#john tilman

a night out. it’s what he needed, although it isn’t necessarily what he wanted. but none of all this — forty-two, publicly dumped, living at your childhood home — isn’t what you wanted, either. and there is nothing more depressing than spending night after night sitting on an uncomfortably old couch with a glass of whiskey in fucking bakersfield, which is exactly why he pulled himself together enough to comb his hair and trim his beard and book a last minute room at the ferdinand. of course, if he was going to go out, he had to go somewhere lowkey enough that he wouldn’t be bothered. he was a writer, for christ’s sake, he was sick of seeing his own face on the cover of US Weekly. couldn’t they leave that to the actual stars? not to mention the newfound issue of deuxmoi — which meant you couldn’t find peace even if you did manage to escape the paparazzi and the prying eyes of tmz. 

which is why the tunnel was the solution. the unspoken agreement between all the clientele to keep things under wraps was exactly what he needed, never mind the fact that it was a place he’d tended to avoid altogether only a few years ago. he always joked that it was the place people went to have an affair, which seemed ironic looking back at it, considering he had ended up having an affair. he can only hope that no one he knows would be out tonight, that he could go out, meet a stranger, have a drink, and get some semblance of normalcy of his old life back that he so craved. so when he walks in and spots tilman almost immediately, he has to chuckle to himself. it’s just his dumb fucking luck — running into his old friend the first time he makes it out to la in ages. “johnny fuckin’ tilman,” he announces his arrival by forcing a smile to his lips as he pats his old friend’s back. “i feel like it’s been way too long, buddy.”