Hot Set (Art of Love #2)

1. Alex

Chapter one

Alex

W hat is humiliation?

Humiliation is a twenty-three-year-old man moving back in with his mom.

Yeah, that’s humiliation.

Look it up in a dictionary and you’ll see my picture.

How many other millennials have had to move back in with their parents? Who cares? Like I said, it’s humiliating.

I laid in my bedroom, the one that I hadn’t been in since I’d left for college years before, and stared at the ceiling. My mom insisted there was no shame in moving back in as long as I was looking for work, which I was, but I still couldn’t quite shake off the shame that inherently accompanies an adult occupying a teenager’s bedroom (the teenager being the adult’s former self, not some other teenager, which might be less shameful but possibly illegal). I sighed and buried my face in my pillow, inhaling the familiar fabric softener, Moonlight Blossoms. Mom had used it since I was a kid, and it would have been comforting, if it hadn’t taken me back to a time before my testicles dropped.

I needed to get out of bed and get to work. The jobs weren’t going to find themselves, after all.

I tossed the pillow aside and dressed, pulling on my jeans and a cable knit sweater. It was January and cold in New York. I padded downstairs, my feet slapping on the bare, hardwood stairs. When I reached the carpeted living room, the smell of bacon and blueberries drifted into my nostrils. I inhaled the familiar scent of my mom’s cooking and smiled. I had missed her cooking. During college, I lived mostly on fast food and sandwiches; there just wasn’t much use in cooking full meals for one person.

My mom, in her blindingly pink pajamas, stood flipping pancakes on the stovetop. She looked different from the last time I’d seen her. She and “Husband No. 3” had gotten divorced since I’d seen her last, and now she looked remarkably changed, ten years younger, at least. Mom had cut her hair short and dyed it a bright scarlet. It must’ve taken a good deal of work; Mom’s hair was as dark as mine, and I knew from a childhood listening to complaining that her black hair didn’t dye easily. It required at least two bleach treatments to get it to a reasonable paleness.

Mom looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Good morning! You certainly slept late.”

“I guess I’m not much of a morning person out of school,” I replied.

“I suppose I understand that. My schedule has been so sporadic since I began to work from home,” Mom replied.

I poured a cup of coffee and settled into a chair. Mom was always embarking on some work-from-home venture. She’d sold Mary Kay, Avon, Beauticontrol, essential oils, and pretty much anything else you could imagine. Presently, she was really into crochet, and she’d posted dozens of things—scarves, blankets, shawls, and pet beds—on Etsy. I had hoped it would go well, although Mom’s ventures had a poor track record. The good news was that my dad, “Husband No. 2” still sent her money.

Mom swooped in and placed a plate of pancakes and bacon before me. “Thanks, Mom,” I said.

Mom nodded and began preparing her own plate. “You’ve been around here a lot lately,” she said.

I paused, halfway to burying my pancakes beneath a deluge of maple syrup. “What do you mean?”

Mom sat across from me and curled her hands around her coffee mug. “Just that you’ve been around since you came back. I’m worried about you.”

I laughed. “I’ve been looking for jobs, Mom. A lot of them involve online applications, but I’m going to go and follow up on a few in-persons this week. The Internet sucks for us ‘people persons’.”

“That isn’t quite what I mean,” Mom replied, delicately cutting a bit from her stack of pancakes. “I mean that you haven’t really—well—gone out since you came back.”

“Well, I don’t really… I didn’t come back to socialize,” I said. “I just want find a job and move out. I’m too old to be back home with you.”

“You are not too old. Sometimes, things just don’t go as planned, Sweetheart,” Mom replied. “It’s okay. Just because you didn’t get a job right out of college doesn’t mean that you aren’t allowed to have any fun. You haven’t been to Bluehaven in years . You haven’t caught up with any old friends…”

I ate a mouthful of pancakes to avoid having to answer. I really hadn’t had many friends in high school, and I certainly hadn’t kept up with any. Heck, even in college, I hadn’t really made many friends. So, I had no interest in going out and meeting up with old connections. I didn’t even really have any interest in Bluehaven. Sure, it was my home—a small town in coastal New York—but it wasn’t really anything special. No, Bluehaven was better described as a pit stop, a place to grab gas on the way to somewhere else, anywhere else , like New York City.

“I guess I haven’t,” I replied in a monotone.

Maybe Mom would drop it.

“Well, maybe you should. What about that girl you liked? Shelby,” Mom asked. “I saw her mom at the supermarket just the other day. She’s a pretty girl.”

“Dropping it” was not my mom’s forte.

Shelby had been my crush for years, but we’d really only been friends, if that. Acquaintances might have been a more accurate term. Either way, I hadn’t had a chance with her. She was so far out of my league that we might as well have been on different planets.

“I guess so,” I replied. “I’ll put it on my to-do list.”

Meaning I was not going to put it on my to-do list, but I knew from experience that arguing with Mom was a lost cause. She did have a valid point, though. I admittedly hadn’t been out any, and it wouldn’t hurt to be a little more sociable; to go out some, maybe even have some fun. I had been away from Bluehaven long enough that I could start over, begin anew. I could be a new and improved Alex. That might be nice, especially if I was going to be staying a while.

“And,” I said, “I’m going out tonight, actually.”

“ Are you?” Mom asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

I didn’t know exactly where yet, but I would figure that out.

Because I’d left shortly after turning eighteen, I had never experienced Bluehaven’s nightlife, and the potentially different atmosphere stirred up all the excitement in me that college once had. The enjoyment of college was that it was new and exciting. I had gone to the University of Southern Mississippi with every intention of becoming a new, cooler, more outgoing person, which fell flat. I hadn’t fitted in with those Southerners any more than I’d fitted in with the folks in Bluehaven. Part of me knew that reinventing myself was potentially a crash-and-burn, doomed to failure, but another part of me thought the whole concept seemed so…well…doable. It was as if there was another, more social and outgoing Alexander Addams buried inside me somewhere, and I just had to let him out. Somehow.

I wandered into a bar and glanced around. Although it was completely irrational, I couldn’t help but feel as though everyone was staring at out-of-place me. The bar was large and crowded. A live band blasted on stage, filling the bar with rock from the 80s. It was dark and smelled of bourbon, which is, I guess, better than smelling like a Men’s Room. After all, it is a bar. I headed toward the polished bar, where a crowd had gathered.

I now was here. This was something before which I had never done. I was on my way to becoming more assertive and outgoing. Yessir! Good for me. I bounced my leg and waited for the bartender to come my way. Now what?

My eyes darted to a group of women dressed in short, sequined dresses and astronomically high heels. I wondered if I could possibly gather the courage to approach them, or even one. I had never asked a woman out, even though there had been no shortage of attractive women on campus. God, wasn’t I pathetic? I sighed and leaned against the bar. This was absolutely dreadful. Why did I have to be so awkward? No one else was this awkward. Not that I knew of anyway.

I took a deep breath.

“Drink?” the bartender asked.

“Uh, sure,” I replied. “I’ll have a hard cider.”

I didn’t have any particular aversion to alcohol, but beer tasted like bread soaked in urine. Admittedly, I had never tasted urine, but I just imagined that’s what urine would taste like, if I had to taste it..

The bartender nodded and went further down the bar, presumably to grab my drink. I glanced back toward the women again and hoped they wouldn’t notice me looking at them. Was everyone this awkward with women? Had I just imagined that other men weren’t strange when they were around women?

After the bartender brought my cider, I took a massive gulp of it, taking in the taste of apples and the faint afterburn of alcohol. I shifted awkwardly and wondered if I looked as out of place as I thought I did. Rationally, I knew people weren’t looking at me. I wasn’t that important, and I didn’t look especially distinct or anything. I was utterly average, so nobody was looking at me. I sighed and took another swig of cider. More outgoing. I needed to be more outgoing. I was here, and the whole thing would be a waste of time if I just stood around by the bar and didn’t talk to anyone.

Another swig of cider. I was getting absolutely nowhere.

I glanced at the women nestled together at the opposite end of the bar. They had split up, and two remained. A brunette and a woman with short, vibrant green hair. Just talk to one! It wasn’t really all that hard, right? Surely, all I had to do was go up and introduce myself.

“Hey! I haven’t seen you here before!” a man’s smooth baritone exclaimed.

I slowly turned around, unsure if I had been addressed or not. The man who had spoken stood beside me, and when I looked at him, he smiled brightly. He was a decent looking guy, one who probably had women swooning all over him. His hair was blond and spiked up in a trendy sort of way, and even in the dim lighting of the bar, I could tell that his eyes were a pale, icy blue. He’d worn a tight, black shirt and a black wool coat. This man was made of money; that was apparent just looking at him.

“Um…” I trailed off.

“Brandon,” he said helpfully. “And you are…?”

I awkwardly glanced back toward the two women down the bar. “I’m Alex,” I replied.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Brandon said.

There was something in Brandon’s gaze, an intense sort of interest that I didn’t quite pick up on..

“You, too,” I replied.

Brandon tilted his head a bit, like he was trying to piece something together. “So, what brings you to Bluehaven?” he asked.

I felt heat rise to my face. “It’s an embarrassing story,” I said.

“Oh?”

“I—uh—I’m originally from Bluehaven,” I said, “But I’ve had to move back. My after-college plans didn’t go as planned.”

Brandon laughed. “I know something about that,” he said.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked.

Why was Brandon even talking to me? With his looks, he could probably get any woman he wanted. Why waste time talking to some guy?

“Definitely,” Brandon replied. “I was going into biomedical sciences originally.”

“Oh.”

“From there, I did nude modeling for a bit,” Brandon said, adding a salacious wink. “Then, I traveled a bit. I like going to new places and trying to find myself. You know.”

“Where all have you been?” I asked.

“Everywhere,” Brandon replied. “You name it, I’ve probably been there. Tokyo, Reykjavik, London, Dubai…I’ve visited six of the seven continents. A lot of major cities, but I’ve spent some time in some smaller ones, too.”

Definitely a man with money.

“And now, I’m making a movie!” Brandon declared. “It’s like The Blair Witch Project but with more gore! And zombies! The perfect b-movie.”

I perked up the mention of a movie. I’d minored in theatrical make-up and had worked on several university productions.

“That sounds nice,” I said.

“I think so,” Brandon replied, leaning against the bar beside me. “So, what were your plans?”

I sighed. “I was going to join the FBI’s art forgery team.”

“Oh?”

I shrugged. “They haven’t called me back, and working at Target wasn’t cutting it. So now, I’m here.”

“You sound upset about it,” Brandon observed. “Bluehaven isn’t so bad. It’s beginning to grow on me.”

“I guess,” I replied, “But there’s still…there’s something disheartening when all your plans fall apart. And now, I’m here and failing at my plan of being more outgoing.”

“You’re talking to me , aren’t you?” Brandon replied. “Doesn’t talking to new people prove that you’re outgoing?”

“You approached me, though,” I said, “And my whole goal here was to get with a pretty girl.”

“ Oh . How would you feel about a pretty boy instead?” Brandon joked.

I laughed and ran a finger around the rim of my glass. “Cute,” I replied.

I took a sip of my cider. Then, it hit me.

“You weren’t joking,” I said. “Oh.”

“And I’ll take your surprise as a ‘ no’ ,” Brandon replied, with a laugh. “No worries, Alex.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were being serious. I’ve never had a guy interested in me before.”

“No?” Brandon asked. “Clearly, the men you’ve met are lacking in taste.”

I shook my head. “I’m sure that’s not it.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Brandon replied. “You know—one of the defining moments in my life was during my undergrad. I had to write a book review for this assignment, and I told my professor that I didn’t understand. Then she said, well, maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe the author explained it poorly . I think that’s a fairly good way to look at all things. Don’t default all the doubt and blame on yourself.”

“Interesting,” I said. “You must really be confident to follow such a philosophy.”

Brandon grinned. “I won’t deny it,” he said.

I finished my cider and shook my head.

“But hey,” Brandon replied, “If you want to hang out or do something, hit me up. Non-romantically, don’t worry. I can take a hint.”

He flipped his business card over and grinned. I took the card and placed it in my wallet. “I might take you up on it,” I said. “I haven’t been in Bluehaven since I was eighteen. Five years"

“Definitely take me up on it,” Brandon said. “I’ll take you to see the set where I’m filming! It’s pretty cool. I think so, at least.”

“I’m sure it is,” I replied.

“Well, anyway,” Brandon said. “I can leave you to your—uh—lady-searching. Best of luck.”

He said it as if he genuinely wanted me to have good luck with it, too. There wasn’t even a hint of bitterness or rejection in his voice, and that was admirable at the very least. The woman with the green hair and her friend had already moved on, though.