Page 8 of Winging It with You

Asher

Santa Monica, California

The second we step into the hotel lobby, Jo shoves something rectangular into my chest.

“And what is this for?” I ask, grabbing the phone before it can fall to the floor.

“I could be wrong,” Theo says, abruptly getting up from one of the hotel’s overstuffed armchairs, “but I think it’s one of those new devices all the kids are talking about that lets you send messages to one another?” He walks over, those big arms crossed over an even bigger chest.

He laughs as I roll my eyes. “Wow, thank you, Captain Obvious.”

Theo bows theatrically. “It’s what I do. It’s who I am.”

Jo, whose expression gets more and more pained at our back-and-forth, clears her throat. “Are you quite finished?” she snaps, stowing the binder she’d been flipping through back in her canvas tote with a huff. “We need a picture of the two of you.”

“What kind of picture?” I ask, turning the phone over in my hand.

But a rather bored-looking hotel concierge finally makes an appearance behind the check-in counter, pulling Jo’s attention from us to making sure our rooms are ready.

“Nothing complicated, boys,” Arthur says from his seat. He’d pulled out a rather worn-looking sudoku booklet the second we sat down and seemed to find it incredibly easy to tune us all out. “Just a photo Jo can post introducing you to our viewers.”

“Will a selfie work?” Theo asks, and Arthur nods in approval. “Alright, how do you want to do this?” he asks, turning to face me.

I slide open the phone’s camera, making sure it’s on selfie mode. “Here, come stand next to me.”

He shuffles over so we’re now standing shoulder to shoulder. “Three, two, one…” I say, taking a burst of photos.

Before I can even open the camera roll to review them, Jo’s attention returns to us. “Oh, look, Arthur—Mr. Grumpy Pants is posing with his brother,” she says sarcastically. “Or better yet, his roommate.”

Theo chuckles, but scrolling through the string of photos I’ve just taken, I am horrified to see that she’s not wrong.

If someone told me we were supposed to like —not to mention love —each other based on this photo, I would have laughed in their face.

I have a grimace pretending to be a smile plastered across my pained face.

A perfect mix of awkward terror and unexpected constipation disguised as some botched attempt at happiness.

But by comparison, Theo’s smile is wild and genuine.

There’s a hint of excitement in his eyes, and the dimple I noticed earlier makes a timely appearance.

I fight the urge to run my finger over it on the screen.

“Here,” Theo says, offering his hand. “Let me try.”

I hand him the phone, glad to be free of photographer duty.

“Is it okay if I put my arm around you?” he asks, his voice calm but direct. I nod.

Theo takes a measured step closer, closing the polite distance we naturally placed between us, and lifts one arm around my shoulder, outstretching the other to take a picture. But he doesn’t just drape his arm around me—he pulls me flush against the length of him, our bodies all but fused together.

The sudden closeness to Theo sends electricity down my spine. It’s the first time we’ve really touched each other. There’s a sudden intimacy to how we’re now positioned, something typically reserved for just Clint, but based on how Theo’s body practically swallows mine—there’s no comparison.

“Nothing complicated, remember,” he whispers just for me, and I force a swallow.

I almost bust out in a fit of nervous laughter, because there’s nothing not complicated about any of this.

He must have taken a photo because from one second to the next, he frees me from his grip, and the warmth of his large body against mine slowly seeps away from me.

Theo shows me the phone’s screen, revealing a moment of candid intimacy between the two of us that feels both nothing like me and yet not at all forced.

“Hmm” is all I can say, and Theo takes that as some sort of approval, because he has already passed the phone back to Jo.

A small smile spreads across her face as she reviews it. “That’ll work,” she says, pocketing the phone and reopening her binder. “Here is your room key.”

Room key.

Singular.

“There’s only one room?” I ask, hoping the twinge of unease in my voice isn’t as obvious to them as it is to me. Sharing a room with Theo is yet another detail to this whole charade that I hadn’t quite thought about.

“Obviously there’s only one room,” she says dismissively, still flipping through her binder.

“One room for our happy little couple . Do I have to remind you boys about the whole disgustingly in love thing we talked about earlier?” Neither Theo nor I say anything.

“Look. I don’t care what the two of you do behind closed doors—be friends or don’t.

Fuck, if it floats your boat. I truly could not care less.

But here? On my turf and when filming is concerned?

I’m going to need you both to hold up your end of the bargain and convince me you have what it takes to pull this off.

Got it?” She crosses her arms, waiting for some sort of acknowledgment from us.

I’m pretty sure if I make eye contact with Theo at this very moment, I will melt into the marbled hotel lobby floor.

We both nod, a nonverbal agreement to her frightening terms, and I reach forward to grab the room key from her outstretched hand.

Our room key.

/////////////

Lying next to a complete stranger in bed is just as awkward as I’d feared it would be.

Even more so considering I’m wrapped up in the thick white duvet like a sad little burrito, afraid to move a single inch, while Theo couldn’t appear to be less bothered, sprawled out next to me in his briefs.

Only his briefs.

After our lobby lecture from Jo, Theo and I rode the painfully slow elevator in not the most comfortable of silences.

I’d used the key card to open our room’s door, revealing a space with walls a deep navy that blended seamlessly into the dark velvet blackout curtains on either side of the long window.

The sophisticated, monochromatic look is everything you’d expect from a swanky Los Angeles hotel.

But it was the very plush, very singular bed centered in the room—the very one we’re currently attempting to sleep in—that sent my heart sprinting up my throat.

We’d taken turns freshening up in the cramped bathroom, sidestepping around each other like two stubbornly repelling magnets.

I may or may not have snooped through Theo’s open toiletry bag he left on the counter, surprised to see both how meticulously organized it was and that he seemingly always traveled with enough lube, condoms, PrEP, and poppers to supply an entire gay kickball team for a long weekend in Puerto Vallarta.

“Are you awake?” Theo asks quietly, his question interrupting a snowballing thought about the apparent abundance in Theo’s sex life.

“Mm-hmm.” How could I not be? Even though today has felt like the longest day of my life, there’s no way in hell my anxiety about this mess is going to let me sleep.

“Jo’s a little…”

“Intense?” I say, finishing his sentence. That’s an understatement.

Theo snorts in the dark. “Very. I thought she was going to rip my head off the second we made eye contact.”

That’s definitely something I could envision. “I’m sure this is not something she is happy about dealing with.”

He’s quiet again, and for a moment, I think maybe he’s fallen asleep. “Do you want to talk about it?” he then asks as he turns on his side to face me.

“Talk about what?” I ask, feigning naivety. I’m grateful for the darkness of our room, because Theo’s question almost sends the pent-up emotions I’d been warding off all day teetering over the edge of whatever self-control I’ve managed to hold on to.

And the last thing I need is another man labeling me as emotional.

“Your ex. The competition. This whole fake-dating thing,” he says quietly, every ounce of his words flooded with a sudden sincerity that feels more like a punch straight to the gut. “Any of it.”

Today has been a blur. My nerves feel fried, and there’s an incessant throb deep behind my eyes that’s slowly been driving me mad. But since I put both time and distance between me and that terminal, my body and mind have been on autopilot.

And sadly, I think it took getting dumped this morning to realize that the last couple years of my life have been on autopilot.

Some carved-out version of myself just going with whatever flow Clint dictated, because somewhere along the way, I gave him permission to slowly chip away at everything that made me… me.

Flashes of my life with Clint snap into focus while I ponder Theo’s question.

Clint’s comments about my anxiety disguised as some sort of partnerly teasing.

His lack of interest in—and oftentimes belittlement of—my professional accomplishments.

Looking back, the double standard of the life we’d built together seems endless, and while I can’t pinpoint when exactly I settled for it all, becoming this shrunken shell of a human being, my biggest takeaway from today is that no matter how I tried—no matter how perfect I was—I was never, ever going to be good enough for Clint Hanson.

“It’s just…” I start. But where do I begin?

How can I possibly explain to Theo that right now, I’m more upset with myself than I am at my ex?

That my self-worth feels absolutely depleted and if I really allow myself to spiral over the events of today…

or the last seven years, really…I fear I’ll slip into some sort of impenetrable self-loathing depression and never leave this bed?

“You know what? Forget it. We should get some rest,” I say instead, once again grateful for the darkness as tears streak my cheeks. “We have a busy day tomorrow.”

He doesn’t press the issue when I turn my back on him—away from his warmth, his unnerving kindness.

He just lets me be. Gratitude swells inside my chest as I stare at the wall, praying he succumbs to his own exhaustion sooner rather than later.

Praying for my silent sobs to end in the pitch blackness of this strange room.