Chapter Nineteen
Renny
“Hey, Renny. Dustin here. I think you’re on the road, but give me a call or FaceTime when you can. Me and Taylor want to talk something over with you. It’s kinda important.”
Two calls from Dustin in a month. And a voicemail at that, a rarity these days.
A surprise, considering he and I had been once every two to three months kind of friends since we both left Chicago.
I wondered what the urgency was that both Dustin and Taylor wanted to connect with me.
Then I thought, duh, Dustin and Taylor must have heard from Brent and voilà, our worlds collided.
Time would tell when I called them back.
On my mind at the moment—room service, a good night’s sleep, then an early-morning flight back to Detroit.
In the days following the unexpected reunion with Brent in Missouri, I did book events in Kansas City and Oklahoma City where, despite what my agent Rashid alleged my publisher said about my writing career and book sales, I spoke to capacity crowds at bookstores and queer community centers for their Juneteenth, Pride, and Fourth of July events.
I still hadn’t heard from Rashid since that rainy afternoon weeks earlier.
I didn’t know whether or not he was actively working to sell the novel my publisher passed on to other publishers.
But it was completely validating to hear that bookstores and event planning teams had underestimated the size of audiences and the number of my current or backlist books to order.
They thanked me for boosting other Black romance and Black M/M romance novels that sold with attendees looking for similar books to quench their reading thirst when mine sold out.
What wasn’t great was going back to an empty hotel room.
Ordering room service or food delivery and eating alone.
Being in a city I knew no one to wind down or hang out with.
Not having anybody to share the highs and lows of midlist author life.
That part felt like a letdown after receiving what I loved and craved from people at my book events.
I logged onto my phone sex apps, just in case I wanted company and validation before leaving town in the morning, and flipped open my laptop to look at the recent manuscript my agent Rashid said my publisher wouldn’t buy.
Waiting for a chicken Caesar salad, buffalo wings, fries, breadsticks, a fountain soda, and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, I turned on a Brandy and Monica ballads playlist, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked outside at the downtown Oklahoma City skyline.
I thought about the crossroads of my life and the emptiness I sought to fill with public accolades and private dalliances over the years.
I thought about the growing up I needed to do to become the man that I wanted to be.
Seeing my reflection in the glass, I thought about Brent and our recent time together in Missouri. A ball of confusion. An up and down game. A move not in the playbook.
Even if Brent wanted me again—a big if—would I be man enough for him to be in a relationship with?
What did I have to offer him besides good memories, a captivating personality, and a good mouth and ass that turned him on and turned him out?
I was far from being the checklist I often created about what I wanted in a partner.
I had no real job. No real money saved. Tax bills up the wazoo that would wipe out the rest of my meager 401 and 403 accounts.
Speaking of, at this point in my forties, how was I going to live in the future, single or partnered, with no retirement savings and one property from my mom that I could lose to taxes?
What would I possibly bring to the table with Brent?
Couldn’t live on mouth and ass alone. Not with the rest of my forties, and with fifties, sixties, seventies, and beyond looming.
I appreciated how Brent insisted he didn’t think of me as a mess, despite not knowing the ups and downs and twists and turns of my life during the years we hadn’t been in touch with each other.
What a messy person I’d been, I admitted to myself—the way I turned Brent out so quickly after public accolades at the awards ceremony, a bar conversation, an apology, and a proposition.
I knew I’d used him. I’d just wanted to feel good at the moment.
He and I had twenty-plus years of unresolved feelings for each other and a goodbye that never was.
I’d sensed he was vulnerable, with his separation and divorce pending.
I couldn’t explain what had come over me with Antoine’s texts, leading me to make a pass at Brent, unsure if he’d block the shot or take it.
I had to admit, sex with Brent this time around was unexpected, the chemistry electric, the overall experience mind blowing.
But…
I needed to apologize to him for coming on so strong during our Missouri reunion, when all we should have done was talk.
I carried guilt, being so emotional and impulsive that I pushed the conversation too far and too fast, when all he really wanted was to reminisce and to apologize for the way he ended us with a text all those years ago.
Sex, as good as it was the second time around, opened up the possibility that he and I could be something more than onetime college secret lovers and friends. Or did it?
And this was what made Brent so much different than the other men who’d been in and out of my life since college.
After sex, then and now, he lingered in my mind.
I cared about him a lot and knew he reciprocated the feeling, even when in college.
Looking back, I couldn’t have had any way of knowing if we’d have made a go of it, or even made it to now, as a couple.
After all, being college kids in our early twenties, we had no clear path, or open role models, to have imagined a future together beyond college.
Maybe Macy’s pregnancy and Brent’s decision to leave Missouri to be with Macy and the baby in California was the natural break we needed then to prepare us for now.
Who knew? Would this be our time to find out? Or would we leave our past and recent reunion in Missouri as a fuck ’em and chuck ’em, as we’d joked in Missouri, and move on?
My random thoughts came to a halt with a knock at my hotel door and my FaceTime buzzing at the same time.
I told Dustin I’d call him back right away before opening the door to a gorgeous, tall, dark-skinned man with locs delivering my food order.
I looked at his name tag. Jaylen. The common name, or some variation of, for Black Gen Z guys and NBA players.
“Thanks, Jaylen,” I said as he propped the door and rolled a cart into my room just inside the door. I understood the workplace rules of a hotel. Friendly, but not friends. “I’m starving.”
“I can imagine you are. You ordered a lot. For one person, I assume. I’m not judging. I like to eat, too.”
He smiled as he uncovered and re-covered each of the dishes to show me that he’d gotten my order correct, and placed each one on the counter with the microwave and coffeemaker.
With each plate he took off the rolling cart, I noticed his biceps flexing in the white polo shirt he wore, and as he uncorked the bottle of wine with one firm pull, I could tell he was into his fitness.
Stop being a slut, I said to myself. Then both our phones chirped the familiar tone of profiles matching on the sex apps. I looked at him and grinned.
“Looks like we’re a match,” I said. “I’m not judging you, either, Jaylen.”
“Thanks. I’m at work, and I forgot to turn my phone on silent. Company policy.”
“I won’t say anything. I understand company policy.”
“Thanks.” Then he lowered his voice, since the hotel door was open. “You’re much cuter in person and don’t look anything like you’re in your forties. I like your twists.”
“Thanks. I like your locs. And you’re how old?”
“I’m twenty-five,” he said nonchalantly as he arranged condiments and utensils on the counter. “I’ve seen most of the Black gay profiles in the surrounding area, and we just don’t get a lot of new Black guys online here in OKC. So I had to swipe right.”
“I understand, completely. You look older than twenty-five. No offense.”
“I’m stressed. I work three jobs to help out my family, I go to community college, and I’m stuck here in OKC for the time being with not a lot to do but family, church, work, and watching Thunder games. I think that’d make anyone look older than they really are.”
“I guess you’re right. I’m just here in OKC for the night and leaving in the morning.”
“For the night is cool,” Jaylen said as he looked around my room and backed into the doorway. He pointed to the books sitting on the desk next to my laptop. “Are those your books? Are you the author my friends were talking about seeing earlier today at the Pride Center?”
I was flattered at him possibly knowing me and my work. My weakness. “Yes, it’s probably me. It was a good event. If it’s the one your friends were talking about.”
He winked. “I’d love to talk about writing with you when I get off.”
“How soon will that be?”
“An hour, maybe forty-five minutes. Gotta close my accounts, count and cash out my tips, and change out of this work uniform.”
I was having second thoughts about taking care of Jaylen, especially knowing this was one of three jobs he held. I didn’t want to risk him losing it because of a hookup with me.
“No pressure, Jaylen,” I said. “I don’t want to hold you up. And don’t want you to get in trouble because of a one-time thing with me.”
“I know what I’m doing and what I wouldn’t mind doing before I go home. Stuff like this happens all the time at the hotel. Enjoy your food.”
“Thanks. I will. I’ll be here if you decide to message me when you’re off.”
“Bet.”
“Bet.”
“I like what you’re into on your profile, and I’d definitely love to get into your head. About writing.”
“I’d love for you to get into my head—about writing, Jaylen.”