Teddy Bear wound up hanging out with me at the house that afternoon. When we’d pulled in to the Batcave, he gawked and commented that he never really got to see the house, so I gave him a full tour, including the studio side.

“Got a lot of room for further additions,” he said, looking around the wine room at the still mostly empty racks.

“Yeah, we don’t have nearly the collection here that we do in New York,” I agreed.

“What’s your New York house like?” he asked as we took the elevator up to the first floor.

“Completely different from this,” I said. “It’s what they call a Brownstone, even though it’s not made of brown stone at all. It’s eight stories, including the basement and the wine cellar level,” I said as we made our way to the kitchen. “Want a drink?” I asked.

“Sure- it’s five o’clock somewhere,” he joked.

“I meant, like, a bottle of water or a Coke or something, but we can do adult beverages,” I said, indicating he should follow me out to the deck bar.

“Wait- the hot tub is back here?” Teddy Bear demanded once he spotted it. “No wonder I never found Mitch and Solange!”

“Yeah, when you took off to look for them I told the others you were never gonna find it,” I said with a laugh. “What’ll you have?” I asked, opening up the bar.

“Oh, man- look at this setup!” Teddy Bear said, parking himself on one of the bar stools and admiring the full wet bar. “How about… a Negroni?”

“Classic old-school, or do want any variation?” I asked, grabbing an orange to cut a peeling from.

“What do you mean?” Teddy Bear asked.

“Well, most people use classic Tanqueray, right? But I kinda like this stuff,” I said, pulling down a bottle of light pink gin and handing it to him. “Because it softens the cocktail a little bit.”

“Well, alright, then,” he said with a grin, handing back the bottle.

I quickly made us a couple of drinks, then joined him on a bar stool.

“What are you going to do with your new toy?” Teddy Bear asked after a few moments of sipping his Negroni.

“I dunno,” I said with a shrug. “I mean, drive it, obviously, but it’s not as if I’m going to take it rally racing anywhere. Like you called it- it’s just a toy.”

After making us a couple more drinks I suggested we find our way to the more comfortable deck chairs, where we could look out through the screen of the eucalyptus trees and down the canyon to the south.

“Y’know, Leah, you’ve got it pretty good here,” Teddy Bear said appreciatively.

“I am well aware,” I agreed, enjoying the late winter Southern California sun.

“How much time do you think you’ll spend in London?” Teddy Bear asked, changing the subject.

“Honestly? No clue. Right now, no time at all, since the unit isn’t even built out, much less furnished. But in six, nine months, something like that, when the place is ready for occupancy, I can see a month or two a year, something like that. I’ve been easing off on my workload, stepping away and letting my department heads have a bit more autonomy so I can spend more time with the family.”

“Family? You mean Angela and Emmy?” Teddy Bear asked.

“We haven’t announced it to anybody but our relatives yet, but both of them are pregnant. We’re expecting two little girls,” I told him. “Feel free to not share that with anybody just yet.”

“Are you serious? That’s awesome!” Teddy Bear said, sitting upright.

“It is,” I agreed. “Angela is due right around my birthday in September, and Emmy in late October.”

“Wow,” Teddy Bear breathed. “Practically twins. That’s gonna be a handful.”

“Angela really wanted the two to be born at the same time, but with the whole hassle that was the fertility process, Emmy didn’t take at the same time as Angela, so here we are, the two six weeks apart,” I explained.

“Well, six weeks is nothing,” Teddy Bear said, leaning back. “They’ll be in the same grades in school together after all, and that’s how kids rank relative ages. So, if it isn’t prying, who is the donor? Is it, um, your cousin the football player?”

“You can ask, but I’m not gonna tell,” I said with a smile to let him know I wasn’t bothered by the question, but wasn’t about to share that detail. “And Andy isn’t actually my cousin. We were just best friends when we were little kids.”

“I thought I heard somebody say you grew up together,” Teddy Bear mused.

“We kinda did for a while. He was more like a brother to me back then than anything.”

“He wouldn’t be a bad choice for a sperm donor,” Teddy Bear said. “Big, strong, healthy young guy, and he does kinda look a bit like you- I guess that was part of why I thought he was your cousin- family resemblance.”

We sat out on the deck for a while longer just chatting about nothing particularly important, but when it got dark enough that we needed to turn on the lights, Teddy Bear suggested we go grab a bite.

“There’s this place down on Hollywood Boulevard that has awesome all-you-can-eat bulgogi tacos,” he said. “It’s tiny, but since we’re early we could probably get in without waiting.”

“Sounds good,” I said, collecting our glasses and putting them in the bar’s dishwasher, then closing the bar up.

“You don’t have anything going tonight, right? I mean, Angela and Emmy aren’t here, so what do you say about we go out and hit a few clubs?” Teddy Bear asked.

I was about to tell him no, but then I reconsidered. I liked the guy, he was good to hang out with, and he’d made absolutely no attempt to even hint about coming on to me. There was no reason I shouldn’t spend time with my guy friends, was there?

“Yeah, sounds good,” I said. “Do I need to dress for clubbing?”

“Nah, we won’t be going to anyplace that- well, maybe a little bit, but not too much. Something that works in a dive bar is just fine. Maybe what you have on now, but throw on a leather jacket or something?” Teddy Bear suggested, so I changed shoes, ditching my Chucks in favor of a pair of black Doc Marten Oxfords, just to ramp up the butch factor a touch, with a black leather racing jacket over my Porsche Club T shirt and Levis.

I was pleased with the look- I looked butch, sure, but not overly so. Teddy Bear gave me an approving nod when he saw what I had on.

“Man, if you were looking to pull tonight you would have zero problems with the ladies, looking like that,” he said. “But Jesus, you’re friggin’ tall.”

“Thanks, but no pulling for me,” I replied with a smirk.

“Well, no, you’re married to two of the most beautiful women on Earth, so why would you even look at other chicks, amirite?”

“You got it,” I said.

We took Teddy Bear’s Corvette back to his place in Studio City so he could throw on something more appropriate, then we got a ride-share to the Korean taco stand.

By that point we were no longer early, so we did find ourselves standing around for about twenty minutes waiting for a table, but that was fine. It allowed us to watch and comment on the mix of wide-eyed tourists, too cool for school locals, and difficult-to-classify people slipping somewhat furtively in and out of the Scientology building across the street.

A middle-aged, heavyset woman and her husband, obviously tourists, spotted Teddy Bear and recognized him immediately. They asked him if they could take a picture with him, and he was gracious about it, posing with his arms around their shoulders while I took a few pictures with the husband’s phone.

“That’s twice in one day,” I teased him. “You never told me you were so famous.”

“I am an international star,” he said airily. “I’ll have you know, I am huge in Japan.”

Laughing, we went inside the dumpy little restaurant when they called our number. Teddy Bear was right- the bulgogi tacos were excellent. They made their own corn tortillas fresh, and they were nice and thick- just right. The guy behind the counter said that they made all their own kimchee and marinades in-house, too, and I could believe it.

“Y’know,” Teddy Bear said around a mouthful of taco. “This place? This is why I could never go back home again. I mean, Iowa is a lot prettier than you’d think, but this sort of thing?” he said, holding up his taco, “Not happening there. They think Mexican food means Taco Bell and they wouldn’t know Korean barbecue from, well, from anything, to be honest. Great steak places, mind, but there’s only so much of that a man can take. And Jesus, the casserole,” he groaned.

After we ate, Teddy Bear pointed out a bar just down the street. “Have you tried that place?” he asked. “Looks like they might have a band playing tonight.”

“Honestly?” I said, following him down Hollywood Boulevard. “We don’t get out as much as you might think.”

“Let me guess- you spend too much time in the bedroom?” he asked with a big grin on his face.

“There’s that,” I said, giving him a little shove. “But mainly it’s kind of a pain in the ass since everybody and their brother want to talk to Emmy or take selfies with her. We pretty much can only go to places that get a lot of big names, where we can eat dinner in peace.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Teddy Bear said. “It happens to a lot of A List types. They wind up living in some small town in Montana or Italy or something just to get away from the constant attention. My attitude on that is that it comes with the territory. Don’t want to be recognized everywhere you go? Easy- don’t be a big star.”

“Yeah, that’s- well, the whole point of Emmy’s music is to make her as famous as possible,” I said, but we’d reached the door of the club by that point, so Teddy Bear fished some cash out of his money clip to pay the cover charge, since there was a band playing after all.

The place was mostly full, and it looked as if we might have to sit at the bar until I spotted a familiar figure waving to us.

“Hey, there’s a guy I know,” I said, to Teddy Bear, dragging him to the far side of the room.

“Hey, Darius,” I said when we got to the table. Andy’s teammate was with a couple of other guys that had to be football players, too, given their size.

“Everybody- everybody,” Darius said, waving for his pals to shut up and listen. “This is Leah Farmer, Emmy Lascaux’s wife. Yeah, Andy’s friend,” he said. He introduced the two guys he was with and I introduced Teddy Bear, but it seemed as if they knew who he was already.

“Where’s Emmy? And, uh, Angela?” Darius asked.

“On tour,” I said with a shrug.

“Yeah, I get that,” he replied. “It’s the same for us, during the season, but at least we get to come home almost every week.”

“Yeah, one more week until they get home,” I said. “It’s been a long few months.”

“Andy said he’s gonna go see ‘em in Tokyo,” Darius said. “That’d be somethin’ else.”

Teddy Bear and I hung out for maybe half an hour, but the band really wasn’t our thing, so we said our goodbyes and left to find other entertainment.

Teddy Bear dragged me down a block to a dive bar that had a ton of Hollywood history, and hadn’t changed in decades. In fact, a lot of the place looked just the way it would have back in the time right after Prohibition. There were photos of stars like Kirk Douglas, Sammy Davis Jr and John Belushi on the walls, and you could tell in the background the the bar looked exactly the same.

The jukebox was playing Sinatra or somebody like that, one of those big-band crooners from long ago, and it fit the ambience perfectly.

“I’ve only been here a couple of times,” Teddy Bear said as we took seats at the bar.

I ordered an Old Fashioned with Buffalo Trace, and Teddy Bear said that sounded good, so one for him, too, please.

“I’m not that much of a whiskey guy,” Teddy Bear admitted when the bartender set our drinks down.

“That’s too bad,” I said, “Because I have a ten thousand dollar bottle of Scotch back home that I need to finish off.”

Teddy Bear looked at me for a while, then said, “Of course you do.”

We left after maybe half an hour, wandering west this time.

Since it was my turn to pick our next stop, I was looking around for what might be a bit more fun than the interesting but fossilized Frolic Room had been.

“You have much cash on you?” I asked Teddy Bear as I spotted our next stop.

“A few hundy, why?”

“We’re gonna need a lot of ones,” I said as I steered him towards a strip club’s surprisingly low-key entrance.

“All, O.K., then,” Teddy Bear said with a smirk. “You know the ladies inside aren’t going to measure up to your standards, right?”

“Like the sign says,” said the bouncer, overhearing. “Thousands of pretty ladies, and three ugly ones.”

Laughing, we held our arms up so he could quickly check we weren’t armed, then went inside and I paid the hostess our cover charges and got fifty bucks worth of ones, handing half to Teddy Bear.

“What, not springing for the VIP package?” Teddy Bear asked.

“You can if you want,” I suggested, but he took a pass, too.

The music was loud, as expected, and the interior was just what I’d expected, judging from my limited experience in those kinds of places.

We managed to score a small table, and soon enough a waitress in bra and panty set with a garter and stockings came to take our order.

California has some interesting laws regarding that sort of establishment, and the oddest is that if the club has fully nude dancers, they can’t serve alcohol. They often get around that prohibition by partnering with a normal bar right next door, so patrons get their buzz on at the sports bar and then go watch the naked ladies. One side effect of the ‘no alcohol’ rule is that the legal drinking age of twenty-one doesn’t apply, since nobody is drinking, so they allow eighteen-year-olds in.

Incidentally, that was how I found Jen to teach Emmy to pole dance, since I couldn’t legally enter bars back then.

So our choices were sodas, mocktails, or juices for the drinks. I was fine with that, since Teddy Bear and I were already four drinks deep so far that night and it was still early-ish.

It didn’t take long for the first dancer to make her way to our table to ask if we wanted a dance. Teddy Bear went off with her to one of the couches while I looked around the place, now that my eyes had gotten adjusted to the strange lighting.

The girl on stage had removed her last tiny scrap of clothing and was doing the splits, looking back over her shoulder at a middle-aged guy seated at the stage’s rail. Obviously she’d marked him as the big spender of the moment. There were four other dancers circulating around the room, trying to talk patrons into table dances, and a couple who’d already collared their clients for a dance.

“Your date looks busy,” one dark-haired dancer said, leaning in close so I could get a whiff of that stripper smell. I have no idea what it was, but they all seemed to use the same combination of body lotion and perfume.

She was a little bit thicker than I like, but I’d already realized that my type tended to the very fit and athletic, so that was no surprise. She looked South Asian, which seemed to be unusual in that line of work.

“He’s not my date- just a drinking buddy,” I said.

“You aren’t cops, are you?” she asked.

“No,” I said with a little laugh at the idea. “He’s an actor, I’m in real estate.”

“Well, he’s certainly acting happy over there,” she said, leaning forward to give me a good view down the front of her half-unbuttoned men’s shirt. “I could make you happier than he looks. We could go back to one of the private rooms…”

Curious, I asked, “What could happen there that couldn’t out here?”

This seemed to be a red flag of some kind. Her manner turned a lot less flirty, and she responded with, “Nothing, really. It’s just private, so you don’t get distracted by all this,” she said, waving her arm to indicate the club as a whole.

“That’s what I thought,” I said. “So why don’t we just stay out here? Maybe I should grab a seat on the couch next to my friend.”

That didn’t seem to sit well with the dancer. “I’m up in a couple of songs,” she said, gesturing at the stage. “Maybe afterwards?”

“Sure, that’s fine,” I said.

To my complete lack of surprise, she made a circuit of the tables, asking others if they wanted a private dance.

Rejoining me, Teddy Bear asked, “Not your type?”

“I think I wasn’t her type,” I replied. “I kinda get the feeling she got vice cop vibes from me or something.”

“I could kinda see that,” Teddy Bear said with a little tilt of his head. “But hey, Stacy- or whatever her real name actually is, the one I just got a dance from? She’s pretty good, if you want a table dance.”

We stayed for maybe two hours, and I did get several table dances, but never twice from the same girl.

“Hey, ready for our last stop? Ready to close out the night?” I asked Teddy Bear as we walked down Hollywood Boulevard.

“Sure, yeah, what’cha got in mind?”

“Yo! Too Tall! Action Man!” somebody called out from across the street.

“Hey, Dar!” I hollered back as he and his pals jaywalked across the busy street to join us.

“Did I just catch you two leaving an adult entertainment establishment?” Darius asked.

“Are we catching you three about to head into an adult entertainment establishment?” Teddy Bear teased back.

“Aw, naw, man,” Darius said, shaking his head and waving his hand in a dismissive fashion.

“He swore them places off after his divorce,” one of his two pals said.

“I shoulda known better when she told me her name was Moné,” Darius agreed with a grimace.

“O.K., this is a story I need to hear,” I said. “But not here in the middle of the sidewalk. We were about to get an Uber to take us to a dive bar I know over in Silver Lake that has the best whiskey list in town. Wanna join us?”

The three guys looked at each other and made funny ‘whaddaya think?’ faces, then they all nodded, almost in unison, making me think it was a familiar routine.

“Yeah, we’re down,” Aaron said, and the other two made affirmative noises.

“Do you guys have a car?” Teddy Bear asked.

“Nah, we knew we was gonna be drinking tonight,” Steve said.

We huddled there on the sidewalk and I gave them the address for the ride share, and when our driver showed up we told the three football players we’d see them at the bar.

“I dig this place’s vibe,” Teddy Bear said when we walked in. “This is like a real old-school dive.”

“It’s the oldest bar in Los Angeles,” I told him as we found ourselves a table away from the pool tables. “Or so I’ve been told.”

“What can I get you guys?” the tattooed Betty Page lookalike waitress asked.

“Just a couple of glasses of water right now,” I told her before Teddy Bear had a chance to speak up. “We’ve got three friends coming in a few minutes- we’ll order then.”

“You got it,” she said.

“You said this place has the most extensive whiskey list in town,” Teddy Bear said, looking at the wall behind the bar. “But I’m pretty sure I’ve seen bigger.”

“No, I said ‘the best whiskey list’, not the largest. This place stocks whiskeys that precious few other places can even get their hands on.”

The waitress set the waters down, along with a couple of menus. “Kitchen closes at ten, so if you want anything to eat, let me know soon,” she said.

“If you’re hungry- and I know this sounds bizarre- but the grilled cheese sandwich is unbelievably good,” I told Teddy Bear.

“Grilled cheese? What makes it so good?”

“I don’t know," I admitted. "It’s just a plain, simple grilled sandwich with cheddar cheese in the middle. No weird ingredients or anything, no truffle oil or anything fancy like that. As far as I can tell, it’s buttered sourdough bread, and melted cheddar. That’s it,” I said. “I’ve had it a couple of times after it was recommended to me, and, well, like I said, it’s the best I’ve ever had.”

“Yo yo yo,” Steve said as the three Rams joined our table. "What’re y’all lookin’ so serious about?”

“Leah was just telling me this place has the best grilled cheese sandwich she’s ever had,” Teddy Bear said, handing him the menu, which was just a photocopied sheet in a plastic sleeve.

“Yo, man, I love me some grilled cheese,” Darius said.

When the waitress came back, we ordered eight grilled cheese sandwiches (two apiece for the three giant guys) and more waters.

“I’m going to set you guys up,” I said and went to talk to Rodney, the hipster bartender.

A few minutes later the waitress brought out five round trays, each with five holes for small glasses, numbered one though five.

“Alright, boys, here is where it get interesting,” I said. “These are what are called flights. Each one of these,” I said, holding up one of the small tumblers in my tray, “Is an absolutely top-shelf American whiskey. Some are bourbons, some are ryes, some are single-malt. Every single one of these cost over a thousand dollars a bottle.”

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Teddy Bear demanded.

“Nope. Not kidding. Here’s the list,” I said, holding up a photocopied sheet with the names and prices of the five samples.

“Here are your sandwiches, guys,” the waitress said, laying the plates out for us.

“So, like, we’re gonna eat grilled cheese sammiches and drink the most expensive whiskey any of us have ever tried?” Aaron asked, trying to wrap his head around the idea.

“Exactly,” I nodded.

“Dar, man, you know some interestin’ people,” Aaron said.

“Don’t blame me, man,” Darius protested. “She’s Temple’s cousin.”