Mainstream

Warm Up

"Morning, sugarpie."

"Unnnnngh whaaaat..." Waylon rolled over in bed, unsure when he had answered his phone. "Miles?"

"I'm looking at you right now," said Miles, making a low growling noise. "Not your best side, but still hot."

Waylon bolted upright in his bed and looked around his room. White. Unfamiliar. Dark. Definitely empty.

"What are you playing at, it's waaaaay too early for this shit."

"You're everywhere, muffin," said Miles, "Not even just the gossip shit, I'm talking Good Morning, America doing a segment on these pictures of you and fucking Eddie Gluskin, kissing and feeding each other like some kinda disgusting rom-com nightmare..."

"Oh," said Waylon, laying back down with a heavy thud into his pillow. "Yeah, so what? You know we're living together. We're dating."

"Don't play dumb, you know what I do for a living, and we've lived together, you know exactly how this shit works," said Miles. "This restaurant? They tipped off a photographer, they get a part of the sale of these pictures..."

"Of course they did," said Waylon. Eddie had said as much the night before. "Who cares? We weren't trying to hide it, obviously. It's not a big deal."

"It's a huge fucking deal to me," said Miles, voice raising enough that Waylon had to pull the phone away from his ear. "You know how much they got for those pictures? That could have been me getting that cash, and you could have been the one that tipped me off and got paid!"

"I'm not trying to make cash off of Eddie, and we're not having this conversation," said Waylon, sighing into the receiver.

"Won't you at least just consider..."

"Bye Miles..."

——

"Eddie?" Waylon's voice rang through the cavernous downstairs. "You home?"

Eddie sighed and stared down at the interview questions he was in the process of reviewing. He considered not answering the calls. Maybe even hiding beneath his desk.

"Upstairs," said Eddie, putting his elbows on his desk, and dropping his face into his hands. He listened as Waylon's footsteps raced up the stairs and down the hallway.

"You're in your study?" asked Waylon.

No answer was required when Waylon's smiling face appeared in the doorway. He wore a shirt that may once have been red but had faded to almost rose with a black printed skull on the front, over a pair of light khaki board shorts.

"Found ya," said Waylon, grinning.

"Indeed," said Eddie, sitting back in his chair. "Did you need something?"

"Yeah, I just had a quick thing I wanted to see," said Waylon, beaming. He looked cautiously around the study for a moment. "Mind if I come in?"

Eddie nodded and waved his hand. Waylon clapped as he rushed into the study, walked around the desk, and stood next to Eddie and his computer.

"What is it you wish to see?" asked Eddie.

"So, I don't have a computer, but I was using my phone to Google myself, for the first time in a really long time, and you're never going to believe this," Waylon paused to take a deep breath, building up the anticipation. "The first hit on my name...it isn't porn! Can you believe it?!"

Eddie raised an eyebrow as he turned in his chair, taking in Waylon's wildly smiling face.

"This is a good thing?" asked Eddie.