Then he turned toward the DVD player and pushed a button. It felt good talking to Kenny about these things. He only wished that craving for a drink would go away, at least for a few minutes. He wanted one even more now than earlier.
Chapter Seven
"I wanted to talk to you about something," Evan said. It was Saturday morning and Evan had been disrupted from a deep sleep a half hour earlier thanks to Kenny's music and all the banging around he'd done in the kitchen. It was the first time he'd been up before ten in the morning in long time.
"How's Kenny?" Jeffery asked. He was calling from the West Coast. "Did he move in last night? I haven't spoken to him yet."
Evan yawned and said, "He's fine. He moved in last night, and this morning I woke to the lovely sound of Mumford & Sons blasting in the kitchen. He went to football practice." Actually, Evan liked Mumford & Sons, but not before noon on a Saturday.
Jeffery whispered something Evan couldn't make out. "Do you have someone in bed with you right now?" Evan asked.
"I thought we agreed not to discuss it when we have sex with other people," Jeffery said.
They had agreed to this, only Evan hadn't been happy about it then and he still wasn't happy about it now, all these years later. The thought of another man in bed with his husband made him want to throw the phone across the room. But he couldn't complain, so he said, "I can call you back later when you're alone."
"No," Jeffery said. "He just went into the shower. I can talk."
Evan rolled his eyes and took a quick breath. It was all so casual and comfortable for Jeffery. He actually felt good about what he would tell Jeffery next. "Kenny's English teacher asked me out to dinner and I wanted to talk to you about it. This is the first time something like this ever came up and I'm not sure how dating fits in with our so-called open marriage."
"As long as you don't get emotionally involved, dating is fine," Jeffery said. "Is this the English teacher who has an ethnic name? The one who looks like Sean Penn? Kenny's mentioned him to me. He said he met you and was drooling over you."
"Carson Savione."
"That's the name," Jeffery said. "He seems like a nice guy. I met him at an open house while you were in Havilland. I had a feeling he was gay, but wasn't sure. He's not my type at all. Way too pushy and aggressive. But I don't see any harm in you having dinner with him."
"I'm not asking for your permission, Jeffery," Evan said. "I'm asking about whether or not dating is part of an open marriage." He knew sex with other men was okay; he just wasn't sure where he was supposed to draw the lines.
"And I told you it was fine," Jeffery said. "Do you want me to spell it out for you in a goddamn text message?" His tone grew stronger, the way it sounded right before he started shouting.
"There's no need to snap at me," Evan said. He'd learned to speak up fast when Jeffery took this tone. There was a reason they called Jeffery Charles "The Wall Street Shark" and Evan had learned how to snap right back at him for his own survival.
Jeffery took a deep breath and exhaled. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to sound that way. It's just that it's three hours earlier here and I have a busy day. How did your lunch appointment go with Billy on Friday?"
Billy was Evan's literary agent. He would have forgotten to mention this if Jeffery hadn't asked him about it. "Okay," he said. "He wants me to sign a three-book deal for a new historical series and I'm not sure I'm ready."
"What did you tell him?"
"I said I'd think about it and get back next week," Evan said. "The publisher wants all three books in the series written within a year's time and I'm not sure I can do that."
Jeffery laughed. "You should do it. Don't think about it. Just sign the contract and start working. You know you're always happier when you're working."
"How's your business deal with this social media company doing? I read about it online and it sounds both impressive and risky at the same time," Evan said. If this deal went through, Jeffery would be the largest investor in one of the most popular forms of social media to ever go public with stock. At least that's how Evan saw it.
"It's interesting," Jeffery said. "I have a feeling we'll be changing the world if this happens."
Evan had read there were pros and cons to this, and the more conservative people on Wall Street were not certain social media based purely on advertising revenue could hold up as a strong investment. Only time would tell. But Evan trusted Jeffery's judgment more than he trusted anyone else's. He'd made billions of dollars taking risks that had been stronger than this. "I always thought you would change the world. I knew it the moment I met you."