Billy:Did you sign something?
Quentin:No, it’s a good-faith agreement
Billy:At least you got free concert tickets. My sister will be jealous.
Quentin:LOL, she can have them. I don’t want them.
Billy:Good luck with lunch.
Quentin:Thanks, pray for me, or burn some incense or something.
Joel was already annoyed that he had to go to lunch with Quentin, and now Quentin was late to lunch. They were supposed to meet at 11:00 a.m., which would already delay Joel getting back to Los Angeles, and now it was 11:15, and Quentin hadn’t arrived. The tapas place was dimly lit and elegant, with cheerful, discreet waitstaff and a nice vibe to it. On a normal occasion, he would’ve enjoyed eating at a place like this, but knowing that he’d be meeting Quentin here, he felt like he was in prison.
He had skimmed the file Shivonne had sent him, which had some basic information about Quentin. Quentin was twenty-five and had played for the NHL for three years. He was the captain of the Boston Minutemen and played center, whatever that meant. Joel didn’t watch many sports, and he never watched hockey. Quentin was from Colorado, had played hockey in college, and had been drafted to the NHL right out of college. He was apparently a very good player and very popular with his fans. He had many fans, and more of them seemed to come from his online presence than from his hockey. Joel didn’t use social media, so he had never seen any of Quentin’s videos, but Shivonne had kindly included links to some of Quentin’s more popular videos, which were mostly videos of him dancing in hockey gear or shirtless.
Joel snorted. Another jock using his body to get likes, views, and followers. Typical.
He had to admit, Quentin had a nice body, objectively speaking. And if you had it, might as well use it.
Joel’s management team had carefully cultivated his image to be the perfect balance of sweet and sexual. None of his songs were explicitly sexual, though he’d pushed the envelope a bit on his latest album. He wanted to write rawer, more honest songs, but the record label said that they didn’t want him to leave behind his “cleaner” image from his days as a teen idol. He wasn’t that boy anymore, though, and he didn’t want to write and perform that type of music. He was twenty-five, a young man, and he wanted to explore more mature topics in his art.
There was another problem with that.
Joel had limited sexual experience because he had rarely felt romantically or sexually attracted to another person. The record label and his managers had arranged some PR “romances” for him when he was in his teens, mostly with young actresses, models, or pop stars, but he’d never been interested in them beyond friendship. He had spent his adolescence and his twenties in the public eye, with little privacy, and that was not an easy way to grow up. He hadn’t had the freedom or privacy to explore and understand himself as people who weren’t famous had. He regretted that, sometimes, and didn’t like how his choices were always available for public scrutiny.
The few times that Joel had felt genuine interest in another person, that person had been another man, or at least masculine-presenting. He had had a few short-lived sexual relationships with other men, and those relationships had always been protected by ironclad NDAs. It was a secret that only he knew. His lawyers had an idea, but they didn’t know the details. All they knew was that he had relationships he wanted to keep secret.
Joel knew that he likely fell under the larger umbrella of queer, though he didn’t want to publicly label his sexuality. He didn’t think he owed that to his fans, and he hated when his fans and the media speculated about his sexuality. When he had still been in Good Treble, a whole faction of fans who’d “shipped” him with one of his bandmates, Dexter. They’d tried to laugh it off together, but their management had been afraid of the rumors and had forbidden Joel and Dexter from going out together without other bandmates and forbidden them from showing any platonic affection onstage. The rules had made Joel uncomfortable. It made it seem like queerness was something he and Dexter should be ashamed of, and something that needed to be hidden. It was the first time that his management had suggested that Joel and his bandmates needed to be explicitly heterosexual in order to sell music. They were teen heartthrobs, and their target audience was largely made up of girls and young women. Joel’s audience had expanded now that he was a solo artist, but he knew that his image still sold a fantasy of him as the perfect boyfriend.
He just wanted his freedom.
He was shaken from his reverie by the sight of Quentin Hartley entering the restaurant, and his stomach instantly twisted into uncomfortable knots. EvenseeingQuentin made him irrationally angry and uncomfortable. He felt sorry about Quentin’s nose, but it hadn’t been intentional. And some uncharitable part of him thought that it served Quentin right, getting bopped in the face, after how frustrating and annoying he’d been all week.
The hockey player didn’t look any happier to be there than Joel. He slouched over to the table where Joel was sitting, pulled out a chair, and fell into it.
“You’re late,” Joel said flatly.
“Whoops,” Quentin said, his voice bored. “There was traffic. You know. New York.”
“I went ahead and ordered food,” Joel said. “That way we can get this over with as soon as possible.”
“Good. I don’t want to stay.”
Joel didn’t want to spend time with Quentin, but it pissed him off that Quentin didn’t want to spend time with him.
I’m famously a fucking delight,he thought.
A waiter blessedly brought the appetizers and offered them the menu for cocktails. Joel ordered a French 75, and Quentin ordered an Old Fashioned. Joel knew he’d need some alcohol to get through the torture of this lunch.
That sat in uncomfortable silence until the drinks arrived.
“We’re supposed to look like we’re having fun,” Quentin said. His nose was swollen, and both of his eyes were bruised. It gave him a haunted look. Joel felt another twinge of guilt.
“How’s your nose?” he asked.
“That’s a fun topic,” Quentin said sarcastically.
“Just trying to make conversation.”
