Read Online Sleepless in San Francisco by Ryan Field - Free Book Online Page B

day before Thanksgiving; his second
     
Thanksgiving without Jake. And he was missing him so much his stomach ached. Since
     
Jake had been gone, the same hollow feeling that invaded his entire body before all major
     
holidays came back in full force.
     
To make things worse, he’d agreed to celebrate Thanksgiving with the two guys
     
who owned the guest house where Lisa and Noah were staying during the construction.
     
Lisa had become so friendly with them, she’d added them to her Facebook page and her
     
Twitter account. She text-messaged them all the time and invited them for dinner once a
     
week. Noah liked them, too. So Ed didn’t have much of a choice. But if it had been up to
     
him, he would have gone out to dinner, because the thought of spending Thanksgiving
     
day with a happy gay couple only kept him awake longer each night.
     
Jonathan was a part of all this, too, and he’d been invited to Thanksgiving dinner
     
with everyone else. He seemed to be everywhere; Noah never stopped mentioning his
     
name. Jonathan and Lisa had become new best friends forever. They shopped together on
     
weekends, took Noah on kid-friendly outings, and did power walks through the park with
     
Tucker. When Noah came home and ran to tell Ed about their latest excursion, Ed smiled
     
and listened closely. But he often felt disconnected and out of place. He knew he shouldn’t feel this way. Whenever they went somewhere, they always asked if he wanted
     
to go with them, but he’d shrug his shoulders and make up an excuse about finishing a
     
project at the house. Sometimes Noah even begged him to come along. Jonathan would
     
stand there with a raised eyebrow and his head tilted sideways, waiting for Ed’s answer.
     
When Ed said no, Noah’s shoulders would sink into his chest and he’d shake his head
     
and frown.
     
Ed couldn’t figure Jonathan out for anything. He’d watch him closely while they
     
shot film clips for the television show. When the camera was turned on, Jonathan didn’t
     
fake his smiles and he didn’t raise his voice with an exaggerated lilt like some of the
     
awful hosts he’d watched on home improvement shows. He didn’t try to act and he didn’t
     
drop his sentences. With Jonathan, it was all natural and simple; he didn’t even wear
     
makeup. He talked to the camera and explained each step of the renovation as if he were
     
talking to one person face to face. When there was a problem with something, he knew
     
how to build the tension and conflict to keep his audience interested. He was young,
     
handsome, and talented. He could have had any man—or woman; they loved him—he
     
wanted. Not to even mention the fact that he had some guy, Mike, off in England who
     
supposedly adored him. So why on Earth did he let Ed do the things he did to him?
     
It made no sense. Ed and Jonathan were together every day of the week,
     
sometimes until very late at night. When the contractors were working and the crew was
     
filming, they treated each other like virtual strangers. Ed would ask a banal question like,
     
“Do you think you should get a clip of me sanding the door?” and Jonathan would nod
     
and reply, “I think that would be good, Ed.” And when they were with Lisa and Noah, they behaved like distant friends who
     
hadn’t seen each other in years. They stood far apart, as if there was always an invisible
     
person between them, and rarely looked each other in the eye. Noah even asked Ed once,
     
“Don’t you like Jonathan?” Ed had replied, “Of course I like Jonathan. He’s great. Why
     
would you ask me that?” Noah tilted his head and lowered his eyebrows. He said,
     
“Because you always seem to be in a bad mood when he’s around.”
     
But Ed wasn’t in a bad mood when he was alone with Jonathan, because the sex
     
continued.
     
It was always fast and rushed and furtive, with heavy breathing and rapid
     
heartbeats. Ed wanted to