Let's Hear It for the Boy
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Brian sighs. “I just want to, you know, make you feel” - he frowns, and I can’t tell if he legitimately can’t think of the right word or if he’s mentally steeling himself to talk about feelings - “appreciated.”
I scoot my chair over so that I’m right next to him and kiss his cheek. “I do feel appreciated. All the time. You respect me and you take care of me, and I don’t need some fancy dinner at a restaurant where the menus don’t have prices to prove it.”
“But this is- this isn’t a normal birthday.”
I laugh. “Well, maybe not for you it wasn’t.”
He grins at me and ruffles the hair at the base of my neck. “Not all of us can eternally look twenty-two, you know.”
Series
- Part 1 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 37 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Even after as long as it’s been, I’m still always a little surprised when Brian and I are able to pick up right where we left off, no matter how long it’s been since we’ve seen each other. Someday I’ll probably stop worrying that he’ll forget about me now that he has the big-city life he’s always wanted, but it’s still something I think about. Once in a while, anyway.
Right now, though, the condo living room is a scene straight from my early 20s: KFC bucket empty on the table, Brian blowing smoke rings, head resting on my stomach. He hands me the joint, and I take a drag before giving it back. We’re, I have to say, very stoned, and I’m studying the ceiling, fascinated by the even rows of the modernist lighting.
Series
- Part 2 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 38 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
Justin calls a few seconds after the driver shuts the door on the Benz.
“I’m half an hour out,” I say, in lieu of hello.
“Sounds good,” he says, then pauses. Uh-oh. “You sound weird. Is everything okay?”
Jesus, this kid. I consider the two honest answers available to me, and, in a decision that would be entirely unsurprising to anyone who’s ever met me, choose the one that’s easier and a lot more fun, if also a lot less relevant.
“I haven’t had sex in four days, of course I sound weird. My ball feels like a honeydew melon.”
Justin makes a sound somewhere between a whimper and a laugh, which does not help the situation in my pants. At all.
Series
- Part 3 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 40 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
When I open the condo door, a trail of wet footprints behind me, Brian is lying shirtless on the sofa, reading a magazine and smoking (I should call him on it, but I’m not going to). Normally, the little part of me that’s still seventeen and totally unable to believe that this is really my life would swoon at this point, but today has definitely not been normal and I’m not exactly in a swooning mood.
“Hey,” Brian says, looking up and then doing a double take when he notices my state of rained-on-ness. “What the fuck happened to you?”
Series
- Part 4 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 41 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
“You know,” Frances says, walking up to stand next to me on the doorstep, “most sensible employees would probably decline if their boss told them to meet them at someone else’s house without any explanation.”
I ring the doorbell. “Emmett knows we’re coming.”
“Not exactly my point.”
“Why can’t I invite my friends over for brunch?”
She looks at me. “Again, it’s not inviting me over if it’s not your house. And I’m fairly sure that you loathe the entire concept of brunch and anyone who partakes in it.”
Series
- Part 5 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 42 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
“So let’s just do it. Let’s just ... quit.”
He widens his eyes. “Sunshine, I think you’ve just invented the cure to addiction. We should just stop wanting to smoke! How come I didn’t think of that?”
“Fuck off,” I say. “Bitchy isn’t a good look on you.”
“Everything’s a good look on me,” he says, catching the tip of his tongue between his teeth and giving me a come-hither stare.
I refuse to take the bait. For now, anyway. “What I mean is, we should stop with all the halfway shit, the gum, the patches.” And the secret early-morning runs to the corner store for a pack of Newports (me) or Marlboros (him), to be half-smoked and then thrown out in a fit of guilt (me) or chain-smoked in a club backroom in a fit of self-loathing (him), but we both pretend we don’t know about those.
Series
- Part 6 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 43 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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When we get over there, Sam is playing with the dials on a voltage regulator while Daphne watches in fascination. Quinn is lying on their back, smoking what I'm pretty sure is one of Brian's joints and staring, typically expressionless, at the paint-splattered ceiling.
"This is by far the weirdest party I've ever been invited to," I say, as I sit down, and Quinn laughs and hands me the joint. "Not a complaint; just thought I'd mention it."
Series
- Part 7 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 44 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
“You-” he says, and stops. I wait. “What happened to the freak-out? The shouting damnation of the aging process? The drugs, the tricks, the impulse car purchases?”
I smirk. “I didn’t think getting smashed on the morning of your big day would be especially conducive to me having access to your ass post-opening.”
Series
- Part 8 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 45 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
I wake up with a headache, sore and stiff and- alone?
I sit up and look around. Brian’s not in bed, which is a little strange, considering the amount of liquor we both ingested last night at Emmett and Duncan’s anniversary party. I weigh my options, then get out of bed - slowly, so as not to jar my throbbing brain too much - and put on a pair of his sweatpants from the floor.
He’s in the living room, leaning back on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling with a blank expression, bouncing his phone in one hand.
Uh-oh.
Series
- Part 9 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 46 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
First impression of New York: it sucks. Like, it really, really sucks. It’s cold and dirty and big enough to get lost in without even trying, not at all the sparkling paradise my agent promised me, and the audition was a bust anyway, I knew the moment I walked in the room - flunk enough times and you know the look on a producer’s face when they decide not to hire you on sight - so I skip the fancy dinner I’m supposed to be having and try to find something approximating Nashville food instead.
Series
- Part 10 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 47 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
Justin comes jogging down the stairs just as I’m hanging up on my last meeting of the day. I hold up a hand as the call shuts off, then say, “What’s up?”
He’s oddly flushed, smiling, too. “I just had a couple ideas.”
“Wow, almost twice your normal daily amount,” I say, because I’m an asshole, and because he’s kind of adorable when he scrunches up his face in his I-can’t-believe-I’m-in-love-with-you-you-prick expression.
Series
- Part 11 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 48 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
“I have to say,” Brian says, rolling us into the middle of the bed, “even by my standards, this was a damn good idea.”
I prop myself up on my elbows and look around the private jet’s bedroom cabin, windows projecting fiery gold sunset light onto the walls. I smile up at him. “Well, I thought you deserved something nice for taking off a whole week just to help with the opening.”
Brian rolls his eyes, very unconvincingly. “You call this ‘nice?’ Dinner at Giordanno’s is nice, Sunshine. Sex in my office is nice. Not that I’m complaining, but I think your sense of thriftiness might have been thrown off by all those millions you’re raking in.”
Series
- Part 12 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 49 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
When Justin first moved in to our old place in the East Village, the number of parties I attended weekly tripled overnight. Tripled isn’t totally accurate, actually, because three times zero is still zero, but you get the idea.
But anyway, I started going to parties. Fun parties, for the most part, often overdone in a good way, occasionally overdone in a bad way. The reason I’m mentioning this is that I don’t want you to think that I have no frame of reference for what a big party is like, which some people might assume is a given for all asexual-aromantic-aligned goth financial analysts.
So, when I say that the bachelorette party setup in Justin and Brian’s apartment (you’ll get your exposition in a moment, don’t worry) was wild, I know what I’m talking about, and I mean that it was wild.
Series
- Part 13 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 50 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded
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Summary
When I slide the loft door open, Justin is at the stove, cooking something spicy and fragrant - curry, I think - and I have to stop for a moment, feeling all of the years between us fold up like an accordion, from now back to the first few ill-advised weeks we spent living here together.
Series
- Part 14 of Let's Hear It for the Boy
- Part 51 of Soundtrack Trilogy, combined and expanded