Our Complication

PrologueJoJo I’ve learned a lot in the ten years I’ve been trying to make it on my own. Starting with: Always dress to impress. Always leave them laughing. Always have a Plan B. Never let on how much you want something. Never let them see you sweat. Never let them see you flinch. On this particular night, I was heading for West Hollywood, because I got another text from the hot drama professor. He wasn’t my sugar daddy, as my friends all knew. Half of them thought I was crazy for keeping it casual. The other half thought I was crazy for keeping it going at all. Why spend that much time with someone who wasn’t even in the industry? Someone twice my age? Well, for one thing, most guys my age were no better off than me. The ones who were better off didn’t want to hang out with someone who might be competition. None of them were easy. None of them let a person simply sit and breathe. For another thing, I liked Byron. And he must like me too, or we wouldn’t still be doing this more than a year after the first time he caught my eye. I remember that night as if it were yesterday. Just another night with a gang of people, being seen. He was sitting at a table outside the indie coffee shop a few doors down from the tattoo parlor. I did a double take, checking to see if someone was filming, because it looked like a scene from the movies. But no. Only a great-looking gray-haired dude reading a book while the commotion of a weekend night in WeHo washed past him. I told the guys I was with, “Go on, I just remembered something. Catch up with you later.” As they walked off, I stepped through the gap in the iron railing between foot traffic and customers. Stood by Reading Man’s table and said, “This seat taken?” He glanced up, began to say something, stopped, and stared. Slowly shook his head and said, “Be my guest.” After all these months, a night with Byron was still a chance to breathe. I checked myself out one last time, nodding with approval. “Showtime.”