Ready Or Not

IRL Daniel Can Twerk

**Daniel**

We ended up having to leave Theo’s apartment altogether. Anna laughed and waved us off,  promising to drop the police officer where Theo found her as we all parted ways. My fiance and I ended up at my place, naked and laughing, sprawled out on my bed.

Theo was holding his phone in the air over our faces, which were smushed together, cheek to cheek. My legs dangled over the foot of the bed and Theo’s rested on top of the headboard. He was reading a proposal out loud and we were giggling so hard that the bed was shaking.

“Desperate Dundee. Set in Scotland in the seventeenth century, the tale of a poor shepherd’s daughter, caught up in the life and lies of a traveling sea-pirate.’” Theo couldn’t even finish reading the description before he erupted again. “Can you believe this shit, Dan? Oh my god.”

“Is this something a talent scout actually sent-in for consideration?” There was no way, not really.

“Hell no!” he scoffed and turned his head to shake it at me. “I have this bargain with a few members of management; they send me the funniest, most cringe-worthy proposals, and I look the other way when they use the company accounts for the occasional hotel room, you know what I’m saying?”

My eyes went wide for maybe a half a second. I controlled it, but he was faster than me.

“I’ve never joined them in the hotels, if that’s what you’re thinking, baby. Don’t shit where you sleep, right?”

That hadn’t been what I was thinking, actually. “Actually, I was wondering how the fuck you ever ended up in publishing. Seems like the last thing a guy like you would choose to get involved in.”

“A guy like me? There are no guys like me. I’m almost insulted.”

I shook my head and sat up, turning to face him. “You know what I mean. You look like a rock star or a tortured artist or a nude model or something. You don’t seem the bookworm type. How did you get into this?”

“My mother,” Theo said softly. He sat, too, but he didn’t turn to face me, he stayed put, staring at the wall over the head board.

“Your mother?” I scooted myself closer to him. I wasn’t going to force him to turn around or anything. I just wanted to rest my chin on his shoulder; stroke the skin over his ribs. “You said you and your folks didn’t get along.”

“We didn’t; not fundamentally. When I got older and started making my own way amongst my own friends, my parents and I fought weekly. But when I was very young, my mother and I were close.”

I never knew that. When Theo talks about his parents or siblings, he always talks about the fact that there was no love lost there. They didn’t approve of his behaviors or his sexuality; and he was cast as a sort of family pariah. I said none of this, though. He rarely shares and I wasn’t going to ruin the mood.  “Yeah?”

“Mmm.” He turned then, but didn’t look at me directly. His hand moved to hold mine, and his thumb made gentle half circles on the back of my hand. “She was a school teacher. My father was almost never home and when he was he was shut away working on one thing or another. Before my brother was born, she would take me to lessons with her. I think it was a way for her to keep busy and keep her mind off of the fact that my father had mistresses. I’ll never know for sure. That’s just a theory. An eight year-old’s theory. Anyway, she loved books. Taught me how to read and write when I was very small.” He glanced up a little and smiled. “Lessons were my favorite parts of the day. I ate up whatever she had to teach me; whatever books she got hold of for us to read. Even the Bible. Don’t laugh.”