come up front. “Go on,” said the first couple who‟d greeted them. “Go up there.” Ryan had never felt so visible. JP leaned in and said in his ear, “We‟d better go. It‟ll just get crazier if we don‟t.” Ryan nodded vigorously, and JP pressed a hand to the small of his back to guide him forward through the 16

loosely-formed line. JP received pats to the back and even handshakes as he made his way through the admiring throng. Ryan wouldn‟t have been surprised if someone had stopped JP for an autograph. The whole experience was so unexpected, so bizarre, that Ryan only noticed in a belated sort of way that everybody knew him, too. As the kid from the copy shop. Out on a big date with the Spanish Fly guy. Within the ring of paper lanterns that surrounded the patio, the boombox did its best to create an atmosphere, but with every table full—and couples encouraged to share the four-seaters on impromptu doubledates—the tinny blare of Phil Collins was lost in the sea of voices and clacking cutlery. A two-seater table opened up, right in the middle of the patio. “Oh God,” Ryan said. Under his breath, he‟d thought. But JP gave his arm a squeeze. “C‟mon. It‟ll be fun.” Ryan was unsure what, exactly, his own definition of “fun” entailed. Probably never this. He felt the weight of the crowd‟s gaze on him as the hostess showed them to the most visible table in town and asked if they needed menus, and whether they‟d prefer glasses of Coke, or a pitcher. “I‟ll go for the clams,” JP said, then looked at Ryan. “And you?” “The same,” he managed. “And a pitcher. Thanks.” JP planted both elbows on the tabletop and leaned forward so he could talk without shouting. “It‟s funny, you‟d think I would‟ve felt something driving into Brightside, that I would‟ve known all of this would happen. But I didn‟t. It was just like any other day. I could tell you that people go crazy for my stuff all the time—but let‟s be honest. I‟ve never had an idea hit like this. Ever.” Ryan snuck a peek out from beneath the fringe of his hair. Every person within visual range was looking at them, and talking. “Yeah, because….” Because it‟s all bullshit, he wanted to say. Spanish Fly? In a vanilla bottle? And how much did JP charge for that, because it couldn‟t have been cheap. You didn‟t drive a Miata by giving your stuff away. “Because I had help. Your label. That‟s the only explanation I can come up with.” “No way. All I did was change the font.” “You know what they say: never judge a book by its cover. Know why? Because everybody does, that‟s why. People are visual, and they see something with a label that turns them on, and boom. They‟re willing to pay for it. They‟re willing to believe in it.” “It‟s just a font.” When JP reached across the table and took his hand, a small part of Ryan was apprehensive that any of his neighbors who hadn‟t yet heard he was gay would now know beyond a shadow of a doubt…and part of him was thrilled. “You know what?” JP said. “I want to tell you you‟re brilliant. I think you‟ll figure it‟s all a big come-on, but I‟ve got to say it anyway. You need to hear it more often.” Of course it was all a come-on. Like you could trust a guy like JP any farther than you could throw his latest grift. But hearing it still felt amazing. Jeannie Henner, a cheerleader who‟d been in both Ryan‟s AP Lit and AP Chemistry classes Senior Year, squeezed her way through the crowded tables with a tray full of french fries and fried clams balanced in one hand and a pitcher of Coke in the other. “Hey, Ryan,” she said, in a flirty, singsongy way, as if they were old pals—as if she was pleased as punch to see him, even though she‟d been popular, and he‟d been the polar opposite. Maybe she really was glad to see him. It would give her a chance to get a better look at the Spanish Fly guy. “Bernie from the tackle shop says he‟s picking up your check, tip and all, so eat up. I can bring you some cheese sticks if you want. Or dessert.” She fluttered her mascara-laden eyelashes and slid her gaze to JP as she said the word dessert, like she wouldn‟t have minded a little taste herself, and as she breezed away, she leaned over and whispered in Ryan‟s ear, “Lucky.” Now there was a word he‟d never, ever, even once used to describe himself. They ate, and the act of chewing clams and fries excused Ryan from having to come up with something to say. After every few bites, he‟d wonder if maybe he was supposed to try to be better company, but JP would just meet his eyes and give him a smile, a reassuring smile, as if to say, it‟s okay. You don‟t need to put on a performance for me. Eventually, the pressure of having every thought in Brightside directed at him, as well as the result of drinking nearly three quarters of the pitcher, prompted Ryan to excuse himself. 17

The line to the men‟s room led out into the hall—which was better than the wait for the ladies‟ room, which seemed half an hour long. Thankfully, Ryan didn‟t know anyone in line, because then he‟d probably have to talk, and what could he say, really? That it felt like he was dreaming? He snuck a glance at JP. An older woman one table over had leaned across the aisle to talk to him, and they were clasping hands as they spoke, and staring into each other eyes. It wasn‟t so much that JP was handsome in a soap opera kind of way. But his charisma came through, even from across the room, even when it wasn‟t even directed at Ryan. He realized a gap had appeared in the line to the bathroom while he‟d been staring. He shuffled forward. The men‟s room door swung open, and Andy strolled out into the hall. In a button-up dress shirt. And slacks. Ryan had never seen him in anything besides a surf shop T-shirt and cargo shorts, or maybe a wetsuit. “Hey!” Andy‟s teeth were bright white against his tan. “I didn‟t know you were here.” “I got a seat out on the patio.” “Serious? It was totally full by the time we got here. You should‟ve sat with us.” “Oh….” “Are you, like, on a date?” “Y-yeah….” Andy looked through the patio window as if he thought it would be fun to try to spot the lucky partner. “With a dude?” “Yeah. That‟s generally the way it works when you‟re gay.” “C‟mon, I‟ve never been a douche about that. It‟s just that I never saw you with anybody at all, the whole summer. Do I know him?” If he didn‟t, he was probably the only one in Brightside. Ryan shrugged. “They‟re saying that Coral Cove is packed to the gills ‟cos so many people are parked tonight. It‟s one great big lovefest.” “Oh. That‟s too bad. I mean, you and Mirya probably wanted to….” Ryan knew both of them too well to actually verbalize whatever they might have wanted to do—with each other. “You don‟t need Coral Cove to get laid after the Clambake.” Andy stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels as if he just realized he‟d said that to Mirya‟s fake boyfriend. “What I meant is, the word Clambake itself is the secret handshake, not the part where you get lucky down by the beach. Just coming here with someone‟s practically like going steady.” The line moved forward again, which would finally place Ryan inside the bathroom. Which was good, because the thought of dissecting the significance of the Clambake made his head reel. “Okay, then.” Was it appropriate to wish Andy luck? No, too weird. “Uh…see ya.” Like going steady…maybe in Ryan‟s dreams. The reality, he knew, was that a second date with JP was about as likely as a hard frost in August, and he‟d be an idiot to think he‟d see JP again once their date was over.

Chapter Six It seemed to JP as if adulation should have meant more. Didn‟t every young child pose in front of the fulllength mirror on the inside of his parents‟ closet door, and with a hairbrush microphone, conduct his own infomercials—followed, of course, by his own talk shows? It was a good feeling, the looks, the smiles. Even a great feeling. But not quite as transcendent as he‟d always imagined. He glanced back toward the building to see if Ryan had emerged, and did his best to ignore the gnaw of trepidation that maybe the delicious anxiety of notoriety was too much for the kid to handle, and that maybe he‟d decided it was easiest to slip out the kitchen door and walk home. The sound of Ryan‟s chair legs scraping against patio brick was drowned out by the ambient crowd noise, but the rustle of a plastic tablecloth caught JP‟s attention. He turned, relief already blooming in his chest—but it wasn‟t Ryan seating himself at the table. It was the candy man. Different clothes now, a trim black suit, a silk blend, maybe, that ate whatever small light was cast by the torchieres and the twinkling white Christmas bulbs. His hair, too, was so black it looked more like a silhouette than a three-dimensional shape, and his eyebrows could have been a couple of arched slits cut through the white 18

plane of his face, a window to the clear, dark sky that hung above the restless waves. “Enjoying yourself?” he said. “It‟s a beautiful night.” “You know the problem with trying to be Cinderella? At the end of the evening, the carriage turns back into a turnip, and the riches to rags.” “I think you mean a pumpkin.” The chocolatier shrugged, an elegant shrug that belonged on a catwalk in Milan, not behind the counter of an oceanside town that was the poor second-cousin of Cape Fear. Then he helped himself to a long drink of Ryan‟s pop. “You want a cut of the profits,” JP said, “is that it? I already paid you what those bottles were worth, and then some. Remember?” “Everything. Always. In excruciating detail.” Chance swirled the pop in the glass and watched the melting ice click against the sides. “You hang on to that money of yours. You‟re going to need it.” Bail was, of course, the first thing that came to mind. JP glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see some boys in blue sauntering up to the table armed with a charge of fraud, or practicing without a license, or even jaywalking. But no. It was just the folks of Brightside and their beloved Clambake. A newly-seated couple spotted him and waved, and he nodded back. “Frankly, I thought you‟d be more insufferable in your success.” JP turned back to the candymaker, who was toying with the accordioned remains of Ryan‟s straw wrapper, smoothing it over and over with his disturbingly facile fingertips. “Come to collect on that favor, I‟ll bet. Listen, how about I slip you a Benjamin and we‟ll call it even….” “Your business success, anyway.” He crumpled the paper into a tiny wad that looked, for a fleeting moment, like an origami insect, but then the light from the twinkling strings of bulbs shifted, and it was nothing but a misshapen blob. “The question is, will the success go to your head, or do you know when your luck has run its course?” “Is that some kind of threat?” “A simple observation. Nothing more. If there‟s one thing you can always count on, it‟s change.” The candy man stood, and JP watched him for “tells”—but he had none, none of the small motions that people typically make, settling their clothing, patting their hair. “Goodbye, Mr. McMahon. It‟s been…interesting.” He left the table and wove through the crowd like smoke, and at the far end of the patio, encountered the girl from the ice cream parlor. She squealed and hugged him, her tall, superbly-tanned date clapped him on the back, and suddenly the candymaker looked less like a CGI version of a person and more like a regular guy. What disturbed JP even more than the candy man‟s lack of fidgeting was the fact he‟d figured out that a third batch of Spanish Fly had been in the realm of possibility even before JP had fully explored the idea himself. The way Chance talked, it was as if he thought he‟d had a hand in the success of the whole venture. JP glanced up to see if he was still watching, but the crowd had shifted and now he was gone. JP straightened the paper napkin beside his plate. He didn‟t need some bonbon dipper telling him how to live his life…but his own gut had been prompting him to move along. He‟d be on the road already if it weren‟t for Ryan…who, on cue, pushed through the crowd to their table and gave JP a shy smile. “Hey,” he said, “I‟m really sorry. The bathroom line goes all the way out to the end of the hall.” JP managed to swallow a few more clams—it seemed their plates had been stacked a lot higher than the other customers‟, and there was only so much vegetable oil one could ingest on a given night—but they‟d grown cold and rubbery. “So what‟s this I‟ve been hearing about the after-party?” “The what?” “After. After the Clambake. There‟s got to be a reason everyone gets a sly grin on their face when they mention it.” “Oh it‟s um…it‟s not really a formal party. Or any party. It‟s more like….” Ryan broke off and took a few swallows of his pop. “It‟s a tradition, really.” “Go on.” “If you‟re going to the Clambake as a date, then afterward….” He shrugged. “Afterward you go down to Coral Cove. And you park.” “Park—like in the ‟fifties sense of the word?” 19

Ryan nodded, and gulped more soda. “I‟ve got to hand it to this town. Other than the cell-phone withdrawal, everything else about it leaves me pleasantly surprised.” “Did you put something….” Ryan peered down into his ice cubes. “Like what? A little taste of our collaborative efforts?” JP leaned back in his chair and studied Ryan‟s painfully earnest expression. “Not my style. I prefer to seduce you the old-fashioned way—pampering, flattery, a spin in the Miata, and maybe a mojito, if you want to get a little buzz on while we‟re stargazing.” Ryan sniffed his Coke. “Really? I mean, it seems sweeter.” “You‟re not trying to talk me into dropping you off early, are you? ‟Cos it‟d be a shame if we couldn‟t indulge in the entire Clambake experience. A real shame.” *** JP had reasoned that since it was their lucky night, they should coast down to Coral Cove and enjoy the scenery. After all, they found a parking spot at the restaurant, didn‟t they? And the hour-long wait to be seated had only been a couple of minutes for them. Which was how they ended up in a string of creeping cars that stretched from one end of Sandy Lane to the other. JP slid his arm around Ryan‟s shoulders and said, “Two out of three ain‟t bad.” Actually, Ryan thought, it was good. Being in a traffic jam was something that happened to people in the real world, and he needed that sense of reality to ground him, to keep himself from getting carried away with childish fantasies where everyone went steady and lived happily ever after. JP drew a heart of the back of Ryan‟s neck with his forefinger, and said, “We can still see the stars. The mojito will have to wait, but once we‟re in the clear, wherever you want me to take you—your wish is my command.” “You‟re sure you didn‟t put anything in that Coke? ‟Cos it had a really sweet aftertaste.” “No tampering. Cross my heart.” The line of traffic began to move, and JP eased his foot off the brakes. “I couldn‟t slip you any Spanish Fly even if I wanted to. It‟s sold out.” “Oh.” “Is that the turnoff for Coral Cove? It‟s bumper to bumper. But if you really want to—” “No. It‟s fine. We don‟t have to go there.” Ryan suddenly realized it might sound as if he didn‟t want a replay of the scene in the copy room, when in fact he‟d been thinking about it nonstop ever since JP had left him there behind the counter with a slow, lingering kiss. “I mean…not there, exactly. But if you wanted to, y‟know, go to your room or something….” “In a heartbeat—if I had a room. I was hoping if I promised to be very, very, very good, you might invite me back to your place.” Ryan shifted in his seat. “I think my dad‟s still there.” “Well, then. Plan…D, is it?” As Ryan suggested the only private spot he could think of—the back parking lot shared by Copy That, Sweets to the Sweet and 99 Flavors—it occurred to him that he‟d never actually needed to find somewhere to tryst. Not in Brightside. After quitting time, he and Mirya occasionally kicked around a hacky sack there beneath the flowering dogwoods. Now he hoped there wasn‟t anything embarrassing about it he‟d never considered, since he‟d never actually scoped it out for its dating potential. JP coasted into the lot with his headlights off and cut the engine. “There‟s a flashlight in the glove box,” he said softly in Ryan‟s ear, which made a shiver of anticipation race down Ryan‟s spine. “I‟ll get us a blanket.” Ryan opened the glove box and pulled out the flashlight—and then considered the rest of the contents. A pocket-pack of tissues. A bottle of antacids. A protein bar. The leatherbound owner‟s manual, which no doubt had title and registration (containing whatever actual name went with JP‟s initials) inside. And among all that other stuff—a small brown bottle. Spanish Fly. Sold out—right. He was dying to page through the manual, but couldn‟t figure out a way to do it without getting caught. He pocketed the Spanish Fly instead, then turned on the flashlight, got out of the car and lit the way for JP, who‟d pulled a duffel bag and a blanket from the Miata‟s trunk. The lot looked different now, at the end of August, than it had last May when white flowers had covered the trees and the petals had fallen around Ryan and Mirya like movie snow. Now the dogwood looked dark, and 20

dried, and the leaves drooped from the branches as if the trees were in mourning. Tiny berries that had begun their lives as the centers of the long-gone white flowers hung in big clusters, and the fallen ones popped under the soles of Ryan‟s sneakers as he crept toward the back of the building where he‟d spent the last three summers cranking out leaflets and T-shirts. JP snapped open the blanket and passed it over the ground several times, like a magician setting up his next illusion. Dogwood berries scattered. After the third snap, he let the blanket float to the ground, then knelt down, opened his bag, and pulled out a couple of bottled waters. Ryan was still rooted to the spot. JP looked up at him and said, “Is this okay? If you want something else—wine, dessert—I‟ll go grab it. Just say the word.” “It‟s fine. I‟m stuffed.” JP patted the blanket. “Then come sit with me. I won‟t bite.” Ryan‟s cheeks felt like they were on fire. He trusted it wasn‟t obvious in the moonlight, and he aimed the flashlight beam at the ground as he made his way along the berry-littered asphalt, and sat. JP eased up against Ryan and slipped an arm around him. It was just an arm. But it left a diagonal tingle like a lash across Ryan‟s back where it touched him. “We don‟t have to do anything you don‟t want to do. We can just talk.” “No, it‟s…I want to.” Maybe talking was more awkward than fucking. Ryan peeled off his T-shirt—a thorny, tribal-looking decal that‟d stretched when he pulled away the backing too soon—and sat there feeling exposed in the moonlight. JP picked up the shirt and rolled it into a cylinder, then lay on his side with his head on his arm, leaving the shirt for Ryan to use as a pillow. Ryan settled in, and JP trailed meandering swirls down his bare shoulder. “I‟m leaving in the morning.” Obviously. But Ryan awarded JP some points for coming right out and saying it. He couldn‟t think of any reply that wouldn‟t be embarrassing, so he moved in closer instead, and fit his mouth to JP‟s to dispense with the need for conversation. The fevered rush of kisses they‟d had in the back of the store was gone; instead, there was a gentle insistence, and an unexpected knowing, a familiarity that came from picking up a thread for the second time rather than snapping it off. JP‟s fingers trailed over Ryan‟s cheek, and through his hair, leaving shivery trails behind like the foamy wake of a jet ski. JP rolled onto his back and pulled Ryan on top of him, and the touch of the cool night air woke the skin on Ryan‟s back, and made the trails of caresses leap to life. Gooseflesh prickled all over, uncomfortably exquisite, and Ryan‟s breath caught on something that could have been either a laugh or a yelp. He tore his mouth from JP‟s. “Are you sure you didn‟t put something in my drink?” Moonlight glittered off the whites of JP‟s eyes as he stared up, searching Ryan‟s face in the near dark. “Look, I already told you I didn‟t.” He ran the backs of his knuckles down Ryan‟s cheek, and Ryan couldn‟t suppress the delighted shiver that coursed through him, and made his hard-on shove into the crook of JP‟s thigh. JP sighed and nudged his bulging package against Ryan‟s crotch in return. “I‟ve never lied to you.” “Right.” JP let his hand drop to the blanket, and he sat up, rolling Ryan onto his side. “Name one thing I‟ve told you that hasn‟t been God‟s honest truth.” “The Spanish Fly—” “It‟s a prop, that‟s all. What did you think it was, some sort of Voo Doo, or maybe herbal Viagra? I never claimed it was. Here‟s the thing: it‟s not about what is or isn‟t inside the bottle. It‟s what the bottle represents— the willingness to go ahead and seize the day, instead of just wishing your dreams might come true.” “That‟s not exactly what you said. You told me it was just a gag.” “I did, didn‟t I?” JP relaxed and pulled Ryan close again, on their sides, face to face, and hooked a leg around him. “Well, that‟s true too. If you look at it that way, yeah, it is just a gag. So what‟s the problem?” Ryan dug into his jeans pocket and came up with a small brown bottle. “I found this in your car.” “You did? Huh.” JP held it up to his nose and squinted at it. “Wait a minute, now I remember. This one‟s from the first batch, before I got the hang of getting the labels straight. Couldn‟t sell it—I didn‟t want to come off as some two-bit operation.” He plucked the bottle from Ryan‟s hand and twirled it so that the label was a couple of inches from Ryan‟s nose. “See? Crooked.” 21

“I could tell how pumped everyone was about the Spanish Fly. I saw how they were all treating you like a rock star—I was there, remember? I think you would‟ve been able to sell that last bottle, crooked label or not.” “Look, Ryan, it‟s harmless—and I didn‟t slip you the Mickey. I swear.” JP pressed his forehead to Ryan‟s. “But if you‟re so hung up on the idea that I spiked your pop, then I‟ll just need to level the playing field.” He rolled onto his back and uncapped the bottle. The cloying scent of vanilla welled out, vanilla tinged with something dark. “No, you don‟t—” Too late. JP tipped the Spanish Fly back and drank, several long swallows. Then he tossed the empty bottle onto the asphalt, shuddered, and said, “Whoa, that‟s nasty.” Ryan wanted to laugh. He wanted to throw his arms around JP and say, no one else bothers to humor me. No one else ever opened a car door for me, either. No one else even notices me. Ryan wanted to hold him, to kiss him. To make love. But JP would be gone the next day, and Ryan would have to face even more of the same. No humoring. No star treatment. No kisses. And the idea of losing those things he‟d hardly even experienced was what had been bugging Ryan all along. If the realization showed on Ryan‟s face, it was too dark for JP to see it. “Misery loves company,” he said playfully. “Now you‟ve gotta taste it when I kiss you.” JP rolled Ryan onto his back, pinned his hands down to the blanket and kissed him, hard. Cherries. Vanilla. Ricola cough drops. Spanish Fly was a combination that could have been good, in a funky, Bohemian sort of way, but it had totally missed the mark and was instead startlingly weird. The kiss took Ryan‟s breath away—or maybe he was trying hard not to taste the Spanish Fly—but the feel of JP‟s body sliding along his, and the feel of his arms being held down on either side of his head, suddenly made breathing incredibly tricky. JP ground himself against Ryan‟s crotch and managed to rub him just right, even though neither of them were naked yet, and despite the fact that there‟d really been no way for him to aim it. JP flexed his hips again, and Ryan felt another stiff dick sliding the length of his, even through their jeans. He canted his own hips up in invitation, and JP groaned into his mouth. “Take off your jeans,” JP said, more breath than voice. He let up on his grasp. Ryan‟s wrists stung where they‟d been pressing into the ground. His jeans caught on his sneakers, and he shoved everything off in a big, impatient wad. JP was undressing at the same time, only his motions were smooth and unhurried, and somehow he managed to get naked just as fast as Ryan had in a nervous frenzy. He rolled on a condom with the same cool composure. Ryan was shocked at how much he could see by the moonlight, now that his eyes had adjusted. The tiny lube packet, like you‟d find in the restroom vending machine of a pick-up bar. The utterly still, totally serious expression. But it was dark enough, at least, that Ryan didn‟t need to see JP‟s eyes. The mere thought of eye contact made him shudder harder than the herbal-sweet taste of the Spanish Fly had. JP covered Ryan‟s neck with kisses while he eased his fingers in. Ryan squeezed two fistfuls of the blanket and bit back a noise. “Is that okay?” JP whispered against his neck. “Really okay.” Ryan heard JP‟s lips part in a smile, even over the drone of cicadas that enveloped the parking lot. JP pressed in with as much finesse as Ryan would have expected, given that he had a few years on the kids Ryan had indulged in flings with at school, and he was sober, too. Unless you counted the Spanish Fly. Whatever that actually was. Instead of pounding him right away, JP plied Ryan with more kisses, and lit up his body with more of those magical touches. Ryan felt himself stiffen, deliriously hard, and began to think he might get off from the gentle brush of JP‟s belly on the underside of his dick. Ryan settled his hands on JP‟s bare ass, and encouraged him to pick up the pace. JP was the one making small sounds now, breathy moans against Ryan‟s neck, and a grunt when he buried himself hard, all the way in. Ryan whispered, “Yeah,” in his ear, and he started plunging in deep, over and over, until finally both of them were moaning, loud, and breathing in long, unsteady gasps. “Come with me.” Ryan had been teetering toward that razor-edged brink, and suddenly his rhythm broke like a chain popping off a ten-speed. It wasn‟t “Come with me,” JP had said, which would have made total sense. It was, “Come with me.” 22

“What?” JP pulled Ryan onto his side so they faced each other, legs tangled, and started rocking into him harder, faster, spurring both of them toward release. Ryan saw stars for a moment when a well-placed thrust bumped him in the prostate, and then it took a few more thrusts for him to wrap his head around the thing JP had just said. “What do you mean, come withyou?” “You heard me. Get in the car and leave. With me.” JP pressed his mouth to Ryan‟s as if he didn‟t want to entertain the conversation, not if Ryan‟s answer wasn‟t an immediate and wildly impulsive, “Yes.” JP slipped a hand between them, and Ryan tried to knock it away, to say he‟d been hoping to get off from getting fucked, something he‟d never managed before—and something that had always struck him as somehow romantic. Or at least hot. But JP‟s tongue was in his mouth, and he was handling Ryan‟s dick like he owned the thing, and suddenly it was fireworks in August, bottle-rockets, Roman candles, the whole shebang. Ryan cried out, and the noise was swallowed by JP‟s kisses. His body stiffened as his pulse thrummed hard in his balls, and wave after wave of pleasure beat against the breakwater of his core. JP took a few more thrusts, and spent himself as Ryan floated on the high of his own climax. They fell together then in a tumble, sweat-slick limbs and come-slicked bellies, and held one another while they drank air. As he let the cicada hum wash over him, Ryan realized that JP‟s breathing had grown deep and slow. Now that Ryan was no longer in the midst of being fucked, the mild night air chilled him wherever JP‟s body didn‟t cover his. Dogwood fruits were like big, round pebbles digging into his backside, but Ryan hardly noticed them. Come with me. Ryan would have taken it for the kind of line a guy will feed you when he wants to get off inside you. But the way JP had repeated it made him wonder if maybe it meant more. Ryan turned the idea around in his head for an hour or so, when JP woke himself with a startling snore. He sat up, took in the moonlit parking lot, and cracked his neck, at least five vertebrae. “That‟s some nip in the air. I can drop you off, unless you‟d rather sleep in the car. The seats tilt almost all the way back.” “Did you mean it?” Ryan asked, without any preamble or explanation. If JP hadn‟t, he could pretend not to know what Ryan was talking about and save face, more or less. And then drop him off at the apartment that stank of fish guts and despair. But JP didn‟t ask Ryan to clarify. He stared off into the night, quiet for a very long time, and then he said, “If I didn‟t mean it, I wouldn‟t have asked.” “Okay.” An ocean breeze raised gooseflesh on Ryan‟s arms. It stirred the branches of the dogwood, which rained berries on them like hail. JP repeated, “Okay?” “Why‟re you so surprised?” JP, it seemed, was having trouble finding words for once. His expression, what Ryan could make out of it in the moonlight, was almost funny—totally shocked. Cute. But funny. “Okay,” he said again, and tossed Ryan‟s jeans toward him, which nearly knocked Ryan out, since a sneaker was stuck inside the pant leg. JP started dressing as if he was in some kind of race, and his enthusiasm was catchy. Ryan pulled on his T-shirt inside-out and jammed his sneakers back on without untying them. JP threw the duffel bag into the cramped back seat and wrapped the blanket around Ryan‟s shoulders. “Let‟s leave the top down.” Ryan‟s heart thrummed against his ribcage harder than it had when he‟d been coming. He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, buckled his seatbelt, and took a long, deep breath of briny air. And he decided if he never smelled the ocean again, that was fine by him. “Where are we going?” JP fiddled with the radio, found a pop station, and gave the engine a few anticipatory revs. “How about we cruise up to Connecticut and get hitched?” “What?” “Okay, okay. We can live in sin for now. But mark my words—one day I‟ll make an honest man out of you.” When Ryan‟s heart started beating again, it was pounding just as hard as before, and twice as fast. “I don‟t even know your real name.” JP cocked his head, as if Ryan had made a good point. “John Paul.” “Like the Pope?” 23

Even in the moonlight, Ryan could see JP roll his eyes. He turned up the radio, popped the clutch, sent a bunch of hard berries pinging against the back door of the T-shirt shop, and peeled out into the alleyway. Ryan was so stunned, the rush of night air stole the breath from his lungs until he remembered to tilt his head so that the windshield could block some of the wind. “I can‟t believe I‟m doing this,” he said. He had to yell over the radio and the wind. JP hit the four-lane, shifted into fifth, and stretched an arm across the back of Ryan‟s headrest. “You had a taste of Spanish Fly. Nothing like a good excuse to do what you really want.” Ryan might have taken a few kisses‟ worth of a taste, but it was JP who‟d chugged the whole bottle. Ryan smiled, and decided to keep that observation to himself.

About the Author Jordan Castillo Price and her cousin used to mix mouthwash with whatever medicines they found in the bathroom and dare each other to drink it. She assumes the gaps the concoctions carved out of her mind are the places where her strangest ideas now form.

About this Story I assumed this was JP‟s story. He was the flashy one, after all. The main what-if when I set out to write it (what if a grifter‟s hairbrained idea actually worked) was the genesis of the whole story. And so of course the story threw me a curve and ended up being about Ryan. I think a lot of times the innocent characters in fiction are way too innocent for my liking. What I really enjoyed about Ryan was that he wasn‟t floating through the world in virgin-colored glasses. He has friends he meets for drinks after work, he has no illusions that he‟s going to score a bachelor‟s degree and suddenly make six figures at a prestigious design firm, and he would never presume that a guy who‟s just looking for a trick is going to fall in love with him. Except “that guy” does. Ryan got to me a lot more deeply than most of my protagonists do. Maybe there‟s a lot of young-me in him, though I suppose you could argue that there‟s a little of me in all of my characters…but not Mrs. Marsh! Eeep!

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