FIC: Get Used to It, Entourage, V/E, NC-17, 6/6
Previous.
The next day, Eric goes to the Leno taping and watches Vince artfully, carefully dodge away from Leno’s gentle hints about their relationship, keeping the focus on the movie. It’s nicely done; Vince doesn’t come off as a jackass or like he’s trying to hide anything, and they talk amiably about the movie like they’re old pals. Vince walks off set and says, “See, easy,” and Eric nods, believes it can be.
They make it through six hours of press the next day in L.A., then fly to New York the next morning, just the two of them in a chartered jet paid for by the studio. Vince sleeps most of the way, and Eric reads scripts. One of them that Ari sent over last week is actually pretty good, if Eric can convince Vince to play a father. He glances over at Vince, stretched out in his seat with a mask over his eyes, wearing a ratty T-shirt, torn jeans, and flip-flops. He still looks like a kid himself sometimes, but Eric knows he’s got this in him. He makes a note to call Ari when they land.
They hit the ground running, off first to a quickly-added live stint on TRL, where they meet up with Shauna and Vince gets about thirty seconds of total air time. He gets a question about filming the Kanye video, then one about working with Cameron. A couple of girls in the audience scream “Vince we love you!” and he laughs and acts embarrassed by the attention, but Eric can see he’s pleased. Eric’s actually pleased - the whole thing goes off just perfectly.
“How much time do we have?” Vince asks as they’re riding down in the elevator toward the limo. Eric looks over at him, sees him lick his lips, and smirks.
“Not enough for that,” he says. “We’ll go to the hotel after Letterman, but right now, we gotta get you a suit.”
“A suit, really?”
Shauna says, “It’s more than just a suit, Vincent, you’ll see.” She taps her Blackberry. It’s a big weekend for her, with two clients in the film, both in New York at the same time. “Call me if you have problems, OK? I’ve gotta meet Aaron, but I’ll see you at CBS.”
They see her off, then hop into the car and head to a very small clothier on Fifth, where a suit is waiting, like she promised. It’s a full suit, but no tie at least -- thank God, because Eric would never get Vince to wear that. This is just a pair of tailored dark slacks with beautiful, thread-thin silver pinstripes and a silvery-blue shirt that’s tight in the chest and loose in the collar and terribly, terribly sexy. The jacket, which matches the pants, is almost an afterthought. Vince tries it on and turns to Eric, holds his arms out a little. “I look pretty gay, huh?” he says.
He does, but Eric’s not going to say it, because he wants to believe that he’s the only guy in the world looking at Vince like this. Somehow, women don’t feel like the same kind of competition. “You look pretty thin,” Eric says. “You’re gonna start rumors that I don’t feed you.”
Vince smirks. “You don’t,” he says, a fake whine. “When was the last time you had dinner waiting for me?”
“When was the last time you worked a full day that I didn’t, asshole?”
Vince put a hand over his heart. “Oh, man, starving me and now being abusive,” he said.
“Yeah, tell Letterman that tonight.”
“That’ll get some headlines,” Vince says. He turns and looks at himself in the mirror again, which gives Eric leave to check him out one more time. He buttons his collar, then unbuttons it again.
“You look fucking hot, Vince,” Eric says, quietly but certainly, and he watches Vince smile in the mirror.
“Yeah, all right,” he says. “Let’s go.”
They step out of the store and their car isn’t there quite yet, and for a minute, just for a minute, Eric’s actually back in New York. The streets are busy and crowded, five different cars are honking, the air has a mixed smell of exhaust and sewer and heat and body odors, good and bad. He’s short here in a different way than he is in L.A.; there, it’s an aesthetic problem, whereas here it’s a practical problem. He could take a step and lose sight of Vince completely. He reaches out and grabs his hand, the first time he’s ever done that anywhere, and though he thinks instantly about the possibility of cameras, he doesn’t pull away. They stay that way until they duck into their car.
Vince rubs his back as they pull away from the curb, and Eric looks over, a little confused. “Since we’re only here a few days, let’s just stay uptown.” His hand makes calming circles, and Eric realizes he still thinks Eric’s upset about the city, about being here without his mother. In truth, they’ve been so busy he’s barely thought about it since landing, which has been a relief.
“Yeah,” he says. “Sounds like a plan.”
Vince, in his new suit, is a hit on Letterman, and they go right from there to the hotel, where they order in and go to bed kind of early. They get up at eight the next morning to start another day of press availability at another, different, expensive hotel. Eric stays outside for most of the interviews, not wanting to make it any easier for these reporters to tell a story that isn’t about the movie, but it starts to drive him a little crazy that he can’t hear what’s going on. He’s Vince’s manager, after all, he should be in there, listening, knowing what they’re up against. If Vince is getting backed into a corner by these reporters, if all they’re going to see out of this is more stories about their relationship, Eric should know. So he goes in and takes a seat by the windows, where he’s not easily in the reporter’s line of sight, and listens as the interviews go on. Vince is a pro, and glides through everything without difficulty, even though almost every reporter tries to bait him into getting off on a tangent about Eric or his sexuality. Most of them give up pretty quickly, but a few are more tenacious; some seem to be there for no reason other than the opportunity to talk to Vince about being gay. Shauna nearly loses her temper with the girl from The Village Voice.
“You’re originally from New York, right?” she asks.
“Queens,” Vince says.
“Both you and your partner still have family here, right?”
Vince doesn’t even blink. “My mother still lives here, I’ve got family all around,” he says.
“And that’s got nothing to do with the movie,” Shauna says, but the reporter just tips her head.
“Our readers appreciate a little local color,” she says. “Do you two make it back here pretty frequently?”
Now Vince sighs, just lightly. “I appreciate the local angle,” he says, his tone almost apologetic, “but I don’t discuss my personal life.”
“Except at the Golden Globes in front of millions of people.”
Vince frowns. Eric’s leaning against the wall near the entryway, and his heart is pounding just a little. Please, he thinks, please don’t get mad and storm out. Please ride this out. Vince opens his mouth, closes it, takes a breath, then says, “Is there anything about the movie you’d like to talk about?”
After that reporter leaves - with a glare at Eric on her way out - they’re done with print reporters. Vince lays his head on the back of the couch and sighs. “Glad that’s done,” he says, and Eric agrees.
“You’re not done,” Shauna says. “You’ve got a fitting in an hour.”
Vince groans. “Can’t I just wear the new stuff? I mean, without the jacket? It’s The Daily Show, Shauna, not Meet the fucking Press.”
“Honey, I am not putting you on TV in something you wore yesterday. Do you understand how that makes me look?”
Vince looks over at Eric, and he shrugs. “Maybe she’s right, Vin,” he says.
“Oh, come on,” Vince says. He closes his eyes, and Eric thinks he really does look tired. It’s been a long day. But he doesn’t want to leave anything to chance, leave any detail undone. “I wish all the reporters who think we’re such a scandal could come in and see this lovely domestic scene,” Vince says, sitting up and rubbing his face. “The two of you ganging up on me.”
“I’m not really taking a side,” Eric says.
Vince looks up at Shauna. “See? E says I don’t have to do it.” Shauna frowns. “What if, what if you just have them send me a different shirt? And I won't wear the jacket. It’s gonna be better if I get a nap than if I get a new suit. Trust me.”
Shauna exhales in her best fine-but-don’t-say-I-didn’t-tell-you burst. “OK, OK, I’ll get something sent over. But you’re gonna wear it and you’re gonna love it, all right?”
“I already do,” Vince says, and he stands and kisses her cheek before he walks out, toward the suite’s bedroom. These rooms are really made just for interviews, but Eric isn’t going to argue that with Vince, not right now. Instead, he paces around a little, waiting for Shauna to look up, and when she finally does, he doesn’t know what he wants to ask her. He feels like he’s been outside of the whole process this time.
“He’s doing fine,” she says. “They’re eating this shit up.”
“He’s not even saying anything exciting,” Eric says.
“That story about the cat on set is a gold mine,” Shauna says. “I bet we can get that to run all over this week.”
Eric shakes his head. He doesn’t understand how the press works; maybe he never will. He’s been assuming there was no way this could all go well, and maybe it still won’t; maybe every other word will be something about his and Vince’s relationship, and Vince’s reluctance to discuss it, and how it’s horrible and wrong and whatever stupid bullshit people can come up with. But maybe people will look past it and talk about the movie. Maybe people will just go see the fucking movie, and Eric won’t have to worry so much.
Shauna looks back down at her Blackberry. “Maybe you should think about a nap,” she says.
He could argue, but even hearing the word makes him yawn, so he just nods. Eric finds Vince in the bedroom already stretched out, face-down, on top of the covers. He sits on the edge of the bed and takes off his shoes, then lays on his back. Vince puts an arm over his chest without opening his eyes, and Eric’s not even sure if he’s awake or if it’s just a tender habit. Those reporters ought to see this, he thinks, we’re just a boring old married couple, and he kisses Vince’s shoulder gently before he closes his eyes.
Shauna gets them up in plenty of time to get to Stewart’s studio, where they tape the show around 5. Jon Stewart comes back and hangs out with them in the small, empty green room for a bit before the show while one of the “reporters” is warming up the crowd. That’s cool; he’s just as funny in person as he is on the show but he’s also nicer, somehow, older and more serious. Eric likes him in part because they’re about the same height, and for once Vince looks like the freak in the room.
Stewart tells him they’ll be on in about fifteen minutes, and Vince nods and thanks him and so does Eric, and they all shake hands. After he leaves, a make-up girl comes in and touches Vince up, and Shauna excuses herself to call someone back from the hallway. Vince is wearing the new slacks and the new shirt and he still looks fucking hot, though he also seems a little nervous. That’s not a good way for him to start an interview, but Eric can’t think of how to diffuse the tension with the girl in the room. Finally, after she leaves, he just goes with Vince’s usual solution for everything: physical affection. He sits next to Vince on the couch and takes one of his hands. Vince looks over at him, a curious expression on his face. Eric isn’t going to kiss him and risk messing up his make-up, but he does smile and draw the hand up, kisses one of Vince’s knuckles.
“What was that for?” Vince asks, not unhappy, still just curious.
“Good luck,” Eric says, and Vince smiles.
He does great in the interview. He’s funny, he keeps up with Stewart, and he talks about the movie right up front. But he also goes off-topic, and though Eric knows he should be holding his breath, he’s smiling through it. Smiling to hear Vince talk about the two of them being together and how it’s good, how it’s just - normal, cool, nothing to be ashamed or worried about, and how it’s not a story at all to them. “It’s just my life,” Vince says, and Stewart, class act like always, is supportive and congratulatory. The whole interview goes off perfectly. Eric starts to see how, maybe, they can co-exist with all of this attention, how the news about them isn’t stifling the news about the movie. He feels relieved. When Vince comes off stage Eric does kiss him, not concerned about the make-up or anyone who might see.
“I think it went OK,” Vince says, and Eric laughs.
“Yeah, I might even buy a ticket myself.”
The rest of the trip goes just as quickly. Vince coasts through the rest of the interviews. His talk with Stewart seems to have loosened him up, so while he still doesn’t widely discuss their personal life on camera, the phrase “my partner” does slip in a few times, and Eric doesn’t care. In fact, it makes him feel, suddenly, more secure, hearing Vince acknowledge everything in front of the cameras and the crowd. It hits him on their third day in New York that he isn’t even worried about the movie anymore. He doesn’t care - well, he cares, but not as much as he used to, about what happens. They can blame it on him, they can blame it on the two of them together, whatever. Whatever. Eric knows Vince is gonna stick with him through anything. He believes it. Vince is his family.
That afternoon, Vince goes to tape Conan with Shauna and Eric says he’ll meet them there, then gets a cab out to Queens. He gets out in front of his mother’s house - his house, now, the house he owns, and stands in the street, looking up at it. Next door is Vince’s house, and though he glances over he doesn’t linger in the street because he doesn’t want Vince’s mother to see him. He’s not sure he can take a confrontation with Rita Chase today.
The front door opens as easily as always with the key he’s been carrying the whole time he was in California. Inside, the place is pretty cleaned out. The furniture’s still there, but all of the knick-knacks and personal items, the photos that used to line the walls, the incomplete set of wedding china in the kitchen cabinets, even the romance novels his mother kept stashed in the magazine holder by the couch, that’s all gone, boxed neatly and shipped to L.A. a few months ago, where it’s living in temperature-controlled secure storage. Eric walks through the empty halls, stops in his bedroom, where even the bed, at his order, is gone. That was sappy of him, he realizes, but he doesn’t want anyone else sleeping in it, doesn’t want his cousin’s kid putting her teddy-bear sheets on the bed where he and Vince slept together for the first time. Not the first place they had sex, mind you - someone would have to track down Vince’s brother’s car for that, or maybe the recliner that was in his basement for a while - but the first place where Vince spent the night with him, even though things were supposed to just be cool and casual back then. Eric’s been in love with Vince since he was 15, maybe even before that. He’s been in love with him longer than he lived in this house, longer than he knew his own father. Vince really is his family, always has been, probably always will be.
Knowing that, he’s not sure why it’s so hard to give this place away except that it feels like the last standing monument to a family life he wasn’t done living. He wasn’t done being someone’s son, not yet. He wasn’t done having a place to come home to.
It’s not like he’s homeless, though; it’s not like he doesn’t have someone to love him. And he remembers his mother, he was close to her, she knew he loved her and he knows she loved him. He doesn’t need the smell of this place - the same, the same, it’s still the same, somehow, even without her dresses to carry the laundry soap scent and her books with their vague dusty dryness and her cooking, always a little past done - to remind him of his mother. He has her things, he has the sound of her laugh in his head. He has her eyes.
He tells himself that selling the house, particularly if it stays in the family like this, won’t be giving away the memories within. He’s not losing his mother’s presence - there’s enough of that in her things. Maybe he just needs to find a better place to put them than locked up in storage: a home of his own. That might make him a sap, too, but Eric doesn’t care. He misses his mother. He misses the times they hadn’t even had, yet, misses the conversation they were going to have on a day like this, over coffee in the living room, when Eric would have told her about Vince and she wouldn’t have been surprised. Vince is a good actor, but Eric’s never been good at hiding things, particularly from his mother.
Standing there in the hallway, looking up and down at where the wall paper has faded, leaving bright rectangles where all of her pictures used to hang, he knows she was proud of him, and it doesn’t make him miss her any less, but it doesn’t make him miss her any more. He taps the big rectangle at the center, where their last family portrait, taken for church when he was about 11, used to hang, and then he walks to the front door without looking back or saying a word.
He locks the door and then, after a pause, pushes his key through the mail slot and walks back to the corner. He catches a cab and requests the hotel, and on the way he texts Vince to let him know where he is. Then he calls his aunt.
“Have Darren call me Monday,” he says. “I’ll be back home by then, we can get the paperwork together. The house is his.”
After he hangs up, he realizes he called California home, but he doesn’t feel bad about it at all.
Vince doesn’t ask him about his trip to Queens, and Eric doesn’t mention it, because he doesn’t want to bring up Vince’s mother. He does ask, however, if Vince would mind if Eric brought a few things from home into the house in L.A., and Vince leans back on the couch and says, “I was thinking about that.”
Eric raises an eyebrow. “About redecorating?”
“About the house. We should probably talk to Marvin.”
Eric sighs. “You wanna move or something?”
Vince shakes his head. “We should get your name on the title, or the deed - thing. Whatever.”
“My name?” Vince nods. “I don’t own this house.”
“But you should,” Vince says. “I want to share it with you. Everybody knows about us already, let’s just, let’s make it official. More official, whatever.” He looks up through his lashes. “You should have a home that’s yours.”
Eric smiles just a little. It’s a beautiful gesture, and while it’s typical of Vince to think something can be fixed with money, Eric’s genuinely touched. “You know what, you don’t have to put my name on anything,” he says. “Just let me hang a few pictures.”
“You’re sure?”
He nods. “But when we get our second home in Aspen, you can put my name on that, no problem.”
Vince grins. “This movie better do pretty well if you’re already planning a second house.”
“It’s gonna kill,” Eric says, and he means it. He really thinks it’s gonna do fine.
And, unlike everything else that year, Eric’s right. Nightfeeders opens right on pace with expectations, taking in the second highest gross for the July 4th weekend, right ahead of Transformers but behind Spider-Man 2. Eric figures that’s a pretty awesome achievement for a movie without any comic-book heroes or robots, and Ari agrees. The studio is ecstatic, and they send Vince flowers and, after the movie holds the box office lead for a second week, a new tricked out Ferrari, black with a shiny dark gray trim, very vampire-like, that Eric finds a joy to drive. They’re already talking sequels.
Photos of Vince and Eric on the red carpet at the premiere make the rounds of the Internet and the cable news shows, and now that the movie’s come through, Eric finds the attention kind of flattering. The paparazzi have backed off some, having discovered they really are just boring guys, apparently, so they’re once again free to move about the city without too much worry over causing a traffic jam or an accident. Life is good.
Life gets even better once Ari gets Vince signed for the movie Eric read on the way to New York. They go to his office, and Ari says, “I can get you probably seven on this one, since it’s got a smaller budget, but we should try and wrap it up this week, get it announced on the back-end of Nightfeeders.”
Eric says, “Fuck you, we’ll sign when you get him eight, and as a producer I want a say in the director.”
Ari stops and stares at him for a second, and Eric can’t figure out exactly what’s going on until he says, “Welcome back, E.”
“What?”
“You haven’t yelled at me in six months.”
“That’s not true,” Eric says.
“Fine, but it’s been at least three since you put your heart into a fuck you,” Ari says. “It’s good to have you back, that’s fifty percent less harassment that Lloyd will have to face every day.”
“No sexually harassing my boyfriend, Ari, remember?” Vince says, and he laughs and grips Eric’s shoulder. “He did good with this movie. We should all be happy, now, not fighting.”
“Hey, last thing I want to do is fight with you or your boytoy,” Ari says. “In fact, I’m thinking soon we’re gonna go global with the Murphy Method. No, seriously, after this opening, I’m gonna suggest all of my clients plug themselves in on their managers’ cocks.” Eric laughs in spite of himself. “If that’s what it takes to be a star, baby, then that’s what we’re gonna suggest. Full service fucking agency.”
“Literally,” Eric says, and Vince squeezes his shoulder, keeps his hand there through the rest of the meeting. The touch doesn’t bother Eric at all; in fact, he likes it, now, has even started to count on it a little. When they go to lunch with the guys, he expects Vince’s arm to find its way around his shoulders by the end of the meal. When they walk the red carpet at another film’s premiere, Eric isn’t surprised to find Vince pulling him along with a hand on the elbow or a touch on his lower back. He leans close to kiss Vince when he climbs out of the car for an appointment, doesn’t lean away when Vince whispers to him at a club or a restaurant, and he stops trying to fend off Vince’s often-wandering back-seat hands. He goes with it.
Margot, who he sees once a week, says this is a sign of improvement, that he’s learning to trust Vince and to relax into his own feelings. That he’s ready to allow himself to be happy again. “Do you feel better?” she asks.
Eric thinks of everything the last few months have brought to him, from the shock of coming out to the now-comfortable routine romance they’ve settled in to. “Yeah,” he says. “I really do.”
What he actually feels like is a grown-up. It’s hard to explain to anyone what he means by that, really, because the automatic question is, What did you feel like before? Eric doesn’t have a good answer to that, not really; he’s felt like an adult for a long time, maybe since he turned thirteen and started handing over part of his paycheck to help with bills, maybe since the first time he got served in a bar or bought cigarettes or condoms, or moved out on his own. All of those were markers of adulthood, sure. Even Vince laughs when Eric says it. “E, you’re like the most grown-up person I know,” he says, handing over a beer.
Eric shrugs and takes the beer, decides just to let the topic drop. “I know,” he says. He really doesn’t have the words to describe the transformation.
Vince keeps looking at him curiously, and he pokes Eric’s thigh with his toes, even mutes the television. “Tell me,” he says.
Eric sighs and rubs his neck, takes a sip of his beer. There’s so much to say, he thinks, but - there’s also so much time. A lifetime ahead of them. He really believes that, he’s going to let himself trust in it. He turns to Vince, puts his hand on his cheek, looks at the ring on his finger. “It’s like the difference between playing house,” he says, watching Vince’s eyelids flutter lower, “and coming home to someone.”
Vince smiles, a small, tender smile that Eric appreciates. “I like you coming home to me,” he says.
“Yeah, me too,” Eric says. “I’m kind of getting used to it.”
“Good,” Vince says. He reaches for Eric’s beer, sets it on the coffee table, and then draws Eric close. “Because this is the way it’s going to be.”
[The End!]
The next day, Eric goes to the Leno taping and watches Vince artfully, carefully dodge away from Leno’s gentle hints about their relationship, keeping the focus on the movie. It’s nicely done; Vince doesn’t come off as a jackass or like he’s trying to hide anything, and they talk amiably about the movie like they’re old pals. Vince walks off set and says, “See, easy,” and Eric nods, believes it can be.
They make it through six hours of press the next day in L.A., then fly to New York the next morning, just the two of them in a chartered jet paid for by the studio. Vince sleeps most of the way, and Eric reads scripts. One of them that Ari sent over last week is actually pretty good, if Eric can convince Vince to play a father. He glances over at Vince, stretched out in his seat with a mask over his eyes, wearing a ratty T-shirt, torn jeans, and flip-flops. He still looks like a kid himself sometimes, but Eric knows he’s got this in him. He makes a note to call Ari when they land.
They hit the ground running, off first to a quickly-added live stint on TRL, where they meet up with Shauna and Vince gets about thirty seconds of total air time. He gets a question about filming the Kanye video, then one about working with Cameron. A couple of girls in the audience scream “Vince we love you!” and he laughs and acts embarrassed by the attention, but Eric can see he’s pleased. Eric’s actually pleased - the whole thing goes off just perfectly.
“How much time do we have?” Vince asks as they’re riding down in the elevator toward the limo. Eric looks over at him, sees him lick his lips, and smirks.
“Not enough for that,” he says. “We’ll go to the hotel after Letterman, but right now, we gotta get you a suit.”
“A suit, really?”
Shauna says, “It’s more than just a suit, Vincent, you’ll see.” She taps her Blackberry. It’s a big weekend for her, with two clients in the film, both in New York at the same time. “Call me if you have problems, OK? I’ve gotta meet Aaron, but I’ll see you at CBS.”
They see her off, then hop into the car and head to a very small clothier on Fifth, where a suit is waiting, like she promised. It’s a full suit, but no tie at least -- thank God, because Eric would never get Vince to wear that. This is just a pair of tailored dark slacks with beautiful, thread-thin silver pinstripes and a silvery-blue shirt that’s tight in the chest and loose in the collar and terribly, terribly sexy. The jacket, which matches the pants, is almost an afterthought. Vince tries it on and turns to Eric, holds his arms out a little. “I look pretty gay, huh?” he says.
He does, but Eric’s not going to say it, because he wants to believe that he’s the only guy in the world looking at Vince like this. Somehow, women don’t feel like the same kind of competition. “You look pretty thin,” Eric says. “You’re gonna start rumors that I don’t feed you.”
Vince smirks. “You don’t,” he says, a fake whine. “When was the last time you had dinner waiting for me?”
“When was the last time you worked a full day that I didn’t, asshole?”
Vince put a hand over his heart. “Oh, man, starving me and now being abusive,” he said.
“Yeah, tell Letterman that tonight.”
“That’ll get some headlines,” Vince says. He turns and looks at himself in the mirror again, which gives Eric leave to check him out one more time. He buttons his collar, then unbuttons it again.
“You look fucking hot, Vince,” Eric says, quietly but certainly, and he watches Vince smile in the mirror.
“Yeah, all right,” he says. “Let’s go.”
They step out of the store and their car isn’t there quite yet, and for a minute, just for a minute, Eric’s actually back in New York. The streets are busy and crowded, five different cars are honking, the air has a mixed smell of exhaust and sewer and heat and body odors, good and bad. He’s short here in a different way than he is in L.A.; there, it’s an aesthetic problem, whereas here it’s a practical problem. He could take a step and lose sight of Vince completely. He reaches out and grabs his hand, the first time he’s ever done that anywhere, and though he thinks instantly about the possibility of cameras, he doesn’t pull away. They stay that way until they duck into their car.
Vince rubs his back as they pull away from the curb, and Eric looks over, a little confused. “Since we’re only here a few days, let’s just stay uptown.” His hand makes calming circles, and Eric realizes he still thinks Eric’s upset about the city, about being here without his mother. In truth, they’ve been so busy he’s barely thought about it since landing, which has been a relief.
“Yeah,” he says. “Sounds like a plan.”
Vince, in his new suit, is a hit on Letterman, and they go right from there to the hotel, where they order in and go to bed kind of early. They get up at eight the next morning to start another day of press availability at another, different, expensive hotel. Eric stays outside for most of the interviews, not wanting to make it any easier for these reporters to tell a story that isn’t about the movie, but it starts to drive him a little crazy that he can’t hear what’s going on. He’s Vince’s manager, after all, he should be in there, listening, knowing what they’re up against. If Vince is getting backed into a corner by these reporters, if all they’re going to see out of this is more stories about their relationship, Eric should know. So he goes in and takes a seat by the windows, where he’s not easily in the reporter’s line of sight, and listens as the interviews go on. Vince is a pro, and glides through everything without difficulty, even though almost every reporter tries to bait him into getting off on a tangent about Eric or his sexuality. Most of them give up pretty quickly, but a few are more tenacious; some seem to be there for no reason other than the opportunity to talk to Vince about being gay. Shauna nearly loses her temper with the girl from The Village Voice.
“You’re originally from New York, right?” she asks.
“Queens,” Vince says.
“Both you and your partner still have family here, right?”
Vince doesn’t even blink. “My mother still lives here, I’ve got family all around,” he says.
“And that’s got nothing to do with the movie,” Shauna says, but the reporter just tips her head.
“Our readers appreciate a little local color,” she says. “Do you two make it back here pretty frequently?”
Now Vince sighs, just lightly. “I appreciate the local angle,” he says, his tone almost apologetic, “but I don’t discuss my personal life.”
“Except at the Golden Globes in front of millions of people.”
Vince frowns. Eric’s leaning against the wall near the entryway, and his heart is pounding just a little. Please, he thinks, please don’t get mad and storm out. Please ride this out. Vince opens his mouth, closes it, takes a breath, then says, “Is there anything about the movie you’d like to talk about?”
After that reporter leaves - with a glare at Eric on her way out - they’re done with print reporters. Vince lays his head on the back of the couch and sighs. “Glad that’s done,” he says, and Eric agrees.
“You’re not done,” Shauna says. “You’ve got a fitting in an hour.”
Vince groans. “Can’t I just wear the new stuff? I mean, without the jacket? It’s The Daily Show, Shauna, not Meet the fucking Press.”
“Honey, I am not putting you on TV in something you wore yesterday. Do you understand how that makes me look?”
Vince looks over at Eric, and he shrugs. “Maybe she’s right, Vin,” he says.
“Oh, come on,” Vince says. He closes his eyes, and Eric thinks he really does look tired. It’s been a long day. But he doesn’t want to leave anything to chance, leave any detail undone. “I wish all the reporters who think we’re such a scandal could come in and see this lovely domestic scene,” Vince says, sitting up and rubbing his face. “The two of you ganging up on me.”
“I’m not really taking a side,” Eric says.
Vince looks up at Shauna. “See? E says I don’t have to do it.” Shauna frowns. “What if, what if you just have them send me a different shirt? And I won't wear the jacket. It’s gonna be better if I get a nap than if I get a new suit. Trust me.”
Shauna exhales in her best fine-but-don’t-say-I-didn’t-tell-you burst. “OK, OK, I’ll get something sent over. But you’re gonna wear it and you’re gonna love it, all right?”
“I already do,” Vince says, and he stands and kisses her cheek before he walks out, toward the suite’s bedroom. These rooms are really made just for interviews, but Eric isn’t going to argue that with Vince, not right now. Instead, he paces around a little, waiting for Shauna to look up, and when she finally does, he doesn’t know what he wants to ask her. He feels like he’s been outside of the whole process this time.
“He’s doing fine,” she says. “They’re eating this shit up.”
“He’s not even saying anything exciting,” Eric says.
“That story about the cat on set is a gold mine,” Shauna says. “I bet we can get that to run all over this week.”
Eric shakes his head. He doesn’t understand how the press works; maybe he never will. He’s been assuming there was no way this could all go well, and maybe it still won’t; maybe every other word will be something about his and Vince’s relationship, and Vince’s reluctance to discuss it, and how it’s horrible and wrong and whatever stupid bullshit people can come up with. But maybe people will look past it and talk about the movie. Maybe people will just go see the fucking movie, and Eric won’t have to worry so much.
Shauna looks back down at her Blackberry. “Maybe you should think about a nap,” she says.
He could argue, but even hearing the word makes him yawn, so he just nods. Eric finds Vince in the bedroom already stretched out, face-down, on top of the covers. He sits on the edge of the bed and takes off his shoes, then lays on his back. Vince puts an arm over his chest without opening his eyes, and Eric’s not even sure if he’s awake or if it’s just a tender habit. Those reporters ought to see this, he thinks, we’re just a boring old married couple, and he kisses Vince’s shoulder gently before he closes his eyes.
Shauna gets them up in plenty of time to get to Stewart’s studio, where they tape the show around 5. Jon Stewart comes back and hangs out with them in the small, empty green room for a bit before the show while one of the “reporters” is warming up the crowd. That’s cool; he’s just as funny in person as he is on the show but he’s also nicer, somehow, older and more serious. Eric likes him in part because they’re about the same height, and for once Vince looks like the freak in the room.
Stewart tells him they’ll be on in about fifteen minutes, and Vince nods and thanks him and so does Eric, and they all shake hands. After he leaves, a make-up girl comes in and touches Vince up, and Shauna excuses herself to call someone back from the hallway. Vince is wearing the new slacks and the new shirt and he still looks fucking hot, though he also seems a little nervous. That’s not a good way for him to start an interview, but Eric can’t think of how to diffuse the tension with the girl in the room. Finally, after she leaves, he just goes with Vince’s usual solution for everything: physical affection. He sits next to Vince on the couch and takes one of his hands. Vince looks over at him, a curious expression on his face. Eric isn’t going to kiss him and risk messing up his make-up, but he does smile and draw the hand up, kisses one of Vince’s knuckles.
“What was that for?” Vince asks, not unhappy, still just curious.
“Good luck,” Eric says, and Vince smiles.
He does great in the interview. He’s funny, he keeps up with Stewart, and he talks about the movie right up front. But he also goes off-topic, and though Eric knows he should be holding his breath, he’s smiling through it. Smiling to hear Vince talk about the two of them being together and how it’s good, how it’s just - normal, cool, nothing to be ashamed or worried about, and how it’s not a story at all to them. “It’s just my life,” Vince says, and Stewart, class act like always, is supportive and congratulatory. The whole interview goes off perfectly. Eric starts to see how, maybe, they can co-exist with all of this attention, how the news about them isn’t stifling the news about the movie. He feels relieved. When Vince comes off stage Eric does kiss him, not concerned about the make-up or anyone who might see.
“I think it went OK,” Vince says, and Eric laughs.
“Yeah, I might even buy a ticket myself.”
The rest of the trip goes just as quickly. Vince coasts through the rest of the interviews. His talk with Stewart seems to have loosened him up, so while he still doesn’t widely discuss their personal life on camera, the phrase “my partner” does slip in a few times, and Eric doesn’t care. In fact, it makes him feel, suddenly, more secure, hearing Vince acknowledge everything in front of the cameras and the crowd. It hits him on their third day in New York that he isn’t even worried about the movie anymore. He doesn’t care - well, he cares, but not as much as he used to, about what happens. They can blame it on him, they can blame it on the two of them together, whatever. Whatever. Eric knows Vince is gonna stick with him through anything. He believes it. Vince is his family.
That afternoon, Vince goes to tape Conan with Shauna and Eric says he’ll meet them there, then gets a cab out to Queens. He gets out in front of his mother’s house - his house, now, the house he owns, and stands in the street, looking up at it. Next door is Vince’s house, and though he glances over he doesn’t linger in the street because he doesn’t want Vince’s mother to see him. He’s not sure he can take a confrontation with Rita Chase today.
The front door opens as easily as always with the key he’s been carrying the whole time he was in California. Inside, the place is pretty cleaned out. The furniture’s still there, but all of the knick-knacks and personal items, the photos that used to line the walls, the incomplete set of wedding china in the kitchen cabinets, even the romance novels his mother kept stashed in the magazine holder by the couch, that’s all gone, boxed neatly and shipped to L.A. a few months ago, where it’s living in temperature-controlled secure storage. Eric walks through the empty halls, stops in his bedroom, where even the bed, at his order, is gone. That was sappy of him, he realizes, but he doesn’t want anyone else sleeping in it, doesn’t want his cousin’s kid putting her teddy-bear sheets on the bed where he and Vince slept together for the first time. Not the first place they had sex, mind you - someone would have to track down Vince’s brother’s car for that, or maybe the recliner that was in his basement for a while - but the first place where Vince spent the night with him, even though things were supposed to just be cool and casual back then. Eric’s been in love with Vince since he was 15, maybe even before that. He’s been in love with him longer than he lived in this house, longer than he knew his own father. Vince really is his family, always has been, probably always will be.
Knowing that, he’s not sure why it’s so hard to give this place away except that it feels like the last standing monument to a family life he wasn’t done living. He wasn’t done being someone’s son, not yet. He wasn’t done having a place to come home to.
It’s not like he’s homeless, though; it’s not like he doesn’t have someone to love him. And he remembers his mother, he was close to her, she knew he loved her and he knows she loved him. He doesn’t need the smell of this place - the same, the same, it’s still the same, somehow, even without her dresses to carry the laundry soap scent and her books with their vague dusty dryness and her cooking, always a little past done - to remind him of his mother. He has her things, he has the sound of her laugh in his head. He has her eyes.
He tells himself that selling the house, particularly if it stays in the family like this, won’t be giving away the memories within. He’s not losing his mother’s presence - there’s enough of that in her things. Maybe he just needs to find a better place to put them than locked up in storage: a home of his own. That might make him a sap, too, but Eric doesn’t care. He misses his mother. He misses the times they hadn’t even had, yet, misses the conversation they were going to have on a day like this, over coffee in the living room, when Eric would have told her about Vince and she wouldn’t have been surprised. Vince is a good actor, but Eric’s never been good at hiding things, particularly from his mother.
Standing there in the hallway, looking up and down at where the wall paper has faded, leaving bright rectangles where all of her pictures used to hang, he knows she was proud of him, and it doesn’t make him miss her any less, but it doesn’t make him miss her any more. He taps the big rectangle at the center, where their last family portrait, taken for church when he was about 11, used to hang, and then he walks to the front door without looking back or saying a word.
He locks the door and then, after a pause, pushes his key through the mail slot and walks back to the corner. He catches a cab and requests the hotel, and on the way he texts Vince to let him know where he is. Then he calls his aunt.
“Have Darren call me Monday,” he says. “I’ll be back home by then, we can get the paperwork together. The house is his.”
After he hangs up, he realizes he called California home, but he doesn’t feel bad about it at all.
Vince doesn’t ask him about his trip to Queens, and Eric doesn’t mention it, because he doesn’t want to bring up Vince’s mother. He does ask, however, if Vince would mind if Eric brought a few things from home into the house in L.A., and Vince leans back on the couch and says, “I was thinking about that.”
Eric raises an eyebrow. “About redecorating?”
“About the house. We should probably talk to Marvin.”
Eric sighs. “You wanna move or something?”
Vince shakes his head. “We should get your name on the title, or the deed - thing. Whatever.”
“My name?” Vince nods. “I don’t own this house.”
“But you should,” Vince says. “I want to share it with you. Everybody knows about us already, let’s just, let’s make it official. More official, whatever.” He looks up through his lashes. “You should have a home that’s yours.”
Eric smiles just a little. It’s a beautiful gesture, and while it’s typical of Vince to think something can be fixed with money, Eric’s genuinely touched. “You know what, you don’t have to put my name on anything,” he says. “Just let me hang a few pictures.”
“You’re sure?”
He nods. “But when we get our second home in Aspen, you can put my name on that, no problem.”
Vince grins. “This movie better do pretty well if you’re already planning a second house.”
“It’s gonna kill,” Eric says, and he means it. He really thinks it’s gonna do fine.
And, unlike everything else that year, Eric’s right. Nightfeeders opens right on pace with expectations, taking in the second highest gross for the July 4th weekend, right ahead of Transformers but behind Spider-Man 2. Eric figures that’s a pretty awesome achievement for a movie without any comic-book heroes or robots, and Ari agrees. The studio is ecstatic, and they send Vince flowers and, after the movie holds the box office lead for a second week, a new tricked out Ferrari, black with a shiny dark gray trim, very vampire-like, that Eric finds a joy to drive. They’re already talking sequels.
Photos of Vince and Eric on the red carpet at the premiere make the rounds of the Internet and the cable news shows, and now that the movie’s come through, Eric finds the attention kind of flattering. The paparazzi have backed off some, having discovered they really are just boring guys, apparently, so they’re once again free to move about the city without too much worry over causing a traffic jam or an accident. Life is good.
Life gets even better once Ari gets Vince signed for the movie Eric read on the way to New York. They go to his office, and Ari says, “I can get you probably seven on this one, since it’s got a smaller budget, but we should try and wrap it up this week, get it announced on the back-end of Nightfeeders.”
Eric says, “Fuck you, we’ll sign when you get him eight, and as a producer I want a say in the director.”
Ari stops and stares at him for a second, and Eric can’t figure out exactly what’s going on until he says, “Welcome back, E.”
“What?”
“You haven’t yelled at me in six months.”
“That’s not true,” Eric says.
“Fine, but it’s been at least three since you put your heart into a fuck you,” Ari says. “It’s good to have you back, that’s fifty percent less harassment that Lloyd will have to face every day.”
“No sexually harassing my boyfriend, Ari, remember?” Vince says, and he laughs and grips Eric’s shoulder. “He did good with this movie. We should all be happy, now, not fighting.”
“Hey, last thing I want to do is fight with you or your boytoy,” Ari says. “In fact, I’m thinking soon we’re gonna go global with the Murphy Method. No, seriously, after this opening, I’m gonna suggest all of my clients plug themselves in on their managers’ cocks.” Eric laughs in spite of himself. “If that’s what it takes to be a star, baby, then that’s what we’re gonna suggest. Full service fucking agency.”
“Literally,” Eric says, and Vince squeezes his shoulder, keeps his hand there through the rest of the meeting. The touch doesn’t bother Eric at all; in fact, he likes it, now, has even started to count on it a little. When they go to lunch with the guys, he expects Vince’s arm to find its way around his shoulders by the end of the meal. When they walk the red carpet at another film’s premiere, Eric isn’t surprised to find Vince pulling him along with a hand on the elbow or a touch on his lower back. He leans close to kiss Vince when he climbs out of the car for an appointment, doesn’t lean away when Vince whispers to him at a club or a restaurant, and he stops trying to fend off Vince’s often-wandering back-seat hands. He goes with it.
Margot, who he sees once a week, says this is a sign of improvement, that he’s learning to trust Vince and to relax into his own feelings. That he’s ready to allow himself to be happy again. “Do you feel better?” she asks.
Eric thinks of everything the last few months have brought to him, from the shock of coming out to the now-comfortable routine romance they’ve settled in to. “Yeah,” he says. “I really do.”
What he actually feels like is a grown-up. It’s hard to explain to anyone what he means by that, really, because the automatic question is, What did you feel like before? Eric doesn’t have a good answer to that, not really; he’s felt like an adult for a long time, maybe since he turned thirteen and started handing over part of his paycheck to help with bills, maybe since the first time he got served in a bar or bought cigarettes or condoms, or moved out on his own. All of those were markers of adulthood, sure. Even Vince laughs when Eric says it. “E, you’re like the most grown-up person I know,” he says, handing over a beer.
Eric shrugs and takes the beer, decides just to let the topic drop. “I know,” he says. He really doesn’t have the words to describe the transformation.
Vince keeps looking at him curiously, and he pokes Eric’s thigh with his toes, even mutes the television. “Tell me,” he says.
Eric sighs and rubs his neck, takes a sip of his beer. There’s so much to say, he thinks, but - there’s also so much time. A lifetime ahead of them. He really believes that, he’s going to let himself trust in it. He turns to Vince, puts his hand on his cheek, looks at the ring on his finger. “It’s like the difference between playing house,” he says, watching Vince’s eyelids flutter lower, “and coming home to someone.”
Vince smiles, a small, tender smile that Eric appreciates. “I like you coming home to me,” he says.
“Yeah, me too,” Eric says. “I’m kind of getting used to it.”
“Good,” Vince says. He reaches for Eric’s beer, sets it on the coffee table, and then draws Eric close. “Because this is the way it’s going to be.”
[The End!]