16 • The Envy

Despite his promise to watch my every move until he discovers my secret, Pinky disappears from my life for two full weeks. I look into the future to see if this has affected anything, but everything remains the same. The definite end in most paths is marriage and a long life with Pinky.

On Monday of what I hope will be the third week without Pinky, I have a surprise guest in my office. Dylan walks in without knocking on the door and approaches my desk with purposeful steps full of arrogance. I can see my best friend's head from his own office, peeking in to see what the hell is going on. 

"Do you have plans for Thursday night?" he asks, without even greeting me or explaining what he's doing here. I frown and shake my head, "Then you'll be accompanying me to a gala. Get your tuxedo ready or rent one if you don't have one."

"What?" I ask, completely confused, "What are you even talking about, man? Why would I go to a gala with you?"

"You owe me a favor and I need a date to this bullshit gala," he lets out, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes as if every second here with me is the most annoying thing he's ever had to endure in his life.

"Like a date? You want me to be your date?"

"Of course, however you want to look at it. I want to talk to you and that gala is the only free time I have in the next month," he explains, picking up his cell phone to do who knows what. My own phone rings with a text three seconds later, "I sent you the address and information."

I don't know where he got my number.

"Man, can you chill out for one second?" I ask when he turns around, ready to get out of here as fast as he came in, "I'll go with you because I owe you, but it wouldn't kill you to invite me instead of coming and forcing me. A hello wouldn't hurt either."

"Hello, Beau," he says with the most condescending tone and look in the world. Now I understand why Cain can't stand him, they are polar opposites, "I don't like to waste my time."

"Well, I do," I answer with a smile and to my surprise, Dylan snorts and smiles too. A little, "Do you really want me to be your date? I'm not that cute."

"We're just going to go walk together and have dinner next to each other, Beau, we're not going to fuck. You're the one who should chill out," he replies sounding exasperated, "I don't like you, if that's what you're thinking, I just need to talk about some things with you.

"Okay. I accept your invitation then," I say and Dylan nods before turning and walking out of my office. Cain waits until Dylan comes down the stairs and comes running to ask what just happened, as if he has nothing better to do.

"I don't trust him," Cain mutters when I finish telling him everything, "I don't know what he wants to talk to you about, but he probably wants to do something to ruin this."

"Why would he do that? He'd be hurting himself, too. His money is on the line as well."

"Dylan cares more about fucking me over than about his money or doing what's best for Lambert. I'm just warning you not to trust him, either," he says and then gives me a hard look, "You'll tell me everything that happens on that date, won't you?"

"It's not a real date," I complain, until I come up with something quite funny and say it before thinking twice, "But... tell Pinky that it is."

Cain tries to give me a reproachful look but lets out a chuckle he can't help.

"Just because it'll be fun," he admits, getting up from the chair and taking a big breath before adding: "Hey.... don't change me for Dylan."

"Never," I swear, with a hand on my chest, my best friend walks out of here with a smile on his face, trusting me.

And now that I've had second thoughts, I realize that I shouldn't have asked him to communicate my "date" with Pinky, but I couldn't help it. I want to know how he will react to this information and how entertaining it will be.

Pinky

Just when I was starting to get completely back to my life without thinking about a certain idiot every minute of the day, Cain has to ruin everything.

"What do you mean, a date?" I ask, getting up from my bed to walk back and forth in my room as I go over the words I just heard in my mind, "Cain, tell me."

"Give me time to talk, for God's sake," he complains, speaking slow on purpose to stress me out, "Like I said, Dylan came to Beau's office to beg him to be his date for a gala event he's having. And Beau agreed. That's all the information I have."

"But tell me what kind of date it is," I demand, crossing my free arm around my waist because I don't know what else to do with it, "Is it a real date or just a business meeting? Did Beau want to go with him or did he do it just because he owes him something? What was his face like when he heard 'date'? Did he look disgusted or like he liked it or like...?"

"Pinky, Pinky. Relax," Cain says trying to sound calm but I can hear the laughter in his voice. He's having fun at my expense, "I don't know what kind of date it is, but I know Beau looked normal when he agreed. Not excited or disgusted, just normal."

"Pff, it was to be expected," I mumble, sounding bitter even to myself, "Can you imagine those two together? I could almost say that they were made for each other. In hell."

"No, not really, but I understand why you think that," he answers, laughing again, "How have you been, by the way? You disappeared again."

"I'm fine... I've been working and stuff," I mumble, although the truth is I haven't had that much work. I just have to make a few calls a day, answer emails and talk to Elias, who works a lot more than I do. Sometimes I feel bad about that but then I remember that we both earn basically the same and I was the one who invented Winky. We're even, "We can go out this weekend. No Beau."

"You're ridiculous, Pinky, Beau is great," he defends him, making me roll my eyes. Cain is so perfect, rich and beautiful that he never developed the ability to identify abusive jerks at a glance. He never needed to, because those abusive jerks loved him. In contrast, I have a very impressive radar for those types of people and every time I look at Beau, it beeps, "All this drama you two have going on it's fun, but... is he really mean to you when I'm not watching? Because I would never choose someone over you."

"He's not mean exactly, Cain, I've already explained it to you: he gives me these looks and I can tell he doesn't like me," I repeat what I said before, speaking very slowly so he understands. Although, in doing so, I realize that I sound quite ridiculous, "But don't worry about me. I understand that you like him and that you have to be by his side while you do their project."

"Yes... although," he pauses and I listen for a few seconds to his breathing as he finds the words, "I liked it when the four of us were together: Sammy, Beau, you and me. It was fun, wasn't it? We'd never had any friends in common before."

Because during our childhood Cain's friends always did their best to exclude me and then in college we were both on our own. And then horrible adulthood came upon us and it's been driving us apart ever since.

"I guess so. If we remove Beau's annoying presence," I mumble the last, "We can hang out with Sammy whenever. In fact, when is Dylan and Beau's date? That seems like a great day for us three to go out and have some real fun."

"The date it's this Thursday."

"Then invite your dear Sammy. Let's go dancing!" I say and Cain accepts, sounding even more excited than before at the prospect of being near Sammy. And when the call ends, I stand in the middle of my room, still with my hand on my waist.

I can't believe this. Maybe Cain is playing me but I don't think so, there must be something real for him to come and tell me this.

Beau on a date with another man. This just fueled the thousands of questions I already had in my head.

If he's seriously, 100% not homophobic, then he hates me just for being me. Not for being half-gay, but for simply existing.

Me. 25 year old Timothy Raffaelo, 6'2" tall and a weight I don't want to mention. What the hell did I do to him to provoke his revulsion?

I'm not popular enough for anyone in Toronto to know anything about me. And the day we met was his first day in Chicago, there's no way in that time he heard anything that made him think badly of me.

Damn it, I had managed to convince myself that he wasn't worth it, but now I can't keep that mindset going. I need to know. And asking him nicely isn't going to get me anywhere, so I'll have to go back to my plan of stalking him until I figure it out or until he's so disgusted and fed up with me that he's forced to tell me the truth.

I walk to my kitchen to get a glass of water to clear my head, but that doesn't work, so I pour myself a glass of red wine. There's nothing I can do in my apartment to force myself to think about something else, so maybe the alcohol will help a little.

Two glasses later and now all I can think about is that date and what might happen.

Dylan is troubled and a real jerk who just goes through life trying to hurt people he dislikes, but he's attractive. And he could be queer for all I know, because he's never shown interest in anyone besides Dolly and has never shown up with a date to any of the events I've seen him at.

Maybe Beau romanced him with that stupid kiss that was supposed to be mine. So Dylan, being so cynical and disinterested in other people's opinions, can actually arrive hand in hand with another man at a gala and give the finger to whoever has something to say about it.

And maybe I hate Dylan, but I can't help to notice how a man who is so dominant in every aspect of his life is very, very attractive.

Maybe Beau will notice it too and end up totally in love with him, so they'll start living out a crazy love affair while I continue to obsess over finding answers.

I don't like that scenario. And not because I'm jealous, but because if Dylan notices all the attention I'm giving to his boyfriend, he could come at me and do something to hurt my business. Or my face.

"I need to get Dylan out of the way," I say aloud, pacing my living room with my glass of wine in hand, freshly refilled.