All Note Long Read online

  “Yeah. But you need a dog.” Lucky tried to regain his dignity after the Muppet flail over the view.

  Michelin’s smile did a weird wobbly thing and he scratched his jaw. “Maybe,” he said, and looked away. Gloria brushed by both of them to go sit on one of two leather couches arranged opposite a stone fireplace to take in the view. Everything in the room was some shade of brown—reddish brown floor tiles, light brown couches, cream rug and pillows. Comfortable, but, man, it needed some art or something. Especially with Michelin and Gloria not saying anything, the space was just too quiet.

  “How is it that I’ve got photographers and wannabe interviewers camped out in front of my place and you don’t have a media storm here yet?”

  “You’re probably easy to find.” Gloria took a sparkling water out of her giant purse. “Michelin is the master of secrecy. And that’s going to work in our favor for once.”

  “Sit.” Michelin motioned that Lucky should sit next to Gloria while Michelin lowered his big frame onto the couch. “This house isn’t in this name, for one thing. I have a decoy place I use for business functions. It’s an investment property, really, but the paparazzi’s all over that. Gloria had the security guy I’ve got on retainer drive the Escalade over there. That’ll keep them busy for a few hours.”

  This name. Now Lucky was curious, but he was also stuck on the fact that a guy could own a second mansion just for “investment purposes.” Now that was slick.

  “Speaking of finding you, what’s your real name? I can’t keep callin’ you Lucky if we’re going to do this thing.”

  “Sure you can.” Lucky leaned back against the couch. If Michelin got to keep his real name a secret, then so did Lucky.

  “What do your friends call you?” Gloria asked encouragingly.

  “Lucky.”

  “And the guys you . . . date?” She might as well have made air quotes around “date” for all the credibility she gave the word.

  “My boyfriends call themselves lucky. Me they tend to call ‘Oh, god, please.’”

  Michelin chuckled uncomfortably, but whether it was at Lucky’s joke or at the fact that Gloria looked like she just made out with a tube of wasabi was hard to say.

  “No offense, man, but so far you’ve pretty much wrecked my job, my bank account, the place where I live, and my day. No way am I giving out my family name for this shit to fall on them, too.”

  “Fair enough. What do you mean bank account—”

  “Rule number one of this fake boyfriend business. You do not own me. You do not offer me money to fix my issues—”

  “Define fix,” Michelin said at the same time that Gloria shuffled some papers.

  “Michelin will be covering suitable clothing for your press engagements, food, travel arrangements, and he’s prepared to offer a reasonable compensation for your time,” Gloria explained in patient tones that had Lucky wanting to toss something through the huge picture windows in front of them.

  “Lady.” Lucky took a deep breath so that she wasn’t the thing he tossed. “You’re not the one I need to talk to. You want me to play boyfriends with your guy here, he’s the one I need to talk to. Not you. And we’ve got some personal shit to cover.”

  “You really want to talk to him alone?” Gloria ignored Lucky and talked directly to Michelin. “I was prepared to handle all the details for you—”

  “Either I talk directly to my boyfriend on a regular and recurring basis or no deal.” Lucky could talk legalese just as well as either of them, and it was time they understood that.

  “Why don’t you work on the media stuff in my study?” Michelin suggested wearily. “I’ll handle Lucky.”

  Lucky waited until Gloria click-clicked her way down the tiled hallway before speaking again. “Rule two. You don’t ‘handle Lucky.’ I’m a person, not a golden retriever and not a problem. I’m not the one who caused this mess.”

  “You’ve got a lot of rules.” Michelin pulled off his hat and sweatshirt and stretched, and it was like boom! Insta-superstar. Tight black t-shirt showing off a surprisingly muscled chest and arms, and those piercing blue eyes looking every bit as distinctive as they did in the publicity photos Lucky had found online. He was glad he’d managed to articulate two of his biggest rules, because this version of Michelin was way more intimidating.

  “You know, this isn’t exactly a picnic for me.” Michelin rolled his broad shoulders. The smile lines around his eyes looked more weary than they had last night. “I didn’t ask for the shit storm any more than you did.”

  “I get that. And it’s worse for you, I know.” Lucky wasn’t discounting that Michelin was in a truly sucky position. And it was one that he’d tried hard to avoid. “Neither of us deserves this. I’m just trying to make sure I don’t get any more screwed by the situation. Both our careers are on the line here.”

  Michelin nodded slowly, as if he was really understanding for the first time that Lucky had a career at stake, too. And that simple look of compassion went a very long way to defusing Lucky’s indignation over being dragged into this mess, but he still had one more rule to get out. “And I’m not sleeping with you.”

  “Now that one I was expectin’.” Michelin’s voice went more country when he laughed or smiled, and Lucky had to admit it was pretty darn charming. “I fucked up last night. You’re not a hooker, and I don’t expect you to do more than what Gloria needs for the cameras.”

  “Damn right I’m not.” Lucky didn’t want to let on how much Michelin’s seemingly sincere apology meant. “But I mean it. If you’re paying for what I wear and what I eat, I’m an employee. And I don’t fuck my bosses. Not ever. A real boyfriend—heck, a real friend—pays his share. And you need to decide which I am—boyfriend or employee.”

  Lucky stomped on the ember inside him that kind of wanted Michelin to choose boyfriend. He did not want to be Michelin Moses’s real boyfriend. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to be friends with the man who had gotten him into this whole mess.

  “Employee isn’t the right word.” Michelin rubbed his jaw, which had approximately the same level of stubble as his almost-smooth head. “But you’re not paying for anything. That’s my rule. And I wasn’t expecting any funny business anyway. This is a practical business arrangement to save both our asses.”

  “Glad we’re in agreement,” Lucky said, even if he wasn’t, not really. The absolute last thing he wanted was to be someone’s kept man, even just for show, even temporarily. Even if it could benefit his career.

  “Good.” An unreadable expression flickered across Michelin’s face, something akin to disappointment. Bile rose in Lucky’s throat, but he swallowed it back. No sense in getting worked up over letting someone down who didn’t think much of him anyway.

  He proceeded to tell Michelin exactly what forms of PDA he was okay with when the cameras were on them. And a whole of host other “rules” designed to keep his dignity. And if he hated himself a bit for setting the rules, well, he might as well get used to it—this whole damn endeavor was sure to be one big self-loathing shower. And he’d learned his lesson about not asking up front for things he wanted. If he was going to get screwed, it was going to be on his terms.

  * * *

  Michelin pushed up off the couch and walked to his window. The spring dusk was giving way to night, lights of the city twinkling below them. He needed to not look at Lucky for a moment. Kid—and Michelin would do well to keep thinking of him that way—was one hell of a shrewd negotiator. Not that he had expected Lucky to be warming his bed tonight, but Lucky was so . . . clinical as they hashed out the rest of their agreement that Michelin’s gut kept clamping, same as it had when he’d bought his first used truck way back at seventeen. He’d known then, same as now, that he was giving up too much, wasn’t asking for enough, and that he was trapped with few other options.

  The hard truth was that he needed Lucky. Gloria had made that clear over and over through the course of the day. They had to try to smooth this over or
the label was done with him and his album would be orphaned, an asterisk next to his list of songs as his few remaining fans waited futilely for the album to drop. He wouldn’t be the first artist to have an album tied up for years and years, and if it took appeasing Lucky to avoid that fate, well, then Michelin was all in. Reluctantly, but he’d give the kid whatever he wanted.

  “All right. We’re all set.” Gloria breezed back into the room. “Exclusive article is going live on Out in a few hours, then Monday you’ll be sitting down with Katie Remmington for an in-depth interview. That’s a huge coup—major network, prime slot, short notice. So wonderful.”

  “Wonderful,” Michelin echoed weakly, going back to the couch. This was really happening. “The writer didn’t need quotes from me for the article?”

  “Oh, I handled that.” Gloria waved her hand like she was swatting a pesky fly. “And it’s all really touching. I’m very pleased, really. All that’s left is for you to read it over, but that’s just a formality.” Her tone said she’d be thrilled if he declined to read it over.

  Michelin had done enough magazine features over the years that he knew the drill—even first-person articles were seldom his own words, and this would be no different, but it still grated that Gloria had essentially crafted the most personal press release of his life while he’d been busy negotiating how Lucky was not going to put out.

  She handed over her tablet with another of her brittle smiles, a sure sign that he wasn’t going to like this as much as she was posturing.

  “Hey, I want to see, too.” Lucky came over and hung over Michelin’s shoulder—way, way too close. He smelled like exotic fruit—some sort of tangy aftershave or hair product that made Michelin want to find the places where he smelled like skin and sweat and revel in the contrasts.

  But such fanciful thinking was really a way of avoiding looking down.

  “Yes, I’m gay,” the headline read. A few lines below that was as far as Michelin got before his back muscles seized and his hand shook.

  He pushed away from the couch, almost toppling Lucky in the process. “I need a drink,” he said, letting the tablet fall to the sofa before he stalked to the kitchen.

  He didn’t grab a glass, didn’t do fuck-all other than stand there and shake like a kitten caught in a rainstorm for several long minutes.

  “Hey.” To his surprise, it was Lucky, not Gloria, who came after him. Lucky’s hand was warm and soothing on Michelin’s suddenly chilled arm. “You don’t need a drink.”

  “I meant soda,” Michelin blustered, even though that wasn’t what he’d meant at all. He grabbed a Coke out of the fridge—regular, because maybe the sugar rush would combat some of this awful shakiness.

  “No, you didn’t.” Lucky leaned against the counter. “You got someone you can call? This is heavy shit. Maybe you need a meeting—”

  “I don’t do that stuff.” He so was not up to discussing this with the guy who had just had to explain the circumstances under which he would and would not hold Michelin’s hand.

  Lucky raised his eyebrows before he pressed a piece of paper into Michelin’s hand. “I meant what I said about not bringing my family into this mess, but you can call this number if you need someone. Tell Benny that Lucky sent you and that you need a meeting or someone to talk to. He’ll hook you up and he won’t sell you out.”

  Michelin wasn’t going to need someone, not like that, but he took the paper and shoved it in his jeans pocket because it was easier than arguing. His chest got all warm at Lucky seeming to care about whether he drank or not, and he opened the fridge to cool that impulse right down.

  “Soda?” he asked.

  “You got diet?” Lucky asked, coming too close again. Man, he smelled every bit as intoxicating as a twenty-year-old scotch.

  “I got it all,” Michelin admitted. If he wasn’t going to admit his real shame, might as well cop to this. He moved away from the fridge door to reveal the six kinds of soda he kept on hand and the few random flavors he’d picked up on whims.

  “Nice.” Lucky grabbed a can of diet. He clinked cans with Michelin. “Cheers. This can’t get any worse, right?”

  Michelin snorted. He was pretty sure it could.

  “The article isn’t bad, really. I read it.”

  Michelin took a long drink of soda, studying the interlocking Mediterranean pattern of the floor. The kitchen had the original cabinetry and flooring from when he’d bought the house—he’d never seen much point to fixing what wasn’t broken. He’d added some stainless steel appliances as things died instead of destroying a perfectly good kitchen. Or life. “I hate the headline,” he admitted.

  “So ask Gloria to change it to something else.” Lucky was eying the fruit bowl on Michelin’s counter like it was a five-layer cake, so Michelin scooted it closer to him before opening up the fridge and pulling out some steaks. Least he could do was feed the guy. Besides, it gave him something to do with his hands.

  “It’s more . . . I don’t want this to be all there is to me now.” Michelin seasoned the meat with hard turns of the spice grinders, wishing it needed him to whack it over and over with the tenderizer like one of the cheaper cuts that his mama used.

  “It won’t be. But I know what you mean a bit.” Lucky took a bite of banana—a normal bite, but Michelin’s mind went to surprisingly dirty places with the image and he had to glance away again. “Once I came out, I wasn’t one of the guys anymore—my brothers and my cousins, I mean. I was the gay one. And it’s like that’s what they see first now when they talk about me. They love me and they accept me and we’re back on good terms, but that’s what defines me to them. And it sucks.”

  Michelin thought about his own cousins. Oh fuck. He was going to need to make some calls tonight before the news hit. His hand tightened against the countertop. Maybe he could simply call Rob, let him tell the rest of the family. And Lucky was right that this, more even than music star, was going to forever define him to them. And yes, to a few of them, it would probably validate all the times they’d teased him, called him a wuss.

  “I’m not ready.” Michelin finally said the words that had been chasing him all day.

  “No one is,” Lucky said quietly.

  Then he did the one thing that no one had done for Michelin in years and hugged him. A quick thing, over almost as soon as it happened and about as sexual as a car waxing, but still, it was the sort of casual contact that almost no one engaged him in. And his surprise must have shown, because Lucky said, “What?”

  “People don’t touch me.” He remembered Lucky’s enthusiasm about home fries last night and grabbed some russets from the fridge.

  “Yeah? Maybe they should start. And if I’m going to be your boyfriend, you better get okay with it. I’m a very touchy-feely boyfriend.” He gave Michelin a wicked grin that Michelin supposed was meant to put him at ease and make him laugh but instead did nothing of the kind.

  “I’m not gonna be down with much PDA,” Michelin warned. “And that’s the problem with that article. Makes it sound like I’m dying to flaunt it. Called me a pioneer. And that’s just not me.”

  “If you ask me, you could do with a bit of flaunting,” Lucky said with a cheeky smile. “And like it or not, you are a pioneer.”

  “I just don’t want to be the face of some . . . movement.” Michelin diced the potato into about a hundred more pieces than necessary.

  “Oh, honey. That might not be avoidable.” Lucky managed to look both sympathetic and superior, like Michelin was stupid to even hope this thing could be contained.

  Fuck. Michelin foresaw a lot of those looks in the next few days. And was it really only yesterday that he’d had vague yearnings for someone to share stuff with? He had a feeling that the next few days were going to completely cure him of any such wishes. Just get this over with, let him get back to being alone, and somehow avoid becoming known only for that label. Another glance over at Lucky’s too-wise face told him he might be better off wishing for a magic pony, li
ke he had dreamed about when he was five.

  Chapter Six

  @MichelinFan4Life: He might be gay, but that other vile rumor can just bite me.

  @MrsMichelin4Ever: It’s true. I just cannot with my feels right now. Cannot.

  @CountryTidbits: Wow. Someone’s fast with the cover-up job. Cue the liberal congratulations in 3, 2, 1 . . .

  Lucky took the last bite of steak off his plate. At least he was full. After the day he’d had, he’d take the bright side any way he could get it. “You’re a good cook,” he told Michelin, and not simply because his mother taught him to thank whomever did the cooking. Adorably, Michelin had store-brand steak sauce and butter, same as Lucky’s mom, and used bagged salad, same as the ordinary folks.

  “Welcome.” A tinge of pink colored Michelin’s cheeks. And same as anyone else, the man had feelings. It was easy to forget when dealing with this mess that Michelin was the one whose life was about to change forever.

  Lucky fiddled with his fork. It wasn’t that he meant to be self-centered. It was more that he’d been focusing on his own career and looking out for himself for so long . . . Okay. Maybe I really am a jerk.

  But seeing Michelin shaking in his kitchen had knocked something loose in Lucky. This wasn’t just an inconvenience to Michelin. Everything was about to change for him. Lucky had been out since his freshman year in high school, and he was pretty used to being the gay brother, the gay cousin, the gay best friend—all horrible stereotypes, but he’d made his peace with the people around him and how they chose to slot him into roles. But Michelin had zero experience with that, and in a matter of hours he’d be the Gay Country Star—a role he clearly didn’t want.

  And yet, somehow the guy stayed functional. He made dinner for Lucky and Gloria and mainlined an impressive quantity of soda, and nodded as Gloria laid out their ever-growing itinerary for the next few days. Lucky might be put out by this whole mess, but he admired the heck out of the man for keeping it together.