The second emergency meeting of the Oceanside Autumn Parade Committee was a raucous party compared to the first. Maybe party is too strong a word, but there was an atmosphere of relief among the members, a sense that their long, hard labors would finally come to fruition. It probably helped that Ransom and his entire entourage were here.

I paused at the committee room door. The room was packed. Thackeray was clapping Ransom on the back, shaking his hand, leaning in so that someone could take a picture of both of them, Ransom doing his best fan-smile. The newspaper was on the conference table, Ransom’s engagement on the front page. Oh, hey, there I was off to the side of the picture, looking just as uncomfortable as I felt now.

“Damn, I don’t want to go in there,” said Rhody behind me. I hadn’t even heard her approach.

“Me either,” I said. “Let’s call in sick.”

“Did you talk to Ransom last night? Because I spent an hour on the phone with Giselle. Shit is complicated, Cave. I don’t know how to pretend to be Little Miss Straight. Every person in that room knows my dating history.”

I realized I was biting my lip. “I didn’t talk to him. Honestly, I didn’t want to talk to anyone.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“I guess we go in and be normal,” I said. “They don’t care about us right now, they’re too star-struck seeing Ransom and Giselle.”

Giselle was hanging on Ransom, draped over his shoulder, laughing at some joke River Tate had made. Somewhere inside the sick jealousy I felt, was the spark of resentment: If she was this good at faking happiness, why had she been so bitter around me?

We walked in, and I nodded towards an empty corner where Rhody and I could hang out away from the crowd.

“There they are!” said Ransom, his face brightening even more. “Come on over here, Cave!”

The room seemed poised between confusion and applause; there was half-hearted clapping as I approached. Ransom wrapped an arm around me, his other arm busy being colonized by Giselle.

More camera flashes. “If it weren’t for this dude here,” Ransom said, “I never would’ve done this!”

Did he give me a conspiratorial glance? He was so hard to read when this many cameras were on him.

Thackeray stared at us, his mouth open as though caught in mid-protest. He looked from Rhody to Ransom to me. Then Toby, his senses preternaturally attuned to trouble, grabbed Thackeray’s arm and said, “Let’s talk more about this weekend. Do you have enough flowers for the floats?”

“I’ve moved heaven and earth--” the florist began.

“Okay, no problem, we can get more,” said Toby. To one of his PR team, he said, “Flowers. Thousands of them. We’ll need to review the floats. We want a good hour’s worth of visuals for the crowd. Local celebrities. Any weatherman in town that everybody likes? Weathermen are great for parades. I want to see a weather map, some girl in a raincoat and umbrella, little kids holding up clouds and a sun.”

The efficiency took everyone by surprise. Our local committee meetings were usually about thirty percent getting things done, and seventy percent the airing of old grudges and fights from prior projects. Toby was all business. He had a way of directing from within what looked like a cloud of chaos, creating order out of it. It’s too bad he was totally evil and willing to destroy my life.

“Can we talk?” I whispered to Ransom, keeping a big smile on my face in case anyone was looking.

“It’ll be a while,” he said, laughing as though I’d just told him a joke.

“I feel like if anyone asks me about my part in this, I’m going to crack.”

His face didn’t change at all. I might’ve just announced how much I loved all his albums, for how overjoyed his expression was. “We’ll talk tonight, okay? Just stay cool until then. You can do that, right? You’re Mr. Responsibility, just pick up a clipboard and look too busy to talk or something.”

His arm around me tightened, and for the briefest moment, I could feel his fingers stroking my bicep. Nothing much, just a little signal, a little proof of his love. I couldn’t believe how badly I needed that.

Toby broke up the meeting, announcing that Ransom and Giselle had a lot on their itinerary today. Without the stars in the room, and with everything so expertly handled by Toby’s team, the local people didn’t see much reason to stay and began to leave in little gossiping clumps, excited whispers about how they’d touched a pop star’s sleeve or been winked at by a supermodel.

Rhody looked like she wanted to say something to me, then just shook her head and left with some of the gallery owners from the art district.

I had nowhere to be. My mom had Jojo. I wasn’t in the right mindset to work, but wandering around the town didn’t appeal either. I picked up the newspaper and looked at it again.

“Good picture of you,” said Thackeray.

I glanced up. “Oh, I didn’t realize you were still here.”

“Where else? My part in this parade has been hijacked. I’ve worked tirelessly to supply the flowers, and now with a snap of his fingers, that Toby person has somehow found even more. I guess I’m not needed.”

In the picture in the paper, I didn’t look nearly as distraught as I thought I had last night. In fact, I looked...almost happy.

“I know the feeling,” I said. “His guys have finished all the website updates for me.”

I didn’t really want to talk to him, and for a moment thought he was just going to leave. A moment later, I realized he was still staring at me.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” he said. “These news stories all mention you dating Rhody. You went to the mountains on some sort of double-date. I find that odd because--”

“I’m sorry, Thackeray. I can’t answer your questions.”

He gave me a look. “I was just going to say--”

I shook my head. “Maybe I should phrase it another way. I’m not at liberty to say anything about Ransom and Giselle. If you were a reporter, I’d just say no comment. I know it’s awkward, but if you have questions, you can refer them to the publicists.”

“Don’t give me that,” he said. “There’s something going on here. They’re talking about you like you’re his straight friend, and if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you’re not that.”

Maybe I was getting better at dishonesty. Maybe my natural dislike of Thackeray made it easier. Because my instinct was to blurt out the truth, to say No it’s awful, it’s all lies, but I was able to quell that instinct surprisingly easily.

“No comment,” I said. “You’ll really have to find someone else to talk to about it.”

I began to leave the room, when he said, “I don’t know how you live with yourself, Cave Mathis.”

* * *

I was walking home when I passed Pages by the Pier and saw Nat inside. I walked in, the little bell over the door announcing my presence. He looked up from his browsing, and his eyes widened. “Good lord, Cave, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I think I’m becoming one. I don’t suppose you have a moment?”

He slid the book he’d been looking at back onto the shelf. “I’m free. Owen hates this place so much, he won’t come with me.”

There was a little office at the back of the store. I had to hope River wouldn’t mind us occupying it for a minute. There was a desk, stacked high with books and invoices, and hardly room to stand up.

Nat said, “What on earth are you doing with Ransom? I tried to call last night.”

“I know. I couldn’t face anyone.” I felt like I was going to collapse. I put a hand on a stack of books to steady myself, looking strangely like I was about to swear an oath in court.

“You don’t look well.”

“I’m not. I am so freaked out, Nat. I’ve never encountered anything like this before. This isn’t normal, not normal at all. Scandals, leaked photos, fake engagements...I’m a website designer, not a character in a soap opera!”

“Have you considered that maybe, maybe, this isn’t the right relationship for you? Look at you, you’re pale, your hands are shaking. Where’s our stolid old Cave?”

“I know what you’re saying, I know, but Nat, I have missed him all my life. If he goes away this time, I will never have another chance with him. You don’t know what it feels like to need someone this badly, yet to be kept from him.”

“You realize you sound like a lovesick teenager right now, right”

“I don’t care how I sound! He’s the only man I’ve ever loved, Nat! What’s going to happen to my life if he leaves? I’m never going to find anyone else--I don’t want to find anyone else--to fill that void!”

The look he gave me was so full of sympathy and common sense, that I was a little horrified. I must have been saying something really irrational.

“Am I...am I being crazy?” I asked him.

“Maybe a little?”

I slumped against the desk, nearly toppling a stack of books. “I don’t want to be crazy. But damn, I don’t know what to do.”

“Let me ask you a question. A really, really simple one, and I’m not being catty, this isn’t an insinuation or accusation or anything. Just a question to help you focus: What’s best for Jojo?”

I turned my head. I couldn’t look him in the eye. “That’s low,” I said.

“You know how I mean it. What’s it going to do to him, to see you torturing yourself this way? You’re his dad now. You’re the biggest presence in his life, and you’re tearing yourself apart for a relationship that isn’t working, a relationship that probably should’ve been left in the past fifteen years ago.”

Sometimes the way you know somebody is right is by how much you resist what they’re telling you. I wanted to fight back. What do you know about kids, Nat? When have you had the slightest bit of responsibility in your life? More poisonously: You have your love, so it doesn’t bother you that you’re telling me to give up mine.

I wanted to argue. I wanted to fight. But against Nat? Nat, who had been a good, loyal friend since he’d moved to Oceanside?

No. This fight was with myself, against myself...and I was losing.

In a quiet voice, he said, “What are you going to do, Cave?”

I shook my head. “I’m going to talk to him about it. I have to.”