Chapter Ten
~ Josiah ~
I stood in the doorway to the old spare room, watching Bodean paint. The first light of morning came in low and cold through the big window, washing the walls in the kind of blue that only showed up on the far side of sunrise.
It spilled across the floorboards and climbed Bo's back, turning every scar and tattoo into a blacktop road map that pulsed with life whenever he moved.
He had his shirt off. He always did when he worked, claimed the fabric made his arms itch, but I figured it was because he liked the way the sun felt on his skin.
He held the brush like a weapon—tight in his right hand, knuckles white, pinky finger flared out for control.
Every stroke was deliberate, a slash or a caress, nothing in between.
He didn't know I was there. Or, more likely, he did, and was pretending not to. The room was silent but for the wet scratch of bristles against canvas and the soft slurp whenever he dipped for more paint.
On the side table, a mug of black coffee went cold beside a rag that used to be one of my shop towels. Oil, turpentine, and the bitter edge of caffeine filled the air, lacing it with a tension that was somehow more sacred than sexual.
When I'd decided to overhaul this room for him, I'd gone all in. If I was going to keep him, I was damn well going to give him a reason to stay.
I started with the floors, sanding off the old paint stains and years of cigarette burns until the wood glowed honey-gold. I bought an easel sturdy enough to survive a hurricane and a workbench with a drawer for every brush, pencil, and blade he could dream of.
The walls, once scabbed with thumbtack holes and sun-bleached posters, now held prints of artists I knew he worshipped: Basquiat, Francis Bacon, a couple of raw, furious things by Jenny Saville. I hung them exact and level, measured twice, stud finder be damned.
The real surprise had been the supplies.
Bo talked a big game about how all he needed was a Sharpie and a scrap of cardboard, but I'd seen the way he lingered in the art aisle at the hardware store, fingers hovering over the expensive tubes of pigment and the synthetic brushes that came wrapped in plastic like contraband.
So I ordered it all. Professional-grade oils, graphite, pastels, even those delicate Japanese sumi inks he'd once ranted about after half a bottle of whiskey. I lined the shelves with blank canvases and sketchbooks, stacked by size and grain.
I found a first-edition copy of "The Art Spirit" by Robert Henri and left it on his desk with the page flagged where the old bastard said, "Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best."
When I first showed him the room—ten days ago, but it felt like forever—he'd stopped dead in the doorway. The paint on his hands was still wet; he wiped it on his jeans before he even stepped inside.
His eyes went everywhere at once, fast, like a stray dog checking for the catch before the treat. He didn't say shit for a full minute, which had to be a personal record. Then, real quiet: "This is for me?"
I shrugged, pretending I didn't care. "Nobody else here needs it."
He walked the perimeter, fingertips trailing over the shelves, the edges of the frames, the stacked canvases. When he found the paint, he picked up a tube and just stared at it, as if waiting for it to disappear.
He didn't cry, exactly, but he got that look on his face—eyebrows pinched, jaw working, whole body tense like he'd been sucker punched. "You didn't have to," he said.
"Yeah, I did," I told him. "Only way you'll ever get any fucking peace is if you have a place to make a mess."
He shook his head, lips pressed tight, then set the paint down with a care that told me exactly what it meant to him. For the rest of the night, he kept drifting back to the room, like he couldn't believe it was real.
Now, two weeks on, he was up before the sun every day, painting until his shoulders locked and the pads of his fingers stained blue and red.
There were five finished canvases stacked against the closet wall, each one more brutal and beautiful than the last. He hadn't let me look at them yet, but I could smell the work in every molecule of air.
Creation had its own ozone, its own static.
He glanced over his shoulder, and for a split second our eyes met. There was paint on his cheek, a dark green slash that made the rest of his face look brighter, sharper. He caught me looking, hesitated, then put down the brush.
"You gonna stand there all morning like a goddamn ghost?" he said, but his voice was soft.
I grinned, slow and mean. "Only if you keep working like that."
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving a smear of cobalt at the hairline. "Makes me nervous, you watching."
I shrugged. "Don't care. I like watching you."
He snorted, but his mouth twitched at the edge, like he was trying not to smile. Then he turned back to the easel, shoulders hunched, and started in on the canvas again—bolder now, like my gaze had given him an extra jolt.
I took a step inside, just enough to catch the full scope of the room. The sunlight was climbing, shooting shards of gold across the desk, the floor, the curve of Bo's back. The smell—paint, sweat, bitter coffee—was thick enough to taste.
I wanted to cross the room, to wrap my arms around him from behind and press my mouth to the bruise at his neck, the one I'd left there two nights ago when I pinned him to the mattress and told him he'd never get away, not even if he begged.
But I didn't. He needed this, the work, the privacy, the knowledge that I trusted him to make something out of nothing.
So I just watched, hands in my pockets, letting the pride and hunger wind together until I couldn't tell which was which.
He worked for another ten minutes, then paused and looked back again, this time with less bravado and more... uncertainty. "You got somewhere to be?" he asked.
"Garage," I said. "Gotta finish the rebuild on that Triumph before the weekend. Customer's getting antsy."
He nodded, relief flickering across his face.
I lingered a second longer, just to watch the way his hand curled around the brush, the way his biceps flexed with every stroke. Then I turned, left the door open behind me, and started down the hall.
At the landing, I stopped and looked back. He was still painting, head down, body loose. In the early light, he looked almost happy.
It hit me then, sharp as a blade: I could give him everything he needed. Not just sex or safety, but a place to put all his wild, messy want. A place he could ruin, and remake, as many times as he wanted. That was what it meant to belong to someone. That was what I'd wanted, all along.
I left him to his painting, the sound of the brush scratching away at the canvas following me down the stairs like a promise.
I went to work, and the whole time, I thought of him up there—bare skin, paint-splattered, teeth worrying at his bottom lip as he destroyed and rebuilt his own heart.
I could live with that. Hell, I could live for it.
It was dark by the time I shut the shop down.
The garage still hummed with the day's work—a pair of V-twins up on lifts, the smell of brake fluid and burned rubber thick in the air—but all I could think about was the apartment above, the way Bo’s laughter sometimes drifted down through the pipes when he was in a good mood.
My hands were still stained with grease. I wiped them on a rag, but the black lines just sank deeper, like they were tattooed under the skin. I paused at the bottom of the stairs and made myself take three slow breaths, just to bleed off the edge before I went up.
At the top, the hall was dark except for a spill of light from the kitchen. Bo’s art supplies were stacked on the entry table—neat for once, every tube and tin lined up with an obsessiveness that almost made me proud.
I walked in slow, not bothering to announce myself. The smell of dinner hit first—garlic, onion, something sharp and sweet simmering in a cast iron pan.
The old wood table was set for two, plates stacked, silverware squared off with military precision.
A linen napkin sat at each spot, folded into triangles.
The whole setup looked like something out of a magazine, except for the chipped edge of the plate and the coffee ring that had bled through the table runner.
Bo was standing by the stove, watching the sauce reduce. He didn’t see me at first, too focused, but I caught the way his shoulders tensed up when I let the door click shut behind me.
He turned, slow, and smiled—a fast, nervous thing. His cheeks were pink from the heat, or maybe from nerves. The sleeves on his shirt were rolled to the elbows, forearms painted with a map of blue and red streaks, and he had a dish towel slung over one shoulder like a French housewife.
He looked at me, then at the table, then back at me, like he was waiting for a grade on a report card. I didn’t say anything. Just stood there, arms folded, and let my eyes drag over every detail.
Bo couldn’t hold the silence. He cleared his throat, then jerked his chin toward the stove. “Made pasta. It’s the one from that cookbook you left out.”
He pointed to the counter, where my battered copy of “The Essential Italian” lay open, spine cracked.
There were post-it notes all down the edge of the page, little circles and arrows in his cramped handwriting.
The recipe called for a sauce that took hours—marinara, with three different kinds of tomatoes and a pile of fresh basil.
I let the silence ride another beat. Bo shifted his weight, toe tapping the floor in a syncopated rhythm. His eyes went wide and hopeful, but there was a pinch of fear at the corners.
I walked over to the table, dragged a finger along the edge of the plate. “You measure the forks?”
He blinked, then grinned, showing the chip in his front tooth. “Shut up. Just wanted it to look nice.”
I nodded. It did. It looked fucking perfect.