CHAPTER EIGHT
WE FINISH. I carefully pack Jordan's camera back into its box as I remove the precious memory card—precious, because it now contains the raw files of the two collaborative videos between Jordan and Edmund. I stow the memory card into its special, red case—the writing on the front of the case screams, 'Don't even think about recording over the contents until they've been backed up!'—the cautionary message and the red case were both of my ideas, of course, and Jordan was thrilled when I'd sent him the case as a gift.
Whatever happened last night, nobody seems to remember, or nobody seems to want to admit to remembering anything, but either way, at least Jordan doesn't seem to know that I woke up here—to my absolute surprise—in Edmund's hotel room—and less than half an hour or so before Jordan arrived. In my mind, my shower was a race to get finished before Jordan could finish his shower back at his own home—and finding and changing into one of Edmund's spare outfits was a race to beat Jordan as I'd imagined he would be putting on his own clothes back at his place.
Despite the fact that I'm wearing Edmund's clothes, I'm about as positive as I can be that we didn't do anything together. As far as I've pieced together, I just crashed here for the night, probably because I was too drunk to move by the end of it. A gentle hand squeezes my shoulder and I turn back to look up at Edmund's beautiful smile.
"Would you mind if we take a photo?" Edmund asks, holding his smart phone up, gesturing to it. I return his smile as I nod.
"Where do you want me to take it for you guys?" I ask, standing up as I push away a lighting tripod into the corner of his hotel room. I hold my hand out expecting him to hand me his phone, but he tucks it into his chest, prompting me to raise a questioning brow.
"I meant all three of us," Edmund says. There's a knock at the door. I start for the door but he gestures that he'll get it. Edmund opens the door, letting Jordan back in after having returned from his mission to the lobby to get ice—apparently, it was a success, since the ice box he's carrying is practically overflowing.
"But I hardly did anything, you two are the important ones—" I start to say, rolling up one of the audio cables.
"Nonsense," Edmund cuts me off, apparently gesturing to the fact that I'm still working at this very moment. "You're an integral part of our production and we couldn't have done it without you."
"Are you trying to steal my production assistant? He's mine—you can't have him," Jordan says, dryly, pouring us cups of iced water. We laugh.
"Well, that's not half a bad idea," Edmund says as he winks at me. I can feel a blush coming on as he addresses Jordan, adding, "I was, in fact, trying to get a photo of all three of us, but perhaps if he's ever in the London area, he should give me a call."
"London? You mean you don't live here at all?" I ask, trying to hide the feeling of being shot in the gut out of my voice—I should have guessed, but I thought he was an expat. Jordan hands me a cup of iced water, then another to Edmund.
"How could I ever leave the beautiful weather of London?" Edmund asks, sarcastically, chuckling with Jordan as I try to eek out a smile—his joke was well placed, and I did find it funny, but I'm just too gutted to laugh as the unease of knowing that I may never see Edmund again sets in.
"Do you have any plans to return?" I ask, holding my breath.
"Hard to say, but I'm sure that I will visit again in the near future," Edmund says—my gaze drops to the gray, industrial carpet between us, because, inwardly, I translate his words as meaning, 'likely, never'. Edmund's hand pats me on my shoulder as he adds, "perhaps we'll all collab again."
"Honestly, I didn't think you'd even make this trip at all," Jordan says, sipping from his cup as I do the same from mine. Edmund raises a questioning brow, prompting Jordan to explain, "your channel's huge. I'm not sure why you're bothering to deal with someone who's just basically started, especially half a world away from where you live."
"Ah, but that all means very little—I saw the spark of your burgeoning genius, so I went chasing after it. How could I not?" Edmund smiles with all the charm and warmth in the world, his icy gaze centering on me, but even all that cannot stop the loneliness lurking within the pit of my chest from tearing its way to my surface.
"When do you leave?" I ask, swallowing the lump in my throat, swallowing the fear of losing yet another friend and just as soon as I thought I had the chance to make a new one out of him. The side of Edmund's cheeks tense ever so slightly and he appears hesitant to answer as he perhaps regards my sadness, however much I try to hide it.
"Two days from now," Jordan answers for him. Edmund and I never break eye contact with each other even as Jordan continues, "Monday night."
"How about that photo?" Edmund finally asks after seemingly an eternity of silence with me lost in his ice crevasses.
I want to ask him what the rest of his plans will be for the last, full day that he's here, and to ask if we can hang out for every last minute that he has left until he has to board his flight, but I stop myself. I'm not desperate. Or, at least, I don't want to appear so, even if that's my reality that I try to hide. Unable to speak the words that I want to say, I simply nod.
Edmund motions towards the balcony window overlooking the ocean and we line up against the glass. He snaps the photo just as we all smile, although mine is more of a trained reflex rather than one of genuine happiness. He checks the photo and shows it to us. Although it hadn't been planned, I find it fitting that I'm the one in the middle, one friend that I've only just reunited with to one side, and another that I'm soon to never see again on the other.
~ ~ ~
Keeping to our previously established plans, we go out to dinner as a sort of celebration for their collaboration, but for me, it's nothing more than a depressing bon voyage to Edmund. Upon my suggestion, we find ourselves sitting at a table within one of my favorite Indian restaurants. Jordan orders the Saag, Edmund orders the Chicken Tikka Massala, and I order my usual lamb curry along with a heap of naan to go around.
The food arrives quickly, as usual, and the portions are enormous enough to share, as intended. We dig in as the two discuss everything that's YouTube related, while I zone out, wallowing in my silent misery. As soon as Edmund leaves, I'll be back to where I started—back to having only a single friend—my social life still dangling precariously by a single thread of a lifeline.
"Here's a question," Jordan says, snapping his finger with a smirk, snapping me back into the restaurant. He looks at Edmund, as he asks, "why is Dalt wearing one of your outfits?"
"How do you know it's not one of his own?" Edmund asks, scanning me up and down. Did he just use that as an excuse to check me out? The heat rises to my cheeks. If ever there was a time not to make me blush, now would've been it. Jordan glances sideways towards me, but returns his attention to Edmund. Edmund smirks as he adds, "I think he looks quite smart in that. He has impeccable taste."
"I follow you on Instagram, you know. I could pull up the exact post with you wearing that, but why bother? Since, Dalt's blush says it all," Jordan says, then he pauses as his head pans slowly towards me, his mouth falling agape. His eyes widen, staring at me as he adds, "you slept with him."
"How did you go from simply borrowing an outfit to the ridiculous conclusion that we slept together?" I ask, denying the fact of the matter, feigning complete ignorance.
"The blush—" Jordan begins.
"The curry is quite spicy, you know," I say, flatly, cutting him off with a bit of a half truth.
"You're wearing the same, black loafers from yesterday—" Jordan starts.
"Yes, I borrowed the outfit, but not his shoes—we might be about the same size clothes, but we certainly don't share the same size shoe," I say, calmly, cutting him off again. I sip my glass of water.
"Okay, so you borrowed the outfit, but why? Maybe because you didn't want me to notice that you hadn't changed clothes from the night before—" Jordan attempts to continue, nailing the truth, making me mentally scramble for a plausible excuse.
"I borrowed the outfit, because when I got to his room, I spilled hot coffee all over my clothes—" I counter quickly, just managing to cut him off yet again.
"Hot coffee? You don't drink coffee—I'm sure hot liquids were spilled, but it—" Jordan starts to spit out.
"He spent the night," Edmund admits, cutting into the formerly two-way bickering as he wipes his hands with a tablecloth. My blush deepens, Edmund's admission ringing within the space between my ears. He reaches for a glass of water as he peers at Jordan, adding, "but nothing of the sort that you imply ever happened."
"It's fine. You guys don't have to admit it. It's no big deal that you did. I'm not hurt that I was lied to or anything," Jordan says in mock surrender.
"I said, we did nothing of the sort, and I meant it. We fell asleep, nothing more," Edmund says, simply, but, to me, his words seem to suggest that he knows much more than he'd previously told me. He seems to be hiding something.
"Did something else happen that even I don't know about?" I ask, zeroing in on Edmund, who simply raises his brow at me and my question. Perhaps I should have asked him in private, but now it's a bit too late for that—the need to know already forced me to ask. "What is it that you've not told me?"
"Everything I said earlier is the truth." Edmund sips his water, smiling from behind his glass as he adds, "you do look quite handsome wearing my clothes."
"Well, thank you, but enough with the flattery," I urge him to continue as the heat in my cheeks intensifies. "You may have told the truth, but you're withholding something else."
"If you insist," Edmund says as he lowers his glass onto the table. "I only withheld that which is of a sensitive nature in regards to what you shared in confidence with me."
"What did I share?" I ask, puzzled. Edmund sneaks a sideways glance at Jordan, before returning to me as he takes another sip of his water—I receive his unspoken message to mean that perhaps he doesn't think that anything I may have discussed should be reviewed with our current company present. "Jordan knows practically everything there is to know about me. Whatever it is that I may have told you, Jordan probably already knows."
"Right. Well, you broke down and told me everything that happened with your previous friends, how you were outed even though you've never had relations with either a girl or a guy before—"
"Hah! I knew it! I knew you're a virgin!" Jordan exclaims. The other seated patrons around our table gawk and whisper to each other. I shoot Jordan a narrowed glance. "Sorry."
"I thought you said he knew everything. That seemed to be a surprise reaction, if ever I've seen one," Edmund comments.
"He's asked previously, but I've never admitted whether I was or wasn't," I say, returning my attention solely on Edmund, who seems hesitant to continue.
"Shall I continue? Or should we leave it alone?" Edmund asks, making me wonder if I should even insist on it any further, but whatever it is that I might have said, or done, I don't care if Jordan hears it.
"No, I'll hear all of it. Go on," I urge him to continue.
"Right. Well, you were crying. I was sat there next to you on the bed, and you had a go at my...clothes, but I told you that you weren't in the right state. I told you that I didn't want to take advantage of you even if the two of us were, indeed, drunk. Then, well, that only managed to make the crying worse, so I held you until you fell asleep," Edmund admits.
"That's it? You basically had the same night with him that I did," Jordan says.
"Something we've withheld, now have we?" Edmund asks, raising his brow at me seemingly perhaps partially in jest and partially with genuine, if not mild, intrigue.
"You didn't miss anything. I just find it funny that he had the drunken heat for both of us and we both ended up upholding his virtue and we're both sitting here, right now, eating dinner with him. Maybe the next time he's drunk, he'll try to have at us, attempting a threesome—" Jordan comments and the two of them chuckle as my cheeks burn ablaze.
"Enough already," I say.
My phone vibrates. I sigh, wondering what my parents could be calling me about—and of course it must be them, because the only two other people who still talk to me—in the entire world—are sitting right next to me. I pull out my phone but it's neither of my parents. Instead, there's a number with no name, but it's a number that I can never forget—Brogan's number. What the hell could he want?
Since I'm presently in pleasant company, he can either, leave a message, or shove off, for all I care. The phone stops vibrating as soon as I hit the ignore button and stash it back into my pocket. What did Brogan have to say? I push the thought of Brogan out of my head, trying to watch and listen to the conversation that has now apparently returned to the subject of YouTube. My phone vibrates again. I pull out my phone and it's Brogan's number again. I groan.
"Sounds rather insistent—it could be important—perhaps you should take it," Edmund says, pausing his conversation with Jordan, both of them now focusing squarely upon me. Edmund winces and begins to rub his temples.
"You all right?" I ask Edmund, who drops his hands and stops rubbing his temples as soon as I ask.
"Bit of a headache. It's nothing. Don't let us keep you from anything important," Edmund replies waving the backs of his hands towards me in a shooing gesture.
"Right. Okay," I say, gesturing for them to continue on without me as I get up and step slightly away from the table to answer the call that I didn't want to take. Noticing Jordan peering over to me even as he converses with Edmund, I answer the call as if I'm talking to my father.
"Hey Dad, I'm a bit busy right now. What's up?" I ask, gritting my teeth.
"Don't hang up. You'll want to know what's up with Jordan," Brogan's voice says.
"I'll clean the Corvette when I get back home, so I'll see you later," I say, patting myself on the back for coming up with that one on the spot as Jordan continues to peer over to me. I hope Brogan gets the message, that I'm going to hang up if he keeps going with his vague and cryptic routine any longer than he already has. If he has something to say, he should hurry up and spit it out.
"Jordan outed you," Brogan says, stunning me into silence. "I have proof, and you know I do, or I wouldn't have bothered to call."
"What scratch? There's not a single scratch on that thing," I reply, hoping Brogan will get the message that he better make it quick with whatever details that he claims to have, but I'm also hoping that Jordan doesn't catch wind of what's really going on, since I know that he's still within earshot and it's too late for me to create a greater distance from the table now. After already periodically locking gazes with a seemingly suspicious Jordan, that would only antagonize any further suspicion.
"He's the one who sent a photo of you sitting in his car on that night, using a second phone. He texted later saying that you came out to him in the car before you two left for his house. He has two phones. He outed you, knowing that you'd get the boot. He's not your friend. He played you."
"Whether it was you, me, or some rats in the garage—who knows and who cares? We can send it to the body shop for a touch up. What's done is done," I reply.
"Yes, but how do you know that he isn't still playing you?"
"Sure, maybe. Rats can surely get underneath your tarp—they can find their way into anything and anywhere, but I don't know. Just take it to the shop on your day off, unless you want me to do it for you. Like I said, what's done is done."
"Fine. Last thing. If you somehow happen to get a hold of that second phone, the last four digits of the phone number should be, zero—two—one—four. Even if he deleted his texts, you know that I couldn't have guessed the last four digits of his phone number. That will tell you the truth, and whether I've been lying, or he has. Zero—two—one—four."
"All right, Dad. I'll see you when I get home. Bye," I say, hanging up. Jordan stares at me as I return my phone into my pocket and attempt to casually rejoin the table. Although he says nothing to me, his eyes seem to suggest that he senses something is amiss.