SECOND CHANCE SHOPPING
TJ
We map out thrift stores on our phones, and it feels like old times as we shop. Jude’s dead set on unearthing a trendy, button-down shirt with illustrations of foxes. When I told him on the Lyft ride over that I donated one a few weeks ago, he went apoplectic and insisted I get a new one stat.
But we come up empty as we hunt through Vegas thrift shop after thrift shop, though he does snag a pic of me laughing when he calls me a lumberjack as I model a flannel. We’re almost at the end of our list of stores.
Off the beaten path, far from the Strip, I push open the door to One More Time. “Last chance,” I say.
“I’m finding foxes and you’re wearing them,” he says, determined, as he marches to the racks, saying hello to a shopkeeper along the way.
The store is huge and practically deserted on a Friday afternoon. We riffle through the men’s shirts.
He grabs a teal one and thrusts it at me. “I did it!”
I crack up. “Baby, these are chipmunks.”
“No!” Jude goes full Edvard Munch.
“But c’mon. They’re cute.”
He huffs. “Fine. Whatever. Wear chipmunks. I’ll find a fox shirt online for you. I will prevail,” he says, lifting his fist.
Shopping is so much better than the hustle and bustle of the hotel. I feel like I can breathe. “Let me try it on,” I say and head to the dressing room.
Jude follows behind, and while I’m changing, I hear a frustrated oh.
“Everything okay?” I ask when I step out of the dressing room to show him the shirt.
He’s leaning against a rack of leather jackets, his brow creased. “It’s this rewrite for my character on Unfinished Business. It’s driving me a little batty.”
I move next to him. “Why? What’s wrong with it?” I ask, concerned.
He shows me the script on his reader app. I scan the scene. Jamie’s character is talking to a friend, who makes some mysterious reference about the secrets he’s keeping.
“I asked the showrunner what that meant, so I know how to approach the scene and, more so, the character. She just gave me a basic note. He has secrets from his childhood.”
I laugh humorlessly. “Don’t we all.”
“Well, not me. But part of my job is to make a believable backstory for Jamie so I can get into his character, so I’m working on that.” When Jude meets my eye, he’s thinking and then brightens as if an answer has occurred to him. His smile builds. “Hey, what’s your motivation for being secretive?” he asks, a little awkwardly, maybe joking but not joking at all.
I have a damn good answer to the question and, finally, a reason to share something deeply private at last. This might help him. “I’ll give you my motivation. Because I’ve got one,” I say, dead serious.
His smile disappears. “You. Do?” He’s stunned, and I’ve barely said a word.
I glance around. No one’s here. No photogs, no randos. Just a shopkeeper, far, far away.
So there, by the leather coats, I wipe away the cobwebs and open the drawer of secrets. “My parents got divorced when I was fourteen. I’ve told you that,” I begin, and that’s easy enough to say. That’s just a plain and simple fact. “And the accepted story is it was a happy divorce. Or as happy as a marriage ending could be,” I say, stopping before I tell him the rest of it.
“But that’s not the real story, is it?”
I shake my head. I’m not sad over my parents split nearly two decades ago. I’m a grown man. I’m over it. But the divorce shaped me. “I’m not sure my dad knows the truth. He was fairly low-key about the whole thing. But my mom was having an affair,” I say.
Years ago, when I stumbled across the affair, I was shocked, then ashamed of my mom. I couldn’t look at her without thinking of the deception. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want anyone to think of it. Silence was the only logical choice. I decided never to breathe a word about it, so it’s strange to hear myself talking about it.
“That’s so hard,” Jude says sympathetically.
Is it hard, though? Now that I’m telling the tale, it’s easier than I expected, and I don’t know what to make of that, so I keep wading through. “No, it’s actually not. I mean, it sucks. You should be faithful, of course. But that’s not what’s hard about it.” I take a breath then tell him the rest. “She was having an affair with my brother’s baseball coach.”
Jude’s jaw drops at the soap opera news. “Holy shit. Did your dad know? Or your brother?”
“I don’t think so. No one talked about it. She’s married to the guy now, but they didn’t publicly say they were together till Chance and I had left for college. Then they claimed they’d just started dating. When that wasn’t remotely true.”
“How do you know when it all started?”
“When I was fourteen, I found out accidentally. My mom asked me to use her laptop to look up directions to a game, and there was a window open with a string of messages between her and the baseball coach. The guy who was responsible for my brother’s potential career. And they were . . .” I stop because they were things a kid should never see his mom or dad talking about. That’s the real hard part, I guess.
Jude reaches out, strokes my shoulder gently. “You don’t have to say. I understand.”
“Yeah. Well, you get the idea.”
“I do.” He steps closer, squeezing my arm now. “Did you ever tell anyone?”
I swallow roughly. “Not till right now.”
Jude smiles warmly, as if he’s glad to be the one I invited in. He rubs my arm. “And so . . . you never told her you knew. You never asked her what was going on. You never said a word to your brother. You chose to protect everyone . . . including yourself,” he says, kind and caring and understanding me completely.
Just like that.
Ah shit. I thought I was holding it together. I thought I was fine with what went down and saying it nonchalantly now. But when Jude connects the dots, I’m not so chill.
I want that future badly, but I have to get through the here and now. Tomorrow night will be here soon, and we’ll need to play the part of boyfriends at the concert—the roles our agency wrote for us to fix the messes we made of our careers.
But I want to be more than his concert date. More than his travel companion for publicity events.
I want to be the man by his side.
Except, our track record is a warning sign. Stay in the slow lane.
I’ll just have to keep pumping the brakes on this real fake romance a little longer.