Page 69 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

LONG FOOD AND CHILDHOOD DREAMS

Emerson

Long Food in Chelsea, with the rainbow flag in the window, boasts a menu of phallic food. Popsicles, pickles, corn dogs, breadsticks, fried asparagus, and ice cream cones. It’s so niche it’s beyond niche.

But the pop-up restaurant is killing it with its marketing. The imagery all over Instagram of red lips and food like dicks lures the crowds.

A busty woman named Lucía runs the joint. She wears a black corset, her ample breasts spilling out over the top. Two men in matching leather vests prep the food while Lucía plucks a cherry-red popsicle from a freezer and presents it to us as an offering.

“Oh, baby. That better have my name written all over it,” I say, making grabby hands.

“What if I want one too?” Nolan asks in his most charming voice.

“Bring this man a popsicle,” I say as I take the red one, and the owner hands Nolan an icy treat as well.

“Yum.”

I turn to my co-host. “But do you know what makes popsicles truly sexy, Nolan?” My eyes linger on his mouth while the camera captures our je ne sais quoi .

“Please share,” Nolan says, encouraging me.

“It’s not the licking or the sucking.” I beckon him closer, playing it up for the audience too.

He leans in as called for in the script. “Tell me what makes them sexy.”

I drag a finger along my bottom lip. “How it makes your mouth... so deliciously red.”

Nolan doesn’t answer right away—just stares at my lips, then blinks. “Like you’ve been kissed,” he says.

“Hard and passionately,” I add.

“Best kind of kissing,” he says. The husky sound makes flames dance down my spine.

I don’t know if we’re saying our lines or living them.

I half wish I weren’t attracted to Nolan. Mostly though, I wish I was alone with him. But I’m not, so all I can do is play it up for the camera. I lick the popsicle some more then give my killer groan.

“Mmm,” I murmur. “So good.”

My co-host stares hotly at me as I make out with the cherry ice, then he releases a long, heavy sigh laced with sexual frustration. Is that real or for the cameras?

“Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty good,” he says, his voice cracking.

It sounds as real as I feel, and I better judge this popsicle soon, or I’ll need to stick it in my pants to cool off.

“I declare this an eight point seven five,” I say, holding it high.

Nolan gives it a seven. “But would you do it again?” he asks.

Yes.

The thought of doing him again is too delicious to deny.

“Perhaps,” I reply. “I could put this popsicle in my mouth over and over.”

Because we have to give the network what they want.

Once we’re done with the rating, we segue to the interview. Surely, talking to Lucía will be easier for Nancy and me to handle.

“So, why Long Food? What inspired you?” I ask.

The bosomy babe has confidence for days.

She drags a bright pink nail along the counter, then her eyes drift to the two men in the vests cooking up corn dogs and prepping pickles.

Her expression goes a little loopy and warm.

“My two guys. We’re together—the three of us.

We like to have fun in all sorts of ways.

I wanted people to come here and have a good time, and to think about maybe what they could do afterward,” she says, owning her sexuality and her business, just like that.

I file that away—how she blends both those things, along with romance. This is a woman who is making it all work.

“So, food is foreplay,” Nolan chimes in.

Lucía’s warm brown eyes glitter. “It is if you let it be. Speaking of, you should try the strawberry shish kebabs dipped in chocolate,” she urges with a purr.

Nolan turns his dreamy hazel gaze on me. “Want some?”

My chest feels all kinds of flippy from the question. Want some ? I want everything .

“I do,” I answer. If the viewers like “what-if,” we’ll give it to them.

The what-if.

Lucía hands him the chocolate-dipped stick of fruit, and he offers it to me.

I bite into a juicy strawberry, savoring the taste of the chocolate and the fruit.

A gust of breath coasts over his lips as I eat.

If he were a cartoon hero, he’d be drooling puddles right now—a bespectacled, muscled, charming, hot nerd hero, his carved jaw all agape.

And . . . I’m fantasizing about cartoon men now.

Great. Just great.

Maybe that’s part of the mystery for the audience—what happens with us after the cameras stop rolling—but that’s a mystery to me too.

Possibilities crowd my brain. What if we didn’t work together? What if I wasn’t terrified of losing someone I love? What if I didn’t want our show to succeed more than I wanted to get close to him again?

Now, there’s a question—is the show what’s holding us together or keeping us apart?

When Nolan peels away to chat with fans, I seize the chance to quiz Lucía about something other than food. I’m a planner, after all, and I like to do my research. “Is it hard? Working together with your men?”

She scoff-laughs. “So hard. We don’t always get along, honey.”

“And what then?” I’m dying to know.

“We try to work through the problems.”

“But the business... mixing it all,” I press. “Do you worry?”

She gives a soft smile. “Only every day,” she says, then pats my hand, squeezes it, and whispers, “Good luck.”

I file that away too—it takes some luck to pull off what she’s got.

When Nolan and I leave, the pride flag in the window jogs my memory about something Jason said that night in San Francisco.

“I keep wanting to ask you something,” I tell Nolan. “What did your brother mean about you being there for him when he was fourteen?”

He turns his head to look at me as we walk. “I was the first person he came out to. When he was fourteen.”

I do the math. When I met his brother, Nolan and I were sophomores in college, and I visited him and his family over break.

We were twenty; Jason must have been fifteen then.

But I didn’t know he was gay. Nolan never mentioned it, nor did Jason.

Not that he needed to, but it’s a contrast to how open Jason is now.

“So, you were nineteen? Was that our freshman year?”

“Yeah, he came out to me when I was home for Christmas break.”

As we pass an organic dry-cleaner on our way to the subway, I put it together. “Ohhh. He was out to you, but no one else?”

“For a long time, yes,” he says easily—the secret he kept is no longer a secret.

“At first, he didn’t want anyone else to know because he was worried about what it would mean for him as an athlete.

The kid lived and breathed football,” Nolan says, admiration in his tone.

“But he wasn’t sure how he was going to manage it all—sports and, well, who he was.

And he wasn’t sure how our dad would react.

But he needed someone to talk about it with. ”

“You were his person,” I say, feeling all sorts of tender for the two of them, thinking of what they meant to each other. What they still mean. “I don’t think I knew he was gay till we graduated from college.”

“Yep. That’s when he was ready for others to know,” Nolan says, matter-of-factly.

That all makes perfect sense. “I’m glad he had you, Nolan. It makes me happy he did, and I’m happy, too, that you never told me. That you waited for him to be ready.”

“You gotta keep your sibling’s secrets,” he says, bumping shoulders with me.

Don’t I know it. “Callie was like that in her own way. She didn’t want to tell Mom and Dad she was making plans for her bucket-list road trip. She didn’t want anyone to know till we were doing it.”

He tilts his head, a line creasing his brow. “Was she afraid they’d talk her out of it?”

I shake my head, absently running a finger over the ladybug necklace as we cross the street. “She just knew it was going to be harder for them to accept what it meant—the road trip, that is. The symbolism of it all,” I say, fighting to keep my tone even. “The reality of it.”

“You’d already accepted it,” he says softly, knowing me so well.

“And I wanted her to have her trip. It was her wild childhood dream. I wanted to give it to her.”

He’s silent for half a block, but it’s a comfortable silence, the kind we both have grown accustomed to over the years. “Did you ever read or see The Last Lecture ?”

“I watched it on YouTube,” I answer.

“That reminds me of what Randy Pausch said. ‘And as you get older, you may find that “enabling the dreams of others” thing is even more fun.’”

Yes. So much yes.

That nugget of wisdom is a key turning in a lock. A door opens, and I don’t feel so stupid for what I did. I get, now, what my heart realized back then.

I stop on the corner, grab his arm. “Do you know why I got an extension on my college loan?”

He shakes his head.

“I thought I could pay it off in time. I’d put aside enough to pay it off.

I had six months of fashion shoot contracts coming in, and I was going to use that to pay most of the balance,” I say, then begin my confession.

“And instead, I used that for the road trip. I told Callie it was money from the makeup gig. Which it was, so I didn’t lie to her.

I just didn’t tell her I’d budgeted that cash for something else.

I wanted her to have her dream trip.” I swallow around an ache in my throat.

“So, I got an extension and used the money that was supposed to pay off my loan for travel expenses.”

“You did that for her?” He sounds awestruck.

I give a what-would-you-do shrug. “It was her dream. How could I not?”

He smiles, and it feels like a new kind of grin, full of an even deeper understanding of me. “You couldn’t.”

I twist the necklace in my hand. “Am I stupid?”

“No. That’s... beautiful, Emerson.” He looks like he wants to hold me, and kiss me, and tell me all the things.

Instead, he clears his throat and drags a hand along the back of his neck. “Thanks for sharing. I’m really glad you did.”

So am I. Funny, because I didn’t think I’d want to tell him. I didn’t think I could say that without feeling foolish.

But he made me feel the opposite. I shouldn’t have been afraid. Talking, sharing, showing him the sad, scared, ugly, and weird parts of me is what I’ve always done.

Trouble is, I fall a little more for him every single day.

The genie is getting so much bigger than the bottle.

The next night, I head out to Jo’s apartment, wearing a cute black dress and Converse sneakers, and a backpack with makeup in it.

As I step onto the elevator, a broody man looks up from his paperback. It’s Max, in the flesh. He practically drips Mister Rochester vibes. I’m surprised he’s not carrying the dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre he stepped out of. But he’s reading The Sun Also Rises , so that tracks too.

Better to catch flies with honey, though. “Hi, Max. I’m Emerson Alva. I’m a food person too.”

In slow-mo, he rakes his gaze over my face, studies me. “I know.”

Okayyyy. “And I think your videos are great,” I say.

He’s silent for several long, weighty beats. “I suspect yours are too,” he says, then nods crisply when we reach the lobby. “After you.”

Weirdo .

“Have a good night,” I call out, then I put the broody guy out of my mind. My brain only has room for so many men, and someone else is occupying the prime real estate.

Over at Jo’s place on West Seventy-Third Street, we get dolled up for the Tommy revival on Broadway. I do her makeup, giving her fabulous smoky eyes and glossy lips.

“Gorgeous, babe, just gorgeous,” I tell her, then spin her around and show her my work in the mirror.

She gasps. “Don’t ever leave me. When I run my next auction, I want you to do my makeup too,” she says, grabbing my hands, playfully begging.

“I won’t even charge you, babes,” I stage-whisper. “Speaking of, when will you be wowing the New York art world with this fab collection you’re working on?”

“Next month,” she says, and as we finish getting ready, she gives me details of her new projects and a promotion she’s applying for at her auction house. “I have an interview for it next week. Fingers crossed.”

I cross mine and hold them up. “I’m proud of you, woman. You have made a name for yourself in the New York art world,” I tell her as we make our way to the St. James Theater.

“I’m proud of you too, Em. Doing your thing, making it all happen.” We reach Times Square, and she gazes up at the glittery lights of the marquee, beckoning us to enjoy a few hours of make-believe. “I knew I could get you here in New York at last. I manifested it and it happened.”

“You’re magic like that,” I say as we go inside and snag our orchestra seats.

“Speaking of magic, how’s everything with you and Nolan?”

It’s a leading question. I sit up straight, my radar beeping. “Why do you ask?”

She points at me. “Why do you react like that?”

I groan and drop my head in my hands, then serve up my heart. “I think I’ve had feelings for him for a long time, Jo.”

When I look up, she smiles sympathetically and rubs my shoulder. “I know you have, sweetie.”

Funny, how we’ve had this long-distance friendship, talking on FaceTime and seeing shows together when I’ve been in New York, but we’ve rarely lived in the same city. Yet, that hasn’t stopped us from forging this deep bond.

Nor has it stopped her from seeing right through to my heart. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.” Saying it hurts more than it should, but then the overture swells, the music billowing throughout the theater, and I lean into the make-believe for the next few hours—something I’ve been doing a lot of these days.