Free Yes by Brad Boney

into his mouth. “Keep Ian’s phone in the house. Only make calls on it from here. I can just picture a scene at La Tazza, where Colleen calls Ian and a phone in your backpack starts to ring.”
    “Good point.” Ian told Mark about the pizza boy and Jeremy and driving to get Ryan’s phone. He told the whole truth, because withholding information from Mark, who he trusted more than anyone in the world, would only make things worse in the long run. As Ian suspected, Mark expressed concern about giving Ian’s number to Sam, but he reacted to the hookup with Jeremy in a surprisingly upbeat manner.
    “You should do more of that,” Mark said. “Hookups are a great way to rehearse, and they’re like disposable razors. Use ’em and toss ’em. The more you practice being Ryan, the more convincing you’ll be when you start at La Tazza on Friday.”
    “Use ’em and toss ’em? You are so cold sometimes.”
    “Look, this is one situation where the fast-food nature of the hookup scene works in your favor. Chances are you’ll never see any of those men again, so if you screw up, who cares? No real harm done. Embrace it. And I don’t think I need to tell you to play safe, do I?”
    Ian spooned some more pad Thai onto his plate. “No, you don’t need to tell me. But Jeremy seems to have quelled my thirst for Grindr hookups.”
    “That didn’t take long. By the way, I should have your new ID by Thursday, but until then, stay off the road. Unless it’s on a bicycle. Honestly, who knows what would have happened if a policeman had pulled you over this morning.”
    “I was careful.”
    “Careful has nothing to do with it. Haven’t I told you police officers pull people over because they’re bored? They don’t need a reason, or if they do, they’ll make one up.”
    “Nothing happened, but okay, I’ll stay off the road.”
    Mark poured some curry sauce on his rice. “Have you decided if Ryan is a top or a bottom?”
    “Can’t he be both?”
    “No. I liked the story about the goalie. Ryan should be a top, like a young Topher DiMaggio.”
    “Topher DiMaggio’s not young anymore?”
    “God, no. He’s almost thirty.”
    Ian rolled his eyes. “He bottomed once. I saw it.”
    “One of the worst scenes ever filmed. The pained expression on his face?”
    “That’s the only thing that made it hot.”
    “Ugh. You would say that.”
    Ian started picking around the curry bowl to find the remaining shrimp. “But I used to enjoy bottoming back in the day.”
    “And how long has it been since someone fucked you?”
    “Years.”
    “See? You have the maturity of a good top inside the body of a twink. Use it to your advantage.”
    Ian shook his chopsticks at Mark. “Don’t call me that.”
    “What? A good top?”
    “No, a twink.”
    Mark waved his hand. “Please. You should be thanking the Lord someone’s calling you a twink. Look at you. Don’t make me slap you upside the head. Being a young top would work with Ryan’s whole outlier persona. The mental picture of him fucking the lacrosse goalie in the boys’ locker room? Hot.”
    “That is so disturbing,” Ian said.
    “It would give his character a little edge, if you really commit.”
    “He’s not a part in a play.”
    “Maybe not, but you should approach him like one.”
    Ian grabbed a fork from the drawer to clean up the last of the rice. Mark finished his glass of wine and pushed his plate away. He went to the fridge for a bottle of water, then sat back down and said, “You’d better think carefully about these next few days, because the choices you make will affect the rest of Ryan’s life.” Mark took a long pause. “You do understand how this will eventually have to go down, don’t you? I know I haven’t spelled it out for you yet, but tell me you see what’s coming twelve moves ahead.”
    Ian felt sick. “What are you talking about?”
    “I know you want to go back and do it all over again, but this cover story still gives you an out.