23. Easton

Chapter 23

Easton

"Royal, I'm told you're a master in the kitchen," Willy-Wonka-violet pantsuit said, batting her lashes.

If she flaps those batwings any faster, she's going to have liftoff right out of this bat cave. Back off.

Easton grunted. "Who told that lie? Anything you cook has the pleasant taste of sawdust."

Slapping his hands on his hips, Royal huffed. "I know you're not calling anyone out. The only thing you've ever stirred is drama, and even that wasn't that good."

"At least I don't burn water."

"Oh, that's what we're doing? You want to throw down? Okay. Let's see what you got." He pulled a bowl of eggs closer to him and looked at the hostesses. "How do we make a hoe boy breakfast?"

"Cut!"

Easton pointed at Royal. "This one's on you."

"What I do?"

"It's hobo. Not hoe boy, nut."

Royal flashed his signature smile, his sensual, plump lips quirking at one side. "You sure about that?"

Easton would have responded. He wanted to clap back, but he was spellbound, his eyes transfixed on Royal's lush lips like they shouldn't have been. He also knew he should look away. Others were watching, and this was a job. Where was his professionalism? Well, to be fair, he had been instructed earlier to show personality, and Royal had plenty of that. He was simply following his cohort's lead. Well, not so much following as being comfortable being himself with Royal at his side. Royal always made it easy for him to let his guard down.

"Let's pick up where we left off. Take three," the director ordered.

"We're going to get started with a nice hot pan," the Purple People Eater stated, sidling up next to Royal and flashing a perfect row of what were probably veneers. "Get it nice and hot."

The insinuation in her tone wasn't lost on Easton, and he shot her a cool, polite smile.

Take a shower.

Royal adjusted the temperature control on the stove accordingly.

"Now we're going to crack the egg," she continued. "Be careful not to break the yolk." She demonstrated using a spoon to skillfully separate the yolk from the white.

Royal attempted to mimic, but his egg plopped into the pan, shell and all.

"Shi—" He caught the explicative on the verge of tumbling from his lips and quickly self-corrected. "Shish kabob!"

"No, like this," Violet Beaucoquette cooed, intervening by handing Royal another egg and placing her hands over his.

All hands on deck? Why is she touching him? There's no need for her to touch him.

A bitter taste clogged Easton's throat as he attempted to swallow his exasperation. A not-so-jolly green monster suddenly reared its prickly head and squatted squarely on his shoulder. He hadn't anticipated having to witness some backlot, generic morning show Al Roker rip-off chick eye-fuck his best friend over a saucepan sizzling with sacrificed chicken embryos—not that there was anything unusual about a woman getting wet for Royal. What woman with one eye, half a milligram of estrogen, and a nonpartisan libido wouldn't be turned on by the pure maleness that oozed from every pore of Royal's bronze skin? Easton saw this kind of thing all the time. But today…. Today was the day after, and he was in no mood for Wonka Woman to be fondling his man.

His man?

Whoa!

His thoughts had flown all the way left, and Easton had to think about that. He needed to think about a lot. Royal had always been his boi. He'd even been his man but never his man . One night and?—

Get it together. Keep things copacetic.

Easton picked up an egg and cracked it—at least, that had been his intention. He tapped the egg on the side of the skillet, and it—a double yolk—exploded like an oil-filled pressure cooker with obstructed vents over high heat. Yolk splashed across the stove, over his hands, and onto his cohosts. It made no sense that an object so small could make such a huge mess.

That's not normal. Is it?

A twinge of apprehension bubbled in his gut.

Then again, what about this day has been normal thus far?

Pink Panther squealed as if unexpectedly stuck by a needle.

"Good stars!" Grapevine yelped, her eyes spitting anger.

"Yippy yo-yo!" Easton stared at the disaster. "These chickens on steroids or something?"

"Cut!"

"How in the addition, subtraction, subfracation, trigonometry, geometry, combinatorics, differential, multiverse, new-world math did you manage this poultry-zygote baptism?" Royal questioned, swiping yolk from his cheek.

Easton brandished an expression that was somewhere between stupefaction and chagrin. " Il n'ya pas de quoi, " he answered with a speculative chuckle and shrug.

"No one thanks you," Royal replied to Easton's you're welcome . His lips twitched. "Although it is fitting for you to have egg on your face after all your bold smack." He gestured at the egg dripping from Easton's chin.

"Oh, you're cracking me up."

" Omelet that lame joke slide."

"Enough, you two," Marcel griped.

"C'mon, Nonc. Cut 'em some slack. You know they're eggs-tra special."

Marcel cut a daunting glare and pointed his finger at Upton. "You stay out of this." Shaking his head, Marcel approached Easton. "Let me look at that jacket. Lawd, I hope none of that mess got on the logo. You're being paid to show that."

Easton accepted a towel from one of the stagehands and took it as an opportunity to position himself between Royal and the talking blueberry. "It's fine," he assured Marcel. "Just egg-cellent ."

Royal squinted into the glare of the key light and snickered.

Marcel shook his head. "Y'all are the reason I drink."

"I thought it was a throwback from your days of protesting prohibition," Royal teased.

"Move!" Placing a hand on Royal's shoulder, Marcel lightly shoved him out of the way to inspect Easton's jacket. "This is precisely why I warned Balor not to have the two of you do this together. Y'all act like five-year-olds. I swear, it's taking every milligram of Valium pumping through my veins right now to keep me from hog-tying and whipping all of y'all," Marcel muttered, spinning Easton around. "It seems okay."

"I told you it was," Easton confirmed.

"Listen," Marcel sighed, "I know this has been a chaotic morning, but can we please get this done so we can get back on schedule? I need you to settle down." He turned his stare to Royal. "You too. You're both antsy. And you…." He faced Easton again. "You need to smile and stop looking at the host like you want to shove her in the oven."

Push her in the oven. Why didn't I think of that? No, no, no. She'd never fit.

Besides, he wasn't sure if it was a real oven or just a television prop. It would be a shame to rack up real charges over something fake. It was the equivalent of robbing a bank with a plastic gun. The sentence was the same.

Easton gulped. If his face was giving all that, his uncle would surely begin to pick up on other things, and that spelled trouble. He needed to downplay it and fast.

Green monster, slink back to your cave.

He planted on a carefully bland expression.

"I don't know squat about cooking. Plus, these lights are, like, a thousand degrees. You could fry me crispier than a bad tan instead of them buy-one-get-one-free egg grenades."

"I know, I know," Marcel agreed. "But we have to sell harder at some of these smaller venues, especially now with the fire being a headline story. Who knows how the media will spin it? They'll be paying extra-close attention to everything we do now. If they try to highlight the fire as some kind of negligence on our part, it's vindication for the protesters that we don't have the best interest of our stock at heart. That, in turn, will spook sponsors to back out, which could shut us down. We're in a political climate, and that air can choke us all."

Easton's grimace increased.

Great. Super. Can't wait.

The thought of snooping media peeking in his window was just the cherry atop everything else.

"This here is good, wholesome publicity," Marcel continued. "Viewers will gobble this up—that is, if you can manage not to assassinate anyone else with more eggs."

Lifting his cap, Easton rushed his fingers through his hair. "I'll try, but I didn't do anything unusual with the last one."

"Maybe the pan was faulty," Upton suggested.

Royal snorted. "You idiot. How can a pan be faulty?"

"The same as your face," Upton retorted.

In rebuttal, Royal flipped Upton the bird.

"Royal!" Marcel snapped.

" Quoi? I didn't say anything at all this time."

"I'd take this belt off and give you a good swatting if I didn't think my breeches would fall down around my ankles."

"Wouldn't that be a sight? If this airs on PBS, the kiddies can learn about long johns," Cody commented.

Marcel spun toward Cody. "I'll put you over my knee too."

"I don't see what the fuss is," Royal muttered. "Production is going to frankenbyte it the same way they do reality television anyway."

"All right, let's get ready for another take," the director called from the side.

Yes, Easton could use a do-over—a digression to prevent Marcel from becoming suspicious and a front to mask his own irritation at his "clingy-girlfriend" behavior toward Royal that would have any warm-blooded male hightailing it to the deepest depths of leave-me-the-hell-alone woods. A discovery by Marcel certainly would make everything weird. Additionally, Easton needed to quickly master a convincing enough act for the world to buy into the toxic masculinity stereotype he was expected to allude to. Straightening his jacket, he rolled back his shoulders and faced the hostesses.

Get to work.

His focus needed to be bull riding—or the actions that would get him back atop a bull. And that meant jumping through the hurdles of PR mumbo jumbo. He could only accomplish that by being levelheaded, and being levelheaded meant accepting hard facts. First, not only had Royal not made any promises about where this thing between them was headed, but he'd also never said anything about giving up women. And even if he did, it didn't mean women wouldn't hit on him anyway.

Second, sex was physical—the stimulation of body parts. Many things could be used for stimulation—hands, mouths, other body parts, clothing, toys….

Wait. Toys?

Easton blushed. What the hell did he know about toys?

Next!

Getting off had nothing to do with emotions. It was about having a good time. He'd had a good time. Royal seemed to have had a good time. At least he'd sounded like he had, and his expression had looked sated. He'd not complained, and his words—unless he was lying—indicated that he was satisfied. But Royal never lied to him; therefore, Easton had no reason to believe he'd started now. No, they both had had a good time. Mission accomplished.

Third, Marcel's point was valid. Rodeoing was a political sore spot for everyone from animal activists to politicians grasping for a cause to fatten their platforms to bored attention-seekers with nothing more interesting to engage themselves in. They all came out in droves when the rodeos were in town. Easton could respect the ones who legitimately misunderstood the workings of a rodeo and sincerely desired to protect the animals. However, all the others could go jump into a cauldron of lava. Part of Easton's job was to stave off negativity whenever possible. How could he earn a paycheck if no one filled the stands and if no one attended to purchase from sponsors and vendors? Actors promoted their upcoming movies as part of their contracts. Athletes did the same by giving interviews, wearing patch quilt originals zipped up to their bottom row of teeth while beneath a furnace of artificial solar flares, and making appearances on cheesy cooking shows where the hostess made goo-goo eyes at his?—

Oops!

There he went again. Anyway…. All of this was part of the job—his job. It wasn't just mounting an animal for eight seconds, and as a professional, he shouldn't have to remind himself of that constantly.

Fourth, and maybe most importantly, even if Easton didn't want to participate in this colossal shit show, he had more people to think about than himself—beginning with Royal, the man who would walk through fire with him— for him—without asking. If Easton fucked up, it could potentially fuck up the bag for his coworkers, who he considered friends—no, family. He couldn't do that to Royal even if he wanted to. Thus, there were no other thoughts to be thought. With that said, he needed to get down to business.

He nodded at the crew. "Let's get cooking."