A True Gentleman
Title: A True Gentleman (5/?)
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG-NC17
Warnings: AU, angst, art geekery
Summary: Uni fic.
A/N: I know I'm a slow writer, but I promise, I'm always working on my WIPs.
Dom paused in his drawing to take an exacto to the tip of his charcoal. The model yawned, contagious to most of the class at this hour on a Monday morning, but it made for good lighting through the big east facing windows, even with the cold weather.
Garrett was the model’s name. It had been awhile since he’d stood for the nude class, though Dom had seen him-clothed-at a party or two. He was a Lit major, went to Orlando’s gym, and was straight. One of many guys Dom had made a pass at and been shut down fairly swiftly. Even as he dragged his eyes down the twist of his spine, admiring the dimpling above his arse where he was concentrating the majority of his sketching, he reflected on that memory from last year. Garrett was one of the ones that had been more than little uncomfortable at Dom’s advance. Even this morning, when he’d walked in wearing a robe and scanned the class, he’d met Dom’s eyes just once, and then made a point not to look in his direction again.
Dom chuckled quietly to himself, looking out the window and down to the silver frosted lawn. He didn’t know why he perpetually crushed on straight guys, or why his gaydar was apparently that bad. Orlando had been another, when they’d first met in the SAE house three years ago, though Orli had let him down easily and with more grace than most, becoming one of his best friends in the aftermath.
Outside, Dom saw a familiar figure shuffling from the sidewalk and starting to cross over the grass courtyard. Billy looked the same as he ever did, with his huge rucksack, that tweedy blazer, and what looked like a cable knit jumper beneath. He stopped, setting down his briefcase to crouch and tie his shoe. From this vantage on the second floor of the studio building, the shape of Billy’s hairline was accentuated, thinning out slightly at the temples. He wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves, as he should have been with the brutal temperature, damp, overcast and well below freezing. He glanced around as he stood back up, hitching the heavy bag on his back with a hop and a tug, his cheeks and nose rosy with cold and contrasting sharply with the paleness of his skin.
Dom couldn’t figure out what this new thing with Billy was. Aside from using him as a joke platform with Orli and Elijah and seeing him in passing over the course of the last couple of years, he’d been of little interest. But having been forced to spend time with him had peaked Dom’s natural curiosity. Why was Billy so unhappy with his lot in life? What did he do for fun, to unwind at the end of the day? Why had he disappeared last semester?
Plus Billy wasn’t his type. He wasn’t much to look at, what with his dorky style and common celtic features. But in their study sessions, Dom found himself admiring those things; his hands, the shape of his eyes and mouth, that slightly frayed look he had. Why they kept attracting his attention, he didn’t know.
He felt Professor Blanchett’s presence at his shoulder, shifting in his seat and considering his easel with her.
She pointed with her own elegant hand at his work. “Your shading here along the coccyl triangle, and the slight definition between the gluteus medius and maximus-very nice. But I think it needs a little more emphasis on the other side of the hip, the reflected secondary light. See?” She strode over to Garrett, gesturing between the light and shadow on his skin, “Primary light from the window, shadow, then the more subtle secondary light from the room. If you darken your background and the shadow, the secondary source will be better emphasized.”
“Yeah,” Dom nodded, staring at the arse in question. “Thanks.” Once she strode away toward another student, Dom saw Garrett flick his eyes in his direction, a muscle in his jaw twitching. Dom breathed a laugh, shooting a wink in his direction just to freak him out a little more.
When he glanced back down to the courtyard, Billy was already gone.
Billy spotted him coming around the corner of the Holyoke building, his body stiffening even as their eyes met. It seemed he was still hacked off at Dom for flicking little wads of paper at the back of his head in Mort’s class earlier that morning, most of which he’d roundly ignored until he’d simply spun around and ripped Dom’s notebook out of his hand altogether and Vig made a joke about turning the car around that had made Billy sulk horribly.
“Hey!” Dom smiled. Billy didn’t acknowledge him as they strode toward the square and Dom angled to the Dunkin’ Donuts. “You want a coffee?”
“No.” Billy left him and started across the Massachusetts Avenue.
Dom abandoned the idea of coffee, jogging across after him. “Look mate, I didn’t mean anything in class. Dalí bores the shite out of me.”
“Apparently.”
“I like your jumper,” Dom tried, and that got Billy looking at him sidelong with doubt. “I do! It’s very… comfy looking. Where’s it from?”
“Dunno. I got it second hand.” Billy switched his briefcase from one hand to the other, tucking the cold hand into his pocket.
“Vintage,” Dom nodded, smiling. “Nothing wrong with that. You know who I like better than Dalí? Michael Parkes.”
Billy tsked, “Michael Parkes isn’t a Surrealist.”
“No?”
“No. He’s too modern, too commercial.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Dom asked, glad to have landed on a topic. “How many artists have prints for sale in every single frame shop in the universe? You’re the one who said all artists are starving. Parkes is rolling in it.”
“Yeah, well,” Billy huffed. “Some people get lucky, I suppose. Dunno why. His work has no meaning.”
“Eye of the beholder, Bills,” Dom looked at him with a smug half-lidded eye. “Art is subjective, remember?”
As they strode up toward the library, Dom began to notice the lack of students and the university maintenance trucks occupying the frozen lawns.
“Oh no,” Billy breathed beside him as they mounted the steps of the building. He tried the door, rattling it, though it was clearly locked, with a cardboard sign taped to the handle.
“Closed? What the fuck is this?” Billy stared at the sign explaining a water main break hanging on the locked doors of Lamont, and flipping it over as if it would say just kidding on the back.
“It’s been freezing, especially at night,” Dom offered as explanation, “It’s an old building too, I’ll bet the plumbing isn’t up to code.”
“It’s a bloody library, what do they need plumbing for?” Billy fired back, glancing at his watch. “Shite.”
“There are ninety some-odd libraries here, Bills, let’s just go next door to Widener. Or Houghton, even.”
“No,” Billy read the sign again, then stood back and looked up at the building as if there might be a way to scale the walls and crawl inside before he turned. “No, Dom, why don’t we just… leave off. You’re back on track, right? You don’t… We don’t need to keep doing this. Together.”
Dom shrugged. “Mort’ll be on both our arses if I slip again, and you still need help with his crap, don’t you? It’s a library, Bill. A library is a library. Tables, shelves, books. Let’s just go next door.” Dom started back down the steps.
“But I like Lamont,” Billy whinged. After a minute he sighed, scrubbing at the back of his hair, mussing it up. “I just want to go home now.”
Dom paused, then pivoted on his heel and sauntered back. “Okay, let’s go home, then, we’ll study there.”
“You’re not coming to my place,” Billy told him hotly.
“Fine, we’ll go to mine,” Dom smiled, “We can study in my room. I can show you my etchings.”
Billy barked a laugh, “Right, and your mates will leave well enough alone with me there? Not a fucking chance.”
Dom gazed steadily back at Billy’s glower, a battle of wills. Truthfully, he was desperately curious to see where Billy lived, so he just waited for him to cave.
“Fine,” Billy finally sighed. He turned around and headed east down Harvard Street.
Dom grinned triumphantly, but stopped as they moved opposite directions. “Oi, my car’s back in the student carpark,” he hitched a thumb over his shoulder.
“I’d rather walk,” Billy said evenly, turning and giving him raised eyebrows that said, if you’re coming over, you’re paying the same price as me.
Dom hesitated in the cold, but then followed after him.
“Why so attached to Lamont, then?” Dom asked as they walked out of the university proper, trotting up to walk with Billy instead of behind him.
“I don’t know,” Billy muttered, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, “Don’t you get attached to a place if you spend a lot of time there?”
“I suppose,” Dom agreed, glad to have landed on a topic that Billy seemed to feel like talking about.
“I’ve studied there for years now. I can think better there,” Billy expanded, “I’m used to the feel of it, the sounds, the smells.”
“The smells?”
Billy glanced briefly at him, “Yeah. The smell of books, you know, ink and paper.”
“All libraries smell that way,” Dom laughed, his breath steaming as they trudged at a good pace.
“I suppose it’s what you art students bring to it, then,” Billy said, “The flaxseed oil, turpentine, charcoal, clay. Smells like artwork. Like the science libraries all smell like auger and sulphur and other weird chemicals.”
Dom chuckled at his shoes crunching along the icy sidewalk. “I wonder what the law libraries smell like, then.”
“Bullshit, probably,” Billy said, laughing a bit himself.
Dom grinned from ear to ear. It didn’t matter that he’d been led right into that one, the idea of Billy Boyd making a joke was more fun than teasing him. “What about the mural, then, on the second floor?”
“What about it?”
“What do you think of it?”
Billy shrugged, “Don’t spend that much time on the second floor.”
“Oh come on,” Dom pressed, “I’ve watched you walk down that hallway at least once a week to get to your favorite Renaissance section, liar. Mister I have my opinion on this, that and the other masterpiece and won’t tolerate dissenters. Surely you have an opinion on the mural.”
“I’m not intolerant to your opinions unless you’re just finding things to piss and moan about because you know it will interrupt the class,” Bill grumbled defensively, turning them down another neighborhood street. “Even your mate Orlando can’t be so thick that he can’t see historical fact when it’s presented to him.”
“He’s not that thick, no. He just likes getting a rise out of you,” Dom smiled, “So what’s your opinion, then? I want to know what an almost professional art history nerd thinks of my work.”
Billy smirked, “At least twenty people worked on that mural, Dom.”
“Fine then, our work. It’s a simple question. What do you think of it?”
Billy exhaled hugely, “It’s alright. I’m not going to tell you it’s High Art or anything. Half of it is ripping off a dozen different artists, badly I might add, and the other half is made up of clichéd ideas from the soaked minds of emo twenty-somethings. It brightened up the hall, at any rate. What else do you need to hear?”
“That’s good enough,” Dom smiled. “That’s more or less what I thought myself. Although the bit with the rainbow and Mars on a half-shell was particularly enlightened, I thought.”
“Yes, subtle, Dominic, I’ve no idea who could have come up with that bit. Botticelli’s spun a full revolution in his grave, I’m sure. The fig leaf took away from it, though.”
Dom scowled, “Bloody head librarian got her knickers in a knot over that. You’d think she’d never seen a nude man before.”
“Jeanne Barstow? She probably hasn’t. Certainly not one so, er…”
“Hung?” Dom raised his brows smugly.
“Impressive, yes. Even the gods and heroes were depicted with modest proportions, you know.”
“You should look into ancient Egyptian art, Bills. Or even some of the lesser known Roman stuff. Some of the mosaics they’ve found in Pompeii are far from shy about phalloi worship.”
“What makes you think I haven’t? This is me,” Billy lifted his chin, turning in at one of the Mansard Victorians on the block, three stories tall and narrow, with ivy covered brickwork below its dormered roof.
“Really? This is nice,” Dom said appreciatively, glancing up at the façade. This block had to have risen up circa 1890, possibly earlier.
“Don’t fall for it yet, you haven’t seen the inside,” Billy said darkly, bypassing the front entry to a narrow walk along the property line to the back of the house, where several trash bins put out a stench. “None of these are original anymore. These four houses were bought out by some developer in the sixties. Turned them all into tiny little flats, sparing no expense, or historical preservation either.” That last was said with much sarcasm as he descended a half flight of concrete steps sunk down at the back of the house to a basement door, pulling out a key ring to unlock it with a heave and a wriggle. “Wish I could live in the top one, but I’d have to pay five times as much.”
They did a bit of a dance where Billy politely attempted to let Dom through first, though in the tight stairwell with Billy’s huge bag, he eventually gave up and entered, dropping the rucksack to the side and went into the narrow kitchen.
“Not so bad,” Dom said as he looked around, though it wasn’t a place he would ever live, given a choice. It had indeed had a cheap 1960’s makeover, and clearly had not been touched or really basically maintained since. He closed the door on the tiny living room with brown shag carpet that felt as though it either had no padding beneath or it had just worn down to nothing in the years it had been lived on. On the sill of the window-single paned, tiny and high up on the low ceiling in a window well-was a decrepit looking potted plant. The ceiling plaster was badly textured and water stained, and held a chipped, ugly light fixture with a yellow tinge. There was a dingy sofa against one wall with a coffee table, with just enough space left over to walk between the furniture. Above it was a framed certificate for a Bachelor of Arts from Glasgow University, which he’d earned Summa Cum Laud. Opposite from the couch was a short bookshelf. The shelves were filled to brimming with old art books and on top, to one side was a small dusty TV, but no cable box or DVD player. Beside it were a couple of old picture frames, one photo more dated than the other.
“Are these your parents?” Dom asked, touching the tarnished silver frame, but not picking it up. “Are they back in Glasgow?”
“You could say that,” Billy answered from the kitchen.
“Who’s the kid?” Dom asked, looking at the other photograph of a woman who had to be Billy’s sister with a boy of about five on her knee, an elderly woman beside them.
“James,” Billy said, “My nephew. That photo’s old. He’s twelve now.”
“What does your sister do?”
Billy came out of the kitchen. “She’s a hairdresser. Let’s get to it, then, Dom, alright?”
“Can I use the loo first?” Dom grinned.
“S’ through there, on the right,” Billy pointed to a very short, dim hall. “And don’t go in my bedroom.”
Dom peed and washed up, nosing amongst the gaudy mustard yellow sink to discover the brand of aftershave and toothpaste Billy favored, and other silly little things his curiosity had him seek out. Ugly though the little space was, it was kept clean and neat. Out in the hall, the door to Billy’s bedroom was ajar, only just, showing a sliver of a hastily made bed and not much more. The kitchen was also tacky but well kept, mismatched dishes stacked in a drying rack, a trash and recycling schedule posted under a magnet on the small humming fridge.
Billy had already settled on one end of the sofa, a pile of essays on his knees, books and briefcase stacked on the coffee table, the floor lamp beside him throwing a little more light into the dim room.
“Whoever owns this block ought to pour a good bit of change into restoring these houses. Even as flats, they could be really nice with a little update,” Dom said lightly.
Billy gave a little tscha at this. “Why don’t you get right on that, then, Dominic,” he huffed, “And while you’re at it, ask them if maybe they could invest in this new fangled thing called insulation. I don’t know whether they’ve noticed in the last fifty years, but Boston tends to be a wee bit nippy in the wintertime.”
“I would have thought a Weeg could tolerate a little cold,” Dom teased. “You Scots are supposed to be hardy folk, they say.”
“Aye, but we have the beautiful North Atlantic Current in Glasgow. Makes it rain, which any self-respecting Scot can handle, but not so much with bollocks freezing cold.” A kettle whistled from the kitchen, and Billy moved to get up.
“I’ll get it,” Dom said, stepping into the kitchen to turn off the kettle and looking in cabinets to find mugs and tea bags. By the time he brought both back and set them on the coffee table, Billy was deep into grading, looking dead-set on making a dent in it. Dom settled on the other end of the small sofa, opening his own bag and finding the first of several chapters he needed to read.
The hours passed slowly, Dom getting distracted by the silence (he didn’t see a stereo in the flat), and by the way Billy occasionally moved. He’d settled into the corner of the sofa with the essay on his knee, his red pen held up on one hand and that elbow propped on the sofa’s arm. At any mistake, the arm would come down and Billy would hunch to mark the offense and make a note in the margin. Then he would sit back and push his glasses back up. Once or twice he paused and tugged at the collar of that hunter green jumper, stretching and rotating his neck around, the tendons of his neck and his adam’s apple catching the miniscule light from both the window and the lamp. Primary, shadow, secondary light, Cate’s voice supplied in Dom’s head, and he swallowed at the little flutter the lovely imagery pushed through his stomach.
“Where were you at the end of last semester?” he asked curiously. “I mean, you’re so hellbent on getting your PhD and you were right at the end. You could have been ABD then.”
Billy ignored him and continued reading, the butt of the red pen tapping on his temple now.
Dom sat back, “It just doesn’t seem like you to get that far and then feck off somewhere to-“
“I was burying my grandmother,” Billy interrupted, not lifting his eyes from the paper.
Dom blinked, glancing over at the old woman in the picture frame. “Sorry.”
Billy dropped the pen to the paper, underlining and making a short note.
But Dom couldn’t just leave it at that. “Why would that take up a whole six weeks though? I mean, you just went home for the funeral, right?”
“Yes, Dominic, I went home for the funeral,” Billy sighed and leaned back, putting the paper and pen down in the finished pile and taking off his glasses to rub his eyes, looking Dom over with speculative irritation, “What. You’ve never had a relative die before?”
Dom dropped his eyes and shrugged, “Well, yeah, my grandparents, an uncle. I had a cousin die young of leukemia, he was the same age I was.”
“But you didn’t deal with the details. Someone else did,” Billy said, glasses curled in one hand and looking across the room at the photo himself. “I went home to bury my gran, Dom. Which means I went back to Glasgow to help my sister clear out her flat and go through all her papers and belongings, take care of her affairs and sign all the paperwork and put her in the ground and then maybe have some time left over to feel sad about it. And then I had the audacity to stay at Maggie’s over Christmas and try to enjoy the family I have left. That’s what I spent six weeks doing.”
Billy’s voice actually held onto its patience during this little speech, which just left Dom feeling that much more naïve for asking. It also showed a side of Billy he thought he’d never see, that there was something more important than school after all.
Billy looked him over, then out the window at the swiftly dimming light, pulling another essay from the unfinished pile. “You probably ought to go, get your car out of parking before it gets too dark.”
Dom nodded and started packing together his things. As he left and started walking back, he was surprised at these small things he’d learned today, the way Billy lived, the things he cared about. Billy was turning out to be far more interesting a person than he’d ever considered before.
CHAPTER SIX
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG-NC17
Warnings: AU, angst, art geekery
Summary: Uni fic.
A/N: I know I'm a slow writer, but I promise, I'm always working on my WIPs.
Dom paused in his drawing to take an exacto to the tip of his charcoal. The model yawned, contagious to most of the class at this hour on a Monday morning, but it made for good lighting through the big east facing windows, even with the cold weather.
Garrett was the model’s name. It had been awhile since he’d stood for the nude class, though Dom had seen him-clothed-at a party or two. He was a Lit major, went to Orlando’s gym, and was straight. One of many guys Dom had made a pass at and been shut down fairly swiftly. Even as he dragged his eyes down the twist of his spine, admiring the dimpling above his arse where he was concentrating the majority of his sketching, he reflected on that memory from last year. Garrett was one of the ones that had been more than little uncomfortable at Dom’s advance. Even this morning, when he’d walked in wearing a robe and scanned the class, he’d met Dom’s eyes just once, and then made a point not to look in his direction again.
Dom chuckled quietly to himself, looking out the window and down to the silver frosted lawn. He didn’t know why he perpetually crushed on straight guys, or why his gaydar was apparently that bad. Orlando had been another, when they’d first met in the SAE house three years ago, though Orli had let him down easily and with more grace than most, becoming one of his best friends in the aftermath.
Outside, Dom saw a familiar figure shuffling from the sidewalk and starting to cross over the grass courtyard. Billy looked the same as he ever did, with his huge rucksack, that tweedy blazer, and what looked like a cable knit jumper beneath. He stopped, setting down his briefcase to crouch and tie his shoe. From this vantage on the second floor of the studio building, the shape of Billy’s hairline was accentuated, thinning out slightly at the temples. He wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves, as he should have been with the brutal temperature, damp, overcast and well below freezing. He glanced around as he stood back up, hitching the heavy bag on his back with a hop and a tug, his cheeks and nose rosy with cold and contrasting sharply with the paleness of his skin.
Dom couldn’t figure out what this new thing with Billy was. Aside from using him as a joke platform with Orli and Elijah and seeing him in passing over the course of the last couple of years, he’d been of little interest. But having been forced to spend time with him had peaked Dom’s natural curiosity. Why was Billy so unhappy with his lot in life? What did he do for fun, to unwind at the end of the day? Why had he disappeared last semester?
Plus Billy wasn’t his type. He wasn’t much to look at, what with his dorky style and common celtic features. But in their study sessions, Dom found himself admiring those things; his hands, the shape of his eyes and mouth, that slightly frayed look he had. Why they kept attracting his attention, he didn’t know.
He felt Professor Blanchett’s presence at his shoulder, shifting in his seat and considering his easel with her.
She pointed with her own elegant hand at his work. “Your shading here along the coccyl triangle, and the slight definition between the gluteus medius and maximus-very nice. But I think it needs a little more emphasis on the other side of the hip, the reflected secondary light. See?” She strode over to Garrett, gesturing between the light and shadow on his skin, “Primary light from the window, shadow, then the more subtle secondary light from the room. If you darken your background and the shadow, the secondary source will be better emphasized.”
“Yeah,” Dom nodded, staring at the arse in question. “Thanks.” Once she strode away toward another student, Dom saw Garrett flick his eyes in his direction, a muscle in his jaw twitching. Dom breathed a laugh, shooting a wink in his direction just to freak him out a little more.
When he glanced back down to the courtyard, Billy was already gone.
Billy spotted him coming around the corner of the Holyoke building, his body stiffening even as their eyes met. It seemed he was still hacked off at Dom for flicking little wads of paper at the back of his head in Mort’s class earlier that morning, most of which he’d roundly ignored until he’d simply spun around and ripped Dom’s notebook out of his hand altogether and Vig made a joke about turning the car around that had made Billy sulk horribly.
“Hey!” Dom smiled. Billy didn’t acknowledge him as they strode toward the square and Dom angled to the Dunkin’ Donuts. “You want a coffee?”
“No.” Billy left him and started across the Massachusetts Avenue.
Dom abandoned the idea of coffee, jogging across after him. “Look mate, I didn’t mean anything in class. Dalí bores the shite out of me.”
“Apparently.”
“I like your jumper,” Dom tried, and that got Billy looking at him sidelong with doubt. “I do! It’s very… comfy looking. Where’s it from?”
“Dunno. I got it second hand.” Billy switched his briefcase from one hand to the other, tucking the cold hand into his pocket.
“Vintage,” Dom nodded, smiling. “Nothing wrong with that. You know who I like better than Dalí? Michael Parkes.”
Billy tsked, “Michael Parkes isn’t a Surrealist.”
“No?”
“No. He’s too modern, too commercial.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Dom asked, glad to have landed on a topic. “How many artists have prints for sale in every single frame shop in the universe? You’re the one who said all artists are starving. Parkes is rolling in it.”
“Yeah, well,” Billy huffed. “Some people get lucky, I suppose. Dunno why. His work has no meaning.”
“Eye of the beholder, Bills,” Dom looked at him with a smug half-lidded eye. “Art is subjective, remember?”
As they strode up toward the library, Dom began to notice the lack of students and the university maintenance trucks occupying the frozen lawns.
“Oh no,” Billy breathed beside him as they mounted the steps of the building. He tried the door, rattling it, though it was clearly locked, with a cardboard sign taped to the handle.
“Closed? What the fuck is this?” Billy stared at the sign explaining a water main break hanging on the locked doors of Lamont, and flipping it over as if it would say just kidding on the back.
“It’s been freezing, especially at night,” Dom offered as explanation, “It’s an old building too, I’ll bet the plumbing isn’t up to code.”
“It’s a bloody library, what do they need plumbing for?” Billy fired back, glancing at his watch. “Shite.”
“There are ninety some-odd libraries here, Bills, let’s just go next door to Widener. Or Houghton, even.”
“No,” Billy read the sign again, then stood back and looked up at the building as if there might be a way to scale the walls and crawl inside before he turned. “No, Dom, why don’t we just… leave off. You’re back on track, right? You don’t… We don’t need to keep doing this. Together.”
Dom shrugged. “Mort’ll be on both our arses if I slip again, and you still need help with his crap, don’t you? It’s a library, Bill. A library is a library. Tables, shelves, books. Let’s just go next door.” Dom started back down the steps.
“But I like Lamont,” Billy whinged. After a minute he sighed, scrubbing at the back of his hair, mussing it up. “I just want to go home now.”
Dom paused, then pivoted on his heel and sauntered back. “Okay, let’s go home, then, we’ll study there.”
“You’re not coming to my place,” Billy told him hotly.
“Fine, we’ll go to mine,” Dom smiled, “We can study in my room. I can show you my etchings.”
Billy barked a laugh, “Right, and your mates will leave well enough alone with me there? Not a fucking chance.”
Dom gazed steadily back at Billy’s glower, a battle of wills. Truthfully, he was desperately curious to see where Billy lived, so he just waited for him to cave.
“Fine,” Billy finally sighed. He turned around and headed east down Harvard Street.
Dom grinned triumphantly, but stopped as they moved opposite directions. “Oi, my car’s back in the student carpark,” he hitched a thumb over his shoulder.
“I’d rather walk,” Billy said evenly, turning and giving him raised eyebrows that said, if you’re coming over, you’re paying the same price as me.
Dom hesitated in the cold, but then followed after him.
“Why so attached to Lamont, then?” Dom asked as they walked out of the university proper, trotting up to walk with Billy instead of behind him.
“I don’t know,” Billy muttered, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, “Don’t you get attached to a place if you spend a lot of time there?”
“I suppose,” Dom agreed, glad to have landed on a topic that Billy seemed to feel like talking about.
“I’ve studied there for years now. I can think better there,” Billy expanded, “I’m used to the feel of it, the sounds, the smells.”
“The smells?”
Billy glanced briefly at him, “Yeah. The smell of books, you know, ink and paper.”
“All libraries smell that way,” Dom laughed, his breath steaming as they trudged at a good pace.
“I suppose it’s what you art students bring to it, then,” Billy said, “The flaxseed oil, turpentine, charcoal, clay. Smells like artwork. Like the science libraries all smell like auger and sulphur and other weird chemicals.”
Dom chuckled at his shoes crunching along the icy sidewalk. “I wonder what the law libraries smell like, then.”
“Bullshit, probably,” Billy said, laughing a bit himself.
Dom grinned from ear to ear. It didn’t matter that he’d been led right into that one, the idea of Billy Boyd making a joke was more fun than teasing him. “What about the mural, then, on the second floor?”
“What about it?”
“What do you think of it?”
Billy shrugged, “Don’t spend that much time on the second floor.”
“Oh come on,” Dom pressed, “I’ve watched you walk down that hallway at least once a week to get to your favorite Renaissance section, liar. Mister I have my opinion on this, that and the other masterpiece and won’t tolerate dissenters. Surely you have an opinion on the mural.”
“I’m not intolerant to your opinions unless you’re just finding things to piss and moan about because you know it will interrupt the class,” Bill grumbled defensively, turning them down another neighborhood street. “Even your mate Orlando can’t be so thick that he can’t see historical fact when it’s presented to him.”
“He’s not that thick, no. He just likes getting a rise out of you,” Dom smiled, “So what’s your opinion, then? I want to know what an almost professional art history nerd thinks of my work.”
Billy smirked, “At least twenty people worked on that mural, Dom.”
“Fine then, our work. It’s a simple question. What do you think of it?”
Billy exhaled hugely, “It’s alright. I’m not going to tell you it’s High Art or anything. Half of it is ripping off a dozen different artists, badly I might add, and the other half is made up of clichéd ideas from the soaked minds of emo twenty-somethings. It brightened up the hall, at any rate. What else do you need to hear?”
“That’s good enough,” Dom smiled. “That’s more or less what I thought myself. Although the bit with the rainbow and Mars on a half-shell was particularly enlightened, I thought.”
“Yes, subtle, Dominic, I’ve no idea who could have come up with that bit. Botticelli’s spun a full revolution in his grave, I’m sure. The fig leaf took away from it, though.”
Dom scowled, “Bloody head librarian got her knickers in a knot over that. You’d think she’d never seen a nude man before.”
“Jeanne Barstow? She probably hasn’t. Certainly not one so, er…”
“Hung?” Dom raised his brows smugly.
“Impressive, yes. Even the gods and heroes were depicted with modest proportions, you know.”
“You should look into ancient Egyptian art, Bills. Or even some of the lesser known Roman stuff. Some of the mosaics they’ve found in Pompeii are far from shy about phalloi worship.”
“What makes you think I haven’t? This is me,” Billy lifted his chin, turning in at one of the Mansard Victorians on the block, three stories tall and narrow, with ivy covered brickwork below its dormered roof.
“Really? This is nice,” Dom said appreciatively, glancing up at the façade. This block had to have risen up circa 1890, possibly earlier.
“Don’t fall for it yet, you haven’t seen the inside,” Billy said darkly, bypassing the front entry to a narrow walk along the property line to the back of the house, where several trash bins put out a stench. “None of these are original anymore. These four houses were bought out by some developer in the sixties. Turned them all into tiny little flats, sparing no expense, or historical preservation either.” That last was said with much sarcasm as he descended a half flight of concrete steps sunk down at the back of the house to a basement door, pulling out a key ring to unlock it with a heave and a wriggle. “Wish I could live in the top one, but I’d have to pay five times as much.”
They did a bit of a dance where Billy politely attempted to let Dom through first, though in the tight stairwell with Billy’s huge bag, he eventually gave up and entered, dropping the rucksack to the side and went into the narrow kitchen.
“Not so bad,” Dom said as he looked around, though it wasn’t a place he would ever live, given a choice. It had indeed had a cheap 1960’s makeover, and clearly had not been touched or really basically maintained since. He closed the door on the tiny living room with brown shag carpet that felt as though it either had no padding beneath or it had just worn down to nothing in the years it had been lived on. On the sill of the window-single paned, tiny and high up on the low ceiling in a window well-was a decrepit looking potted plant. The ceiling plaster was badly textured and water stained, and held a chipped, ugly light fixture with a yellow tinge. There was a dingy sofa against one wall with a coffee table, with just enough space left over to walk between the furniture. Above it was a framed certificate for a Bachelor of Arts from Glasgow University, which he’d earned Summa Cum Laud. Opposite from the couch was a short bookshelf. The shelves were filled to brimming with old art books and on top, to one side was a small dusty TV, but no cable box or DVD player. Beside it were a couple of old picture frames, one photo more dated than the other.
“Are these your parents?” Dom asked, touching the tarnished silver frame, but not picking it up. “Are they back in Glasgow?”
“You could say that,” Billy answered from the kitchen.
“Who’s the kid?” Dom asked, looking at the other photograph of a woman who had to be Billy’s sister with a boy of about five on her knee, an elderly woman beside them.
“James,” Billy said, “My nephew. That photo’s old. He’s twelve now.”
“What does your sister do?”
Billy came out of the kitchen. “She’s a hairdresser. Let’s get to it, then, Dom, alright?”
“Can I use the loo first?” Dom grinned.
“S’ through there, on the right,” Billy pointed to a very short, dim hall. “And don’t go in my bedroom.”
Dom peed and washed up, nosing amongst the gaudy mustard yellow sink to discover the brand of aftershave and toothpaste Billy favored, and other silly little things his curiosity had him seek out. Ugly though the little space was, it was kept clean and neat. Out in the hall, the door to Billy’s bedroom was ajar, only just, showing a sliver of a hastily made bed and not much more. The kitchen was also tacky but well kept, mismatched dishes stacked in a drying rack, a trash and recycling schedule posted under a magnet on the small humming fridge.
Billy had already settled on one end of the sofa, a pile of essays on his knees, books and briefcase stacked on the coffee table, the floor lamp beside him throwing a little more light into the dim room.
“Whoever owns this block ought to pour a good bit of change into restoring these houses. Even as flats, they could be really nice with a little update,” Dom said lightly.
Billy gave a little tscha at this. “Why don’t you get right on that, then, Dominic,” he huffed, “And while you’re at it, ask them if maybe they could invest in this new fangled thing called insulation. I don’t know whether they’ve noticed in the last fifty years, but Boston tends to be a wee bit nippy in the wintertime.”
“I would have thought a Weeg could tolerate a little cold,” Dom teased. “You Scots are supposed to be hardy folk, they say.”
“Aye, but we have the beautiful North Atlantic Current in Glasgow. Makes it rain, which any self-respecting Scot can handle, but not so much with bollocks freezing cold.” A kettle whistled from the kitchen, and Billy moved to get up.
“I’ll get it,” Dom said, stepping into the kitchen to turn off the kettle and looking in cabinets to find mugs and tea bags. By the time he brought both back and set them on the coffee table, Billy was deep into grading, looking dead-set on making a dent in it. Dom settled on the other end of the small sofa, opening his own bag and finding the first of several chapters he needed to read.
The hours passed slowly, Dom getting distracted by the silence (he didn’t see a stereo in the flat), and by the way Billy occasionally moved. He’d settled into the corner of the sofa with the essay on his knee, his red pen held up on one hand and that elbow propped on the sofa’s arm. At any mistake, the arm would come down and Billy would hunch to mark the offense and make a note in the margin. Then he would sit back and push his glasses back up. Once or twice he paused and tugged at the collar of that hunter green jumper, stretching and rotating his neck around, the tendons of his neck and his adam’s apple catching the miniscule light from both the window and the lamp. Primary, shadow, secondary light, Cate’s voice supplied in Dom’s head, and he swallowed at the little flutter the lovely imagery pushed through his stomach.
“Where were you at the end of last semester?” he asked curiously. “I mean, you’re so hellbent on getting your PhD and you were right at the end. You could have been ABD then.”
Billy ignored him and continued reading, the butt of the red pen tapping on his temple now.
Dom sat back, “It just doesn’t seem like you to get that far and then feck off somewhere to-“
“I was burying my grandmother,” Billy interrupted, not lifting his eyes from the paper.
Dom blinked, glancing over at the old woman in the picture frame. “Sorry.”
Billy dropped the pen to the paper, underlining and making a short note.
But Dom couldn’t just leave it at that. “Why would that take up a whole six weeks though? I mean, you just went home for the funeral, right?”
“Yes, Dominic, I went home for the funeral,” Billy sighed and leaned back, putting the paper and pen down in the finished pile and taking off his glasses to rub his eyes, looking Dom over with speculative irritation, “What. You’ve never had a relative die before?”
Dom dropped his eyes and shrugged, “Well, yeah, my grandparents, an uncle. I had a cousin die young of leukemia, he was the same age I was.”
“But you didn’t deal with the details. Someone else did,” Billy said, glasses curled in one hand and looking across the room at the photo himself. “I went home to bury my gran, Dom. Which means I went back to Glasgow to help my sister clear out her flat and go through all her papers and belongings, take care of her affairs and sign all the paperwork and put her in the ground and then maybe have some time left over to feel sad about it. And then I had the audacity to stay at Maggie’s over Christmas and try to enjoy the family I have left. That’s what I spent six weeks doing.”
Billy’s voice actually held onto its patience during this little speech, which just left Dom feeling that much more naïve for asking. It also showed a side of Billy he thought he’d never see, that there was something more important than school after all.
Billy looked him over, then out the window at the swiftly dimming light, pulling another essay from the unfinished pile. “You probably ought to go, get your car out of parking before it gets too dark.”
Dom nodded and started packing together his things. As he left and started walking back, he was surprised at these small things he’d learned today, the way Billy lived, the things he cared about. Billy was turning out to be far more interesting a person than he’d ever considered before.
CHAPTER SIX