And the next Thing You Know . . .

Book 2: Why You?

by Chase Taylor Hackett

Genres: LGBT Gay; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Not the one you’re waiting for . . . Jeffrey Bornic is getting over his ex. Really. So what if the rising-star attorney is angrily sleeping his way through most of Manhattan’s male population? When the time is right, the perfect partner will show up. And Jeffrey knows exactly what he’ll be like: an ambitious, polished professional who’ll make the ideal other half of a fabulous power couple. Theo McPherson is definitely not that guy. He’s a short, fiery red-head who works in the arts and wears sneakers held together with duct tape. If it weren’t for the fact that Theo is his best friend’s little (literally) brother, Jeff would be crossing the street to avoid him. Theo, meanwhile, has nothing but contempt for guys in suits, and seems to have deliberately set out to make Jeff’s life miserable, all while grinning at him in that exasperating—some might say irresistible—way that he has. At least it’s hard for Jeff to keep moping over his ex when he’s butting heads with Theo—and suddenly wondering if the last guy he’d ever fall for might be exactly that . . .

Release date: February 6, 2018

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 290

Sample

Chapter 1

Running

Jeffrey

Thamp thamp thamp thamp thamp thamp thamp thamp.

That was my running shoes on the wet pavement of East 87th Street. Not fast, just trotting, just getting warmed up. I don’t really hit my stride until I get to Central Park.

It was still mostly dark out. Even though it was a Saturday, I liked to get up and out this early, before the rest of the world. Not a lot of people out this time of day.

Except for this guy and his gigantic dirty-white poodle and a fifteen-foot leash, I swear.

Yo, Pierre, gimme a break!

It was like waiting for a freight train to go by—I jogged in place until I could get around them. Who knew poodles even came in that size? There ought to be a law. That thing was like a Shetland pony with a haircut.

Garbage truck. The garbage guys saw me practically every day and waved, like I was their buddy or something. I raised my head in a nod.

What a miserable morning. It was cold, it was drizzling. Wasn’t this like the first day of spring or something? Typical. People always got all stupid about spring, but this was what spring really was—cold and wet.

Man, was I in a bad mood.

Got up in a bad mood.

Again.

It had been a stretch of bad moods lately. Seriously. Since like October.

I suppose that means since Roger. Old boyfriend. Make of that what you will.

It didn’t help that my apartment was half a construction zone. I had bought the apartment below me and I was doing a huge reno to turn the two apartments into one giant duplex. I mean, I was having people do the reno, e.g., architect, contractors, subcontractors. I’m a lawyer at a big New York firm; I wasn’t swinging a hammer myself. The place would be fantastic when it was done, but until then…

As always, I turned left onto Fifth down to 85th Street—there’s an entrance to the park at 85th.

I had to jog in place, waiting for the light before I could cross Fifth Ave. with a couple of other runners. I nodded. One woman wiped some soggy hair from her forehead (from the drizzle, not from sweating) and smiled—I didn’t.

And that was about it for a social life for me on the run. Occasionally, very very occasionally, I’d see some hot guy who’d catch my attention. But even that had been a while. Maybe it was menopause. My thirtieth birthday was coming up. Was this the beginning of the end?

Oh God, maybe.

There was never much traffic at this early hour, and I didn’t wait for the light to change. I jogged across toward the park entrance as soon as I could.

I had work stuff in my head. I realized I was making a list of crap I had to do. And then I started a second list of crap I could move off my list and on to somebody else’s list of crap to do.

Across Fifth Ave. there’s a short path that leads along through the park just above the 84th Street transverse, with the Metropolitan Museum off to my left. Then a sharp right onto the East Drive. That’s where it happens. That’s where I stop jogging and start running—and once I’m there, I’m in the zone and I’m not bothered by anything. The Guggenheim could be in flames, I wouldn’t notice. It was just in the warm-up that my head kept churning.

My route: uptown past the reservoir, around and down the west side and then loop back up to the Met. It’s about a five-mile circuit. I jog/cool-out on the way back to the apartment.

I was just across Fifth when my phone gave out with a text-ping. Fuckaduck. Why do I bring the damned thing with me? I asked myself. In case of a work emergency was the answer. This wasn’t a work emergency. It was from my best friend Rebecca. She wanted me to help her help somebody move.

Like as if.

Don’t get me wrong—I adored Rebecca, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. Unless it was help her help somebody I didn’t even know, move. In the rain.

I stopped jogging long enough to dictate my response.

“Not on your life.”

I deleted my response.

I dictated again.

“Gosh comma wish I could period incredibly swamped period good luck with the move period.” Send.

I put the phone away. It was time to get going.

It was like giving a horse his head. As soon as I let them, my legs stretched out over the pavement in long, perfect strides. The legs knew the pace.

Thamp thamp thamp thamp.

Work, construction, gigantic poodles, even ex-boyfriends—all melted away.

And I was gone.

Chapter 2

Moving In

Theo

“Christ-on-a-crosswalk! That hurt! Ow!” I was holding one end of my keyboard, wrapped in a blanket. The keyboard was in the blanket, not me. I was backing through the door to Rebecca’s building, and somehow, between me and Becca, we’d just managed to smash the fingers of my left hand between the keyboard and the doorjamb. Actually, now I was holding the wrapped-up keyboard with one hand, while I waved the wounded one in the air, trying to shake off the pain. “You know, if you break my fingers, we can just forget about the keyboard altogether.”

“Sor-ry!” said Beccs in exaggerated syllables, still holding her end of the keyboard. I blew on my now-bleeding knuckles to make them feel better. “Little Theo get an owie?” If that sounds like a tormenting big sister, that’s because that’s exactly what it was. My tormenting big sister.

I hate hate hate being called little and Becca knows it. I’m not very tall, I concede the point. That does not make me ‘little.’

But Rebecca was helping me move, so I had to shut up about it. Not only was she helping me move, she was helping me move into her apartment to sleep on her couch—totally temporarily—but she was my sister, so she couldn’t say no.

We’d managed to get the shittiest weather possible for this little move, too. Cold, rainy. It was supposed to be the first day of spring—on the calendar anyway—but in reality, it was just piss-miserable. But we had to do it today, it was the only day Beccs had free. (She has this total dregs job—she’s a lawyer at a big ugly law firm.)

We’d already made a couple trips loading the elevator (Rebecca lived on the fifth floor) with the few boxes of clothes I had. This was after we’d moved everything down from my old flat-share—three flights, no elevator, and no help from my roommates, now ex-roommates. Becca had tried to rope in some friend of hers but he’d squirmed out of it. When I say it was ‘some friend,’ I mean it. Some friend, I thought.

Not that I had a lot of stuff because I didn’t. I lived like a monk. The worst were the boxes of books (not a lot!), some boxes of scores (okay, those boogers were heavy), and the keyboard. Not much more than that. We’d filled the elevator and left the scores in the double-parked rental van for the next trip up.

Rebecca, in her pink track suit, leaned against the elevator wall, sighed, and she pushed some wet strawberry-blond from her forehead (it was drizzling). Becca’s a big girl, but not as fit as I am, so it was taking a toll.

We rode in the elevator in silence. I’m not exactly famous for being the most sensitive person in the world, but even I had the general idea that this would be a good time to shut the hell up.

“So Theo,” said Rebecca, once we were in the apartment, “here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go back down to the van, and you’re going to unload the boxes of scores into the lobby. While I watch. Then I’m going to drive the van back to the rental place while you bring the boxes upstairs. From here on in, the only thing I’m lifting is a glass of very cold Chablis.”

“I’m not leaving my scores in the lobby! Somebody could steal them!”

“For the love of Mike, nobody but nobody is going to steal a box that weighs sixty pounds, not even in New York.” We’re from Iowa. We grew up on a farm even. I tell you this so you can get all your hick jokes out of the way now, since I’ve heard all the wisecracks about Mayberry already.

“I suppose,” I said.

The boxes were precious to me, but I recognized not everyone found the same value in conductor scores of old musicals.

“Okay?” she continued. “By the time I come back, you’ll be done. Right?” She was looking at me for a confirmation.

“I guess.”

“I’ll call for pizza on my way—there’s money in the kitchen drawer if the guy gets here before me. So. Ready?”

“Ready.”

And that’s what we did.

So how did I get myself exiled from my flat-share, I hear you ask.

It just wasn’t meant to be. For starters, they were always bitching about me and the keyboard being in the way. What was I supposed to do about that? I’m a songwriter, which they knew before they asked me to move in, so I needed the keyboard. I used headphones and everything, but was being silent enough for them? No. I was apparently supposed to dematerialize as well.

And on top of that, people tell me I can be a little bit spiky sometimes, and sometimes I say things which I usually mean to be mere constructive criticism, that others sometimes consider to be mean, and which are sometimes totally misconstrued as being unforgivably cruel. For example, one of my flatmates, Beth, had asked me to read her new play. Why would she ask me to read her play if she didn’t want to hear the truth about it? And the truth about it was that it was an imitation of an imitation of a made-for-TV movie. Okay, harsh, I admit, but so is showbiz. It also seemed to me that if she really wanted to work in the theatre, she should maybe toughen up, instead of exploding into sobs the way she did in the face of the tiniest criticisms. And I told her that too.

After that, they all hated me for some reason because it was somehow my fault that I had made Beth cry, and she was now talking about moving back to Tennessee, which was obviously unfair, since I’d never said a word about Tennessee.

And then of course there was the whole rent thing.

People can be so petty.

So that’s how I got myself voted off the island, or at least out of a really cheap, really really crowded apartment-share in Alphabet City.

I was reliving these happy moments while I lugged one incredibly heavy box after another from the elevator into Rebecca’s apartment. When everything was done—meaning boxes were stacked in the corner—we finally sat down to our favorite pizza. Hamburger. (We’re from Iowa—remember?) I was starving.

“So, Theo,” she said midway through, “I have a surprise for you.”

“A good surprise or a bad surprise?”

“A good surprise, for sure.”

“You didn’t get us tickets to a show, did you?” That would have been awesome, and I could really have used it right then, considering what I’d been through with the dipshit ex-flatmates and just how monumentally foul my life seemed to be going. I didn’t expect Hamilton, or anything, but there were plenty of other things. Any show is better than not.

“Well, sorry, I didn’t get you tickets to a show.”

“If it’s underwear, that would also be fantastic.” I never had any money, and when I did, I never spent it on clothes. It was a part of the homo gene I’d missed. I was the worst-dressed gayboy in Manhattan, but the underwear situation was starting to get desperate.

Of course Rebecca didn’t owe me anything. She was already letting me sleep on her couch, and she had also paid for the rental van to move my stuff because if I’d had any money I’d still be in the flat-share with the dipshits. And of course if it weren’t for Rebecca’s couch, I’d be on a bench in Central Park or something. Or more likely I’d be on a bus back to Iowa. Which would definitely be worse. So I didn’t expect anything more from my sister. But she’d said she had a surprise, so—

“So? What’s my big surprise then?”

“I got you a job.”

“A job?! Like that’s a good thing???”

“It is. Once you get paid, you can buy yourself all the underwear you want!” My head fell forward until it thumped on the table. “As long as you’re sleeping on my couch, you’ll have a job. Or it’s back to the farm. This is not the Rebecca McPherson Unemployed Songwriters Retreat. I’m serious.”

“Okay, fine,” I said, still without picking up my head. “Doing what? Garbage collector?”

“Nothing so glamorous. I got you a job in my office.”

My head came up abruptly.

“Your law firm?!” Ugh. “Fine.” I was a brave boy, I could face my fate, no matter how gruesome. “Doing what?”

“You won’t be practicing law just yet, if that’s what you’re thinking. One of the secretaries is getting a hip replacement, and you’ll be covering for her.”

“A secretary?”

“A secretary. Answer the phone, type, and be polite. You’re good at two of those.”

“Will I get a hot boss? Not that I would ever go out with some Republican stuffed shirt of a lawyer—”

“Hey! I’m a lawyer, too, remember?”

“Sorry. But a cute boss would at least be a distraction.”

“Hate to disappoint you, poops, but no cute boss. You’re working for Victoria Collins. She’s also the partner in charge of associate assignments—meaning associates like me. She can have a huge effect on my career—good or not so good.”

“I’ll try not to sabotage you.”

“You know how to be charming, I’ve even seen you do it, in short spurts. So make an effort. Maybe you could get me on the Hiromi case.”

“What’s that?”

“Big case, Japanese conglomerate, might be going to trial. Everybody wants on it.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, sorry—Victoria is not remotely cute.”

“Is there anything good about this job?”

“Let’s see—it’s not in Iowa, and there are no literal pigs involved, only figurative ones. How’s that?” She had a point. “You should thank me.”

“Did you tell them about the workshop?” I’m in a songwriters’ workshop that meets every Monday at four. I was hoping for a deal-breaker here.

“Yes, and they’ll live with you cutting out at three thirty on Mondays—”

“Damn.” They would be flexible.

“—and you’ll make up the time during the rest of the week.”

“Fine.”

“Oh, and one other thing, about this job I got you?”

“Yeah?”

“I got you the job. Where I work. What you do there reflects on me. Therefore, you will behave yourself.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.”

“I’m dead serious. There can be no tantrums at this job.”

“Fine!” I admit, sometimes I had a hard time staying calm. Everyone said it was natural because I have this red hair—in contrast to Becca’s strawberry blond, mine’s like a forest fire. So instead of being easygoing like her, I was the redhead cliché with the crazy-ass temper.

But I swear, I only went ballistic with people who really deserved it.

“You are aware,” I reminded her, “that that thing at the diner was totally not my fault.”

“Oh absolutely, Theo. Absolutely.” Sarcasm. From my own sister.

The reference was to a tiny little incident at my last awful day job—waiting behind the counter in a diner. I sort of went off on a jerk—who was also a customer. That the jerk soooooooooo had it coming didn’t impress the manager, who was not exactly the sharpest note on the piano either. I was immediately asked to turn in my clip-on bow tie.

I’m not gonna lie—it was a great job to get fired from, and getting fired like that was—fan-fucking-tastic. I highly recommend it.

But Rebecca was pissed about it and said I was irresponsible, which I was/am, I admit. And of course the loss of a job and the concomitant loss of income meant that I couldn’t quite pay the dipshit flatmates this month’s rent on time—which was apparently the straw that broke the camel’s water, and that’s how they became my dipshit ex-flatmates, which necessitated the move here—to my sister’s fold-out couch.

“Human Resources wants you ASAP,” said Rebecca, “but when can you start?”

“Oh man. I was hoping Madison would ask me to go with him up to the Goodspeed Opera, but I don’t know yet. Can you put it off a week?” Madison was my sort-of boyfriend, whose new musical was getting a development production at the Goodspeed in Connecticut—it’s not really an opera house or not anymore, anyway. Madison wrote the book and lyrics for this show.

“I’ll see. When will you know?”

“I’ll talk to Madison.”

“Good. Let me know. Soon.”

“Maybe you should make it two weeks just to be safe? Or three?”

She gave me one of her big-sister looks, which I took to be a—

“No.”

Chapter 3

When Things Started to Go to Hell

Jeffrey

I was in a hallway at the office, talking to another attorney, when I heard something from around the corner that made my blood freeze.

“Well, da-yam!”

That—in case you don’t know—is a ‘damn’ that is so damned gay that it cannot be confined to a single syllable. I shuddered involuntarily.

I recognized both the voice and the strange locution.

How do I explain it? It was like finding a squirrel in your living room—probably harmless but it doesn’t belong there.

I didn’t bother to finish what I was saying to the other guy—I had to look around the corner and see for myself.

“Tommy!”

Tommy Radford was sitting at a secretary’s desk at my firm. Where he definitely did not belong.

A., he worked at another firm; and

B., he was Roger’s best friend—Roger, my ex-boyfriend. Which meant that Tommy should have been carefully filed away under Somebody-I-Never-Have-to-Deal-With-Again, no?

And yet.

Tommy never liked me, and I never liked Tommy. So what the hell was he doing at my firm? Did he just move over here to torment me? Spy on me? What?

“Tommy, what the hell?” I said by way of a greeting.

“Hey, Jeffrey.” He smiled at me sweetly and folded his hands on his desk like a little girl. “How’ve you been?”

“I’m great. Never better. Why the hell are you here?”

“I work here, like it’s any of your beeswax. I hopped firms and now I work for Mr. Kaminsky, among others. Have you met Mr. Kaminsky?”

“Of course I’ve met Mr.—! Since when?”

“You mean me, here? Since last week.”

“Great. Great.” I shook my head. “Congratulations.” This was just like my life. “And I’m so glad for Mr. K.”

“Don’t you want to ask how he’s doing?”

“Mr. K.?”

“No! Roger!”

“No. No, I definitely don’t want to ask how Roger is doing.”

“He’s doing great!” said Tommy anyway. “You probably heard about him and Fletch?” I had. “And that he left Goodkin Berdann?” I hadn’t. “And now he’s taking some classes at NYU, he’s teaching violin—it’s that whole follow-your-bliss thing.”

“Thanks for the update, but I don’t care, I really don’t.”

We were talking about my ex, obviously. Roger, a lawyer, who had apparently given it up. He wasn’t a very good lawyer, so it was a smart call.

“Speaking of bliss, you should see him and Fletch and just how happy they are together.” This is why there are gun control laws. “I’ll tell him you asked about him.”

“I didn’t ask, you twit.”

“Let’s try to be professional, Mr. Bornic.” He was obviously just trying to piss me off, and he was just as obviously really good at it.

I had started out this Monday morning—like so many others—in a fairly bad mood. Discovering that Tommy Radford was now going to be underfoot, a constant, little pissy reminder of some of the many reasons I was in a permanently bad mood, did not help. Tommy would be here—what?—reporting back to Roger? And vice-versa? Did Roger send him over here? To keep me up-to-date on just how wonderful his life was without me?

I mean, seriously!!!

“Can I get you something, Jeffrey?” Tommy said, smiling.

“Yeah. You can get stuffed.”

It was of course at exactly that moment Victoria Collins came out of Kaminsky’s office—Victoria who was the partner who oversaw all the associates—I’m an associate—and who was quite influential in sorting out the associates who wanted to be partners—and boy-oh-boy did I want to be a partner. And she just heard me tell a brand-new secretary to get stuffed.

“Jeffrey?” was all she said. And she walked away.

It was official. I hated my life.

I hated Tommy Radford’s life more. Somebody should do something about it.

I stomped down the hall, past the elevator bank to the stairs, and then down two flights to my floor. If my office door had been closed, I’d have kicked the thing open. Instead, I found Rebecca McPherson leaning over my desk, writing something on a Post-it.

I closed the door behind me.

“Did you know they hired Roger’s best friend?” I practically yelled at her.

“No. What was his name, Tommy? Wasn’t he at Goodkin—”

“He was! Yes indeed, he was! And now he’s on 23!”

“He’s a secretary? Here?” she said after a second.

“For Kaminsky.”

“No! Really? Too funny. Because with Kaminsky running the Hiromi case, you could be dealing with Tommy constantly.”

“I know, I know, and it’s not funny at all.”

“Anyway, I was just checking in.” She crumpled the Post-it and tossed it into the recycling bin under my desk. “Have you seen the new trainer in the IT Department?”

“Oh please. You’re fixing me up with somebody from IT now?”

“I didn’t say a word about fixing you up. Yet.”

“I avoid IT whenever I can. Those guys—what’s up with them?” The IT Department was computer/tech/network support. It was where the geeks you didn’t talk to in high school went when they grew up. Those guys made the paralegals look normal. I swear, every guy up there had something wrong with him.

“Don’t be such a snob.”

“Seriously? A., what makes you think I’d go out with a guy from IT?”

“You haven’t seen this guy.”

“B., there are no gay guys in the IT Department ever.”

“Until now. Rumor is this one—”

“And C., what is it about me that makes you think I can’t get dates without your help? Am I that hideous? I don’t think so! I’m tall, blond, blue-eyed, and I make a ton of money. Of course, I’ve really let myself go—” I said, pinching my completely non-existent tummy fat.

“No, you’re not ugly, and no you haven’t let yourself go,” she said with an eye-roll.

“No! That’s right! I keep all that ridiculously expensive gym equipment in my spare room because I actually use it. Truth is—I’m totally hot.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that—you know—since Roger, you’ve been so—”

“I haven’t either!” I knew what she was going to say. That I’ve been sort of out of it, that I’ve been distant, cold, crabby. Okay! I got dumped last fall, so cut me some slack! Dumped by my aforementioned ex-boyfriend. My far-too-frequently aforementioned ex-boyfriend, if you ask me. How was I supposed to get over Roger if that was all everybody wanted to talk about, huh? And now with Tommy hanging around.

And I was getting over it!

Totally!

And it did not make me a sexual charity-case, because I most decidedly wasn’t.

“I don’t need your help, you know. I get plenty of dates.”

“You get plenty of hook-ups. You do not get plenty of dates. When was the last time you saw somebody for more than sex? Or more than once?”

“First of all, counselor, that’s my choice. And furthermore, re second dates, I could ask you the same question.”

“We’re not talking about me.”

“Terrific. Let’s talk about me. I love talking about me. Know why? Because there’s nothing wrong with me. I am perfect. Okay, I can be a bit of an asshole, but I am still eminently date-able.”

“All true!”

“You were supposed to argue with me about the asshole thing.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Look. Do-not-do-not-do-not try to fix me up again. Please? Understood? It’s just embarrassing for everyone.”

“Okay! I won’t fix you up. Except…”

“Except?”

“Well, there’s maybe one guy I met at a City Bar thing—he’s from a little boutique firm, I forget the name—and I may have already kinda talked to him about you, and I may have kinda sorta promised.”

“Dispromise.”

“He’s super sweet with gorgeous eyes.”

“Your idea of gorgeous and my idea of gorgeous are two very different gorgeouses.”

“Even by your high standards, these eyes are gorgeous.”

“If he’s over forty, forget it.”

“He’s definitely not over forty. I don’t think.”

Deep breath.

“We’ll fight about it when the time comes.”

“Agreed. Argument adjourned,” said Rebecca. “Plans for lunch?”

“No—Un Deux Trois?” Little French joint.

“I’ll make the reservation.”

“And hey, Rebecca? Now that we’re not fighting—I need a favor. Kind of a huge favor?”

“Whaaaaat?” She drew the word out, long and wary.

“The work on my apartment—they have to cut a hole through to the floor below me?”

“Why you bought that apartment below you, I will never understand.”

“Yeah, well, I did. And the schedule had them cutting through in a few weeks, but something changed, and now they want to cut through the floor this week.”

“And?”

“And can I sleep on your couch while they do it? My apartment will be completely unlivable for a few days.”

“Normally I’d say no problem, but my baby brother just got tossed out of his apartment, so sorry—no room at the inn.”

“Oh, was that the move you wanted me to help with? Sorry, I—”

“If you couldn’t, you couldn’t. Don’t sweat it.”

“Sorry.” One of those Rebecca things. Was it because she was from Iowa that she didn’t even consider it as a possibility that I’d lied just to duck? “Next time.”

“I’ll call you when he moves out.”

“He moved in with you?”

“Yup. So the couch is, sadly, ocupado. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a hotel anyway?”

“There’s some frigging thing in town, and I can’t get a room in midtown anywhere. Darlene found me something in New Jersey.”

“Sorry. Wish I could help. A sleepover might be fun.”

“I thought so too.”

“And you’d be lots easier than my brother. I love him like crazy, but he is an even bigger pain in the butt than you, and that’s sayin. . .