Market.
Living in the closet is kind of a nightmare. It's not just Eric and Vince that affected. Everyone has to live with the secret. Johnny tries to tell his mother the closest version to the truth, telling her that Vince has found himself a nice Catholic girl from New York who works in the industry. Shauna made it her first priority to protect Vince's playboy image by carefully planning very public dates with a string of starlets all over town. Ari took Vince to a strip club to remind him how much he liked women and took Eric to Koi to remind him that their mutual client had a reputation uphold. And Turtle, well, Turtle still doesn't understand why Vince tells Maxim that his favorite thing to do on a Saturday afternoon is go to the farmer's market with Eric, but it keeps him stocked with plenty of girls for at least the next three weeks.
When he was on the market, Eric was always shopping for the girl of his dream. He was pretty sure that it was Sloan for awhile until she ran off with a stockbroker she met at one of her father's dinner parties. He had dated cute junior development exec over at Warners for awhile, and the tabs had him attached to a Swedish model for a couple months. It wasn't for lack of trying, but there was always something off about each of the girls. It wasn't until Vince kissed him on New Years Eve when they were back in Queens that he realized what was missing was right in front of him.
"I was thinking that we could maybe pick up a bottle of wine on the way home, too," Vince decided as he looked through a barrel of tomatoes. He didn't know what he was looking for but figured he would know when he found it. It was always like that with Vince, an uninformed but optimistic kind of blind faith. "Johnny said a French Rhone would go great with the beef. Apparently, he has been aging and marinating it for the past two days. He's pretty proud of himself."
Eric's eyes twinkled as he looked up at Vince over the edge of a bushel of corn. He picked up a few ears and threw them into the canvas shopping bag before moving on to the rows of peppers. "We can stop at that place off Sunset. I want to get a dessert, too. You know, if we're going to have these things at our house, we should really do some of the work."
Vince wanted to lean over the tables of vegetables and kiss Eric for calling his house their home but knew that there were far too many people around for that to be permissible. It wasn't exactly a dream come true to finally fall in love only to have to hide it from everyone other than his agent, publicist, brother and other best friend. They'd considered telling their moms when they were home at Easter but had backed down when Ari reminded them that Vince was up for a big action flick and risking anyone finding out didn't bode well for his future in the role.
When Vince was still on the market, he made sure to sample as many of the goods as he possibly could. He'd had a girl from every state during his dating career as well as most of the Europe and a healthy amount from the rest of the continents. Then he had decided he preferred the scent of pine and rough lips to soft skin and hair products and he quit sampling altogether. It had been a conscious decision to kiss E that night, meticulously planned without his best friend ever knowing. It was the only secret besides Mandy that he had ever kept from Eric, but this time turned out a lot better than that disaster.
"Yeah, well, we're only having this thing at our house because you volunteered to host a cocktail party for the agency, E," Vince reminded him with a teasing smile. Eric hadn't realized what he was volunteering for when he agreed to let his boss invite a few people over for drinks and schmoozing. Seventy-five people and a carefully planned Drama menu later, they had closed off the upstairs from visitors in hopes that no one would wander off and realize that the other bedrooms were empty and that all of Eric's clothes were hanging next to Vince's in the master closet.
Eric licked his lips and rubbed the back of his neck nervously, causing Vince to inhale sharply and stop dead in his tracks. A coy smile crossed E's face as he realized his unconscious mannerisms. Vince had a thing for his quiet nervousness, especially when he got to unwind Eric. "Trust me, it will never happen again," he finally said, holding up two melons for Vince to approve. Vince thumped each before pointing toward the one on the left and putting it in the shopping bag with a carton of blueberries.
It was a quiet Saturday afternoon, nothing special at all, and Eric was pretty sure that going to the farmer's market was pretty much the gayest thing about himself next to actually sleeping with Vince. Vince didn't think twice about being out with Eric shopping, it was just like going to get Froot Loops and beer like they always had. No one seemed to notice that they came every week or that Vince would feed Eric small bites from the sample stands or that Eric never took his eyes off Vince even in public.
And it goes on like that for awhile longer, the two of them living a simple existence without telling the truth to the world. They survive the cocktail party and Eric is promoted at work and Vince lands the action film. They quietly tell their mothers when they're back east for Rita's birthday, and Ari doesn't fuss too much when E refuses to ask them to sign a confidentiality agreement. It's only when a paparazzi catches Vince kissing Eric's forehead while they look at citrus fruit that the truth finally comes out. Turtle laughs and points out to the first reporter that asks that the clues were there all along, if only they'd just read that issue of Maxim.