Valley of the Dudes by Ryan Field Read Free Book Online Page B

Joey about his
     
career as if Anderson wasn’t even in the room. Anderson tried to get closer to her. After
     
all, they both had Joey’s best interests in mind. He bought her little gifts he thought she’d
     
like and he went out of his way to hug her thin, hard body each time he saw her. But the
     
warmest response he ever received from her was a forced half smile followed by absolute
     
dismissal. The only thing Anderson could do was let time take its natural course. He
     
figured that once she finally trusted him and saw he wasn’t interested in doing anything
     
but loving and caring for Joey, she’d learn to accept him in Joey’s life. Anderson was
     
hoping that if he remained quiet, and showed her he had good intentions, she’d see he
     
was the best thing for Joey. When it came to having patience and remaining quiet, Anderson had had a great
     
deal of practice. His own pit bull of a mother, who lived in New Jersey, had been even
     
more controlling than Harriet. His mother had once been a debutante from a famous
     
family who had grown up with old money. But after a serious reversal of fortune due to
     
bad investments and a few bad marriages, she wound up penniless in her middle age, not
     
knowing how to survive like the rest of the world. Anderson didn’t see her often; she
     
lived like a hermit. After his first big modeling job, at nineteen years old, Anderson
     
moved to New York and he made every excuse possible to avoid seeing her. But that
     
didn’t stop his mother from calling. And whenever she phoned, she always managed to
     
twist his stomach into such a tight knot he couldn’t eat for two days.
     
One evening, right before he and Joey and Harriet were leaving for Hollywood,
     
the phone rang in the studio apartment that Joey and Anderson shared. The apartment had
     
been Anderson’s, but Joey had moved in six months earlier—against Harriet’s wishes.
     
Anderson clenched his teeth and squinted. He knew it was his mother calling. He hadn’t
     
heard from her in a while, and she knew he was leaving for Hollywood. Joey was out
     
with Harriet, doing his last performance at a nightclub, and Anderson was packing their
     
suitcases because they had an early flight out the next morning.
     
He let the phone ring seven times, hoping she’d give up. On the eighth ring, he
     
crossed the room and picked up the receiver. His mother’s voice pounded through the
     
wires and he rolled his eyes. She wanted to know if he was doing his regular workout
     
routine. She said it was important because he wasn’t getting any younger and he had to
     
focus on his career and making money while there was still time. She wasn’t happy about the fact that he was leaving New York and following Joey to Hollywood. She thought
     
Joey was using him and that their relationship would never last.
     
While she spoke, Anderson looked at himself in the mirror. He was naked except
     
for white boxer briefs. He rarely wore clothes in the apartment, because Joey liked
     
watching him walk around naked. He spread his legs apart and flexed his muscles. He
     
adjusted a large bulge in his briefs and shoved his hips forward. He’d always been lucky.
     
He knew how to watch his weight and he never gained a pound, and all it took was a
     
couple of strong workouts each week to maintain his body.
     
When he made his huge, square pectoral muscles jump, he assured his mother he
     
was still working out regularly and that his body was just as good as it had ever been. He
     
promised her he would start to concentrate more seriously on his own career and focus on
     
getting more modeling assignments. He couldn’t tell her that all he cared about was
     
having a family and raising his own children. She would have started screaming into the
     
phone, shouting that he had to get serious and stop living in a world of fantasy. She
     
would have told him he wasn’t getting any younger and he