Fall With Me

she’s staring straight ahead, weaving her car in and out of traffic. Suddenly, the phone in my pocket starts to ring, and I pull my hand from hers and answer.
    “I was wondering if you’d call,” I say. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Allison watching me, one eyebrow raised slightly. Oh, it’d be so easy to fuck with her. “Are you wearing that underwear I sent you?”
              She stiffens, and I stifle my laugh.
    “Griffin!” Cam’s voice is loud enough that I’m sure Allison can hear it’s a guy and not, say, some girlfriend or something. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for the past three days! I didn’t just send you a phone for you to NOT answer it.”
    “Huh?” I say. “I didn’t get any missed calls. I’ve had this thing on me the whole time. I didn’t think you’d actually call.”
    “Well, I am, and I have been. Now that I’ve got you on the phone, though, I need you to tell me EVERYTHING that happened. I talked with Carl, and he wasn’t that helpful.”
    “Is that so,” I say mildly. “Well, where do you want me to start?”
              “From the beginning. Where were you, who were these men, what did they say? Did you go to the police yet?”
    “No, I didn’t. Honestly, Cam, the guys are probably dead.”
    Allison’s head swivels toward me.
    “The last thing I remember was being at the Full Moon Party.”
    “The what?”
    “Full Moon Party. A rave, basically. Yes, I did some drugs. But just the usual amount, not enough to knock me out. So at some point, I’m guessing someone must’ve slipped me something, in my drink, or gave me something that wasn’t actually ecstasy, acid, K, or cocaine.”
    “You did all those things?”
    “Well, sure. Some pot, too. Oh, and a little GHB. That’s probably what got me. I don’t usually do that stuff.”
    “What the fuck is wrong with you, Griffin? I mean, seriously, life is just one big rave for you, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, the world is my dance floor. God is a DJ, didn’t you know?”
    “Continue,” he says, his voice tight. “With the story, not your drug addiction.”
    “So I was there, the music was bangin’, the vibe was tight, it was a good time. And then I don’t really remember anything until I wake up stuffed in some walk-in closet on someone’s yacht.”
    “And then . . .?”
    “And there were these two guys there—sorry, I didn’t catch their names—and they said that they’d been in touch with Dad and unless he paid 7.2 million—kind of a random number, huh?—and confessed to something, that they’d kill me. And then they said Dad wasn’t really taking them seriously and had me call him, and guess what—he didn’t take me seriously, either, and that’s when I called you.”
    “So you have no idea who these guys were.”
    “No. Never seen them before. And, like I said, will probably never see them again. Because a whale breached, hit the boat, the boat sank, and off I swam. Guess those years of swimming lessons finally paid off, huh?”
    He’s quiet, though I can practically hear the cogs turning in his brain.
    “What’s up, Cam? Do you know something about this?”
    “No,” he snaps. “I don’t. But I find it highly disturbing that these men would follow you to Thailand and kidnap you and then try to extort our father. Don’t you?”
    “Well, duh.”
    “Yet instead of doing anything about it, you get yourself a job in California. What are you doing, anyway?”
    “Working on a horse ranch.”
    He snorts. “Seriously?”
              “No, I’m actually a male prostitute. That seemed a more lucrative way to go.”
    We talk for a little longer. Cam grills me, but after a few minutes it’s pretty clear that I don’t have any juicy tidbits that are going to help him figure out whatever it is he needs to figure out. I don’t actually believe him when he says he doesn’t know anything about it, because if he didn’t, why on earth would he suddenly be taking such an interest? There is a part of me that wants to believe maybe he really is just as highly disturbed as he claims to be that someone kidnapped his little bro. Yeah, sure, okay.
    We get off the phone. Allison looks at me. “Who was that?” she says. “What the fuck were you talking about? Kidnapped? A boat?”
    “It was nothing,” I tell her. “A story I made up. That was actually an ex-girlfriend. She wants to get back together. Wanted to. I just . . .