The Picture of Cool (first section)

The Picture of Cool (second section)

The phone call came a few weeks later, at about ten o’clock on a Thursday night. It was a number Charlie didn’t recognize. No name on the ID. Normally, he would have let it go to voicemail, but he’d had a couple of fingers of scotch and the Knicks just won, so he muted the post-game show and picked up.

“Um, Charlie?”

The voice sounded familiar. Then it hit him, the kiss, in a rush of heat. The haunted expression, the kiss, that going-to-the-sea-in-ships scent. The kiss. “Adam?”

“Yes. You said if I ever wanted to talk…”

The tone of his voice was like a punch to the gut. Once again, he could feel all the pain that had been radiating from the man’s eyes the day they met. “Sure. Of course. Do you want to meet somewhere?”

“No, I…yes. I do. But I can’t at the moment.”

“We could talk now. Is this okay?”

“Yeah. The kids are asleep, and Deidre—my wife—is out at a charity thing.”

Several concepts fell together in Charlie’s mind, none of them good. “Does she know?”

 “No. And I’ve never…” Adam let out a long breath. “Charlie, I wanted to apologize. What I did was ridiculously inappropriate.”

You poor, sweet man. Someone did a number on you but good. Charlie ached to put his arms around him. “No apology necessary.”

The silence that followed was brutal. “Really?”

“Do you want to get a cup of coffee sometime? People tell me I give good ear.”

He laughed. “Yeah. I’d like that. Even if just to show you I’m not a complete basket case.”

They planned to meet the following day. Nearly everyone scattered on Fridays after the post-show wrap meeting, and Charlie knew about a quiet, hole-in-the-wall café a few blocks from the studio, one of those little Manhattan gems only the locals frequented. He arrived early, nodded to the owner, a man who could keep a secret, and found a table in the back. Adam, looking trim and athletic in his Friday casuals, joined him ten minutes later. While he appeared a lot less jumpy than the last time Charlie had seen him, he still seemed ill at ease, like one of those characters in the movies who thinks he’s being followed. In fact, Adam did check over his shoulder quite a bit.

“Maybe you’d like to switch places?” Charlie said.

Adam faced forward. “Sorry. No, I’m fine. Just a little…”

“Yeah. I know. But the owner’s a stand-up guy, and I do a little confidential staff interviewing here for the show. Network spies abound, and some people freak out at the thought of being seen entering a building with a competitor’s logo on the side, if you catch my drift.”

“Got it. Thank you for that, by the way.”

“Not a problem.” He lifted his chin toward the owner and with a smile, gestured for two coffees. A couple of minutes later, he’d left them with a tray: two mugs, a carafe, and all the fixings, including a plate of fresh fruit and homemade biscotti, before disappearing into the kitchen.

“You get good service here,” Adam noted, stirring cream and sugar into the mug Charlie had poured for him.

“Well, they’re really nice people. But generous tips and a little swag go a long way, too. I got his wife front-row tickets for Melanie’s last concert. He’s still thanking me.”

Charlie sipped his coffee and waited for Adam to settle into the space, to feel comfortable enough to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about. When the silence stretched into awkward, Charlie remembered an item that had piqued his interest from the résumé in Adam’s press kit—that he’d played basketball as an undergrad at Fordham—and took a stab at a connection.