Seldom Second Chances (3/12)
Title: Seldom Second Chances
Author: Clay
Pairing: Ryan/Colin
Rating: NC-17 (for later chapters)
Summary: When a freak accident drops an impossible opportunity in Ryan's lap, it's up to him to decide whether to squander it, or to change his fate by going after the one thing he's always wanted.
Word Count: ~5000
Prompt & Author's Notes: For the Thon Prompt 33: Strangled by the red string. As always, betaed by asuka14.
Chapter Three
Ryan had been driving for nearly 10 minutes when he realized he had no idea where he was going, and the scotch in his system made his mind fuzzy and slow, which wasn’t helping. He couldn’t go home, not after he’d told Pat she could stay in the house. But he didn’t have anywhere to go, either.
Letting instinct take over, he found himself back on the 101 and headed south toward Hollywood-Raleigh Studios to be more specific-but everyone would have gone home by now, and short of sleeping in his car in the lot’s parking structure, he couldn’t think of what he would actually do when he got there. He briefly considered finding the Sheraton where Colin was staying but dismissed that idea almost immediately as well.
Bitterness welled up in his throat like bile when he thought of Colin’s avoidant behavior back in… He paused the thought and gave a mental eye roll. Back in 2013, he finished, as strange as that sounded. To top it off, Colin had become downright violent at Ryan’s quirk. At the time it had concerned him, but now it made him angry. Maybe this past Colin hadn’t done that yet, but he would. Colin, Pat-they would all turn on him eventually, so no, he decided. He was going this alone. Colin could be a last resort.
Just as that thought was finishing, a sudden yawn hit him like an oncoming truck. Blinking tears from the corners of his eyes, Ryan looked to the Escalade’s clock. It was just after 1 a.m. now, and the combination of the late hour and the alcohol had him fading fast. The bitter loner act would have to wait until he’d had a good night’s sleep, he decided, as a sign for the Beverly Garland Hotel came up on his right.
And sleep he did, hitting the pillow hard and not waking until the morning sun was shining annoyingly on his face. Ryan actually got up then, but when he couldn’t think of a single legitimate reason to actually be awake, he simply closed the curtains and went back to bed for another few hours. When he finally did wake up, he ordered a lavish steak & egg breakfast from room service and ate it in bed while Good Day L.A. played quietly in the background.
“Courtesy of past-me,” he said with a smirk as he slipped the credit card back into his wallet.
He had almost accepted the fact that he had time traveled, but that didn’t mean the situation felt any less surreal. The money in his wallet almost felt like play money. It wasn’t his, and he couldn’t see any reason to be responsible with it.
On top of that, despite his wary acceptance of that particular theory, his brain was still trying to come up with a more logical explanation. Sometime over breakfast he’d decided that it was just as plausible that he’d received some kind of electric shock when he’d fallen onto that light, throwing him into a coma or something, and this was all happening in his mind. In that case, none of it was real, so he might as well enjoy himself.
There was a third option. He could be dead, making this heaven or hell or somewhere in between, but that thought was too disturbing for Ryan to entertain, so he discounted it on principle and then added some of the mini bar’s brandy to his morning coffee just to make sure the thought didn’t stick.
He stayed in bed until the staff warned him that he would be charged for another night if he didn’t check out immediately, and it was only then that he forced himself to get up and face the day.
He still had nowhere to go, so he drove around the city with no real goal in mind. He was still wearing the outfit he’d donned after the taping last night, so he stopped at a WalMart for a few t-shirts, briefs, socks, and an extra pair of jeans, then changed in the rest room. At one point he passed a sign for Monster Mini Golf and pulled over to play for an hour. Afterward, he got drive through from In & Out and sat in his car on a side street near Venice, luxuriously eating two double burgers, animal fries, and the largest soda they had as he enjoyed the cool, salty breeze off the ocean.
His phone-the Nokia, not the iPhone, though he kept them both with him-rang intermittently, but he let every call go to voice mail. The first three were from Pat, then one from his father in law, and then Pat again. After that his mother called him, then each of his brothers in turn. He was sick to death of the ring tone after that, so he just shut the phone off.
Just before 4 p.m., Ryan found himself in a hole in the wall dive bar, sipping on a beer as he tried to figure out what to do next. If this was a dream, it was shaping up to be a pretty dull one, though he was elated when he realized this was before smoking had been banned in bars. He took a drag on his cigarette, poured himself another pint from the pitcher he’d ordered, and decided to empty his pockets and see if the contents gave him any ideas about where to go next.
All he had were his cigarettes, his wallet, and the two phones. After staring at the four items for a good two minutes, he was still drawing a blank. Curious about what people had been saying to him, he picked up the Nokia and turned it back on. He figured he might as well clear out his voicemail, but he got bored after the first two messages, and just ended up shutting the phone off again. The cigarettes weren’t much help, and while Ryan admitted the wallet might have a hint as to what he should be doing or where he could be going, it was the iPhone that intrigued him.
He shoved the rest of the items back in his hoodie pocket, then lifted the slim, black machine, sipping intermittently at his beer as he studied it. It suddenly occurred to him that its existence in this time made no sense. He hadn’t kept his clothes from 2013,so why the phone? Were iPhones actually secret time machines that were activated by exploding lightbulbs? He chuckled into his pint glass at the thought. His other running theory was still the dream, however, and that one didn’t require the existence of the phone to make sense, so he started to lean toward that one again.
He unlocked the phone and studied the various icons. Everything was just the same as it had always been, Ryan thought with a frown, which mostly meant that it was just as inscrutable. This could be his only clue as to how he’d gotten here or what he was supposed to be doing, but manipulating the little boxes and whatnot were still mostly a mystery, and now he didn’t have Sam here to help him figure it out.
There were, however, a few things he did understand. Aside from the video list, which he’d gotten so familiar with as of late, there was the actual phone aspect. After a little research, he realized that he could still call out and the internet also worked, though the latter was slow to the point of being almost useless, and the majority of the phone numbers he had stored had changed in the last dozen years. He turned on the Nokia one more time just to compare.
Colin was near the top of both lists, solely due to his name being at the beginning of the alphabet, and sure enough, the contact list in the Nokia had a different number than the contact list in the iPhone. Deb’s parting words popped back up in his mind.
”You’d have to talk to him…
“I always had your number, and I never called,” Ryan mused aloud. “I wonder if that’s what had you so pissed off.” He continued to look at the numbers for a moment, curiosity prickling at the back of his mind. Finally, with a decisive nod, he selected Colin’s number on the iPhone and put it to his ear. It didn’t even ring; immediately he heard a familiar three tone chime followed by, “Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and dial again.”
That answered that, then. Feeling oddly disappointed, Ryan lay the phone back down on the table. The idea that he could talk to Colin-his Colin-however brief, had gotten him excited.
With a sigh, Ryan pushed the thought from his mind and swallowed down the rest of his beer before emptying the remains of the pitcher into his glass.
He swirled the beer thoughtfully, taking an occasional sip as he continued to explore the phone. He found it odd that, while the Nokia’s battery level had gone down significantly throughout the day, the iPhone seemed stuck at half power. It was probably for the best; Ryan didn’t have its charger with him, and he wasn’t even sure one with the same plug existed here.
His wanderings eventually took him back to the video list. He kept expecting the Party Quirks clip to make a reappearance, but it never did, and something about that bothered him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Ryan started and jerked his head up. He’d been so caught up in the phone that he hadn’t even noticed the bartender’s sudden appearance. As it was, his brain was still a few seconds behind the rest of him, and he just stared at him for a few more moments before blurting out, “What?”
“You look lost,” the bartender explained. He was young and handsome and reminded Ryan a little of Chip as he grinned and nodded to the empty pitcher. “And thirsty. Fill ‘er up for you?”
“Oh.” Ryan chuckled under his breath, thinking of the old Bartender game they used to play on the show. Chip was always the bartender. The similarities between the two didn’t go unnoticed, and Ryan thought it could be a product of his mind, adding more credence to the dream theory. “Yeah, sure.”
As the bartender went about filling up a fresh pitcher, Ryan looked back to his phone, but nothing had changed. There was still no video, and Ryan still had no idea what that meant.
“I’m not busy,” the bartender offered, placing the pitcher down on the bar. “Want to talk about it?”
Ryan sighed, not looking up. “Not really.”
“Well, if you change your mind, you know where I am.”
Ryan nodded. He thought he should be exploring the phone more, but the idea was giving him a headache. Instead, he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hrm?”
“Do you believe in time travel?”
The bartender took a moment to answer, and Ryan opened his eyes to see him leaning back against the bar’s back counter, his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t know,” he said after another moment. “Do you?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
There was a long moment of silence. The bartender continued to look at him, but Ryan had nothing more to say. Maybe it was time to stop worrying about all this and go back to having fun. He switched off the phone’s display and slipped it back into his hoodie pocket.
“What was that?” The bartender said suddenly. He was nodding to the pocket, an obvious reference to the phone.
But Ryan had no idea how to explain a device that hadn’t even been invented yet. He just shrugged and poured himself another beer.
“So, time travel, huh?”
Ryan was done with this conversation. “It’s stupid,” he said.
“No, it’s not.”
Startled, Ryan looked up to the bartender’s face again, but he wasn’t looking at Ryan now. He was looking past him, at something Ryan couldn’t see, like a memory or a dream.
“I think everyone wishes they could go back and change things from time to time,” he said quietly. “I know I do.”
“But what’s the point?” Ryan argued. “Thinking about what you could have done, what you should have done just makes reality that much worse.
“And it’s not like you can actually go back in time,” he continued. He wasn’t one much to talk with his hands, but his aggravation showed in the nearly violent bouncing of his leg. He braced his hands against his knees and sighed. “And if you could, would it matter? Could-would you actually change things, or would you end up making the same stupid mistakes over and over? Maybe life is just shit, and people need to accept that.”
“Maybe,” the bartender agreed. He tilted his head thoughtfully, a small smile on his lips. “Or maybe not.”
The after work crowd was starting to fill the bar, and the bartender found himself being beckoned by more than one new patron, effectively putting an end to the conversation. He gave them an acknowledging nod, then turned back to Ryan. “You never know until you try, right?”
Ryan watched him go. He frowned, rolling those words around in his mind. Okay, then, what if it was true, and he had traveled back in time to the year 2001. Was that what he was trying to do here? Change things? It seemed absurd. It’s not like he had a bad lot in life by far…though, like the bartender had said, everyone had things they wished they could change. He wished his marriage had gone smoother, for one.
But all he’d managed to do since coming back was to speed up the inevitable, so now he was still getting divorced, just twelve years earlier.
Frowning deeper, Ryan took a long drink from his glass. So maybe there really was no point in trying to change things. Maybe everything had a predetermined outcome and no matter what he did, every action would lead to the same inevitable conclusion. If that was the case, then why bother trying to make things better? In fact, why bother trying at all? Everything would just work out the way it was supposed to.
Invariably, Colin flashed across his mind at that thought, but Ryan managed to drown him out with another glass of beer.
* * *
Back in the parking lot, Ryan leaned his seat back and stared at the celing of his car. He really had to stop getting into cars when he was drunk or close to it, but fuck it. If this was a dream, then he should be able to fly or something, and if not, then he’d already decided that fate dictated that he’d definitely live to 2013, so he should be fine. Still, taking a moment to let the buzz pass was probably a good idea.
A sandwich truck parked in the street by the bar was his next stop, just to get some food in him, and then he was back in his car and digging through the glove compartment of the Escalade, looking for a pen and paper as an idea struck him. Eventually he came up with an old DMV envelope and a broken brown crayon; they would do. He shoved the last of the perversely delicious ham and cheese sandwich in his mouth, then gripped the envelope tightly and scrawled BUCKET LIST in all caps along one of the shorter edges.
After a second of staring at it, he crossed off the words and replaced them with a much more simple TO DO. After all, he’d decided that the theory that he was really dead was off the table, so no point in recalling that possibility.
In any case, he figured he might as well enjoy his new found youth. But the question was: what did he want to do with it?
Only one thing popped immediately to mind, and without thinking, he started to write.
Tell Colin how
But he couldn’t finish the sentence. An irrational apprehension stilled his hand, and then kicked it into overdrive as he crossed the words out.
Underneath them he wrote Have gay sex.
And that was such a strange thing to see staring back at him that he actually started to chuckle. He considered crossing it off, too, but decided against it. He felt a little queasy, but somehow emboldened, too, and the rest of the list came much more easily.
Buy a really expensive car
Get in trouble
It wasn’t a lot, but it was a start.
He gave the list one last once over, then tossed it onto the passenger’s seat with the crayon. The second item seemed the easiest place to begin, and no time like the present. He turned on the car, shifted into gear, then slipped into traffic.
* * *
An Aston Martin Vanquish was just about the sexiest damned car in the world in Ryan’s estimation. He’d craved one since seeing one in Die Another Day. It was James Bond’s car for fuck’s sake.
And now it was his, too.
He’d driven past the dealership on Roscoe any number of times, just imagining the feel of the supple leather seats underneath him, of the smooth, warm steering wheel, and now here it was, just under his fingertips. Ryan had never found an inanimate object attractive before, but he was pretty sure just sitting in the car was giving him an erection.
The body of the car was silver; its interior was more reminiscent of a hunting lodge, done up in rosy browns with metallic accents. It was technologically superior for its day, but not quite to the extent that the 2013s would have been, and that suited Ryan just fine. He could feel the power in that engine thrumming through his entire body. It could go 0 to 100 in 10 seconds, and all Ryan wanted to do was take it up Rt. 5 a couple hours north of the city. There the road was a vast, straight stretch, and it was the perfect spot to really see what the car could do.
Of course his elation probably should have been dampened by the fact that the car cost over $200,000 and that buying it just about depleted his savings, but that was for dream Ryan or future Ryan or whoever to deal with. Right now he was going to drive.
He jumped right back on the 405 and headed north, where after a short time, it merged with the 5, and soon he was skimming along smoothly on his way up toward Lost Hills. He took the first hour of driving as calmly as he could despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins. The desire to just jam his foot on the gas was growing with every mile, but he wanted to wait until he knew the road was a clear, straight shot. It had to be perfect.
The surrounding landscape quickly faded from packed city streets into wide stretches of sparse, colorless grass and distance farms. Familiar landmarks were scarce this far outside of the city, but Ryan knew that once he passed Rt. 166, the road became ramrod straight, so he waited and waited, his fingers rhythmically clenching the steering wheel with anticipation.
The moment he saw the sign for 166’s exit ramp, a shiver of excitement ghosted up his spine. Finally, almost reverently, he gripped the steering wheel and pressed down on the gas, his foot sinking further and further until the pedal almost touched the floor.
In a matter of seconds he was jetting down the highway at 120 miles per hour. The car topped out at just over 200, but he didn’t dare go that fast. He hovered at 120 for a minute, then dropped down to pass a minivan, then back up again, this time to 140. Horns blared all around as he nearly flew down the road. He swerved to avoid another car, then another, his insides a wonderful, anxious mess, and a wild grin splitting his face.
A sedan seemed to appear in front of him out of nowhere, and Ryan yanked hard on the steering wheel, jumping off the road and into the patchy grass that ran alongside it, kicking up dust as he slammed his foot back down on the gas and roared past the car before cutting back onto the road in front of him.
He drove like that for nearly 15 minutes, veering between cars, whooping and cackling and damn near pissing himself with fear a few times before he decided it might be time to slow down or even head back before he got himself in too much trouble. Even in a dream there was bound to be cops, and he was lucky he hadn’t drawn the attention of any during his joy ride. Dropping down to an only slightly more modest 70 mph, he cut across traffic and shot down the exit for Rt. 58.
The end of the exit ramp bore a smattering of gas stations. He chose one at random, screeched up to the pump, then quickly jammed on the break, put the car in park and jumped out with the engine still running. Adrenaline was still singing in his veins. He felt ansty and desperately needed to do a lap around the gas station or do a thousand jumping jacks or anything to get all of that energy out of his system. Throwing his head back, he spread his arms and let out a primal scream. He could see out of the corner of his eye that he’d startled a small family and an elderly man heading back to his car, but he didn’t care.
When he’d finished, he dropped his head back down to his chest, leaned back against the car, and laughed. His throat was raw, and his bladder was full to bursting. He was getting some of the strangest looks he’d ever been on the receiving end of…and he’d never been happier in his entire life.
“Hooligan,” the old man muttered, eyeing Ryan up suspiciously as he sidled to his own shoddy station wagon.
Ryan grinned at him. “Damn straight.”
* * *
He only stayed at the gas station long enough to fill up the tank, have a piss, and grab a cheap microwave burrito, which he happily munched on as he headed back to L.A., not even caring when a huge dollop of greasy cheese plopped on the fine, soft leather seat beside him.
The drive home was significantly less exciting than the drive up had been, but there was very little that could ruin the sheer joy of riding in such a gorgeous car, even if he was obeying the speed limit this time. Ryan figured he’d pressed his luck far enough. He passed a number of police cars on the way back, so he guessed that his erratic driving from earlier must have been reported by more than a few motorists. He only hoped he’d been going too fast for anyone to catch his plates, or rather lack thereof considering the newness of the car. Even if this was a dream, he figured he’d enjoy it a lot more if he managed to stay out of jail.
He made it back to L.A.’s city limits with no incidents. It was getting late-nearly 10:30 at night-but Ryan was still keyed up from the day’s activities. He was eager to get back to marking things off his list, and finding a bed was the last thing on his mind. At least, he thought with a smirk, finding a bed alone.
Without looking, he reached over, flipped open the glove box, then dug around until he found his makeshift list. Two items left: Have gay sex and Get in trouble.
He chuckled at the latter. If he kept going the way he was going, that wasn’t going to be a problem. Now the former, however…
The printed words made his stomach tumble about with a mixture of eagerness and unease. Of course he was curious to try it out. The item wouldn’t be on the list otherwise, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t apprehensive about the concept as well. There were certain unanswered and often even unasked questions that loomed over him his entire life, getting bigger and bigger until he couldn’t ignore their ominous shadows any longer. Maybe the biggest one of them was his sexuality. He’d always been content with women until he’d met-no, he wasn’t ready to go there yet. Regardless, at one point in his life, what had always seemed so certain suddenly wasn’t. Then there’d been a feeling here, a curiosity there, an odd arousal or stray thought, until finally he knew he had to find out what it would be like with another man, but by then he just figured it was too late. He’d been with Pat for over half his life; there were kids and his career to consider, and no one to experience it with besides.
But now he had his chance.
Ryan carefully wove his way through the city toward West Hollywood. Like the Aston Martin dealership, the large number of gay bars and clubs found there were places he’d only viewed from afar during his years in Los Angeles, and even now it took him a few false starts before he finally took the plunge and turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard.
The street was alive with lights, colors, and people, and it scared Ryan far more than anything had in a long time. He could address a crowd of thousands like it was nothing, and hell, pretending to be gay was almost second nature. Even his earlier antics weaving between cars at drastically unsafe speeds where one mistake would mean death seemed like a walk in the park compared to this.
Any obvious club or bar seemed to have rainbow flags hung on the side of the building, streamers in the trees, or any other number of gaudy accoutrements. Even the names of some of these places were spelled out in a rainbow, and Ryan couldn’t imagine entering a single one of them. Something about just stepping foot inside such an out and proud club would make this whole experiment far too real, and he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. This had to be done his way, on his terms, and those sure as hell didn’t include any glitter, colored lights, or men dressed in feather boas and 4 inch heels.
He drove to the end of the block, and then past another and another without finding any place that felt right. For a moment, he considered just forgetting the whole thing, but then he caught the flash of a street lamp over the list on the seat beside him, the envelope back to being his silent passenger, and he forced himself to man up and pull over. He found a spot in front of a check cashing place and fed the meter before trying his luck on foot.
But up close, the bars and clubs seemed even crazier, and his apprehension almost doubled. It wasn’t all gay men; there was the occasional celebrity and other well dressed men and women who patronized the more upscale restaurants he saw dotting the street between clubs and other stores. Even the paparazzi that milled about, lounging against walls and in back alleys didn’t bother him. It was the throbbing music that spilled into the street every time a door opened; it was the groups of half naked men gathered in clusters on the sidewalk and in gardens and doorways. He could feel eyes on him, heads craning to watch him pass, and it left him feeling oddly vulnerable.
And what was more, there was an obvious glamour to the patrons here, whether they dressed in $1,500 Jimmy Choo pumps or $5 thrift store flip flops. There was an air about these people that reminded Ryan why he left L.A. in the first place. For the first time he worried that even had he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to get into one of these places dressed in his WalMart jeans and t-shirt. He’d gotten used to his fame opening doors for him, and to think that that wouldn’t work here was a wake up call.
At least he couldn’t feel any worse, he thought sardonically.
Finally he came upon a nondescript building shoved between two much larger, much gaudier monstrosities. It had tan vertical siding and burgundy awnings, with the name-Mother Lode-perched over the door. It looked like any other dive bar he’d gone to in his 20s, and the sight of it immediately had him slowing down for a full inspection.
Through the front windows, he could see that the place was packed, but there were no colored or flashing lights, and the people he saw streaming in and out of the doors looked like they dressed more for comfort than style. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.
Ryan sucked in a steadying breath and lifted his chin. Here, he thought. Here he would make his stand. If he was going to try this whole gay thing out, then this place seemed his best bet, and there was no way he was going to let himself back out after having gotten this far.
With a nod, Ryan whispered to himself, “You got this,” and took a step toward the bar.
To be continued...
Author: Clay
Pairing: Ryan/Colin
Rating: NC-17 (for later chapters)
Summary: When a freak accident drops an impossible opportunity in Ryan's lap, it's up to him to decide whether to squander it, or to change his fate by going after the one thing he's always wanted.
Word Count: ~5000
Prompt & Author's Notes: For the Thon Prompt 33: Strangled by the red string. As always, betaed by asuka14.
Chapter Three
Ryan had been driving for nearly 10 minutes when he realized he had no idea where he was going, and the scotch in his system made his mind fuzzy and slow, which wasn’t helping. He couldn’t go home, not after he’d told Pat she could stay in the house. But he didn’t have anywhere to go, either.
Letting instinct take over, he found himself back on the 101 and headed south toward Hollywood-Raleigh Studios to be more specific-but everyone would have gone home by now, and short of sleeping in his car in the lot’s parking structure, he couldn’t think of what he would actually do when he got there. He briefly considered finding the Sheraton where Colin was staying but dismissed that idea almost immediately as well.
Bitterness welled up in his throat like bile when he thought of Colin’s avoidant behavior back in… He paused the thought and gave a mental eye roll. Back in 2013, he finished, as strange as that sounded. To top it off, Colin had become downright violent at Ryan’s quirk. At the time it had concerned him, but now it made him angry. Maybe this past Colin hadn’t done that yet, but he would. Colin, Pat-they would all turn on him eventually, so no, he decided. He was going this alone. Colin could be a last resort.
Just as that thought was finishing, a sudden yawn hit him like an oncoming truck. Blinking tears from the corners of his eyes, Ryan looked to the Escalade’s clock. It was just after 1 a.m. now, and the combination of the late hour and the alcohol had him fading fast. The bitter loner act would have to wait until he’d had a good night’s sleep, he decided, as a sign for the Beverly Garland Hotel came up on his right.
And sleep he did, hitting the pillow hard and not waking until the morning sun was shining annoyingly on his face. Ryan actually got up then, but when he couldn’t think of a single legitimate reason to actually be awake, he simply closed the curtains and went back to bed for another few hours. When he finally did wake up, he ordered a lavish steak & egg breakfast from room service and ate it in bed while Good Day L.A. played quietly in the background.
“Courtesy of past-me,” he said with a smirk as he slipped the credit card back into his wallet.
He had almost accepted the fact that he had time traveled, but that didn’t mean the situation felt any less surreal. The money in his wallet almost felt like play money. It wasn’t his, and he couldn’t see any reason to be responsible with it.
On top of that, despite his wary acceptance of that particular theory, his brain was still trying to come up with a more logical explanation. Sometime over breakfast he’d decided that it was just as plausible that he’d received some kind of electric shock when he’d fallen onto that light, throwing him into a coma or something, and this was all happening in his mind. In that case, none of it was real, so he might as well enjoy himself.
There was a third option. He could be dead, making this heaven or hell or somewhere in between, but that thought was too disturbing for Ryan to entertain, so he discounted it on principle and then added some of the mini bar’s brandy to his morning coffee just to make sure the thought didn’t stick.
He stayed in bed until the staff warned him that he would be charged for another night if he didn’t check out immediately, and it was only then that he forced himself to get up and face the day.
He still had nowhere to go, so he drove around the city with no real goal in mind. He was still wearing the outfit he’d donned after the taping last night, so he stopped at a WalMart for a few t-shirts, briefs, socks, and an extra pair of jeans, then changed in the rest room. At one point he passed a sign for Monster Mini Golf and pulled over to play for an hour. Afterward, he got drive through from In & Out and sat in his car on a side street near Venice, luxuriously eating two double burgers, animal fries, and the largest soda they had as he enjoyed the cool, salty breeze off the ocean.
His phone-the Nokia, not the iPhone, though he kept them both with him-rang intermittently, but he let every call go to voice mail. The first three were from Pat, then one from his father in law, and then Pat again. After that his mother called him, then each of his brothers in turn. He was sick to death of the ring tone after that, so he just shut the phone off.
Just before 4 p.m., Ryan found himself in a hole in the wall dive bar, sipping on a beer as he tried to figure out what to do next. If this was a dream, it was shaping up to be a pretty dull one, though he was elated when he realized this was before smoking had been banned in bars. He took a drag on his cigarette, poured himself another pint from the pitcher he’d ordered, and decided to empty his pockets and see if the contents gave him any ideas about where to go next.
All he had were his cigarettes, his wallet, and the two phones. After staring at the four items for a good two minutes, he was still drawing a blank. Curious about what people had been saying to him, he picked up the Nokia and turned it back on. He figured he might as well clear out his voicemail, but he got bored after the first two messages, and just ended up shutting the phone off again. The cigarettes weren’t much help, and while Ryan admitted the wallet might have a hint as to what he should be doing or where he could be going, it was the iPhone that intrigued him.
He shoved the rest of the items back in his hoodie pocket, then lifted the slim, black machine, sipping intermittently at his beer as he studied it. It suddenly occurred to him that its existence in this time made no sense. He hadn’t kept his clothes from 2013,so why the phone? Were iPhones actually secret time machines that were activated by exploding lightbulbs? He chuckled into his pint glass at the thought. His other running theory was still the dream, however, and that one didn’t require the existence of the phone to make sense, so he started to lean toward that one again.
He unlocked the phone and studied the various icons. Everything was just the same as it had always been, Ryan thought with a frown, which mostly meant that it was just as inscrutable. This could be his only clue as to how he’d gotten here or what he was supposed to be doing, but manipulating the little boxes and whatnot were still mostly a mystery, and now he didn’t have Sam here to help him figure it out.
There were, however, a few things he did understand. Aside from the video list, which he’d gotten so familiar with as of late, there was the actual phone aspect. After a little research, he realized that he could still call out and the internet also worked, though the latter was slow to the point of being almost useless, and the majority of the phone numbers he had stored had changed in the last dozen years. He turned on the Nokia one more time just to compare.
Colin was near the top of both lists, solely due to his name being at the beginning of the alphabet, and sure enough, the contact list in the Nokia had a different number than the contact list in the iPhone. Deb’s parting words popped back up in his mind.
”You’d have to talk to him…
“I always had your number, and I never called,” Ryan mused aloud. “I wonder if that’s what had you so pissed off.” He continued to look at the numbers for a moment, curiosity prickling at the back of his mind. Finally, with a decisive nod, he selected Colin’s number on the iPhone and put it to his ear. It didn’t even ring; immediately he heard a familiar three tone chime followed by, “Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and dial again.”
That answered that, then. Feeling oddly disappointed, Ryan lay the phone back down on the table. The idea that he could talk to Colin-his Colin-however brief, had gotten him excited.
With a sigh, Ryan pushed the thought from his mind and swallowed down the rest of his beer before emptying the remains of the pitcher into his glass.
He swirled the beer thoughtfully, taking an occasional sip as he continued to explore the phone. He found it odd that, while the Nokia’s battery level had gone down significantly throughout the day, the iPhone seemed stuck at half power. It was probably for the best; Ryan didn’t have its charger with him, and he wasn’t even sure one with the same plug existed here.
His wanderings eventually took him back to the video list. He kept expecting the Party Quirks clip to make a reappearance, but it never did, and something about that bothered him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Ryan started and jerked his head up. He’d been so caught up in the phone that he hadn’t even noticed the bartender’s sudden appearance. As it was, his brain was still a few seconds behind the rest of him, and he just stared at him for a few more moments before blurting out, “What?”
“You look lost,” the bartender explained. He was young and handsome and reminded Ryan a little of Chip as he grinned and nodded to the empty pitcher. “And thirsty. Fill ‘er up for you?”
“Oh.” Ryan chuckled under his breath, thinking of the old Bartender game they used to play on the show. Chip was always the bartender. The similarities between the two didn’t go unnoticed, and Ryan thought it could be a product of his mind, adding more credence to the dream theory. “Yeah, sure.”
As the bartender went about filling up a fresh pitcher, Ryan looked back to his phone, but nothing had changed. There was still no video, and Ryan still had no idea what that meant.
“I’m not busy,” the bartender offered, placing the pitcher down on the bar. “Want to talk about it?”
Ryan sighed, not looking up. “Not really.”
“Well, if you change your mind, you know where I am.”
Ryan nodded. He thought he should be exploring the phone more, but the idea was giving him a headache. Instead, he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hrm?”
“Do you believe in time travel?”
The bartender took a moment to answer, and Ryan opened his eyes to see him leaning back against the bar’s back counter, his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t know,” he said after another moment. “Do you?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
There was a long moment of silence. The bartender continued to look at him, but Ryan had nothing more to say. Maybe it was time to stop worrying about all this and go back to having fun. He switched off the phone’s display and slipped it back into his hoodie pocket.
“What was that?” The bartender said suddenly. He was nodding to the pocket, an obvious reference to the phone.
But Ryan had no idea how to explain a device that hadn’t even been invented yet. He just shrugged and poured himself another beer.
“So, time travel, huh?”
Ryan was done with this conversation. “It’s stupid,” he said.
“No, it’s not.”
Startled, Ryan looked up to the bartender’s face again, but he wasn’t looking at Ryan now. He was looking past him, at something Ryan couldn’t see, like a memory or a dream.
“I think everyone wishes they could go back and change things from time to time,” he said quietly. “I know I do.”
“But what’s the point?” Ryan argued. “Thinking about what you could have done, what you should have done just makes reality that much worse.
“And it’s not like you can actually go back in time,” he continued. He wasn’t one much to talk with his hands, but his aggravation showed in the nearly violent bouncing of his leg. He braced his hands against his knees and sighed. “And if you could, would it matter? Could-would you actually change things, or would you end up making the same stupid mistakes over and over? Maybe life is just shit, and people need to accept that.”
“Maybe,” the bartender agreed. He tilted his head thoughtfully, a small smile on his lips. “Or maybe not.”
The after work crowd was starting to fill the bar, and the bartender found himself being beckoned by more than one new patron, effectively putting an end to the conversation. He gave them an acknowledging nod, then turned back to Ryan. “You never know until you try, right?”
Ryan watched him go. He frowned, rolling those words around in his mind. Okay, then, what if it was true, and he had traveled back in time to the year 2001. Was that what he was trying to do here? Change things? It seemed absurd. It’s not like he had a bad lot in life by far…though, like the bartender had said, everyone had things they wished they could change. He wished his marriage had gone smoother, for one.
But all he’d managed to do since coming back was to speed up the inevitable, so now he was still getting divorced, just twelve years earlier.
Frowning deeper, Ryan took a long drink from his glass. So maybe there really was no point in trying to change things. Maybe everything had a predetermined outcome and no matter what he did, every action would lead to the same inevitable conclusion. If that was the case, then why bother trying to make things better? In fact, why bother trying at all? Everything would just work out the way it was supposed to.
Invariably, Colin flashed across his mind at that thought, but Ryan managed to drown him out with another glass of beer.
* * *
Back in the parking lot, Ryan leaned his seat back and stared at the celing of his car. He really had to stop getting into cars when he was drunk or close to it, but fuck it. If this was a dream, then he should be able to fly or something, and if not, then he’d already decided that fate dictated that he’d definitely live to 2013, so he should be fine. Still, taking a moment to let the buzz pass was probably a good idea.
A sandwich truck parked in the street by the bar was his next stop, just to get some food in him, and then he was back in his car and digging through the glove compartment of the Escalade, looking for a pen and paper as an idea struck him. Eventually he came up with an old DMV envelope and a broken brown crayon; they would do. He shoved the last of the perversely delicious ham and cheese sandwich in his mouth, then gripped the envelope tightly and scrawled BUCKET LIST in all caps along one of the shorter edges.
After a second of staring at it, he crossed off the words and replaced them with a much more simple TO DO. After all, he’d decided that the theory that he was really dead was off the table, so no point in recalling that possibility.
In any case, he figured he might as well enjoy his new found youth. But the question was: what did he want to do with it?
Only one thing popped immediately to mind, and without thinking, he started to write.
Tell Colin how
But he couldn’t finish the sentence. An irrational apprehension stilled his hand, and then kicked it into overdrive as he crossed the words out.
Underneath them he wrote Have gay sex.
And that was such a strange thing to see staring back at him that he actually started to chuckle. He considered crossing it off, too, but decided against it. He felt a little queasy, but somehow emboldened, too, and the rest of the list came much more easily.
Buy a really expensive car
Get in trouble
It wasn’t a lot, but it was a start.
He gave the list one last once over, then tossed it onto the passenger’s seat with the crayon. The second item seemed the easiest place to begin, and no time like the present. He turned on the car, shifted into gear, then slipped into traffic.
* * *
An Aston Martin Vanquish was just about the sexiest damned car in the world in Ryan’s estimation. He’d craved one since seeing one in Die Another Day. It was James Bond’s car for fuck’s sake.
And now it was his, too.
He’d driven past the dealership on Roscoe any number of times, just imagining the feel of the supple leather seats underneath him, of the smooth, warm steering wheel, and now here it was, just under his fingertips. Ryan had never found an inanimate object attractive before, but he was pretty sure just sitting in the car was giving him an erection.
The body of the car was silver; its interior was more reminiscent of a hunting lodge, done up in rosy browns with metallic accents. It was technologically superior for its day, but not quite to the extent that the 2013s would have been, and that suited Ryan just fine. He could feel the power in that engine thrumming through his entire body. It could go 0 to 100 in 10 seconds, and all Ryan wanted to do was take it up Rt. 5 a couple hours north of the city. There the road was a vast, straight stretch, and it was the perfect spot to really see what the car could do.
Of course his elation probably should have been dampened by the fact that the car cost over $200,000 and that buying it just about depleted his savings, but that was for dream Ryan or future Ryan or whoever to deal with. Right now he was going to drive.
He jumped right back on the 405 and headed north, where after a short time, it merged with the 5, and soon he was skimming along smoothly on his way up toward Lost Hills. He took the first hour of driving as calmly as he could despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins. The desire to just jam his foot on the gas was growing with every mile, but he wanted to wait until he knew the road was a clear, straight shot. It had to be perfect.
The surrounding landscape quickly faded from packed city streets into wide stretches of sparse, colorless grass and distance farms. Familiar landmarks were scarce this far outside of the city, but Ryan knew that once he passed Rt. 166, the road became ramrod straight, so he waited and waited, his fingers rhythmically clenching the steering wheel with anticipation.
The moment he saw the sign for 166’s exit ramp, a shiver of excitement ghosted up his spine. Finally, almost reverently, he gripped the steering wheel and pressed down on the gas, his foot sinking further and further until the pedal almost touched the floor.
In a matter of seconds he was jetting down the highway at 120 miles per hour. The car topped out at just over 200, but he didn’t dare go that fast. He hovered at 120 for a minute, then dropped down to pass a minivan, then back up again, this time to 140. Horns blared all around as he nearly flew down the road. He swerved to avoid another car, then another, his insides a wonderful, anxious mess, and a wild grin splitting his face.
A sedan seemed to appear in front of him out of nowhere, and Ryan yanked hard on the steering wheel, jumping off the road and into the patchy grass that ran alongside it, kicking up dust as he slammed his foot back down on the gas and roared past the car before cutting back onto the road in front of him.
He drove like that for nearly 15 minutes, veering between cars, whooping and cackling and damn near pissing himself with fear a few times before he decided it might be time to slow down or even head back before he got himself in too much trouble. Even in a dream there was bound to be cops, and he was lucky he hadn’t drawn the attention of any during his joy ride. Dropping down to an only slightly more modest 70 mph, he cut across traffic and shot down the exit for Rt. 58.
The end of the exit ramp bore a smattering of gas stations. He chose one at random, screeched up to the pump, then quickly jammed on the break, put the car in park and jumped out with the engine still running. Adrenaline was still singing in his veins. He felt ansty and desperately needed to do a lap around the gas station or do a thousand jumping jacks or anything to get all of that energy out of his system. Throwing his head back, he spread his arms and let out a primal scream. He could see out of the corner of his eye that he’d startled a small family and an elderly man heading back to his car, but he didn’t care.
When he’d finished, he dropped his head back down to his chest, leaned back against the car, and laughed. His throat was raw, and his bladder was full to bursting. He was getting some of the strangest looks he’d ever been on the receiving end of…and he’d never been happier in his entire life.
“Hooligan,” the old man muttered, eyeing Ryan up suspiciously as he sidled to his own shoddy station wagon.
Ryan grinned at him. “Damn straight.”
* * *
He only stayed at the gas station long enough to fill up the tank, have a piss, and grab a cheap microwave burrito, which he happily munched on as he headed back to L.A., not even caring when a huge dollop of greasy cheese plopped on the fine, soft leather seat beside him.
The drive home was significantly less exciting than the drive up had been, but there was very little that could ruin the sheer joy of riding in such a gorgeous car, even if he was obeying the speed limit this time. Ryan figured he’d pressed his luck far enough. He passed a number of police cars on the way back, so he guessed that his erratic driving from earlier must have been reported by more than a few motorists. He only hoped he’d been going too fast for anyone to catch his plates, or rather lack thereof considering the newness of the car. Even if this was a dream, he figured he’d enjoy it a lot more if he managed to stay out of jail.
He made it back to L.A.’s city limits with no incidents. It was getting late-nearly 10:30 at night-but Ryan was still keyed up from the day’s activities. He was eager to get back to marking things off his list, and finding a bed was the last thing on his mind. At least, he thought with a smirk, finding a bed alone.
Without looking, he reached over, flipped open the glove box, then dug around until he found his makeshift list. Two items left: Have gay sex and Get in trouble.
He chuckled at the latter. If he kept going the way he was going, that wasn’t going to be a problem. Now the former, however…
The printed words made his stomach tumble about with a mixture of eagerness and unease. Of course he was curious to try it out. The item wouldn’t be on the list otherwise, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t apprehensive about the concept as well. There were certain unanswered and often even unasked questions that loomed over him his entire life, getting bigger and bigger until he couldn’t ignore their ominous shadows any longer. Maybe the biggest one of them was his sexuality. He’d always been content with women until he’d met-no, he wasn’t ready to go there yet. Regardless, at one point in his life, what had always seemed so certain suddenly wasn’t. Then there’d been a feeling here, a curiosity there, an odd arousal or stray thought, until finally he knew he had to find out what it would be like with another man, but by then he just figured it was too late. He’d been with Pat for over half his life; there were kids and his career to consider, and no one to experience it with besides.
But now he had his chance.
Ryan carefully wove his way through the city toward West Hollywood. Like the Aston Martin dealership, the large number of gay bars and clubs found there were places he’d only viewed from afar during his years in Los Angeles, and even now it took him a few false starts before he finally took the plunge and turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard.
The street was alive with lights, colors, and people, and it scared Ryan far more than anything had in a long time. He could address a crowd of thousands like it was nothing, and hell, pretending to be gay was almost second nature. Even his earlier antics weaving between cars at drastically unsafe speeds where one mistake would mean death seemed like a walk in the park compared to this.
Any obvious club or bar seemed to have rainbow flags hung on the side of the building, streamers in the trees, or any other number of gaudy accoutrements. Even the names of some of these places were spelled out in a rainbow, and Ryan couldn’t imagine entering a single one of them. Something about just stepping foot inside such an out and proud club would make this whole experiment far too real, and he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. This had to be done his way, on his terms, and those sure as hell didn’t include any glitter, colored lights, or men dressed in feather boas and 4 inch heels.
He drove to the end of the block, and then past another and another without finding any place that felt right. For a moment, he considered just forgetting the whole thing, but then he caught the flash of a street lamp over the list on the seat beside him, the envelope back to being his silent passenger, and he forced himself to man up and pull over. He found a spot in front of a check cashing place and fed the meter before trying his luck on foot.
But up close, the bars and clubs seemed even crazier, and his apprehension almost doubled. It wasn’t all gay men; there was the occasional celebrity and other well dressed men and women who patronized the more upscale restaurants he saw dotting the street between clubs and other stores. Even the paparazzi that milled about, lounging against walls and in back alleys didn’t bother him. It was the throbbing music that spilled into the street every time a door opened; it was the groups of half naked men gathered in clusters on the sidewalk and in gardens and doorways. He could feel eyes on him, heads craning to watch him pass, and it left him feeling oddly vulnerable.
And what was more, there was an obvious glamour to the patrons here, whether they dressed in $1,500 Jimmy Choo pumps or $5 thrift store flip flops. There was an air about these people that reminded Ryan why he left L.A. in the first place. For the first time he worried that even had he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to get into one of these places dressed in his WalMart jeans and t-shirt. He’d gotten used to his fame opening doors for him, and to think that that wouldn’t work here was a wake up call.
At least he couldn’t feel any worse, he thought sardonically.
Finally he came upon a nondescript building shoved between two much larger, much gaudier monstrosities. It had tan vertical siding and burgundy awnings, with the name-Mother Lode-perched over the door. It looked like any other dive bar he’d gone to in his 20s, and the sight of it immediately had him slowing down for a full inspection.
Through the front windows, he could see that the place was packed, but there were no colored or flashing lights, and the people he saw streaming in and out of the doors looked like they dressed more for comfort than style. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.
Ryan sucked in a steadying breath and lifted his chin. Here, he thought. Here he would make his stand. If he was going to try this whole gay thing out, then this place seemed his best bet, and there was no way he was going to let himself back out after having gotten this far.
With a nod, Ryan whispered to himself, “You got this,” and took a step toward the bar.
To be continued...