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  Adam

  14 Years Ago

  The brilliant purple petals of the jacaranda tree hung above me, engulfing the tree house where Margo Nishimura sat in her princess dress. She was my next door neighbor and best friend, and she waved eagerly at Aaron and I below. This day was supposed to just be Margo and I, but of course my shithead older brother had to butt in. He always freaking did.

  Margo, for her part, was just delighted. Her long bck hair and frilly blue gown gently fluttered in the vernal wind as she looked down at our backyard. “Okay, you two! You know the rules! First one to the top to save me wins!”

  I smiled eagerly. Margo was… I was too young to know what ‘pretty’ meant, but when I looked at her… I wanted to impress her. That was all.

  Aaron, two years older and three inches taller than me, with his high-and-tight bck hair, just sneered at me. He was only doing this out of spite. Because he hated seeing me win at anything. He didn’t care about Margo, didn’t care about having fun. He only cared about making it known how much he hated me.

  “One two three go!” Margo called out.

  Aaron and I reached the tree at the same time, taking opposite routes to the top. I climbed, and climbed, and climbed, and with my nimbler frame and quicker reflexes, I started to close in on the top, on the entrance to the treehouse, first.

  Then I felt a hand gripping my ankle and pulling me down. My grip was torn loose, and I fell as Aaron dashed past me. I fell, and I fell, and I fell, until I hit the ground with a blunt thud and a choir of pain shooting through my elbow.

  It was the first time my older brother broke one of my bones.

  It was not the st.

  Four Years Ago

  Johansson went to the ice with a sickening thud, and I stood up with my eyes bulged and my jaw dropped. His teammates and the referees started flooding around him within an instant, while his fangirls started crying and rushing onto the ice as well.

  I stopped myself from doing the same.

  I’d been crushing on Johansson from afar for most of the past year, ever since we took a css together, but we’d only spoken a handful of times in css and had one encounter at a party (and he’d been so cross-faded he probably wouldn’t remember that if I brought it up). I’d come here today to shoot my shot before he graduated, but obviously wasn’t happening now. If I went to him now, all I’d be is some weirdo stranger getting up in Johansson’s personal space during what was very probably the worst moment of his life.

  I waited until he was carted off the ice to leave, then I took a deep breath. Poor guy. Hopefully he’d bounce back from this. I, meanwhile, needed to start moving on with my life. I had two girls’ phone numbers saved and waiting for me to hit them up, so it wasn’t like I was wanting for companionship.

  I walked out of the ice rink, looking at my phone, and thought about calling my parents. It had been ages since we’d talked, and I missed-

  A text from my brother chimed in. The usual warning to remember our agreement. My heart shriveled up as dread pumped through my blood vessels, and I put my phone away instead.

  As I walked out into the humid vernal air of Boston, raking a hand through my hair and sighing, I decided to start looking up internships instead. I had three more years left of undergrad, but if I focused up, I could wind up with a job straight out of college. And then I’d never have to go back. I’d never have to face the music, come clean to my parents about what I was. And they could go on loving me without issue, albeit from afar.

  And really, wasn’t that poetic? Love from afar was so much simpler than up close and personal. So much cleaner. So much easier, when it came time for someone to leave.

  Four Months Ago

  “You want me to do what?” I balked as I stared at my boss, Rose Duggan, as she sat behind her desk in the corner office where she ruled her kingdom from. She was a petite white woman in her early thirties, hair down to her shoulders in a straight auburn fall, cd in a tight, long-sleeved blue dress and with a golden cross neckce around her throat and diamond engagement ring on her finger. On her desk was a trans pride fg, a photo of herself with her future husband, Kyle, and another one of her posing in front of a Christmas tree with her six older sisters. She was, to be blunt, crazy hot in that way women in power usually are, but given she was my boss and her fiance was built like a brick shit-house and had a temper, I’d elected to keep quiet about that.

  She was fnked on her left-hand side by her boss, Violetta Diaz, a beautiful, raven-haired woman in her te forties wearing a sharp bck skirt-suit and a wedding ring, beaming at her favorite employee and (near as I could tell) surrogate daughter with immense pride. I’d only met the big boss dy a handful of times, which is how I knew this was meant to be a big opportunity for me. Any bigger and her bosses would be here as well.

  I sat in a leather chair across from the two high-powered corporate leaders, while on my right-hand side sat my coworker and best friend, Crispin Winfield. He was a tall, dark-haired hunk the same age as Rose, lightly-stubbled and outrageously hot and sadly very taken (and, you know, straight). He was a good dude, even if he was also giving me his patented douche-smirk right then (his fiance, Lily, was a lucky woman).

  “We want to send you out on the road,” Rose said gently. “Our new division for investing in queer-owned businesses is doing pretty well locally, in rge part due to you and Cris and bringing in a ton of Massachusetts-based clients. But we need to expand to more locations nationally if we want to make a real difference. That is where you come in.”

  “Yeah, I get that part,” I said, raking a hand through my thick bck hair. “I’m a little confused about why I’m going to middle America by myself. Cris and I are a team. That’s the whole reason we’ve been able to lock down so many clients.”

  “Aww, thanks, dude,” Cris said, spping me on the back. “I can expin it, though: you’re going out west, young man, while I work on our clients in the rest of New Engnd. My family has been in the region a very long time and I have contacts via my ridiculous dad that I can use to our advantage, bring in outside money to help with the cause. That kind of thing. Plus, it’s the slow season for Lily’s company, and if I’m all over the country she’s gonna be all by herself, nobody but a rabbit for company-”

  “Really? So this has nothing to do with the fact that her brother just moved out and you two finally have the house to yourself?” I said with a cocked eyebrow.

  “It… Doesn’t not have anything to do with that,” he said, douche-smirk coming out in full. Stupid sexy bastard.

  “It’s also worth mentioning that I have bottom surgery next week,” Rose added. “I won’t be in the office as much, so on those days Cris and Violetta are going to be picking up some of the sck.”

  “Right, right, I forgot about that,” I said, rubbing my temple.

  “Look, Adam,” Violetta said. “If you really don’t want to do this, we can find another assignment for you. But you asked to join this division when it was founded, and we’re giving you this assignment because we think you’re ready for it. And you are ready for it. Yes, you’re still green, but the amount of potential that we all see in you is astonishing. You have the makings of a great fixer. All we’re asking is that you go out there and spend a few months proving us right.”

  Pride sparked inside me. They all… They all really meant what they were saying. They thought I could do this. They didn’t see the clueless, irresponsible boy everyone always seemed to when they looked at me. They saw a man capable of getting the job done. And fuck, fucking hell I needed that validation. I hadn’t combed through the seventy-five unread text messages my mother had sent me in the past week, but I sure as shit wasn’t getting it from her or my dad.

  “Okay,” I said quietly. “I’ll do it. When do I start?”

  Four Weeks Ago

  “You gonna be okay?” my roommate, Lavender, said from across the breakfast bar while I stood in front of the stove making myself one st home-cooked breakfast before consigning myself to hotel food for the foreseeable future. Pure protein, egg whites and chicken sausage with not an ounce of dairy or carbs in sight. I’d worked damn hard for my abs and I was already convinced they would not survive the impending road trip, but I could least stave off the return of twink-dom as long as I could.

  Even if it meant incredibly bnd food all the damn time.

  I wafted the boring smell as I put the food on my pte and stood in front of Lavender at the breakfast bar in our kitchen. We had a tiny little two-bedroom pce in Braintree, and had been living together for the past couple months. She was an okay roommate, mostly kept to herself while she streamed video games from her bedroom for money in between girl-lessons from Lily and Rose. We got on well enough, and I found her whole ‘leggy blonde nerd girl’ thing pretty attractive, but given that she was Cris’ little sister, only six months liberated from her eggshell, and very btantly hung up on another guy, I’d decided not to act on said attraction.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I got a whole itinerary mapping out the next two months. They’re gonna fly me out to Omaha, give me a company car, and send me road-tripping to clients on my way back. All goes well, I’m home in time for Rose and Kyle’s wedding and get a nice fat bonus.”

  “They can’t afford to fly you from pce to pce?” Lavender said, jabbing at her own breakfast of grapes and blueberries with a fork. Honestly, I was just gd she was eating: Cris had not been exaggerating when he said she would forget to eat for extended stretches.

  “We’re a new division, so the board is only allotting us so much money,” I grunted. “Honestly, I’m more worried about you being here alone.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, the gray morning light trickling in through the window and illuminating our messy living room behind her. Her anime merch was mostly contained to her room… Mostly. Like… Seventy percent contained to her room. I didn’t mind too much, even if I had to expin to every hookup I brought home why there were body-pillows on the living room couches.

  “Just promise me you’ll leave the apartment at least once a day, yeah?” I said, only half-joking.

  She raised her pinky finger, and I rolled my eyes before giving her my own to make the promise official. “Happy?” she deadpanned.

  “Reasonably,” I said. “Promise me something else?”

  “What?”

  “At least text that guy already, would you? It’s getting depressing watching you stare at your phone all the time but not typing anything.”

  “Hmm. I will promise that on one condition,” Lavender said, the resembnce to her brother never stronger than when she smirked like that.

  “Oh?”

  “I will text Josh the next time you go on an actual date. Not a hookup. Not a one night stand. Not any fvor of ‘loving and leaving’ bullshit. A real, genuine date with a guy, girl, or enby. And of course, ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ rules are in pce.”

  I groaned. “You’re evil. You know I’m not gonna be able to do that while I’m on the road.”

  “Yes, exactly. I just bought myself two months of respite. It’s called negotiation. I would think you of all people know something about that.”

  “Evil, evil southern woman,” I said.

  “I’ve lived in New Engnd literally my whole life, but sure,” she rolled her eyes, pinking-swearing the deal into pce.

  “Your accent slips below the Mason-Dixon when you’re being evil.”

  “You wound me. Just for that, I’m not driving you to the airport.”

  “Lavender, you can’t drive,” I pointed out.

  “Then I’m definitely not driving you to the airport,” she giggled.

  “Live with rich people, they said. It’ll be fun, they said,” I rolled my eyes again, walking over and pulling her into a hug. “I’ll miss you, by the way.”

  “Thank you. I’ll miss you too,” she said, hugging back. “And be careful. It’s… It’s scary out there right now, for people like us. I know in a lotta ways I’m still new to this, so maybe I’m not qualified to say that, but… Just be careful, okay?”

  “Oh, come on,” I smirked. “When am I not careful?”

  4 Days Ago

  I fled from guard dogs on a pair of cross country skis, my legs pushing me forward over the snowy midwestern ndscape as I struggled to keep up with my client. Barely a month into my trip and I was already getting out of shape, but my pride of course did not want to admit that. So when the client, an Indigenous trans woman named Kar who was trying to put together an after-school winter sports league for lower income kids in Minneapolis, had told me she would only agree to my offer (which was for the maximum amount I was allowed to offer) if I could beat her in a race. And because I was a fucking idiot with a fragile ego, I agreed.

  Honestly, I wasn’t even doing that badly until we’d come across a lot full of guard dogs that some moron hadn’t locked up properly, but now it was…

  Well, you get the idea. Dogs. Skis. Snow. Danger. Minnesota.

  And even if I survived, I probably wasn’t going to secure this client because she was something like two hundred yards ahead of me. My legs were on fire and my arms weren’t doing much better, and the rottweilers were closing in.

  Fuck this. I’d never been good at keeping promises, but I also was gonna be dog-chow if I didn’t do something.

  I turned myself around, unlocked myself from the skis, and wielded my skiing poles like they were escrima sticks. I yelled while holding them above my head.

  And then, a mere five feet from me, the half-dozen strong pack of rottweilers… Stopped. They did that thing dogs do where they tilted their heads to the side and started panting while staring at something intently.

  Something above my head.

  The poles. They thought they were sticks. And they wanted to…

  Well, a dog is a dog I guess.

  “Go fetch, boys!” I said, tossing both ski poles in opposite directions. Three rotties went left, three went right, and I was safe for the moment.

  Kar rushed over to me, smiling like crazy. “Great thinking, Kurosawa! How’d you know that would work?”

  Uh… Dumb luck? I thought. “Well, you know, they teach you these things in business school,” I said, clearing my throat and attempting, with some success, to reassert my composure.

  “Well, I think that was a victory in and of itself,” Kar said, pulling off her goggles and helmet, letting her long, beautiful bck hair flow about her freely. “You have yourself a deal, Kurosawa!”

  Are you shitting me? “Fantastic!” I said, forcing a toothy smile onto my face. I took a look at her, a good long one as the sun sparkled over her brown eyes and the wind swept her hair back. She was gorgeous. Older than me, but I’d always had a thing for older women. And if I’d impressed her as much as it looked like I did…

  Ha. Suck it, Lavender! I thought.

  “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight, at my hotel, so that we can seal the deal?” I said, hoping to God I wasn’t out of practice at smoldering.

  “Afraid not, young man. I don’t mix business with pleasure. Not even for beautiful boys like yourself.”

  ‘Boy.’ Not ‘man.’ ‘Boy.’ Same as always. I was twenty-three fucking years old, and still all I heard from anyone was that I was still a… And it chaffed. Well, at least she didn’t say-

  “And besides, you’re a bit young for my liking,” Kar added. “And a bit short.”

  Yup, there it is. “Right,” I said, my tone colder than the frigid te-winter air. “Let’s get back to your office, get the papers signed.”

  “Sounds good, kid!” Kar beamed.

  I grinded my teeth together the entire trip back.

  Soon, I’d head up to Duluth for my next meeting, and I could forget this ever happened. Or at least, I could shove it into a box in the back of my brain with all the other times I’d heard something to that effect.

  Four Hours Ago

  Of all the deranged bullshit I’d had to put up with since I started working at Van Der Ahe Consolidated (a list that included emu traffickers, lifting competitions using filing cabinets, and maple syrup bandits, amongst other things), having to meet a client while he was fishing didn’t rank that high. Rose had asked me to do far crazier things, put up with far more eccentric of rich idiots, than some guy who couldn’t bring himself to give up his usual fishing time, not even to meet with a potential investor.

  What was crazy about all this, however, wasn’t even the fact that the client ran a clown company, and apparently wore his clown getup while he went fishing (though that was a little odd even to me). No, no, the insane part was the sheer number of other people in this very marina currently dressed as clowns and vibing to horrorcore music bring out of speakers.

  I made my way through the docks, looking for the clown I was supposed to meet with. Fortunately, there was only one guy fishing, a short stocky bck man wearing the full facepaint and red-nose getup. I came up to him at the edge of a metal dock, his line in the water.

  “Mr. Evans?” I asked.

  “I am he,” the fishing clown said. “You’re Mr. Kurosawa from VDAC, I surmise?”

  “That I am,” I said, standing in front of the edge of the water, trying to avoid visibly shivering. More than five years living in the northern reaches of this country and I still had the thin blood of a southern Californian. I wondered if I’d ever find anything below seventy-five degree Fahrenheit tolerable.

  “Thank you for meeting me under these circumstances,” Mr. Evans said.

  “Not a problem,” I lied. “Are the fish biting?

  “No, there’s too much noise all around here, with these buffoons.” He gestured at the plethora of horrorcore clowns all over the docks, grimacing. This had to be the surliest funnyman I’d ever encountered. “Can barely even hear myself think.”

  “Do you want me to see if I can do something about that?” I asked, thinking he’d say no but that it was the prudent offer to make going into negotiations.

  “Could you, my boy?” he asked, quite literally batting his eyeshes at me.

  Dammit. “Right. I’ll see what I can do.”

  4 Minutes Ago

  I finally found the source of the terrible music, a cadre of clowns dressed in leather jackets and spiked chokers. There were five of them, leaning against a boat called The Boogie Woogie Wu, moshing in time as their speakers let py some of the worst hip hop I’d ever heard in my life. Three men, two women, all of them exploding with muscle and grit underneath the ridiculous facepaint and red noses and colorful dye-jobs.

  “Hey, fels!” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “What do you want, corpo?” the rgest of the clowns, something like seven feet tall, sleeveless in spite of the weather, sneered.

  “Was just wondering if you could maybe turn off your music? It’s a little loud, and-”

  “You trying to silence us, corpo?!”

  “Uh, well, not per se, I’m just supposed to talk with a client right now, and he-”

  “Fuck that! Fuck big business! It can go fuck itself up the ass with a cactus!”

  “That’s… That is your right, to state and to believe-”

  “It’s my duty! Our way of life is under attack”

  “Okay, come on, dude,” I rolled my eyes. “It’s just a band- you’re not a persecuted minority group.”

  “What would you know about that, corpo?”

  I bunched my fists together, then waved a hand over my (if you couldn’t figure it out from my st name, Japanese) face. “Dude. Come on. Use your eyes.”

  “The man will never keep us down! Clown squad- attack!”

  “Wait, what?!”

  Now

  If you’ve never been rushed by a quintet of malcontent clowns, I can personally tell you, it is a singur experience in terms of sheer humiliation. They beat me up and took my wallet and phone and car keys, literally ripped the tie and suit jacket off of me and chucked them into the water, and dropped me in front of a boat. Mr. Evans had already left because of how damn long I’d taken to find the source of the noise, meaning the deal was in the toilet, and I had no access to money, no way out of here except by foot, no identification, no phone, and no way into my hotel room.

  And so I was left sitting there, leaning back against a yacht, surrounded by malcontent clowns, never feeling more like a helpless child pretending to be a grown-ass man than I did at that moment.

  Which was when a beautiful woman fell from the sky and nded in my p.

  There was some indiscernible screaming going on above, but I was too busy sulking to look up until she nded with a thud. I yelped in surprise, then flushed with embarrassment as my erection rose inside the confines of my dress pants.

  We both looked at each other in shock, neither of us blinking. She was… Holy shit, she was fucking beautiful. Golden blonde hair cascading down her back, amber brown eyes big and beautiful, a heart-shaped, symmetrical face without a single scar or blemish in sight. She had full, luscious lips that looked like they could be put to good use, and from the feel of her, she was tall and slender but still with a modest figure about her chest and hips. She looked… Familiar. I couldn’t pce her, but this odd feeling of recognition and nostalgia washed over me the longer we held eye contact.

  “Get back here!” a furious, masculine voice screamed from atop the yacht.

  “Oh, shit,” she said, and her high, airy voice exuded absolute terror.

  This girl was in danger. She was being pursued by an angry-looking rich guy fnked by security guards, who were currently barrelling towards us.

  I didn’t know what this girl’s story was, didn’t know how I knew her, but sometimes you just got a gut feeling that the right thing needed to be done.

  The girl was tall, taller than me, but I lifted her up in my arms and carried her away from the docks as fast as I possibly could.