26
Yes Man
A month later
TJ
The New York Comets slugger comes to the plate. I have no choice but to boo the hell out of him.
“You’re going down, Brady,” I holler from the third-base line seats.
“Get out of here, Bozo,” the guy behind me shouts. “We don’t want no stinking Cougars fans here.”
I whip my head around. “Do I look like Bozo?”
“You will soon if you keep that up,” the New Yorker taunts.
I shrug, water-off-a-duck’s-back style. “Cool. I have no problem with clowns.” Then I turn my attention back to the action on the diamond. Chance goes into the windup and fires off a beauty of a fastball.
Brady swings and misses.
“Yes! That’s how you do it, Ashford!”
My buddy Nolan shakes his head, laughing lightly. “TJ, you are playing with fire.”
I know, and I don’t care. I’m at the New York Comets Bronx ballpark, and I’m rooting for the enemy, and I’m good with that. I’ve got on a Cougars jersey and a ball cap too. Take that, home team. “It’s just a game,” I tell Nolan.
“And fifty thousand Comets fans are sooo rational,” my friend mutters.
But I’m not rational right now either. How could I be? My brother is pitching at the bottom of the ninth. I cup my hands around my mouth. “Strike ’em out, bro.”
“How ’bout we kick you out?” the New Yorker behind me suggests.
“That won’t be necessary when my brother closes this game,” I say because trash talk doesn’t scare me.
Besides, this game is my brass ring. I’ve been counting down to it since I flew across an ocean thirty days ago.
This is the goalpost I wanted to reach.
It’s the one-month post-London mark.
The first few days back were the hardest. I met up with some of my college friends. They all asked about London. I didn’t mention the guy who captured my heart and mind.
Once I put Jude out there for my friends to analyze, someone will tell me to call him, text him, or worse, FaceTime him.
And I might be tempted.
More than I am already. At some point each day, my fingers hover over his name on my phone.
But I haven’t caved. I won’t cave to the Comets fans either. Rooting for the enemy in the home team’s ballpark is my little act of defiance, and it makes me feel good.
Three batters later, my brother strikes out the side. “The Last Chance Train is pulling out of the station,” I shout, jumping to my feet, punching the air.
“Yo, Bozo. You want to take it outside the ballpark?” This offer comes from Mister New Yorker.
I spin around one more time, give the guy a sympathetic look. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m already seeing someone. I’m not interested.”
With a reined-in laugh, Nolan grabs my shoulder. “Dude, I fucking missed you. It is good to have you back.”
“I’m glad to be of service as your entertainment,” I say.
We meet up with Chance and grab some post-game burgers and fries in Manhattan.
It’s the first time I’ve seen my brother since I returned to New York. That'll be good—another few hours where I don’t have to think of Jude. We can talk about baseball and other shit.
Chance sweeps a fry through his ketchup, then brandishes it. “Tell the truth. Fries are better than chips, aren’t they?”
Spoke too soon. I’m thinking of London again. “Of course, fries are better,” I say.
Chance peers closely at my shirt. “Are those cacti on your shirt? What happened to Save Ferris? No Name Band? Pinball Wizard?”
Nolan gestures grandly to me like he’s presenting me on a game show. “TJ went to London and got style.”
“Evidently. How the fuck did that happen?” Chance asks.
I grab a fry and chew, stealing time to think before I speak. This is the moment. I could tell both of them. I could reveal the biggest thing that’s happened to my twenty-three-year-old heart. Crack it wide open and serve it up to two guys I trust to the moon and back.
I could tell them, and they’d understand me completely.
But then, keeping things to myself got me through my parents’ divorce. Before then, it helped me navigate the shitstorm of middle school. Now, keeping Jude locked up will probably help me get past him sooner.
I shrug. “I guess London rubbed off on me,” I say, snickering privately over my own dirty joke.
Chance taps his chin. “You know what I’m thinking?”
That I just lied by omission to you?
“No, my twin-tuition is on the fritz right now,” I say.
“I’m thinking this new look of yours will make it easier if we ever need to switch,” he says.
“You guys do that?” Nolan asks like this is the coolest thing ever. “You pretend to be each other?”
“We have,” I say. “We did growing up.”
“His beard would make it hard right now,” Chance says, pointing at me.
I rub a hand along my jaw, and that makes me think of Jude too. I go hot all over, remembering our nights together.
That’s the true reason I say nothing. I can’t feed this fire inside me by talking about him.
If I say nothing, the fire of Jude will eventually die out.
But not quite yet. Two months later, I watch Machine Love when it premiers online, retitled The Artificial Girlfriend.
It’s a test of my willpower. Will I tell Jude I saw it? I want to since he’s incredible in it, completely becoming the scientist and falling madly in love with his creation.
The kiss scene lights me up from head to toe.
I’m more tempted than I’ve ever been to contact him.
I make a new vow. I won’t follow his career. I won’t look him up on social media or Google him.
I won’t give the fire any oxygen at all.
Several months later, I finish my first book, but when I reread it, the best part is the love story.
I don’t have to show it to a writers’ group to know what I need to do. Shelve it. Turns out I like reading mysteries, but I don’t want to write them.
I start all over again.
The following year, I workon my first romance. I don’t call it The Look Me Up Promise. It’s not about Jude. I can’t write about Jude.
Instead, I write a whole new story, one straight from my imagination. I call it Yes Man. It’s about a brash, sarcastic lawyer who’s got a big mouth and tells the senior partner he works for that he has a date for the firm’s weekend in the Hamptons barbecue. But oops, the perennially single dude doesn’t. So he convinces his quirky, cute next-door neighbor to be his pretend girlfriend. The story is chock full of sexual tension until they finally bang.
Spoiler alert: They screw a lot, fall in love, and live happily ever after.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve never been with a woman. I know what it’s like to fall. I know how infatuation feels. How desperate it makes your heart. How intensely it consumes you.
The rest is body parts and choreography.
Two years after I leave London, I find an agent and a publisher. This dream comes true while my dream guy becomes a distant memory.