Never Enough

talkin’ to me? Let’s see who kills who, you jealous motherfuckin’ meathead. She could be wiping a dagger on that stupid handkerchief.”
“You’re good at this.” Andy stepped over to the control center, found a
notepad, and wrote down the character name and the line. “I think we might have to have a Twister tournament. We know so many awesome women.
Tanith could play the hell out of it.”
“Anya,” Victor suggested. “You know she’s wanted to kill a few guys in her time. Or, like, every day.” They both cracked up.
The night before Andy left for Miami, Rory and Dana came over for dinner. There had been a few texts back and forth about the whole video SOS
thing, and everyone expected the subject to come up. They found other things to talk about for a while. Victor and Andy told tour stories, Dana talked about her TV show, and Rory talked about stage-managing the first Underground Cabaret show of the year. Halfway into their second glasses of wine, she planted her elbows on the table and said, “So, Andy. Your boy toy let us know you are looking at potentially a very shitty year.”
“I figured he might have.”
“Yeah. So, since you very much suck at admitting you need help, or want help,” Rory tried to look stern, “we will be watching you like hawks and probably will be making epic pests of ourselves with preemptive or premature offers of help. Because we love you.”
“I love you too.” Andy had his elbows on the table now too, gazing back at her affectionately. “At the moment it’s kind of a wait and see situation.
After this trip I’ll know if they’ve been selling me a load of bullshit.”
Because neither of them can lie to my face.
“You’re still planning to go on location with Victor, right?” Dana was done eating. All of them were.
Andy drank the rest of his wine, thinking seriously about pouring a refill.
He set down the empty glass with a sigh. “I’m still going to go. I’m still planning to do all the things I want to do with Victor. If something happens, I’ll change the plans, that’s all.”
“And we’ll do those things another time.” Victor was watching his husband. “We’ll get Dmitri to start us off on those two routines before I leave. We’ll be able to practice while we’re out at the Great Lakes. The shoot’s supposed to wrap the first week of August.”
“Plenty of time,” Dana said. “And what about this whole Shakespeare thing?”
“We’re going to mess around with character ideas on location,” Victor said. “Once we’re back Andy can start scheduling people.”
“Did you see that video of Red’s?” Andy asked. “The Macbeth swordfight?”
“Oh my God yes!” Rory looked delighted. “That looked seriously legit!
Are you stealing some of that?”
“I totally am, they already said I could. Do you want to see the stuff I shot with Niall and Geoffrey? It’s really gorgeous, I’m completely obsessed with it.” Andy mostly made the offer to get everyone’s mind all the way off the Miami situation, and it worked. He set up the laptop, then cleared the table and listened to the commentary. “So I’m looking at one or two lines to do with all the other subjects.”
“Oh thank God,” Dana said. “I can’t believe there’s another play where you could yank out this many lines and they would work so perfectly.”
“I’m going to be learning a lot more about Shakespeare than I ever did before, that’s for sure.” Andy got the coffeemaker going and came back to the table. “But they look great, right?”
“Really great.” Rory stood up, wriggling her back. Victor gave her a
‘what’s up’ look and she said, “A little stiff. You know, this whole over-forty thing is a crock.” She rolled her neck. “But that reminds me. Did you guys actually make a, you know, episode every place you went on tour?”
Victor cracked up. Andy made a ‘maybe’ face. Dana said, “Why did that remind you of that?”
“Well, the reason my neck is stiff,” Rory began, and Dana performed a swift ‘say no more’ gesture, trying not to laugh.
“Hey,” Andy said. “If you’re going to ask about ours, I think it’s totally fair to ask about yours.”
“We did not spend six weeks tangoing around the world making a porno,” Dana said, totally failing at not laughing.
Rory held up her glass, squinting through it at the light. “Because we are wasting our lives.” She drank the rest of her wine.
Knowing their days on ‘L.A. Vice’ were coming to an end, Andy and Victor had decided to replace their cars, both wrecked by a vandal eighteen months ago. They’d delegated the job; car-shopping was very low on Andy’s
list of preferred ways to spend time, and Victor was more concerned with getting the job done than with doing it himself. Their business manager took care of it while they were on tour. Andy was satisfied with his new Subaru Crosstrek, and Victor loved his new Acura RDX. It almost made the trip to the airport tolerable. He pulled over on the curb at Departures and switched on the hazard lights. “Give me a call when you get in, okay?”
“You know I will. And I’ll ping you as soon as I know how long I think I need to stay.” Andy knew he had some heavy conversations to get through, and didn’t want to rush them.
“Take as much time as you need, baby. I wish you didn’t have to go.”
Victor meant ‘I wish this wasn’t happening,’ and Andy knew it. “Give them my love.”
“Definitely.” Andy leaned over for a kiss. “Let’s get my shit out. Like the new buggy?”
“I’m going to sleep with her tonight.” Andy laughed. They both got out of the car. Andy didn’t need any help but Victor was trying to get every last second with his husband. “I already miss you.” A kiss before the rolling bag came out of the cargo area, and another once it was on the ground. Andy touched his face, leaned in