Page 58 of Sapphire Storm

More zipper sounds, more rustling fabric. Roman must havestarted to pack a larger bag.

“What’d you cook me?” he asked.

“It’s all protein and vegetables. Don’t worry. The saucesare on the side if you’re feeling adventurous.”

Roman cleared his throat. “I do love an adventurous saucenow and then.”

Ignoring the flirtatiousness in Roman’s tone, Ethan said,“Text me when you get to my place just to let me know you got in okay. And makeas clean a getaway as you can for now. Don’t try to get the last word. It won’tbe worth it. Make a quick, clean exit. I’ll help you figure the rest out laterwhen I’m back.”

“Thank you, Ethan.”

When the call ended, the traffic suddenly seemed less thickand less stressful, and his hands were tingling pleasantly atop the steeringwheel. How had he gone from heavily ruminating over their conversation thenight before to feeling like he was made of shimmering light waves?

One call from Roman, that’s how.

One moment of being needed by Roman and he felt like he wason top of the world.

He should have expected the wave of nostalgia that washedover him when he was thirty minutes from San Diego, but it took him bysurprise, nonetheless. He’d lived in the area fifteen years ago and had onlybeen back a few times since. But San Diego had been his city of dreams, theplace where he’d first succeeded at something other than giving men toe-curlingorgasms for money. In the shadow cast by his sunny memories of the place, hisNew York years felt like a strange, and often dark, prologue, full ofexcitement and risk, but lacking in the hopeful focus of true ambition.

Now as he passed the Del Mar Fairgrounds and over themarshy, sun-sparkling pools of the San Dieguito Lagoon, his heart raced withexcitement. A few minutes later, woodsy hills closed in on either side of the freewayand he was zipping by familiar exits for La Jolla, the tiny enclave where he’dworked his first real restaurant job—line cook at a high-end seafood placewhere most of the bills got paid on Amex black cards and the millionairecustomers sometimes sent their dishes back four times in a row. But he’d lovedthe work, loved the kitchen’s rigorous discipline and all-consuming energy, andhe’d thrived under the mentorship of the place’s head chef, who’d identifiedand encouraged his passion for pastry before hooking him up with his first jobin Europe.

Driving along the expanse of Mission Bay, he found it thesame as he had back then, its serpentine shorelines fringed with tall palmsbeneath a cornflower blue sky. His spirits were so high that if Tom Cruise hadcome thundering past him on a motorcycle, bellowing about the need for speed,Ethan would have bellowed joyously along with him in unison.

A decade and a half earlier, fate had granted him his firstgig post-culinary school in the same city his old friend Zach Loudon had movedto the year before. But unlike Ethan, Zach hadn’t left sex work behindentirely; he’d moved behind the camera at Parker Hunter, then a fledgling gayporn studio specializing in amateur scenes with muscle boys who were either gayfor pay or pretending to be. The man who’d often referred to himself as atruecourtesanhad whittled his client list down to one or two loyal regularsby then. In short, Ethan’s old escorting mentor was doing exactly what Ethanhad once feared he’d have to do—slowly aging out of the profession in whichhe’d once excelled. When Ethan told him he was headed west, Zach had offeredhim the guest bedroom of his little rental house in Hillcrest, and Ethan hadhappily accepted. The gay neighborhood felt like a quaint village compared tothe roiling streets of Manhattan, the house like a palace compared to the EastVillage crash pad where they’d once lived with four other roommates.

But Zach hadn’t lived alone. Not truly.

One of Parker Hunter’s newest models, afresh-off-the-streets wild child named Donnie Bascombe had been a frequentvisitor to Zach’s bed. After Ethan moved in, the two men had added him to theirsexual mix with ease.

For Ethan, the arrangement was ideal. Casual, but consistent.It gratified him and offered him a level of companionship while also protectinghim from the uncertainty of entering the city’s gay dating world with hisescorting past still close at his heels. Their relaxed throuple, which usuallyended up with Zach in between them and on the bottom, made for the perfecttransition between his old life and his new, client-free one. Something aboutthe spontaneity—the way they’d go from playing Xbox on the sofa to falling intoa slurping daisy chain on the floor of Zach’s living room—had matched the heatof his escorting days, but without the constant unknowns.

It helped that Donnie and Zach were both sex workers whoknew his history. Helped that after having said good-bye to his final client,after changing all his numbers and email addresses and deleting all hisprofiles, he didn’t have to worry about if or when he should disclose his pastto a man he’d seen more than a handful of times. All three of them had beensexual outlaws, free to scratch each other’s itches without labels or pryingquestions or expectations.

Then one day, Zach had vanished, leaving a heartbroken Donniesobbing in Ethan’s arms, and the two of them had transitioned from occasionalsex partners to lifelong friends.

While he’d lived hand to mouth back then, today Ethan couldeasily afford a luxe room at one of the nicer downtown hotels. But he preferredthe giant conference compounds along the Embarcadero that were swarmed withcosplaying superhero fans every Comic-Con. The Wyman was his favorite, two halfcircles of gleaming glass and steel, the curve in each tower designed tomaximize guest room views. Just like he’d asked, they’d given him a king on ahigh floor with a little balcony. When he stepped outside, he could see all theway from the boat-stuffed marina below, across the bay to Coronado Island, andas far as the confident swell of the Point Loma peninsula.

Once he’d unpacked the essentials, he checked in withSapphire Cove by text and spent the next hour re-prioritizing his team’s tasklist based on their status reports. Then he composed several different draftsof an email to Janene, the lawyer friend he’d consulted with about Roman’strust. Without sharing too many details, he made clear there was a chance hisfriend was going to take an aggressive stance and try to reinstate himself assuccessor trustee. What would that look like? And what would it cost Roman forJanene to represent him?

It was more than Roman had asked for, and that was fine.

He hadn’t asked for a week’s worth of food either, but he’dbeen plenty happy to hear about it.

When he realized Roman hadn’t texted him, he sent him ashort message asking if he’d made it to the apartment all right and got athumbs-up in response. Then it was time to check in with Donnie, who said hewas running late at work and asked Ethan to meet him at the studio.

North of the city and just south of Marine Corps Air StationMiramar, Parker Hunter’s magic happened inside a drab, windowless, one-storyindustrial building that had no signage and all the fortifications of a federalprison. Its neighbors were clueless as to the business being conducted within.Gone were the days when the studio’s founder, a former Broadway stage managerwho’d chain-smoked himself into an early grave, shot his films guerilla-stylein the living rooms and backyards of friends’ homes. But the front parking lotwas more choked with cars than Ethan had ever seen it, a few of them utilitytrucks.

There was usually an elaborate check-in process thatrequired him to slide his ID under a glass partition to the person workingsecurity inside, but Donnie must have been watching out for him. As he droveinto the lot, his old friend came bounding toward him with a big, goofy grin onhis scruffy face.

Ethan wasn’t prepared for the emotions that rose in him oncehe was in Donnie’s arms. They’d talked almost three times a week for most oftheir adult lives, but this was their first in-person meeting in almost twoyears, and he found himself squeezing his old friend as hard as Rachel Peytonhad squeezed Roman in Villa 9E.

Before he’d moved behind the camera, Donnie’s alter ego, BoBonin, had enjoyed one of the most auspicious careers in gay porn as a brutish,growling power top who knew how to pitch his dirty talk in that sweet spotbetween lecherous and abusive. He still crowed about the time a popular pornblog had described him as “gay America’s favorite perverted football coach.” Asfor the website that had given him his start, today he was running the place,after years spent turning it from a shabby amateur outfit with questionablebusiness practices into a brand name studio that had once been the punchline ofa joke onSaturday Night Live, a pop culture reference for unvarnishedqueer male lust.

“The parking lot’s certainly active,” Ethan said. “A castingcall for your sword and sandal epic?”

“Nah. I’m adding two new sets, actually, and we’ve got tofigure out some wiring stuff first. The electrician was two hours late, butthey’re clearing out. It’s this model interview that came out of nowhere at me.I would have made him come another day but the guy’s hot to trot and hot ashell. I’ll introduce you. Come on.”

The security guard buzzed them through a solid metal doorthat looked capable of surviving a bomb blast, then they entered a narrowhallway between particle board walls that had been used to carve out a smallnest of offices at one corner of the warehouse. After a near collision with thecontractors departing the studio, Ethan stood there patiently while Donnie wrappedup with them. Then the guys brushed past Ethan with nods, and he was finallyalone with his friend. Sort of.

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