9. The Gilded Greens Club

CHAPTER 9

The Gilded Greens Club

Everett

Vivien stood in the middle of the dressing room, flanked by her boys. To the left, a makeup table with a glitzy mirror surrounded by the old Hollywood frame of lightbulbs, to the right, an accordion screen to separate the changing area. Behind them, a row of windows allowed the flickers of light from the tucked-away garden to enter and light up the people before me.

Tristan and Cedric stood to the left of Mama Viv, and Rafael, Luke, and Bradley were on the right. Mama Viv had her fan in her left hand, each gust making the big, round, red wig quiver.

Roman stood a single pace behind me.

I licked my lips and lifted my head a little.

The faces that looked at me were hard to read. There was a ripple of surprise initially, but once that passed, they were neither open and welcoming nor closed and judgmental.

Mama Viv was the tallest of them all, thanks to the four-inch heels she commanded with the same ease I commanded my bare feet on flat ground. "Roman?"

"Yes, Mama Viv?" Roman answered.

"This is your operation," Mama Viv said. "What do you think?"

"It's your bar," Roman said. He let the silence settle for a moment before he went on. "The decision is all yours, but I'll tell you what I believe. Everett is not his father. His name is on the petition downstairs, and he is trying to find proof we can use against Harold and his allies. If you ask me, he's the person who stands to lose the most right after you, Mama Viv." The words seemed to make everyone listen intently. Then, just as everyone's undivided attention was on Roman, he added, "And I'd trust him with my life."

Mama Viv nodded. Her gaze returned to me.

"I know I should have said it sooner," I admitted.

Mama Viv jerked her head slightly higher. "No matter. Neon Nights has a history of sheltering runaways." There was a small smile on her lips now.

I blinked quickly; the surprise at finding no harsh judgment here, no threats of expulsion or eternal damnation, rocked me on my feet. "You're going to let me stay?" I asked.

Mama Viv's smile increased by a tiny little bit. "You heard the boss, Everett. If he trusts you, I trust you."

I nodded. The relief that washed over me was such that it felt like a second baptism. "I won't let you down."

Roman's hand took mine before I even knew he had stepped forward. I had expected a trial. I had expected them to ask me to wait outside while they weighed the risks my presence posed. I had expected them to, at the very least, downgrade me to the status of a volunteer who didn't need to know everything.

I clutched Roman's hand like it was the only thing holding me grounded, keeping me from floating away. The boulder of anxiety had rolled off my chest, making me lighter than I had been in years.

As the guys expressed their agreement and relief, tapping my shoulders on their way out, Roman and I remained in Mama Viv's dressing room. The motherly face she pulled on in the instant that the door shut, leaving the three of us alone and with privacy, solidified all that Roman had told me about her. She wasn't just a diva or a talented performer but a caring soul. On occasion, I had seen my own mother look this way, only it had never been directed at me. She looked this way when the poor gathered in the church or when Monsignor O'Connor opened his doors to the homeless in winter with her financial aid.

Mama Viv stepped forward, examining me carefully for a moment. "Darling, I hope you'll forgive my forwardness, but it's their loss. You would have made a powerful ally had your family been kinder."

"What's done is done," I said.

Mama Viv took my free hand in both of hers after closing the fan and slipping it up her sleeve. "You have a home here. It's not gilded or particularly comfortable. It's modest, but it has a place for you."

"Thank you," I said. And then, when those two words seemed insufficient, I added, "Mama Viv."

"Give Mama a hug," she said, closing the distance and wrapping her arms around me gently. The hug lasted a couple of heartbeats, and then she released me. The entire business was settled just like that.

The following night, Roman brought me to the event he had been hyping among Viv's supporters. The drag queens who had started their careers on Mama Viv's stage some ten years ago and who performed as a duo in Vegas every weekend arrived with a bus of fans. The petitions were set up in the garden despite the chill of the deepening fall.

When Sodom and Gomorrah took to the stage, Roman and I were inside with most of the crowd. In the sweltering heat of so many moving bodies, sweat broke over me quickly. Roman held on to me on the dance floor, his hands shamelessly exploring my body, each of my muscles easy to feel through my tight T-shirt. And when the heat was overwhelming, Roman didn't hesitate to offer me a helping hand in taking the T-shirt off. Although I tucked it into the waist of my jeans on the small of my back, my T-shirt disappeared in a drunken bliss of dancing with Roman. His tank top was gone, too, and our bodies slammed together as the beat of music pounded through us.

Near dawn, long after the party was over, Roman offered me an oversized hoodie from his wardrobe, and I returned to the Billionaires' Row and my father's penthouse. On me, the scent of Roman's hoodie was the strongest, but underneath, there were all the other scents of Roman that only I was aware of. Showering felt more like sacrilege than letting Roman bite on my cross in the heat of the passion barely over an hour earlier.

By Monday morning, Roman and I had filled up a mile of digital space with messages, and I found that waking up at six for Dad's meeting with Jacobs was already hard work because I had stayed up until three, texting like a teenager who was unmistakably in love.

Even so, when my alarm went off, two things happened at once. The sense of purpose blossomed in me like a time lapse for a rose blooming on a very thorny branch, and fear of what I had to do prevented me from drawing a deep breath for nearly a solid minute. Two days ago, in my mother's ranting about the ways to deal with Joseph Burton and Alex Blakely, Father hadn't said a word of disagreement. He had been listening with only half of his attention, but he had been nodding nonetheless. If I had hoped to find even a bit of sympathy in him on the fateful day that was bound to come sooner or later, that hope had been squashed.

And today, I needed to return the favor.

Father was dressed, shaved, and having toast for breakfast when I finished getting ready for his meeting with Jacobs. Mother was there, quiet and drawn inward, and she barely noticed when I joined the breakfast table.

We ate with little conversation. Father was reviewing the notes with increasing concern on his face, so I decided I wouldn't poke the wounded lion with a short and fragile stick.

"Very well," Father said once my coffee and toast were gone. "We might as well go."

Mother didn't wish me good luck on my first day of work. She was undoubtedly thinking of Joseph Burton, the golden boy who was corruptible. What could she, then, expect from a son that had never qualified as good? The concerns creased her forehead, but I struggled to give a shit.

Father and I took the elevator to the garage, where his chauffeur awaited with the engine on. We entered, greeted the man behind the wheel, and drove on. The ride took us nearly two hours, during which I texted Roman with small, unimportant updates. Somehow, everything I saw made me think of him, even when I texted him that I saw a black-and-white cow.

The country was changing its colors from the lush green of summer to the broody orange and brown of fall. Recent rains freshened up the windswept grass on the fields and hills as far as my eyesight could reach. As we drove to the Gilded Greens Club, where Jacobs would meet us, my heart thundered. My texts with Roman were getting more risky with each mile we crossed, and my father was two feet away from me, his nose buried in his papers.

"I've got something for you," Roman texted, following that up with a warning to hide my screen.

In an instant, he tore apart the facade of cool composure and dedication to my father's business. He tore apart the conservative membrane that held all my true nature hidden. The expiring image he sent was enough to leave me flustered and squirming in the seat. His bathroom mirror was cloudy, the steam wiped off in an arching move of a towel, and the clear part of it showed Roman's naked body from behind. His smooth, round ass was firm and beautifully curved. Then, when I saw it, my heart went into an overload. He wasn't naked. There was a thick, elastic stripe of a waistband around his waist and a thinner one sliding under his cheek. He wore an indigo jockstrap with red lettering.

The photo disappeared from my screen, but the heat remained unchanged inside of me.

"The things I would do to you right now ," I texted back.

I could see him grinning, those dimples large and deep. "Which things? I need you to be specific."

My dick shifted in my pants, and I held my breath as I typed back. "I'd throw you on your bed," I texted. "I'd bury your face in a pillow and eat you like I ate you the other night. I would devour you, Roman."

"And then?" Roman asked. I could hear that touch of sluttiness in his tone, even though his words were just text on my screen.

My imagination ran wild. I would tie your wrists with the tie I'm wearing to this meeting. It's black silk. You'd love it, Roman. You wouldn't stand a chance against it. Trapped. Helpless. Mine. And then, when you're so horny that you can't say three words correctly, and when you're begging me to make you come, I'd push my dick inside of you. You'd cry. You'd tell me to slow down. But I would stuff my boxers inside your mouth and make you shut up. I'd fuck you so hard you wouldn't walk for a day, Roman.

His messages back grew shorter and hotter. He begged me to keep going, and I did. The car spun around me. Some vague awareness that my father sat next to me made everything a little worse, except that I knew how much better it felt to do this right under his nose. I felt vindicated when Roman sent another image a good ten minutes later. It was the image of his abdomen, and I recognized his bed at the edge of the frame, but my gaze didn't linger there for long. Instead, I gazed at the white splatter down Roman's abs, and it was all I could do not to growl and moan right here in the car.

"I don't remember saying you could come," I texted.

To that, Roman simply wrote, "Oh fuck."

And although Roman's lust was subdued for a little while, mine raged unrestrained. I also knew with growing confidence that Roman was never satisfied for long. I had seen it the first time, and I had seen it the other night. I knew that glassy look that accompanied his rosy cheeks when he was ready to go again.

We arrived at the sprawling resort of green hills, quaint meadows, artificial lakes with sandy beaches, and copses of trees scattered as far as I could gaze. The place was a secluded haven for powerful people such as my father. Here, with security checks and anonymity guarantees, they could speak far more freely.

Today, with the drizzle coming and going on occasion, the grass was wet, and a light mist was lingering in the distance. Our car pulled up before the clubhouse, a magnificently opulent mansion that would have horrified Monsignor O'Connor but didn't burden the souls of my parents.

I followed my father inside. We passed the massive lobby and went through to the bar. On the terrace looking over the endless green grass and flaming leaves of fall trees, we found Robert Jacobs enjoying the view. He sat on a wooden white chair by a table cluttered with breakfast dishes and drinks. At the sound of our footsteps, he looked up, his smile open and welcoming. "Harry, it's good to see you, my old friend," he said, and Dad greeted him happily.

"This is my son, Everett," Dad said. I wondered if I really heard a touch of pride in his tone. My mind was mostly still clouded with desire, although I reined it in far enough so the heat wouldn't show on my face. "Children are the future of the world," he went on. "He better start learning the ropes soon, eh?"

Jacobs, a balding man in his late thirties, shook my hand with the same welcoming warmth with which he had greeted my father. "It's good to meet you, Everett. That's a strong grip."

We sat around, and I wondered what it was that I should pay attention to. From Dad's point of view, I imagined he just wanted me to listen to the adults talking. Some years ago, close to ten probably, he had changed the way he saw me. I had gone from a child to a young man. The trouble was Dad never updated that view since then. I was still a teenager in his eyes.

Robert Jacobs had an espresso before him, and his fingers moved over the small handle of the espresso cup. He asked about my mother and if the ride here was pleasant. He mentioned that he hadn't been in the city for a week. He remarked on how wonderful this season was. "Or perhaps it's just this one week, huh? One week in the year when the sun is not too hot and the clouds are not too thick. Wonderful days to be alive. What's it like in the city? Not too cloudy, I hope."

"Cloudy or not, there's a storm brewing," Dad said, clearly taking the opening to slide into the conversation he meant to have.

It seemed to me that this was precisely what Jacobs had been aiming at. "Is that so?"

"Not our first, eh, Robert?" Dad said this almost fondly, like he was revisiting some dear memories from a time long gone. "Let me be forward, my friend. These queers imagine that just because they laid their little pinky on something, it must be culturally significant. We gave them too much, you know. They think it makes them untouchable when, really, this business with that bar has nothing to do with their proclivities."

"Harry, you're worrying too much," Jacobs said. It struck me as an odd thing to say. He was completely undisturbed by what my father was saying.

Dad went on, reaching for the plate with a serving of champagne-poached pear with vanilla bean mascarpone. He waved his spoon to illustrate his point. "It's the ego that bothers me, Robert. Not everything is about them."

I wondered why he never spoke this way with my mother. She would have appreciated it. There, in a moment of observing him and thinking this absurd thought of how my father's homophobia would please my mother, I realized I no longer loved him.

My fingers were swifter than my brain. They tapped the screen under the table, and I only gave it a cursory glance to make sure I did it correctly.

"They will be dealt with, Harry," Jacobs said. "These days, they fill up every picket line. Don't let that concern you."

"Don't let it? They were in front of my home, Robert," Dad grumbled. If there had been any pretense that this was a formal meeting, that thought was gone. These men had been rubbing elbows for long enough to speak frankly. "Last week, a crowd of them waited across the street until my car pulled out. They're fortifying, I'm telling you."

"So what? Are you worried about your safety? Come out here." Robert shrugged. He gestured vaguely at the beautiful surroundings. "Besides, it's only a matter of time before he caves in. You'll get that sale sooner or later." I realized he was talking about Mama Viv, and some part of me I hadn't known existed was furious. Possessiveness or protectiveness, whichever it was, blazed in me.

"Sooner would be preferable," Father said.

"I thought you would be delighted at the prospect of a forced sale," Jacobs replied.

"Right now, Robert, I'm more interested in clearing the paperwork and being done with it. If that wig-wearing son of a bitch continues to fan the flames, we're all in deep shit. It'll take bulldozers in the night to make him sign the goddamn transfer." My father ate his champagne-poached pear like it was a medieval potion against some terrible affliction, his face sour and reddening. Here, I saw why he didn't care what my mother's rants were about. "If, by any chance, the city sent an inspection that found a crack in the foundation, perhaps we could speed it up. What do you say, Robert?"

"I say, you never know when those inspectors might show up," Jacobs replied smartly. He glanced at me suspiciously, and the warmth and welcome were gone from the table. "Can I be frank, Harry?"

"He's my son," my father replied. "Say what you mean."

Robert Jacobs smoothed the suspicion right out of his face, the fool that he was. You almost got me , I thought. Your instinct was right, you fucker . "The sheer amount of, er, research—for the lack of a more accurate word—that has been submitted with our application is enough to win you any challenge in court, Harry. Those people are welcome to try, but they'll lose. And if it truly drags out—believe me, I don't want to see it drag out; my stake is high enough as is, and my returns are tied to this project—we will bring out the big guns."

"You're goddamn right they are," Dad grumbled about the returns. I wondered if Jacobs had a stake in our company. He might. It wouldn't surprise me if he waited for the shares to shoot upward once this project is safely underway.

I wondered how much my family stood to lose. Oddly enough, it didn't bother me to think they might spend their winter in Monsignor O'Connor's dormitory for the homeless.

"Are you sure about that?" Father pressed on. "You made sure the research can't be challenged?"

"Challenged? Of course it can be, but they'll never be able to disprove our conclusions as quickly as we can find more reasons why the building needs to go. Now, tell me, how is Lavinia? Hilary would love to host a dinner when Lavinia is free to join. Young man, you will find our dinners deeply boring, but the invitation is extended to you, too." Jacobs opened his expression with warmth again, and a shiver ran down my spine. This was a ruthless man. I had no doubt about it.

As the conversation shifted to less crucial topics, I excused myself and went to the restroom. Making sure there was nobody in any of the stalls, I replayed the recording of their conversation, hardly able to hear the words over the thundering of my own heartbeat.

This was enough to stop the entire thing. This was enough to reveal my father as a manipulative and dishonest man. It was enough to show Robert Jacobs' conflict of interest and my father's ability to fabricate evidence. And if I shared this with even the most amateurish blogger out there, it would set fire to my father's empire.

I could destroy my entire family in a single message.

I could bring them down like a house of cards on a gust of wind.

Your worst mistake, Father dear, was trusting me , I thought.

My stomach turned, and I thanked all the gods that I was already in the restroom as I hurried to shut the door of my stall and leaned over the pristine toilet bowl.