Part 18 (1/2)
He dried his hair more vigorously now, and his c.o.c.k swung from side to side. It was already thicker than it had been a moment before. He was getting a hard-on.
I glanced at Kevin. As our eyes met, we shared a moment, a little like the one I'd shared with Otto back in his bedroom. Maybe it was even another diverging of the timelines, a point where things could go one of two different ways.
I stepped forward toward Daniel.
He spread his legs, bracing them, leaning back against the wall with one hand.
I bent down, my head only inches from his d.i.c.k, which was already almost fully hard. Once again, I could feel its heat.
Whatever you do, don't f.u.c.k the hot teenage boy next door.
Maybe this was what Cole Gordon had been trying to tell me that night. Even if it wasn't, once again it was really good advice.
I picked up the wet towel and wrapped it around Daniels waist, tucking it tight.
Daniel looked confused, like it hadn't occurred to him that our rejecting him was even a possibility.
Maybe in that other timeline, it hadn't been. Who knows what the three of us might have done there?
But that was that timeline, not this one. In this timeline, it was clear that there was something off about Daniel - that he wanted something from Kevin and me, but for the wrong reasons. He wasn't here because he was attracted to us or wanted to have a casual fling. He was here because he had questions about his s.e.xuality, or because he wanted to p.i.s.s off his sister. h.e.l.l, maybe he just wanted to embarra.s.s me again.
I stepped back from Daniel and stood next to Kevin, the two of us in solidarity.
Daniel looked back and forth between us again, still confused, embarra.s.sed, and also more than a little angry. Then he turned for the bathroom to get dressed again. I could hear him in there, growing angry, so mad that I could hear the whoosh of his pants as he pulled them on.
When he stepped out of the bathroom again, I said, ”Daniel, stop. Let's talk, okay?”
He didn't talk. He didn't even stop. He burrowed right for the door.
”Daniel!” Kevin said, reaching for him. ”Please stop!”
Daniel squirmed away. He tried to slam the door behind him, but it got caught on a piece of carpet just inside the door.
When he was gone, Kevin finally closed the door and faced me.
”That kid has issues,” Kevin said.
”Serious ones,” I said.
”So what do we do? Talk to Zoe?”
”I don't know. Somehow it feels like she's part of the reason he was up here in the first place. We can mention we're concerned, but she'll just ask why. And telling her what happened, that seems like it'd make things even worse. Besides, isn't that, like, outing him?”
”Still. We should do something.”
It did feel like we should do something.
”But what?” I said. ”I mean, apart from being here if he needs to talk.”
Kevin kept thinking. I did too.
”I hate to say it,” I said, ”but if he doesn't want our help, I don't see what we can do. I mean, you can't really save someone from himself.”
Kevin didn't say anything, and my words hung in the air, longer than I wanted, sounding harsher than I intended.
It was stuffy in that apartment, but I s.h.i.+vered.
It wasn't only Daniel I felt bad about. After all, if it was really true that other people couldn't save us from ourselves, that meant we were all pretty much on our own, including me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
Friday morning, Kevin told me he had a press junket at the Beverly Hilton for an upcoming movie.
”Wait,” I said. ”Is that the hotel Ellen says we should boycott because it's owned by that sultan who wants to stone gay people?”
”No, that's the Beverly Hills Hotel,” Kevin said. ”The Beverly Hilton is where Whitney Houston drowned in the bathtub.”
”Can I come?”
”Because Whitney Houston died there? It's not like there's a shrine.”
”Actually, I think people still do leave flowers outside. But that's not why I want to go.”
”Then why?”
”Because I've never seen it, and my week's already screwed the pooch because of all that time I spent helping Otto.”
”But it'll be boring. You don't have a press pa.s.s, so you can't get into any of the events.”
”I'll bring the laptop,” I said. ”I'll wait in the bar.”
”For three hours?”
”Sure.”
”Okay,” Kevin said with a shrug. ”It's all good.”
A movie junket is when the movie studios invite all the entertainment journalists to a big hotel, and then they also bring in all the movie's stars. If you're important enough - a TV journalist, or someone from one of the big daily newspapers - you might get to spend ten or fifteen minutes alone with the movie star in one of the hotel rooms (accompanied by a publicist, of course). If you're a less important journalist, like a blogger or a writer for a small newspaper, you have to be content with attending the big press conference, where the movie stars take questions from the audience, and maybe you'll also get a few minutes with the movie star at a round-robin table with five or so other writers. (The writer, director, and producer of the movie are all usually at press junkets too, and they always have interesting things to say, but it's like what Kevin said that night at dinner: unless the director is named ”Steven Spielberg” or ”Quentin Tarantino,” no one gives a mouse's fart.) The point is that all these writers and TV people can go home and boast to their readers or viewers how they got an ”exclusive” interview with an actual movie star, making them look much more connected and important than they actually are. When it comes to Hollywood, everyone employs the Bulls.h.i.+t Factor, even the writers who write about us.
When we got to the hotel, Kevin bee-lined off to his press event. I decided to linger in the lobby. I'd been wrong: there were no longer any flowers outside for Whitney Houston. But I figured I might still run into a famous face or two. That happens everywhere in Los Angeles. Our very first week there, Kevin and I had seen Lena Headey - Cersei on Game of Thrones - in the produce section at Ralphs. But your odds are better at places like the Beverly Hilton, especially when it's the setting for a press junket for a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Julianne Moore.
I made a quick scan of the lobby. In my mind, people immediately fell into three categories: industry types who just happened to be in the lobby of the hotel for business; publicists and studio people involved with the movie junket; and the journalists who'd come to the junket.
Everyone looked tanned and toned and pretty, except for the writers who mostly looked like pudgy, pathetic dorks. I was starting to get annoyed by how right Otto had been about both the Bulls.h.i.+t Factor and the Screenwriter Loophole.