I nod. “I can help you with whatever you need. I want to be able to show some initiative and leadership and a strong relationship to the community.”

  He does smile now—like he’s about to laugh. “Oh, you’ll definitely be able to say you have a relationship. And I need to look responsible and centered and well-behaved and all that bullshit.”

  “Uh, right. Okay. Well, I guess I could—are you thinking I should help you with your social media or something? Like, public relations?” It’s not my strong suit, but Axel Ryder says passion is purpose, so I guess if I work hard enough at it, I could do it. So, I say, “I can do that.”

  “I want you to be my boyfriend.”

  The air is close now. And for a moment, I’m sure I didn’t hear him right. “You want—”

  “I want you to be my boyfriend. Pretend boyfriend. Fake boyfriend. Long-term, committed, serious boyfriend. Just long enough to convince these fuckwads that I’m a model of family values or whatever the fuck they want.”

  So many things try to get out that I can’t say anything. And then what I do finally say is “But I’m not gay.”

  “What part of ‘pretend’ did you not understand?”

  I open my mouth to respond, All of it, but nothing comes out. It’s that log-jam feeling again. So I shut my mouth.

  “Look, I get it,” Gray says. “You’re straight. It’s weird. But I’m not asking you to hop up in a sex swing and spread your legs for some Boy Cam time. All I want you to do is hang out here at WISP. Let me introduce you to some people. We’ll cook up some stories about how we’re basically the most boring couple ever, like family dinners and board games and on the weekends, we only do missionary with our eyes closed, and everybody will realize I have changed. We’ve got a fundraising dinner in a month, and once we get through that, it’ll be over.”

  I still can’t say anything, but I’m pretty sure I can feel the blood rising in my face.

  “Kinda need an answer,” Gray says.

  “It’s a small town.” It doesn’t sound like me—not to me, anyway—but somehow, it’s surprisingly steady. “People know I’m not gay.”

  Gray actually snorts. “Oh yeah? Because you date so much? For all people know, you are gay.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “Then tell people you’re bi. It’s 2022; everybody’s bi. Fuck, it’ll give you something to talk about with John-Henry next time you’re playing patty-cake. Or tell people you were the straightest little straight boy until I swept you off your feet. But make sure they know I was a perfect gentleman about it.” He frowns. “Wait, are you into any kinky shit I need to know about? Like, do you want people to put you in one of those sleep sacks and store you under the bed at night? Because if that shit comes out, the family values club isn’t going to donate to me.”

  Somehow, I shake my head.

  “Good. I mean, that’s cool if you are, but that’s not the point of this whole thing.”

  “People will find out,” I say. It’s still not really me talking, so I guess it’s somebody else. “Even if it’s just at a few events, everybody’s going to know.”

  “What, so now you’re homophobic?”

  I honestly don’t know what to say to that.

  “Fuck them,” Gray says. “Who the fuck cares what anybody thinks? When it’s over, you can tell everybody you were just helping me out. Once donors start contributing, it won’t matter.”

  But Gran. And Dad.

  “It wouldn’t be honest,” I say.

  Gray opens his mouth, but whatever he sees on my face stops him. He gives a smile that’s surprisingly tired, and a little shake of his head. “Okay. Got it. Sorry; it was a dumb idea.”

  He is tired, I realize. And more than tired, hurting. And it’s for a good cause.

  And then I say, “I’ll do it.”

  7

  Gray

  I’m still on a weird roller coaster of emotion as I stare at Sam. The poor kid looks so distraught I almost offer to let him back out.

  But I don’t.

  It’s a bad plan, sure. Emery would probably say it was a terrible plan. But it’s what I have. And I’m going to make it work.

  And because I am a better person than I used to be, I make myself a silent promise that I will not, in any way, fuck up Sam’s life.

  “You will?” I ask.

  Sam looks like he might have blacked out, but he swallows and nods.

  I almost say, Are you sure? But instead, I say, “Okay. Great. Uh, thanks. Thank you, seriously. This is a huge help.”

  It’s all way too small for what I’m asking. But, again, it’s what I have.

  “Do you want me to—” Sam begins to ask.

  “So should I—” I start to say.

  I laugh.

  Sam doesn’t.

  He’s got big, dark eyes, and they’re extra wide right now. I wasn’t joking about the hot part, although it’s hard to think someone’s hot when they look terrified. He’s actually got good skin now that the acne has cleared up. Symmetrical features that aren’t pretty but definitely qualify as handsome. And since he turned into John-Henry Junior, he’s done a total glow up with his hair and his clothes. He’s still a nerd, and if you popped a pair of glasses on him, you’d have Clark fucking Kent. But a hot nerd.

  He’s also staring at me like I’m about to pop his cherry right on this desk.

  “Okay,” I say, “this is awkward, right?”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “How about this?” I say. “Let’s get a drink.”

  The way he freezes makes me think I might have made a mistake.

  “Just a drink,” I say, holding my hands up—I don’t know why, but I guess so he thinks I’m not going to assault his honor or ravish him or whatever he thinks is going to happen. “Besides, I’ve got an idea about your project, and you can do some research.”

  He has to swallow before he says a surprisingly scratchy “Okay.”

  I grab my stuff, and I let Sam lead the way out of the WISP offices. Robin is at the desk, glaring at us.

  “I’m headed out,” I say. “Thanks for your help tonight, Robin.”

  “If you’re done,” Robin says, “maybe we could get something to eat—”

  “Not tonight, sorry. Sam and I have plans.”

  I didn’t mean for it to sound the way it did, and I see the flush mottle Sam’s neck, but to my surprise, he turns back toward Robin and says, “Boyfriend perks. I get dibs.”

  He’s actually kind of bitchy about it, which: one, not even on my fucking radar; and two, un-fucking-believably amazing.

  It’s hard not to laugh as I follow Sam out into the night.

  “You want a ride?” I ask, and now it seems like everything I say has another meaning, and for some reason, my face gets hot. “I mean, we can drive together—”

  “No, thanks,” Sam says. “I’ll drive myself.”

  “Sure. Have you been to Drawbar?”

  Sam shakes his head.

  “It’s not far—”

  “I can find it,” he says, and he breaks into an easy lope.

  There goes my future-fake-boyfriend. Literally running away from me.

  On the drive over to Drawbar, I analyze the situation from every possible angle. It’s like math. Or maybe science. I wish I could say that to Emery to see his head explode. But the conclusion, any way I try to look at it, is that this is inevitably going to blow up in my fucking face.

  Eventually, I add. Eventually it will blow up in my fucking face.

  It just has to explode after the fundraiser.

  Drawbar is a cute little mixed bar not far from the college. It’s mostly het, but there are enough gay guys that it can make a nice change from the meat market at the Pretty Pretty. It’s got a brick veneer and its name in marquee lights, and inside, it hits the sweet spot between a college dive bar and somewhere an adult might actually want to go on the weekend.

  Sam’s waiting by the door when I get in, putting away his ID. He sees me notice, and he shoves the wallet into his pocket.

  I choose not to say anything. Not yet, anyway.

  It’s a Saturday night, and it’s busy and loud—more so than usual, as a matter of fact, because tonight, the Sigma Sigma frat is having some kind of event here. Somehow, Sam and I squeeze into a spot at the end of the bar, and I flag down the woman behind the stick. She looks about ten years older than me and like she wishes she were wearing an eyepatch. When she gets close enough, I ask for a Blue Moon and a Fat Tire.

  Sam’s looking at me with his cop eyes as the bartender moves away.

  I laugh. “I’m not stalking you. It’s what you order when we go to St. Taffy’s.”

  Then there’s nothing to say. The mix of voices and music feels like its own kind of atmospheric pressure, like there’s no room to say anything even if we wanted to. Which, I guess we don’t. The bartender comes back with our drinks, and then instead of standing in silence, we’re drinking in silence.

  “You said you had a project,” Sam finally says. He’s hardly touched his beer. Maybe because he thinks I’m going to roofie my new bride or something like that.

  “Yeah, right. So, we’ve got a Greek Life outreach planned in a couple of weeks. That’s part of the strategic plan—getting partner organizations connected to WISP, finding opportunities to raise awareness, offer services, that kind of thing.”

  Sam looks around. The Sigma Sigma guys tend to be White, wealthy, and pretty. There are plenty of girls mixed in too. He’s studying them the way a cop does, and it looks unexpectedly good on him. He’s still got that baby face, but I’m starting to think little Sammy Yarmark can be a hardass if he needs to.

  Sometimes, at the strangest times, memories pop into your head. And now I’m thinking about the filthy basement of an abandoned warehouse. I’m bleeding from where a fucking booby trap got me in the arm. And Sam is the one applying the tourniquet, making sure I don’t bleed out.

  I hadn’t thought of him as a kid then. Or as little Sammy Yarmark.

  I pluck at my T-shirt, trying to get some air, and I take another drink.

  “So, what do you want me to do?” Sam asks.

  “I want you to be in charge of that. You’re going to follow up with my Sigma Sigma contact. You’re going to plan the outreach activity.”

  “What does that mean?” Sam asks after another look around the bar. “Like, a party?”

  “Well, not exactly. But I wanted you to have an idea of the clientele.”

  And sure enough, he starts studying them like he’s RoboCop. Having his attention somewhere else is actually easier than that slow build-up of pressurized silence between the two of us, so I let him do his full-body scans and cyber-whatever-the-fucks and analyze the shit out of these Sigma Sigma bros and the girls they invited to their party. And I drink my beer.

  The worst part is that Sam has never made a thing out of it. Never given me shit about how he’d saved my life. Never even talked about it, really. He’d been a baby back then—bad hair, bad skin, and just starting to get out of his bad attitude. But it was the kind of thing most guys would have brought up, one way or another, at least once. Especially around a bunch of other guys. Especially when that kind of shit carried weight. I mean, Sam could have ridden that for a year or two, easy, and been the department’s hot shit. Now, thinking back, I don’t even know if he got a medal or a commendation or anything. If he didn’t, that was messed up. And it’s messed up, too, that I don’t know.

  “Okay,” Sam says. “I’ve got some ideas. I might come back tomorrow, ask the manager a few questions. I know it’s not a party, but are we doing food? Drinks?”

  “What do you think?”

  He makes a face.

  I laugh. “You wanted a project.”

  “I know. You sound like Mr. Somerset.”

  “Oh God, kill me right fucking now.”

  That makes him smile. A real smile. And my second realization of the night is that you don’t get a lot of big smiles out of Sam Yarmark. When he first came to the department, he was like one of those yappy little things chasing after the big dogs. That changed, though, after he started following John-Henry around, and now I wonder if maybe he’s too quiet. I don’t know what he does outside of work. I don’t know if he has friends. What else don’t I know?

  “I’ll figure something out,” Sam says. “Do you want me to submit a plan to you? Or a proposal or something?”

  “No, that’s not necessary.”

  He nods, but he says, “I’ll probably do it anyway.”

  And that makes me smile. It also makes me realize how John-Henry must feel. The kid, I’m starting to suspect, might be a fucking bulldozer.

  Sam drains his beer and sets the glass on the bar. “Anything else?”

  “Uh, yeah, actually.” And once again, I’m blushing like I’m a fucking virgin or something. “I guess we need to figure some stuff out. You know, about us. If we’re going to pull this off.”

  Sam’s eyebrows come together. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Your middle name. What you do for fun. Lots of shit that we’re supposed to know about each other. But mostly, how we’re going to act around each other.” I absolutely hate the word, but I can’t come up with anything better. “To see if we have chemistry.”

  I wait for him to bolt, but Sam stands there, eyebrows still knitted together. And then he says, “Should I tell people I’m the top?”

  It’s a bad moment because I’m mid-drink, and I cough most of it up.

  Somehow, I finally manage to get the beer out of my lungs, and I say, “You know, that doesn’t come up in casual conversation as much as you think.”

  He looks a little too innocent.

  “You little shit,” I say. “And why the fuck would you be the top?”

  And Sammy Yarmark grins.

  “All right, hot shot,” I say. “What’s your move?”

  His smile fades. “What move?”

  “Your play. Your game.” He doesn’t say anything. “How do you flirt? You walk into this bar and you want to hook up. What do you do?”

  The flush works its way higher up his neck. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I talk to someone. I buy her a drink.”

  “Pretty basic, but okay, we can work with that. Is that how you picked me up?”

  He won’t make eye contact, and he’s practically talking to the floor when he says, “Maybe you picked me up.”

  “Oh no. You’re the top, remember?”

  He does look at me then, and it’s not a happy look.

  “Lay it on me, Sammy. Give me a dose of that Yarmark charm.”

  “But I never—” Sam is talking to the floor again, and a beat passes before he says, “You’re a guy.”

  I almost laugh, but something tells me that might push him over the edge. “Yeah, well, that’s kind of an integral part of the plan. But fine. Pick whoever you want; I just want to see what I’m working with.”

  And before he can answer, I grab my drink and move away from the bar. I luck into a two-top that a het couple is abandoning, and I drop into a seat that gives me a perfect line of sight on the bar. Sam is still where I left him, staring at his empty beer, looking more or less like a kicked puppy. He even glances over his shoulder at me. God, his eyes really are big. And there’s this part of me that thinks I should get up, call it off, and forget this whole thing.

  But I need to pull this off—with the donors, if not with anybody else. And if he freezes up…

  Sam steps away from the bar, and a couple of Sigma Sigma bros slide into the spot we’ve abandoned. He walks the length of the room, taking people in, considering his options. Nothing about him screams cop, mostly because he still has such a baby face, but the signs are there if you know what to look for. The way he carries himself. There are other guys who’ve got good shoulders and defined arms like Sam—not that you can see a whole lot under the sweatshirt he’s wearing—but they move like college kids, and Sam moves like—well, like a man who knows how to handle himself.

  Except, right then, he’s also moving like a guy who has no fucking idea what to do.

  He’s making his way back along the bar now, still trying to find his victim. I mean, target. Spots open along the bar, but people press into the gaps immediately, and Sam’s look is changing from confusion to frustration. Finally, a guy gets up from one of the stools and heads for the door, and Sam slithers into his spot—barely beating out a little ’roider who definitely doesn’t like that Sam got there first. It’s a good spot, between two dark-haired women—the one on the left has longer hair, the one on the right wears hers short. They’re about the right age for Sammy, and they both have that college-girl look that’s somehow put-together and a little overdone at the same time.

  And then Sam just sits there.

  I wish I had another drink, because this is turning into a show.

  The woman on his left—the one with the long hair—is deep in a conversation with the man on the other side of her. The woman on his right—short hair—is texting. Sam is watching her, obviously waiting for her to put the phone down or glance up. Maybe even hoping she’ll initiate the conversation. I’m starting to suspect Sammy might be one of the guys who wants a woman to club him over the head and drag him back to her cave—maybe that’s why he hasn’t had a date in the time I’ve known him. In this case, he’s going to be disappointed because that girl is firmly committed to her phone.

  Finally, Sam must come to the same conclusion. He looks around for the bartender, but she’s busy lining up shots for a group of guys. I can see the beginning of panic in his face. Then it changes into something I’ve seen before—something between surrender and resolve. He had that exact same look on his face when he told me, less than an hour ago, he’d help me with what was now starting to feel like the stupidest plan in the world. Like he couldn’t fight it any longer, but now that he was committed, he was committed.

  He turns toward the short-haired woman and opens his mouth.