“Your blue-eyed potato farmer?” Lucia asks while giving head to her vape.
“They farm sugar beets in Idaho too.” I follow his Instagram—Adam Scott Bailey—his handle is just his first and last name with a few numbers behind it. The utilitarian efficiency of the name intrigues me. He’s either extremely unimaginative or heterosexual. Obviously, I’d prefer if it were the former. Beautiful people shouldn’t be bothered by thinking. It gives them wrinkles and irritable bowel syndrome. And if it’s the latter, well, I’m always up for the challenge.
“We’re going then,” Lucia says. She knows when my hunting instincts have kicked in.
“I like art. You like art. It will be good to support our dear friend Elliot.”
“YouhateElliot Anderson.”
“But I don’t hate his beautiful diamond-eyed muse.”
“Send me the date. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Do you think he’ll be there?” I ask. She knows I mean Adam. I couldn’t give two shits about Elliot.
“Knowing Elliot, he’d insist,” she says, alluding to Elliot’s habit of fixating on beautiful, unattainable men.
“Then someone must rescue dear Adam from Elliot’s depravity.”
Lucia shakes her head while I pour her the last dribble of champagne. “Your ability to make yourself the hero in any given situation is truly astonishing,” she says.
“Thank you, gorgeous. Now, let’s finish up here. I need a haircut and a facial. And, Lucia,” I lay my hand over hers to convey the importance of my ask. “Let’s find outeverythingwe can about this Beautiful Adam.”
* * *
“His social mediaaccounts are all less than two years old,” Lucia says to me on our way to Elliot’s art show in downtown L.A. I spent the day poolside at my residence in West Hollywood and picked up Lucia from her condo on Melrose en route. It’s a newly renovated development, extremely tasteful, and just a couple blocks from where Paramount has their studios. One of our favorite summer pastimes is to day drink on her balcony and try to spot celebrities as they’re entering or leaving the compound.
“All of them?” I ask.
“His earliest photos are of his dog right before it had to be put down—which, sad by the way, the fish he caught with his older, fine-ass brother on some rustic-looking boat, and baseball.”
“Baseball? That sounds highly heterosexual. Any crop-tops or rompers?”
“Not a one, but he posed for Pride a couple weeks ago wearing this.” She flashes me her screen where I find Adam draped in a rainbow flag and nothing else. Abs, quads, and nipples, oh my! His tiny, perfect little rosebuds would tempt even a straight man.
“If he’s no homo, then he is a true ally to the cause,” I remark. A car honks and I swerve back into my lane. “What have I told you about distracting me while I drive, Lucia?”
“You’re a terrible driver even when you pay attention.”
“How old is he, can you tell?”
“Twenty.”
I groan. “What did we say about under twenty-ones?”
“We’re not dating them anymore,” she answers matter-of-factly.
But perhaps I can make an exception?
I say to Lucia, “So, the ambiguously gay, twunky Adam decides at the ripe old age of eighteen that he suddenly wants to be active on social media. What gives?”
“Conservative parents?”
“Can you tell where he’s from?”
“Somewhere with trees?”
“Helpful.”
