Chapter 5
Chapter five
Cody – Wannabe
The following Week
What the hell was I doing saying no? What did I expect?
Why did it feel like he was moving too fast when we’d been together nearly a year?
I had all the questions and no answers. Maybe I should talk to Joey.
He moved in with his daddy super-fast. But every situation was different.
I tapped my desk, thinking about it. I sure as hell wasn’t getting any work done, and that was going to hurt my paycheck.
Not that I worried too much. I wasn’t rich like Daddy, but I made a nice living and had plenty of money saved, too.
Plus, Daddy Crow had helped me make a few lucrative investments.
But I was conditioned to worry. To stress.
To make sure I was the number one salesperson on that ranking board every week.
Maybe I was too competitive. But I sure wouldn’t hit numbers this week if my brain kept betraying me over Daddy wanting me to move in with him, though.
I finally broke down and texted my BFF.
Joey had a job that was a lot more flexible than mine, especially since he worked for himself.
According to the company I worked for, I needed to work certain hours of the day—business hours.
He did not. He could take off pretty much whenever he wanted, so I’d set something up for when I got off work. But what could we do that was also fun?
Barrio was in Ybor and their theme was Latin-tropical. We could get snacks to go with crazy drinks, and it would be a festive, light atmosphere. I sent him a check mark emoji, and he returned a heart. We were on.
Five O’clocks and time to go! I shut down my laptop and shoved it in my messenger bag, heading for the garage.
It took me longer to get to the restaurant than I thought, coming from Tampa, but traffic was like that.
The restaurant was between work and home, since I lived in Ybor, so at least that was convenient, and there wouldn’t be too much traffic on the way home afterward.
Joey texted me that he had a table before I got to the door.
Joey lived with his Daddy Vince out on Davis Island in a big, beautiful house.
He worked there too, most of the time, or at least when he wasn’t at a client’s event or something.
So that was still a drive for him, but less traffic coming from that direction.
We ordered super-fruity frozen drinks, and when they were served, they were huge.
“We need snacks to go with this for sure.” I grabbed the menu.
They had a lot of Mexican-style food, so we ordered a guac dip and a queso dip to start with.
Then sipped our drinks. Mine was a sassy pineapple margarita that smelled so fresh and citrusy. “This is so good.”
“Yeah. I heard about that pup, Todd, who makes good drinks. Have you seen his website?”
That was one of the guys in our extended Afterglow circle, who did pup play. It was always a good time when they joined us in the littles room. “No, but I heard he taught classes. Maybe he’ll do one on the Pride Trip, because all the pups are going.”
“Yeah. Wait. He has a streaming channel, too.” He fiddled with his phone.
Since he was into all that social media stuff, I wasn’t surprised he knew all about it.
He turned his phone around to show me a video of Todd demonstrating his technique with a bunch of ingredients and his super blender.
We didn’t watch the rest of it. “I’ll check that out later, maybe I’ll learn something. ”
“You can come share it with me if you do.”
We giggled about making drinks until our appetizers came. I picked up a chip and dipped it in the queso first. Dippy, dippy. “I love finger food like this.”
“Me too.” Joey scooped one into the queso and one into the guac, then put them together.
“Mm…” He grabbed another chip. “Love dippy-dips. We should-a gots more.” Wow.
He went right into little space, and I had to admit I was a bit jealous.
It was much harder for me to go into that mindset anywhere outside of what I considered a safe space, meaning home or Afterglow. That was it.
Joey laughed as he dropped some of the queso on his shirt. “Oopsie.” He giggled as he wiped his shirt with his napkin.
“Shh…” I didn’t want people staring at us if they overheard him.
“Why?”
“We’re in public,” I fake-whispered.
“Why should I care what other people thinks? The ones that matter love me. Strangers don’t matter.” He leaned forward and crooked his finger, beckoning me closer. “And they can fuck off if they don’t like it.” He nodded as if that was final, and maybe for him it was. I didn’t feel the same.
We ordered from the make-your-own tacos list when the server came around, then sat back to wait.
Joey showed me some of his social media projects.
He was proud of himself, and I didn’t blame him, but I also wanted to talk about Daddy and my issues.
“I’ve already seen all of it. You seem really happy, though.
You have your own business and an amazing daddy. ”
“He’s great, right?”
“Yeah. I’m happy for you. But you moved in with him right away, didn’t you?”
“I did. Didn’t see why I should wait. Plus, at the time, my finances weren’t good, and I was probably going to end up homeless. That sounds terrible. I was not using him.” He wiggled his index finger back and forth, but I understood what he was saying.
“I know. I get it.”
“What about you? Why aren’t you living with Warner? You’ve been together a long time.”
“Almost a year.”
“So?”
“I guess I’m not sure yet. I don’t even know what I want to do with my life. I mean, I have a good job, but I don’t love it. Not like you.”
“I discovered how much I loved social media when I was in college. I just followed that path.”
“I took business classes because I didn’t know what to do and thought it would give me a good job. I wasn’t wrong, but I haven’t found anything I really like. Selling insurance is boring.”
“Oh my gawd. I think I’d die. You have to figure something else out before your brain rots.”
“True.”
At the end of the evening, we were stuffed with tacos and frozen drinks, but I wasn’t any closer to a decision, so I did the one thing I could.
I decided not to decide. At least a little while longer.
I’d heard an old saying before that stuck with me: If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything.
So, nothing was where I was standing until I knew where I was going.