Page 12 of The Mayor and the Mystery Man

“You love it.” Cal kissed him.

“Not everything has to come back to anal sex.”

“Again. You love it.”

“Can you guys put a pause on the schmoopiness, maybe? Only until I figure out what the hell I’m going to do.” They were still on their new relationship high. Fortunately, they were used to my sarcasm and laughed it off. “I still have the authority to kick you out of the Single Dads Club.”

Technically, we were the Single Dads Club. Mitch, Cal, and I had known each other growing up. We didn’t know each other was gay in high school, but we all wound up coming out as adults and reconnecting as friends. We were more than friends, though. We were like one big extended family. My parents had passed on, and my siblings were scattered across the country, so these guys were my family. Cal and Russ had started dating a few weeks ago after formerly hating each other. Sometimes I wondered if their bickering was just one long extended foreplay; there was a fourth member of the group, Buzz, but he and his hot manny-turned-boyfriend Shane recently moved to Seattle. They’d be back for the holidays.

“Anyway, what I was saying,” Russ winked at his boyfriend for interrupting him, drowning the room in more schmoop. “is that, while the other parents aren’t fans of your sex life, the bigger problem is that they love Rita. She and her wife are fun, accessible, warm.”

I stood up straight. “And I’m not?”

Silence. Brutal, telling silence. The guys traded looks as if they were mentally flipping a coin to see who had to break the news.

“The videos they post online are…” Cal took a step behind Russ, using him as a shield. “Cute.”

“And people know and like Deb. She’s a physical therapist in town. She helped me when my carpal tunnel flared up,” Russ said of Rita’s wife. “People like Deb, so in turn, they like Rita.”

“In a vacuum, the scandal isn’t that bad. But the scandal up against Rita and her cute family is the problem. You need to fight warm, cuddly fire with warm, cuddly fire,” Cal said, echoing a similar statement from Vernita.

I wasn’t the warm, cuddly type. I was the take charge, get shit done kind of guy. Why couldn’t that be enough? I wasn’t trying to be a social media influencer; I wanted to lead a community. I wasn’t some pollyanna about politics, but this seemed overboard.

“You need to let people in,” Mitch said, never one to mince words.

“What does that even mean?”

“If Rita’s going to parade around with her lovely wife, then you need a lovely wife of your own. Er, husband,” Russ said. “Er, boyfriend.”

“Yes!” Cal jumped up. “People love love!”

“A boyfriend can help show off other sides to you. Humanize you,” Russ said.

Humanize was a word I hated more than likable. I was already a human, as evidenced by my body parts and ability to have sentient thoughts.

“You can talk about how you fell in love, and your boyfriend can share fun things about you that annoy him, like how he hogs the covers in bed.” Cal’s eyes were wild with ideas.

“How about I stick my finger down my throat instead.” I looked to Mitch for backup. He was more level-headed than anybody else I knew. But even he seemed intrigued by the idea.

“Single Dads Club, we have a mission here. Our most important mission to date.” Cal clapped his hands twice, almost spilling his beer over the balcony in the process. “We need Mayor McCaslin to fall in love.”

I wasn’t a religious man, but I craned my neck to the sky in the hopes God would save me from this conversation. Cal and Russ had gotten together recently, and I was happy for them. I loved seeing my friend in love, but that wasn’t a path I wanted to go down.

“This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard, and some guy once applied for a permit for a traveling bounce house on wheels.”

“Is it?” Mitch asked.

“Mitch, you’re saying I should get a fake boyfriend? I thought you were in my corner.”

“If it’s just for a few weeks.” He shrugged. “The right guy could make you seem…”

“Don’t say warm. Or cuddly. Or likable.”

“Cool. And electable.”

It was three against one. I wanted to mutiny this conversation. The thought of being tied to a guy for the next month—hell, even the next day—sounded like torture. I didn’t want someone stomping all over my normal, routine life. “I really don’t want to do this. I thought I was done with the mushy relationship shit when I got divorced.”

Cal and Russ went inside to check in on their kids, who were over at the house of Russ’s sister Monica. Their boys were a cute age. Maybe I could rent them and say they were adopted?

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