Homecoming, Part 4
CowLip owns the characters. This is not profiting me.
Written for the "Worlds Apart" challenge at neverenough_bj.
Thank you, jans_intentions, for the beta.
Warning: Brian/other, angst.
Homecoming, Part 4
“Why did you want to see me, Brian?” Adam asked.
Brian looked up from his Blackberry as Adam slid into the seat across from him at the coffee shop near Kinnetik. Damn it, he should have been more clear about this meeting, Brian thought, as he saw the hope in Adam’s eyes.
“Gus was asking about you.”
“Oh.” The light faded.
“I want to talk to you before talking to him about your not being around anymore.”
“Don’t want to just say you ditched my ass?” Underneath the sarcasm, Brian heard sorrow. He wished he didn’t.
“He likes you, Adam.”
“I want you to like me.”
“I do like you.”
Adam snorted. Brian wondered if Adam knew how much of an admission it was for him to use the word “like” in regards to another person, and realized that he couldn’t. Adam had not known Brian back before Justin. He knew Brian could act like an asshole, but he had never met Brian when it had been less an act and more just a plain fact. There was a world of difference in the distinction, and Adam would never know. He called Brian an asshole when they had broke it off, but he would never really know.
“I never promised you anything. We didn’t have that sort of relationship.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Adam’s tone turned hot, dark eyes on him, and Brian saw there were circles forming under them. “I’d hoped for more. You never said that there might not be more.”
“I didn’t think we even needed to have that kind of discussion.” He watched Adam carefully. Maybe this had been a mistake. “We didn’t date. We hung out. I really didn’t think it was anything more than that.”
But something seemed to break through to Adam as he shook his head. “You really are a shit. People warned me about you. They said you were an asshole. And yeah, you were distant, a lot. I didn’t realize it was because you were with him.”
“I wasn’t, until the end.”
“I don’t mean physically,” Adam shot back. “Brian, I really like Gus. I love him. But I love you, too, and it would be too hard to keep seeing him. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us anyway. A clean break is best. Besides, I’m leaving Pittsburgh when the semester’s over. I’m not going to pursue teaching here.” Brian just nodded, as Adam got up to leave. “But,” Adam continued, “I will say goodbye to him. Because you want me to. Could you talk to him before hand so he isn’t too upset when I see him?” Brian nodded again, and Adam leaned down, pressing a kiss to his lips. He paused, his face only inches from Brian’s, his mouth opened slightly and his eyes closed, and then he shook his head, straightened, and walked away without looking back.
Brian sat at the table, his coffee growing cold in front of him.
* * * * *
Brian watched as his son carefully traced a line across the tablet in front of him. Next to him at the work table, a young girl looked over at his picture, said something, to which Gus shook his head. He pointed with his marker at something on the tablet.
“He’s a very talented little guy, Mr. Kinney. His artistic ability is very well developed for his age.”
“Yes, he’s had some good role models,” Brian answered the teacher seriously.
Gus chose that moment to look up, and he smiled spontaneously and naturally on catching sight of his father. Brian’s heart tugged; Gus didn’t smile so easily these days. He smiled back, and for a moment his love for his son overwhelmed him. Then he remembered why he had come to pick Gus up.
“Dad!” Gus yelled, hurrying across the room. Brian saw that the other children had looked up. “Hi!” He rushed up to Brian and hugged him at the hips. He was getting so big. Brian bent down and squeezed Gus around the shoulders. “Your mom’s hung up for a bit, buddy, want to go get something to eat?”
“Did you bring the ’vette?” Gus asked. He’d been angling for a ride in it for a while now.
Brian smirked. “You know your car seat doesn’t fit in it.” Brian had taken the Jeep out of its parking garage, as he always did when he had what Lindsay called their “play dates.” “My play dates do not involve Gus,” Brian had snarled. But he had come to really look forward to his one-on-one time with the little guy, even volunteering to relieve Lindsay’s schedule as a working mother, sitting with Gus on the nights Lindsay needed to work at the gallery.
“Can we go to the diner?” Gus asked.
“I have ice cream back at the loft,” Brian replied.
“And chocolate sauce?”
“Yep,” Brian answered, taking his son’s hand, and walking with him out of the school. Brian could see Gus struggling with this knowledge. “Your mom would say it was okay.”
“Okay,” Gus said happily, climbing into the back of the Jeep, into his car seat.
Forty minutes later, Brian sat on a stool next to Gus, watching him stir the ice cream into a soupy mess. The kid liked his ice cream to approach liquid. If someone topped it with whipped cream, he’d stir the whipped cream into the mush. Finally, he scooped up a spoonful and ate it. Then he folded the liquefying edges of the bowlful into the colder center.
“Gus, I want to talk to you about Adam.” He had spoken to Lindsay about this, and despite her recommendations that he wait for Gus to bring up the subject again, Brian negated the idea. He had assured Lindsay he’d be gentle, but direct.
It was so easy to say that when he was talking to Lindsay. Looking into the little face that looked up eagerly toward him, he found the idea much more difficult to implement.
“Adam really likes you, you know that.”
“Yeah, I really like him too. Are we going to go see him?”
“No… Adam and I decided we don’t want to be together. So Adam won’t be coming around anymore.”
Gus looked down into his bowl, stirring. “Oh.”
“Is that hard to hear?”
Gus said nothing.
Brian leaned forward. “Look at me. Gus.”
The little boy looked up again, his dark eyes troubled, with a suspicious sheen forming over them.
“I wanted to tell you. Since you asked about Adam the other night at your Grandma Deb’s. I couldn’t talk to you about it then, with everyone there.”
“Why did you break up?” Gus’s voice trembled a little.
Brian thought about that, and knew the best approach was honesty. “I like Adam, Gus. Of course I do.”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t kiss him.”
“…Right. But Gus, I don’t love him.”
“Maybe you could. One day.”
Oh my god, Brian thought, my son is a 16-year old lesbian. “It doesn’t work that way. Not for me. But I do want to love someone, Gus. And as long as I’m with Adam, I couldn’t find someone I could really love. Do you understand?”
“No!” And now the ice cream was soup, and Gus was dissolving in tears. Brian reached out to touch him, to sooth away the hurt, but Gus pushed away from him, and ran into the bedroom.
Brian sat on the stool for a moment, but then went after his son. He walked up the steps, and sat on the bed, staring at Gus’s back. “Gus, Adam’s going to be leaving Pittsburgh when his job is done at the college. He wants to see you before he goes.”
Gus rolled over, and Brian felt actual pain at the sight of the tear tracks on his face. “Why does he have to go?”
“Sometimes that’s the way life is,” Brian answered. He reached out and brushed Gus’s tears away from his face. “Adam’s a great guy, but he wasn’t who I want to be with. And it was unfair of me to ask him to stay with me when I wasn’t going to love him.”
Gus sat up, and threw his arms around Brian’s neck, his head burying into his shoulder. Brian held him. After a while he stopped shaking. Brian had been lulled into a sort of trance, rocking back and forth with the small body warm against his, so he missed what Gus said. Pulling back slightly, he asked, “What?”
“My ice cream melted.”
Brian smiled. That, he could fix.
* * * * *
“So, what are your plans?”
Justin shifted a bit. “You mean, today? I have to get back home and work on a project…”
“No. I mean, in Pittsburgh.” As soon as he said it, Brian groaned. Fuck. But damn it, he wanted to know.
Justin pulled his body, his nice, warm, naked body, away from Brian’s and sat up, looking down at him. “I can’t believe you’re asking me this. You.”
Brian sat up, leaning back on his forearms, watching Justin pull his jeans on. “I ask what your plans are, you get dressed to go. Guess I have my answer.”
“You don’t have shit,” Justin answered.
“I know you’re leaving.”
Justin turned, and rested his hand on Brian’s chest. Brian entwined his fingers in his. “Stay.”
Justin bit his lip, then shook his head. “I can’t. I need to work on a project. Why don’t you come over later?”
“Because when you’re working, you get in a groove and ignore me.”
“You know, when you pout like that, you look like Gus.” Justin laughed.
Brian tugged him, and the smaller man fell across his chest. Brian rolled and pinned him to the bed. “I meant, what are you plans when you’re done here.” He damn well knew Justin had avoided answering his questions.
“Where, here?” Justin teased, licking at one of Brian’s nipples.
Brian restrained himself from divesting the warm body beneath him of his pants. He so totally could. “Justin.”
Justin sighed, and relaxed. “Can’t we just enjoy this?”
No, Brian thought. Fuck, when did this happen? When did he need to know the future? More specifically, Justin’s future. He chose his next words carefully. “Gus was really upset with Adam’s leaving. I don’t want him to get attached to someone new, and repeat the drama.”
“You’re saying, Gus might be upset if I leave?”
“Yeah, you got a problem with that?”
“No.” Justin twisted out of his grasp. “I always knew you’d be a good dad. Once you got used to the idea.”
Brian propped himself up on an elbow, watching Justin pull his sweater over his head. “You’re not answering the question.”
“That’s because I don’t know the answer.”
Brian frowned. “What do you mean? It’s a simple question. A simple answer. One, you’re staying here, two, you’re going back to New York.”
“You really are unbelievable,” Justin murmured.
“Fine. Then tell me why you came back here in the first place.”
“Do you want me to say I came back for you?” Justin asked.
Yes. “No, of course not.” Just because he felt the appeal of that stupid little romantic fantasy didn’t mean he didn’t understand its stupidity.
Justin stared down at him. “I came back for me, Brian. But I was hoping you’d be here.” He turned to walk away.
“That’s the reason you ran away from New York?”
Justin turned back, his eyes narrowing. He seemed ready to respond; Brian could see the hot words practically falling off his tongue. Then he stopped, and seemed to consider the question. “Will you go with me to New York?”
“Right now? Sure, I don’t have to go run my multi-million-dollar company. Ted can handle it. What the hell.”
Justin just laughed. “No! I mean, For a weekend. Soon. Go up on a Friday night, spend Saturday in the city? I want to show you New York, not just tell you.”
“Next weekend?” What the hell. Nothing going on then. Much. Maybe the company wouldn’t fall apart with Ted and Cynthia standing night watch.
“You can do that? Great!”
“Just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Let me take care of the hotel and travel arrangements.”
* * * * *
“This is not the way to see New York,” Brian grumbled, glancing around the train at the other riders. Justin had assured him he would not be the only rider wearing Hugo Boss leather and “jeans that cost more than their entire wardrobes,” although the latter was definitely true in regard to the homeless man at the other end of the car with the overflowing shopping cart chewing his gumless cud and mumbling to himself. Brian eyed him.
“Don’t stare, if you don’t see them, you’re invisible.”
The great Kinney brow wrinkled. “Isn’t it the other way around, ostrich-boy?”
“Not in New York,” Justin replied. “Everybody here’s a target. Living in denial is the only way to maintain your sanity. This is our stop.” He stood, and Brian followed him, watching the cargo-clad ass twitch its way through the turnstiles and up the stairs into Brooklyn. Justin needed new jeans, some fabulously expensive ones, of course. Brian couldn’t wait to go shopping. Maybe tomorrow. Today, they were seeing Justin’s New York. Tomorrow, they were definitely seeing Brian’s; starting at 5th Avenue and 52nd, and working uptown from there.
“You lived here?” Brian asked, finally looking around after they’d walked a couple of blocks. At ten in the morning, the place was practically deserted. All the shops were closed up, except for a corner grocery store, outside of which a group of sketchy-looking young men loitered.
“Don’t stare at the drug dealers, Brian,” Justin muttered. “Remember what I told you about being invisible.” Although, personally, Justin couldn’t imagine Brian ever managing invisibility.
“I’m not staring,” Brian bit off, looking toward the row of stores, all shut up with metal encasements. “So, this is… quiet.” He had vowed to be nice. Or, to try anyway.
“It’s the Sabbath, usually there are a lot of the Hassidim around. They’re inside, chanting or something, I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “There are a lot of artists in this neighborhood, too, but it’s only ten. Everyone’s still in bed. Mostly sleeping off hangovers.”
“We could still be in bed. Sleeping off my hangover. Or… something.”
Justin didn’t need to turn to see Brian’s accompanying leer in his direction. “We’ll find you a Starbucks once we hit Manhattan again. You can find something there.”
“I like your something better.”
“Yeah, that might be a bit much, even for New York. You gotta wait ‘til after dark to start fucking in the middle of the street. Here it is!”
They turned off the street where trees wept their brown leaves onto the pavement, then walked up the front steps of a cement building that stretched five stories upward. Justin pulled out a set of keys.
“You still have your keys?” Brian asked, looking away. He needed to make sure the skeevy drug dealers weren’t following them.
“Yeah, I forgot to give them to Jim when I left.”
Great, thought Brian. Sunshine had been living in a building where spare keys were floating around god knows where in the hands of god knows how many people. Not that he cared. Except that he did.
Justin locked the door behind them, and led Brian through the front hallway, to a dark living area to the left.
“Hey, man, look at the latest!”
The older man standing in the gloom gestured at Justin to take in some sort of erection made up of… band aides? No, ribbons, glued around wire, looping around itself. The entire structure reached almost to the ceiling.
“Hey, Jim, that’s amazing!” Justin exclaimed, stepping over pizza boxes and around the couch to take a closer look. “Oh, Jim, this is Brian, Brian, Jim.”
“Hey,” Jim tossed off, not even looking at Brian, but watching Justin’s reaction to his sculpture instead. “They’re those ribbons people wear on themselves to commemorate stuff, you know, the red ones are AIDS ribbons, pink ones are breast cancer…”
“Making up a rainbow. Amazing distortions you’ve got this worked into.”
“Yeah, I call it ‘Loyalty Knots.’”
Justin peered closer. “Interesting, trying to figure out where to place loyalty when there are so many worthy choices. The thing’s center keeps shifting, depending where you look.”
“You got it!” Jim turned to Brian. “What do you think?”
Brian wished he could say something profound, but he couldn’t even see the damn thing. He glanced around for the windows, but they were facing in the wrong direction, away from the sun. And appeared to look out at the wall of the building next door. That would explain the gloom. “What Justin said.”
This caused Jim to laugh. “Well, that explains where your center is!”
Brian did not fail to catch Justin’s concerned glance in his direction. “You’re Jim? Justin’s told me… pretty much nothing about you.”
“Yeah, well, Justin told me plenty about you.”
Seeing Brian’s narrowed gaze, Justin hurried in with, “He means through my art, Brian.”
“Yep, pretty fucking eloquent. I was wondering when you’d show up. I mean, in person. As opposed to what he carries around with him.”
“Jim.”
Jim shrugged. “Just cuz you don’t like it said out loud, don’t mean it isn’t true.”
“Is my old room still empty?”
“Are you kidding? Nah, but Heidi’s not there. You can take the tour of where you used to live, if you want.”
Brian tramped up two flights, following Justin’s ass again. Just for a day, he reminded himself. Justin could trail him into Versace, and Prada, and Gucci… as long as they let him in, in those pants. “So you were drawing me.”
“Painting actually… this was my room.”
It wasn’t a room; it was a closet. Brian peered into the room, past Justin’s arm as it pushed the door in. There was more light here, but the room was taken up with a mattress on the floor. Besides the mattress, there may have been a five foot by two foot space of spare floor. The ceiling was fairly low as well.
“But the light’s good,” Justin said, reading Brian’s mind. “I got some work done in the morning. And, I had a futon I folded up, so it opened up the space some. But you’ve seen the canvases I’m working with now. There was just no way here. And it took me a long time to find this.”
“Did you rent studio space?”
“I tried. But I had to share, and the corner of one of my canvasses was soaked in brandy one morning. And the sign-up times to reserve the space just… it didn’t work out.”
“Where we going next?” Brian asked, already turning and tramping down the stairs, not waiting for Justin to lead this time. He needed to get out of this rabbit warren. Okay, so he got Justin’s point; there was no need to linger in it.
“Back to the island. Jim, we’re leaving!” But Jim was no longer in the living room. And Justin’s further calls failed to raise him.
“Come on, I need to get the fuck out of here,” Brian finally interrupted Justin’s worried regard.
“But I need the door locked behind me, and I need to leave my keys.”
“Mail them back,” Brian answered, pulling Justin by the jacket out the front door. They stepped into the crisp fall air, and Brian sucked in a grateful breath. He stared up the taxi-less, Starbuck’s-less street, and resigned himself to getting back on the train, caffeine free. This time, he planned to stand up, even if it was a 25 minute ride. “I need coffee.”
“Okay, I know just the place,” Justin told him, hurrying to catch up after locking the front door.
“Thank god.”
* * * * *
“Justin!!” A very sturdy woman bore down on him, bustling around the tight squeeze of tables, knocking aside one of the dark chairs in her rush to reach him. She clasped him to her bosom, but Justin seemed to enjoy it, hugging her back. Holy fuck, Brian thought, he found New York Debbie.
“So!” NY Debbie said after releasing Justin and turning to Brian, “We meet at last.”
Brian nodded, as she turned back and yelled, “Hey, Kyle! Look, the model’s here!”
A man at the coffee counter glanced her way after a moment, probably used to her exclamations, before doing a double take and looking back. His face broke out in a grin. “Hey, which number are you in real life?” he called Brian’s way. “Number 10?”
What the fuck. “I was born a 10,” Brian replied, “Do you have a 10-shot latte?” But Justin was rolling his eyes, elbowing him in the side, and gesturing at the walls. Brian looked to his right, at a painting entitled “No. 7.” It was an indistinct rendering of Brian’s back, as he lay on his side, away from the viewer’s eye. Brian glanced around the café. There were other paintings with the same theme, one Brian’s clear profile, his form leaning up against the right side of the painting, others more abstract, all nudes. Suddenly aware of how the conversation in the busy café had dropped a notch, Brian turned his attention to the woman, and told her, “They’re not exaggerated.”
“Hmph!” the woman responded. “Justin’s a genius! I’ve already sold 2, 5 and 6, and they’ve only been up a couple weeks!”
“That’s all? Just three?” Justin teased.
“Well, I sold #2 and #5 the first day I mounted the exhibit, and so I bumped the price way up. I sold #6 yesterday, but maybe $3,000.00 was a bit ambitious.”
Justin gaped at her. “Three thousand…”
“Yeah. The guy was French though, so I’m thinking the Euro’s inflation let him do that. I’m gonna adjust back down, see how that goes. The response is great. I’m thinking they’ll go well around $1,750.00. I’m keeping #3.”
“That’s great!” Justin turned to Brian. “I have work in a couple other coffee shops. This is really why I wanted to bring you here, Sal’s Art Café is the best to get work put up in.”
“Yep, I’ve launched more than one career!” Sal elaborated. “He’s a genius, I knew it the second I saw your work.”
“Brian needs a latte,” Justin put in, watching Brian stare at #3. “They’re not all you,” Justin told him.
“I tell my customers they are!” Sal laughed. “Good for business. Everyone likes a beautiful man.”
“That’s the truth!” piped up a dark-haired beauty sitting at the table behind Sal. He had been eyeing Brian from the moment he stepped in the shop. Brian was too busy taking in the art to pay more than cursory notice.
Justin went to get their coffees as Brian continued to look at the paintings. He took a seat at an empty table further in, against the wall. As Sal had indicated, three of the paintings had the red “sold” stickers next to them. He was deep in thought when Justin rejoined him. “It’s only a triple latte; Kyle says if you want more, get an espresso.”
“What happened to ‘the customer’s always right’?” Brian took a sip.
“It’s a question of aesthetic. Balancing taste and commerce is an art in itself.”
“Yes, it is.”
Justin did not ask what he thought of the pieces. Brian wondered if the way his eyes would not look away from No. 4 told Justin all he needed to know. Justin got Brian’s attention back, however, when he said quietly, “I wanted to see this myself because it wasn’t up when I left. But I wanted you to see, too, that I wasn’t running away with my tail between my legs. Things are going in the right direction here.”
Brian set down his cup, his stomach suddenly twisting. “Then why did you leave?” Time to turn and face this, whatever it was. This was it.
Justin propped his elbows on the table, his hands cradling his coffee cup. Underneath the table, his leg snaked around Brian’s calf, and Brian was reminded they hadn’t fucked that morning, before Justin was rushing them out of the hotel room. They would simply have to go back before continuing on. Unless the bathroom here was bigger than a closet.
Justin took a while before answering the question. Maybe he had become distracted by Brian’s answering pull back on his leg. “Every time I met with gallery owners, they wanted to see my big pieces. I don’t have enough to show them. And, fuck, I have those big pieces in me! But you saw where I was living. And I didn’t have the proper resources to rent the space I needed, not here.”
“But you do in Pittsburgh.” Ah.
“I ran into one of my old professors at a show here a couple months before I came back, and then I called some others, and they wanted to work with me on the projects to take to the galleries when they’re done. I only have four actual required classes; the rest can be electives. Three semesters, I’m done.”
Brian’s latte burned a hole in his gut. He forced himself to drink it to the dregs, though. Then he stood. “I’m going to get an espresso,” he said, before abruptly walking away, despite Justin’s “Brian!”
He was more composed when he returned. He sat, and said, “So, you finish accumulating a bunch of brilliant work in Pittsburgh, and then, what? Back to New York?”
“Not exactly.”
“Because that’s exactly what you should do.”
“You’re unbelievable!” Justin practically yelled, before hearing how loud that sounded. He stood. “I’m getting a piece of strudel, I’ll be right back.”
Brian gazed at the paintings some more; they were exquisite. Justin’s technique had grown, even in the relatively short time (endless time) he’d been away. There was a growing complexity that Brian couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Do you honestly think we’ll have gone through all this, for me to just flounce on back to New York as if nothing is happening?”
Brian blinked at him slowly. “Something is happening?”
“I honestly don’t know if you noticed, so here goes. Brian, in the last month or so? we got back together. Now I know,” Justin continued relentlessly, holding up a hand to ward off Brian’s protest, “this doesn’t fit in with your neat little world view of ‘Justin needs to leave the nest to grow old and bitter and thus be a better artist’ philosophy, but fuck, I missed you! There were days I couldn’t work because of it, and that’s supposed to help me?”
“Time heals all wounds.”
Justin shoved his plateful of confectionary monstrosity out of the way, to lean across the table. “Not this one. Up to the day I left, I would go to Central Park and just walk around, not seeing anything. I was in mourning…”
“Oh, please,” Brian scoffed, picking up his espresso and taking too deep a sip. Bitterness filled his mouth.
“Fine, I was moping!” Justin returned. “We all know you didn’t, you went out and found Adam.”
Brian stared down into his tiny cup. “I didn’t find him,” he finally said. “I wasn’t looking. It just kind of happened.”
Justin leaned back and studied Brian’s expression. Fuck. He chose his next words very, very carefully. “That’s fine.”
“Doesn’t sound fine.”
“It is. We fucked up. I should have known you thought you were letting me go. I should have made clear I wasn’t going to let you. So, be warned. I’m not going to let you.” Maybe it was regularly fucking Brian again. Maybe it was being back in Pittsburgh, where he wasn’t under so much stress, and had time and space to think, and feel again. But being around Brian, and feeling, really feeling, what had been missing. And he knew they could make this work, as long as he didn’t walk away. He didn’t have to. And he wouldn’t. It was that easy.
He wasn’t going to lose Brian. Not if he could help it.
Brian finally looked up. “Justin, you shouldn’t be focused on that. You should be focused on this.” He gestured toward No. 8, the most abstract of the pieces.
“I focus on that better when I’m with you!” Justin returned, happy to have an opening to repeat this part of his argument.
“Yeah, and what happens when you’re done at PIFA? You go scampering back to the city. And it just starts all over again. Or, I should say, ends. Again.”
“Number one,” Justin said, around a bite of strudel, “I’m not going to let you blow me off so easily. Again. I will remember that grunts from you are other people’s ‘I love you, Justin.’”
“Who else has been saying they love you?”
Justin, into his strudel as well as his point, ignored him. “Number two, I do love New York. You love New York, I don’t even need to see you in the Prada store to know that, but I’m going to remind you when we get there, so be prepared.”
“How did you know…?” Brian shut his mouth. He was getting far too predictable.
“But I’m not coming back here until I can afford the kind of space I want. That might mean taking freelance graphic assignments until, or if, my art takes hold. Which is another reason I wanted to get my degree. I was looking for graphic work, and I need either a portfolio of commercial stuff, or a degree, ideally both. I’m taking a graphics course now, and next term or the one after I can finally do my internship and get hands-on experience.”
“At Kinnetik.” Brian had a sour feeling. How convenient.
“No, actually, with our history on my record that would look bad. I was hoping you might help me find a good company, though.”
“Why don’t you just use the money Sal’s making for you?”
“Because it’s not commissioned work; I sold these pieces to her outright. For a fraction of what she’s selling them for,” Justin added, unnecessarily.
Despite the fact that Justin looked quite cheery, Brian expostulated, “What!? You… sold them straight?”
Justin rolled his eyes. “It’s not like I have an agent. Or even had a name to negotiate commissioned work. Sal got them at fair market value, and exposure here is really a big deal. She’s pushing my value up, now all my work is worth more. Marseille, another café over on 7th, they’re doing a couple pieces on commission. They’ll probably push the prices up now, and then I can have some money, and a reputation to seduce me an agent. I’ll definitely be able to if I get the big pieces I’m working on into a gallery, and probably some smaller stuff. Which I should. I’ve generated the interest; now I need the product.”
“You have it all figured out.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’m set in Pittsburgh.”
“I know.” Justin eyed his plate wistfully, and fingered a final crumb into his mouth. Another piece would be piggish, wouldn’t it?
Brian stared at Justin’s lips, at his tongue licking the last of the sweetness from them. Practically growling, he tore his line of sight up to the sapphire gaze staring back at him. “I’m not coming to New York. I’m set in Pittsburgh.” He was repeating himself, but he wasn’t sure Justin got it.
“Yeah, and I’m going to headquarter there too.”
“What?”
“Why not? When I have enough money, maybe I’ll rent a studio up here, probably back in dumpy old Bay Ridge, so I can be in New York to get administrative shit done. But I’m going to work out of Pittsburgh.” Home.
“Administrative shit.”
“Yeah, schmoozing, gallery stuff, pimping myself, and probably even work on stuff if I have to stick around long enough.” Justin waved his hand in the air. “I’ll figure it out. Actually, three of the professors at PIFA, that I know of, do exactly what I want to. They show in New York all the time. And in Chicago. And L.A. And… well, you get the picture. As I said, I ran into one guy at a gallery here a few months ago, actually.”
“Right before you moved back.”
“Yep.” Justin nodded, staring Brian down. “I need to know you want this to work.”
Brian hesitated, and then he said, “Justin, whatever you want. Whatever you need to do.”
Justin started smiling, a huge smile, happiness suffusing his face.
Brian blinked at him twice. “Can we go to Prada now?”
“Yep! Are you going to feed me an outrageously expensive dinner?”
“Already have dinner reservations at Taste.”
Epilogue
Written for the "Worlds Apart" challenge at neverenough_bj.
Thank you, jans_intentions, for the beta.
Warning: Brian/other, angst.
Homecoming, Part 4
“Why did you want to see me, Brian?” Adam asked.
Brian looked up from his Blackberry as Adam slid into the seat across from him at the coffee shop near Kinnetik. Damn it, he should have been more clear about this meeting, Brian thought, as he saw the hope in Adam’s eyes.
“Gus was asking about you.”
“Oh.” The light faded.
“I want to talk to you before talking to him about your not being around anymore.”
“Don’t want to just say you ditched my ass?” Underneath the sarcasm, Brian heard sorrow. He wished he didn’t.
“He likes you, Adam.”
“I want you to like me.”
“I do like you.”
Adam snorted. Brian wondered if Adam knew how much of an admission it was for him to use the word “like” in regards to another person, and realized that he couldn’t. Adam had not known Brian back before Justin. He knew Brian could act like an asshole, but he had never met Brian when it had been less an act and more just a plain fact. There was a world of difference in the distinction, and Adam would never know. He called Brian an asshole when they had broke it off, but he would never really know.
“I never promised you anything. We didn’t have that sort of relationship.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Adam’s tone turned hot, dark eyes on him, and Brian saw there were circles forming under them. “I’d hoped for more. You never said that there might not be more.”
“I didn’t think we even needed to have that kind of discussion.” He watched Adam carefully. Maybe this had been a mistake. “We didn’t date. We hung out. I really didn’t think it was anything more than that.”
But something seemed to break through to Adam as he shook his head. “You really are a shit. People warned me about you. They said you were an asshole. And yeah, you were distant, a lot. I didn’t realize it was because you were with him.”
“I wasn’t, until the end.”
“I don’t mean physically,” Adam shot back. “Brian, I really like Gus. I love him. But I love you, too, and it would be too hard to keep seeing him. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us anyway. A clean break is best. Besides, I’m leaving Pittsburgh when the semester’s over. I’m not going to pursue teaching here.” Brian just nodded, as Adam got up to leave. “But,” Adam continued, “I will say goodbye to him. Because you want me to. Could you talk to him before hand so he isn’t too upset when I see him?” Brian nodded again, and Adam leaned down, pressing a kiss to his lips. He paused, his face only inches from Brian’s, his mouth opened slightly and his eyes closed, and then he shook his head, straightened, and walked away without looking back.
Brian sat at the table, his coffee growing cold in front of him.
* * * * *
Brian watched as his son carefully traced a line across the tablet in front of him. Next to him at the work table, a young girl looked over at his picture, said something, to which Gus shook his head. He pointed with his marker at something on the tablet.
“He’s a very talented little guy, Mr. Kinney. His artistic ability is very well developed for his age.”
“Yes, he’s had some good role models,” Brian answered the teacher seriously.
Gus chose that moment to look up, and he smiled spontaneously and naturally on catching sight of his father. Brian’s heart tugged; Gus didn’t smile so easily these days. He smiled back, and for a moment his love for his son overwhelmed him. Then he remembered why he had come to pick Gus up.
“Dad!” Gus yelled, hurrying across the room. Brian saw that the other children had looked up. “Hi!” He rushed up to Brian and hugged him at the hips. He was getting so big. Brian bent down and squeezed Gus around the shoulders. “Your mom’s hung up for a bit, buddy, want to go get something to eat?”
“Did you bring the ’vette?” Gus asked. He’d been angling for a ride in it for a while now.
Brian smirked. “You know your car seat doesn’t fit in it.” Brian had taken the Jeep out of its parking garage, as he always did when he had what Lindsay called their “play dates.” “My play dates do not involve Gus,” Brian had snarled. But he had come to really look forward to his one-on-one time with the little guy, even volunteering to relieve Lindsay’s schedule as a working mother, sitting with Gus on the nights Lindsay needed to work at the gallery.
“Can we go to the diner?” Gus asked.
“I have ice cream back at the loft,” Brian replied.
“And chocolate sauce?”
“Yep,” Brian answered, taking his son’s hand, and walking with him out of the school. Brian could see Gus struggling with this knowledge. “Your mom would say it was okay.”
“Okay,” Gus said happily, climbing into the back of the Jeep, into his car seat.
Forty minutes later, Brian sat on a stool next to Gus, watching him stir the ice cream into a soupy mess. The kid liked his ice cream to approach liquid. If someone topped it with whipped cream, he’d stir the whipped cream into the mush. Finally, he scooped up a spoonful and ate it. Then he folded the liquefying edges of the bowlful into the colder center.
“Gus, I want to talk to you about Adam.” He had spoken to Lindsay about this, and despite her recommendations that he wait for Gus to bring up the subject again, Brian negated the idea. He had assured Lindsay he’d be gentle, but direct.
It was so easy to say that when he was talking to Lindsay. Looking into the little face that looked up eagerly toward him, he found the idea much more difficult to implement.
“Adam really likes you, you know that.”
“Yeah, I really like him too. Are we going to go see him?”
“No… Adam and I decided we don’t want to be together. So Adam won’t be coming around anymore.”
Gus looked down into his bowl, stirring. “Oh.”
“Is that hard to hear?”
Gus said nothing.
Brian leaned forward. “Look at me. Gus.”
The little boy looked up again, his dark eyes troubled, with a suspicious sheen forming over them.
“I wanted to tell you. Since you asked about Adam the other night at your Grandma Deb’s. I couldn’t talk to you about it then, with everyone there.”
“Why did you break up?” Gus’s voice trembled a little.
Brian thought about that, and knew the best approach was honesty. “I like Adam, Gus. Of course I do.”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t kiss him.”
“…Right. But Gus, I don’t love him.”
“Maybe you could. One day.”
Oh my god, Brian thought, my son is a 16-year old lesbian. “It doesn’t work that way. Not for me. But I do want to love someone, Gus. And as long as I’m with Adam, I couldn’t find someone I could really love. Do you understand?”
“No!” And now the ice cream was soup, and Gus was dissolving in tears. Brian reached out to touch him, to sooth away the hurt, but Gus pushed away from him, and ran into the bedroom.
Brian sat on the stool for a moment, but then went after his son. He walked up the steps, and sat on the bed, staring at Gus’s back. “Gus, Adam’s going to be leaving Pittsburgh when his job is done at the college. He wants to see you before he goes.”
Gus rolled over, and Brian felt actual pain at the sight of the tear tracks on his face. “Why does he have to go?”
“Sometimes that’s the way life is,” Brian answered. He reached out and brushed Gus’s tears away from his face. “Adam’s a great guy, but he wasn’t who I want to be with. And it was unfair of me to ask him to stay with me when I wasn’t going to love him.”
Gus sat up, and threw his arms around Brian’s neck, his head burying into his shoulder. Brian held him. After a while he stopped shaking. Brian had been lulled into a sort of trance, rocking back and forth with the small body warm against his, so he missed what Gus said. Pulling back slightly, he asked, “What?”
“My ice cream melted.”
Brian smiled. That, he could fix.
* * * * *
“So, what are your plans?”
Justin shifted a bit. “You mean, today? I have to get back home and work on a project…”
“No. I mean, in Pittsburgh.” As soon as he said it, Brian groaned. Fuck. But damn it, he wanted to know.
Justin pulled his body, his nice, warm, naked body, away from Brian’s and sat up, looking down at him. “I can’t believe you’re asking me this. You.”
Brian sat up, leaning back on his forearms, watching Justin pull his jeans on. “I ask what your plans are, you get dressed to go. Guess I have my answer.”
“You don’t have shit,” Justin answered.
“I know you’re leaving.”
Justin turned, and rested his hand on Brian’s chest. Brian entwined his fingers in his. “Stay.”
Justin bit his lip, then shook his head. “I can’t. I need to work on a project. Why don’t you come over later?”
“Because when you’re working, you get in a groove and ignore me.”
“You know, when you pout like that, you look like Gus.” Justin laughed.
Brian tugged him, and the smaller man fell across his chest. Brian rolled and pinned him to the bed. “I meant, what are you plans when you’re done here.” He damn well knew Justin had avoided answering his questions.
“Where, here?” Justin teased, licking at one of Brian’s nipples.
Brian restrained himself from divesting the warm body beneath him of his pants. He so totally could. “Justin.”
Justin sighed, and relaxed. “Can’t we just enjoy this?”
No, Brian thought. Fuck, when did this happen? When did he need to know the future? More specifically, Justin’s future. He chose his next words carefully. “Gus was really upset with Adam’s leaving. I don’t want him to get attached to someone new, and repeat the drama.”
“You’re saying, Gus might be upset if I leave?”
“Yeah, you got a problem with that?”
“No.” Justin twisted out of his grasp. “I always knew you’d be a good dad. Once you got used to the idea.”
Brian propped himself up on an elbow, watching Justin pull his sweater over his head. “You’re not answering the question.”
“That’s because I don’t know the answer.”
Brian frowned. “What do you mean? It’s a simple question. A simple answer. One, you’re staying here, two, you’re going back to New York.”
“You really are unbelievable,” Justin murmured.
“Fine. Then tell me why you came back here in the first place.”
“Do you want me to say I came back for you?” Justin asked.
Yes. “No, of course not.” Just because he felt the appeal of that stupid little romantic fantasy didn’t mean he didn’t understand its stupidity.
Justin stared down at him. “I came back for me, Brian. But I was hoping you’d be here.” He turned to walk away.
“That’s the reason you ran away from New York?”
Justin turned back, his eyes narrowing. He seemed ready to respond; Brian could see the hot words practically falling off his tongue. Then he stopped, and seemed to consider the question. “Will you go with me to New York?”
“Right now? Sure, I don’t have to go run my multi-million-dollar company. Ted can handle it. What the hell.”
Justin just laughed. “No! I mean, For a weekend. Soon. Go up on a Friday night, spend Saturday in the city? I want to show you New York, not just tell you.”
“Next weekend?” What the hell. Nothing going on then. Much. Maybe the company wouldn’t fall apart with Ted and Cynthia standing night watch.
“You can do that? Great!”
“Just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Let me take care of the hotel and travel arrangements.”
* * * * *
“This is not the way to see New York,” Brian grumbled, glancing around the train at the other riders. Justin had assured him he would not be the only rider wearing Hugo Boss leather and “jeans that cost more than their entire wardrobes,” although the latter was definitely true in regard to the homeless man at the other end of the car with the overflowing shopping cart chewing his gumless cud and mumbling to himself. Brian eyed him.
“Don’t stare, if you don’t see them, you’re invisible.”
The great Kinney brow wrinkled. “Isn’t it the other way around, ostrich-boy?”
“Not in New York,” Justin replied. “Everybody here’s a target. Living in denial is the only way to maintain your sanity. This is our stop.” He stood, and Brian followed him, watching the cargo-clad ass twitch its way through the turnstiles and up the stairs into Brooklyn. Justin needed new jeans, some fabulously expensive ones, of course. Brian couldn’t wait to go shopping. Maybe tomorrow. Today, they were seeing Justin’s New York. Tomorrow, they were definitely seeing Brian’s; starting at 5th Avenue and 52nd, and working uptown from there.
“You lived here?” Brian asked, finally looking around after they’d walked a couple of blocks. At ten in the morning, the place was practically deserted. All the shops were closed up, except for a corner grocery store, outside of which a group of sketchy-looking young men loitered.
“Don’t stare at the drug dealers, Brian,” Justin muttered. “Remember what I told you about being invisible.” Although, personally, Justin couldn’t imagine Brian ever managing invisibility.
“I’m not staring,” Brian bit off, looking toward the row of stores, all shut up with metal encasements. “So, this is… quiet.” He had vowed to be nice. Or, to try anyway.
“It’s the Sabbath, usually there are a lot of the Hassidim around. They’re inside, chanting or something, I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “There are a lot of artists in this neighborhood, too, but it’s only ten. Everyone’s still in bed. Mostly sleeping off hangovers.”
“We could still be in bed. Sleeping off my hangover. Or… something.”
Justin didn’t need to turn to see Brian’s accompanying leer in his direction. “We’ll find you a Starbucks once we hit Manhattan again. You can find something there.”
“I like your something better.”
“Yeah, that might be a bit much, even for New York. You gotta wait ‘til after dark to start fucking in the middle of the street. Here it is!”
They turned off the street where trees wept their brown leaves onto the pavement, then walked up the front steps of a cement building that stretched five stories upward. Justin pulled out a set of keys.
“You still have your keys?” Brian asked, looking away. He needed to make sure the skeevy drug dealers weren’t following them.
“Yeah, I forgot to give them to Jim when I left.”
Great, thought Brian. Sunshine had been living in a building where spare keys were floating around god knows where in the hands of god knows how many people. Not that he cared. Except that he did.
Justin locked the door behind them, and led Brian through the front hallway, to a dark living area to the left.
“Hey, man, look at the latest!”
The older man standing in the gloom gestured at Justin to take in some sort of erection made up of… band aides? No, ribbons, glued around wire, looping around itself. The entire structure reached almost to the ceiling.
“Hey, Jim, that’s amazing!” Justin exclaimed, stepping over pizza boxes and around the couch to take a closer look. “Oh, Jim, this is Brian, Brian, Jim.”
“Hey,” Jim tossed off, not even looking at Brian, but watching Justin’s reaction to his sculpture instead. “They’re those ribbons people wear on themselves to commemorate stuff, you know, the red ones are AIDS ribbons, pink ones are breast cancer…”
“Making up a rainbow. Amazing distortions you’ve got this worked into.”
“Yeah, I call it ‘Loyalty Knots.’”
Justin peered closer. “Interesting, trying to figure out where to place loyalty when there are so many worthy choices. The thing’s center keeps shifting, depending where you look.”
“You got it!” Jim turned to Brian. “What do you think?”
Brian wished he could say something profound, but he couldn’t even see the damn thing. He glanced around for the windows, but they were facing in the wrong direction, away from the sun. And appeared to look out at the wall of the building next door. That would explain the gloom. “What Justin said.”
This caused Jim to laugh. “Well, that explains where your center is!”
Brian did not fail to catch Justin’s concerned glance in his direction. “You’re Jim? Justin’s told me… pretty much nothing about you.”
“Yeah, well, Justin told me plenty about you.”
Seeing Brian’s narrowed gaze, Justin hurried in with, “He means through my art, Brian.”
“Yep, pretty fucking eloquent. I was wondering when you’d show up. I mean, in person. As opposed to what he carries around with him.”
“Jim.”
Jim shrugged. “Just cuz you don’t like it said out loud, don’t mean it isn’t true.”
“Is my old room still empty?”
“Are you kidding? Nah, but Heidi’s not there. You can take the tour of where you used to live, if you want.”
Brian tramped up two flights, following Justin’s ass again. Just for a day, he reminded himself. Justin could trail him into Versace, and Prada, and Gucci… as long as they let him in, in those pants. “So you were drawing me.”
“Painting actually… this was my room.”
It wasn’t a room; it was a closet. Brian peered into the room, past Justin’s arm as it pushed the door in. There was more light here, but the room was taken up with a mattress on the floor. Besides the mattress, there may have been a five foot by two foot space of spare floor. The ceiling was fairly low as well.
“But the light’s good,” Justin said, reading Brian’s mind. “I got some work done in the morning. And, I had a futon I folded up, so it opened up the space some. But you’ve seen the canvases I’m working with now. There was just no way here. And it took me a long time to find this.”
“Did you rent studio space?”
“I tried. But I had to share, and the corner of one of my canvasses was soaked in brandy one morning. And the sign-up times to reserve the space just… it didn’t work out.”
“Where we going next?” Brian asked, already turning and tramping down the stairs, not waiting for Justin to lead this time. He needed to get out of this rabbit warren. Okay, so he got Justin’s point; there was no need to linger in it.
“Back to the island. Jim, we’re leaving!” But Jim was no longer in the living room. And Justin’s further calls failed to raise him.
“Come on, I need to get the fuck out of here,” Brian finally interrupted Justin’s worried regard.
“But I need the door locked behind me, and I need to leave my keys.”
“Mail them back,” Brian answered, pulling Justin by the jacket out the front door. They stepped into the crisp fall air, and Brian sucked in a grateful breath. He stared up the taxi-less, Starbuck’s-less street, and resigned himself to getting back on the train, caffeine free. This time, he planned to stand up, even if it was a 25 minute ride. “I need coffee.”
“Okay, I know just the place,” Justin told him, hurrying to catch up after locking the front door.
“Thank god.”
* * * * *
“Justin!!” A very sturdy woman bore down on him, bustling around the tight squeeze of tables, knocking aside one of the dark chairs in her rush to reach him. She clasped him to her bosom, but Justin seemed to enjoy it, hugging her back. Holy fuck, Brian thought, he found New York Debbie.
“So!” NY Debbie said after releasing Justin and turning to Brian, “We meet at last.”
Brian nodded, as she turned back and yelled, “Hey, Kyle! Look, the model’s here!”
A man at the coffee counter glanced her way after a moment, probably used to her exclamations, before doing a double take and looking back. His face broke out in a grin. “Hey, which number are you in real life?” he called Brian’s way. “Number 10?”
What the fuck. “I was born a 10,” Brian replied, “Do you have a 10-shot latte?” But Justin was rolling his eyes, elbowing him in the side, and gesturing at the walls. Brian looked to his right, at a painting entitled “No. 7.” It was an indistinct rendering of Brian’s back, as he lay on his side, away from the viewer’s eye. Brian glanced around the café. There were other paintings with the same theme, one Brian’s clear profile, his form leaning up against the right side of the painting, others more abstract, all nudes. Suddenly aware of how the conversation in the busy café had dropped a notch, Brian turned his attention to the woman, and told her, “They’re not exaggerated.”
“Hmph!” the woman responded. “Justin’s a genius! I’ve already sold 2, 5 and 6, and they’ve only been up a couple weeks!”
“That’s all? Just three?” Justin teased.
“Well, I sold #2 and #5 the first day I mounted the exhibit, and so I bumped the price way up. I sold #6 yesterday, but maybe $3,000.00 was a bit ambitious.”
Justin gaped at her. “Three thousand…”
“Yeah. The guy was French though, so I’m thinking the Euro’s inflation let him do that. I’m gonna adjust back down, see how that goes. The response is great. I’m thinking they’ll go well around $1,750.00. I’m keeping #3.”
“That’s great!” Justin turned to Brian. “I have work in a couple other coffee shops. This is really why I wanted to bring you here, Sal’s Art Café is the best to get work put up in.”
“Yep, I’ve launched more than one career!” Sal elaborated. “He’s a genius, I knew it the second I saw your work.”
“Brian needs a latte,” Justin put in, watching Brian stare at #3. “They’re not all you,” Justin told him.
“I tell my customers they are!” Sal laughed. “Good for business. Everyone likes a beautiful man.”
“That’s the truth!” piped up a dark-haired beauty sitting at the table behind Sal. He had been eyeing Brian from the moment he stepped in the shop. Brian was too busy taking in the art to pay more than cursory notice.
Justin went to get their coffees as Brian continued to look at the paintings. He took a seat at an empty table further in, against the wall. As Sal had indicated, three of the paintings had the red “sold” stickers next to them. He was deep in thought when Justin rejoined him. “It’s only a triple latte; Kyle says if you want more, get an espresso.”
“What happened to ‘the customer’s always right’?” Brian took a sip.
“It’s a question of aesthetic. Balancing taste and commerce is an art in itself.”
“Yes, it is.”
Justin did not ask what he thought of the pieces. Brian wondered if the way his eyes would not look away from No. 4 told Justin all he needed to know. Justin got Brian’s attention back, however, when he said quietly, “I wanted to see this myself because it wasn’t up when I left. But I wanted you to see, too, that I wasn’t running away with my tail between my legs. Things are going in the right direction here.”
Brian set down his cup, his stomach suddenly twisting. “Then why did you leave?” Time to turn and face this, whatever it was. This was it.
Justin propped his elbows on the table, his hands cradling his coffee cup. Underneath the table, his leg snaked around Brian’s calf, and Brian was reminded they hadn’t fucked that morning, before Justin was rushing them out of the hotel room. They would simply have to go back before continuing on. Unless the bathroom here was bigger than a closet.
Justin took a while before answering the question. Maybe he had become distracted by Brian’s answering pull back on his leg. “Every time I met with gallery owners, they wanted to see my big pieces. I don’t have enough to show them. And, fuck, I have those big pieces in me! But you saw where I was living. And I didn’t have the proper resources to rent the space I needed, not here.”
“But you do in Pittsburgh.” Ah.
“I ran into one of my old professors at a show here a couple months before I came back, and then I called some others, and they wanted to work with me on the projects to take to the galleries when they’re done. I only have four actual required classes; the rest can be electives. Three semesters, I’m done.”
Brian’s latte burned a hole in his gut. He forced himself to drink it to the dregs, though. Then he stood. “I’m going to get an espresso,” he said, before abruptly walking away, despite Justin’s “Brian!”
He was more composed when he returned. He sat, and said, “So, you finish accumulating a bunch of brilliant work in Pittsburgh, and then, what? Back to New York?”
“Not exactly.”
“Because that’s exactly what you should do.”
“You’re unbelievable!” Justin practically yelled, before hearing how loud that sounded. He stood. “I’m getting a piece of strudel, I’ll be right back.”
Brian gazed at the paintings some more; they were exquisite. Justin’s technique had grown, even in the relatively short time (endless time) he’d been away. There was a growing complexity that Brian couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Do you honestly think we’ll have gone through all this, for me to just flounce on back to New York as if nothing is happening?”
Brian blinked at him slowly. “Something is happening?”
“I honestly don’t know if you noticed, so here goes. Brian, in the last month or so? we got back together. Now I know,” Justin continued relentlessly, holding up a hand to ward off Brian’s protest, “this doesn’t fit in with your neat little world view of ‘Justin needs to leave the nest to grow old and bitter and thus be a better artist’ philosophy, but fuck, I missed you! There were days I couldn’t work because of it, and that’s supposed to help me?”
“Time heals all wounds.”
Justin shoved his plateful of confectionary monstrosity out of the way, to lean across the table. “Not this one. Up to the day I left, I would go to Central Park and just walk around, not seeing anything. I was in mourning…”
“Oh, please,” Brian scoffed, picking up his espresso and taking too deep a sip. Bitterness filled his mouth.
“Fine, I was moping!” Justin returned. “We all know you didn’t, you went out and found Adam.”
Brian stared down into his tiny cup. “I didn’t find him,” he finally said. “I wasn’t looking. It just kind of happened.”
Justin leaned back and studied Brian’s expression. Fuck. He chose his next words very, very carefully. “That’s fine.”
“Doesn’t sound fine.”
“It is. We fucked up. I should have known you thought you were letting me go. I should have made clear I wasn’t going to let you. So, be warned. I’m not going to let you.” Maybe it was regularly fucking Brian again. Maybe it was being back in Pittsburgh, where he wasn’t under so much stress, and had time and space to think, and feel again. But being around Brian, and feeling, really feeling, what had been missing. And he knew they could make this work, as long as he didn’t walk away. He didn’t have to. And he wouldn’t. It was that easy.
He wasn’t going to lose Brian. Not if he could help it.
Brian finally looked up. “Justin, you shouldn’t be focused on that. You should be focused on this.” He gestured toward No. 8, the most abstract of the pieces.
“I focus on that better when I’m with you!” Justin returned, happy to have an opening to repeat this part of his argument.
“Yeah, and what happens when you’re done at PIFA? You go scampering back to the city. And it just starts all over again. Or, I should say, ends. Again.”
“Number one,” Justin said, around a bite of strudel, “I’m not going to let you blow me off so easily. Again. I will remember that grunts from you are other people’s ‘I love you, Justin.’”
“Who else has been saying they love you?”
Justin, into his strudel as well as his point, ignored him. “Number two, I do love New York. You love New York, I don’t even need to see you in the Prada store to know that, but I’m going to remind you when we get there, so be prepared.”
“How did you know…?” Brian shut his mouth. He was getting far too predictable.
“But I’m not coming back here until I can afford the kind of space I want. That might mean taking freelance graphic assignments until, or if, my art takes hold. Which is another reason I wanted to get my degree. I was looking for graphic work, and I need either a portfolio of commercial stuff, or a degree, ideally both. I’m taking a graphics course now, and next term or the one after I can finally do my internship and get hands-on experience.”
“At Kinnetik.” Brian had a sour feeling. How convenient.
“No, actually, with our history on my record that would look bad. I was hoping you might help me find a good company, though.”
“Why don’t you just use the money Sal’s making for you?”
“Because it’s not commissioned work; I sold these pieces to her outright. For a fraction of what she’s selling them for,” Justin added, unnecessarily.
Despite the fact that Justin looked quite cheery, Brian expostulated, “What!? You… sold them straight?”
Justin rolled his eyes. “It’s not like I have an agent. Or even had a name to negotiate commissioned work. Sal got them at fair market value, and exposure here is really a big deal. She’s pushing my value up, now all my work is worth more. Marseille, another café over on 7th, they’re doing a couple pieces on commission. They’ll probably push the prices up now, and then I can have some money, and a reputation to seduce me an agent. I’ll definitely be able to if I get the big pieces I’m working on into a gallery, and probably some smaller stuff. Which I should. I’ve generated the interest; now I need the product.”
“You have it all figured out.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’m set in Pittsburgh.”
“I know.” Justin eyed his plate wistfully, and fingered a final crumb into his mouth. Another piece would be piggish, wouldn’t it?
Brian stared at Justin’s lips, at his tongue licking the last of the sweetness from them. Practically growling, he tore his line of sight up to the sapphire gaze staring back at him. “I’m not coming to New York. I’m set in Pittsburgh.” He was repeating himself, but he wasn’t sure Justin got it.
“Yeah, and I’m going to headquarter there too.”
“What?”
“Why not? When I have enough money, maybe I’ll rent a studio up here, probably back in dumpy old Bay Ridge, so I can be in New York to get administrative shit done. But I’m going to work out of Pittsburgh.” Home.
“Administrative shit.”
“Yeah, schmoozing, gallery stuff, pimping myself, and probably even work on stuff if I have to stick around long enough.” Justin waved his hand in the air. “I’ll figure it out. Actually, three of the professors at PIFA, that I know of, do exactly what I want to. They show in New York all the time. And in Chicago. And L.A. And… well, you get the picture. As I said, I ran into one guy at a gallery here a few months ago, actually.”
“Right before you moved back.”
“Yep.” Justin nodded, staring Brian down. “I need to know you want this to work.”
Brian hesitated, and then he said, “Justin, whatever you want. Whatever you need to do.”
Justin started smiling, a huge smile, happiness suffusing his face.
Brian blinked at him twice. “Can we go to Prada now?”
“Yep! Are you going to feed me an outrageously expensive dinner?”
“Already have dinner reservations at Taste.”
Epilogue