Consulting

The fire was lit. Brian was already on the floor watching the flames somewhat aimlessly when Justin took his place beside him. Brian circled the kid with his arm.

"Justin," Brian began. "I need to talk to you about something."

"You're mad at me, Brian," Justin recoiled slightly. "There has to be some misunderstanding. Why are you mad at me?"

Brian looked puzzled. "Just what part of 'Justin, I need to talk to you about something' makes you think I'm mad at you?" he asked.

"You called me 'Justin'," the kid replied. "You never call me 'Justin'."

"I might be missing something but I thought that was your name," Brian wondered.

"Of course it's my name," Justin insisted, "But you never call me by my name. You call me 'Baby' or 'Twink' or 'Kiddo' or sometimes 'Honey' or 'Sweetheart" but you never call me 'Justin' unless you're mad at me."

"Well maybe I just use those other names because I forget what your real name is?" Brian grinned. "Maybe I only remember your real name when I want something from you."

"You don't forget names, Brian," Justin held his ground. "That's just an old trick of yours. But you do only call me 'Justin' when you're mad at me."

"Well you almost always call me 'Brian' or 'Bri'," Brian tried to reason in parallel. "Does that mean you're always mad at me?"

"You're funny, Bri," Justin smiled as he replied. "I could hardly call you 'Baby' or 'Twink' or 'Kiddo', too late for that, and I reserve 'Sweetheart' and 'Honey' for when I want to be sarcastic, so what else can I call you but your name. Anyhow, I usually call you 'Brian Kinney' when I'm mad at you, you know that."

"Well I suppose I do now," Brian concluded, "But I guess it's good that I am now alert to the code. You know there's a lot of surprises included in living with you."

"You don't like surprises?" Justin asked him.

"Sometimes a surprise can be fun," Brian admitted, "But it's still a surprise." That brought the conversation to a pause for a short period, which was not uncommon in their fireside chats.

I t was Justin who resumed the discussion a little while later. "Brian," he reminded him, "Didn't you say you wanted to talk to me about something before you changed the subject?"

"Yeah, I did, Baby," Brian replied, taking special care with his nomenclature. "I must have lost my focus somehow. There's something I hope you'll do for me - or really for the business. We can pay you as a consultant."

"Now that's a surprise," Justin pointed out.

"It's not the first time I've asked you to help me out on some business matter," Brian pointed out in return.

"That wasn't the surprise," Justin responded. "The surprise was the stuff about getting paid."

"Cut it out, Twink," Brian demanded. "You're not going to get me off the track twice in one conversation. It would be a minimum wage job, of course."

"Go ahead, Brian Sweetheart," Justin laughed. "I'm all ears, but that's way more ears than you should expect for minimum wage."

"Ann Linton is coming to see us next week. I think you've heard me complain about her," Brian told him. "She's the advertising director for 'For Her' cosmetics and she's a genuine pain in the ass. But she has a larger advertising budget that she wants to talk to us about. She's weird though. The problem is that she speaks 'art-crap-ese', that's what we call her language, and we don't always know what she's talking about. She likes us mostly but she hates our art department and they hate her. I think it would be good if you sat in on our meetings and turned on the charm. Maybe you could translate for us too. We figure you could speak art-crap-ese."

"You think I can speak art-crap-ese?" Justin wanted to know.

"Yep,' Brian responded. "I have a lot of confidence in you. You know that."

"And you expect me to use my specialized skill in speaking art-crap-ese, presuming that I do speak it, for minimum wage?" Justin showed his disbelief."

"A thousand dollars a day," Brian offered. "Probably for just one, but maybe two days."

"Well it just so happens that I do speak art-crap-ese, Brian Honey," Justin told him, "And just because I love you, I'll make myself available when you need me. We can work out the details later."

"Would you love me just as much for less than a thousand dollars a day?" Brian grinned at him.

"I could answer that but you might be surprised at the answer," Justin smiled back, "And I might be too. So I won't."

The discussion took another pause at that point with the guys sitting comfortably close to each other.

"Brian," Justin eventually announced. "I'll do a good job for you with Ms. Linton. You wait and see. We'll get that bigger account."

"Yeah," Brian agreed. "I think it was a good idea to get you involved."

"I bet it was Cynthia who figured that out," Justin gibed.

"Geez, Honey," Brian said. "Don't you have any confidence in me at all. Well just for your information, it may have been Cynthia who first thought we could use a special consultant, but she suggested Linz. It was me who decided it was you we wanted and I'm the boss around there."

"Cynthia's pretty good, Bri," Justin mused. "I could learn a lot from her - and actually I have - and from you too, of course."

Brian wasn't sure what that statement meant, so he gave it a little thought while he messed up the twink's hair. Then he smiled.

"Are you thinking that Cynthia deliberately suggested Linz just so that I would decide on you instead?" Brian wondered out loud. "Like maybe I wouldn't take the suggestion if she had picked you in the first place."

"Of course not, Brian," Justin insisted. "You are certainly the boss and the real decision maker in the office - just like you are here." But his smile gave him away.

"Justin," Brian began, but Justin threw both arms around his neck and kissed him.

"Baby," Brian started over.

Justin was satisfied that he could still get Brian off the track if he needed to.

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