Chapter 3
Three
Christian
He’s a very careful driver. It’s not the first thing I’d have expected from this whirlwind of a boy who talks in rainbows and seems to be afraid of nothing.
He drives like my mother, who is seventy-three and has a degenerative eye condition; both hands on the wheel at all times at the prescribed ten and two position, back straight, and eyes fixed straight ahead.
It’s an old-model Ford, clean and tidy inside, and smells of vanilla and fresh cotton.
The back seat is full: a large green ceramic plant pot, a large painting of a half-naked woman, something that looks like a wine rack but might be a medieval torture device, and a vintage sewing machine.
None of it looks particularly heavy, or as though he’ll have any trouble carrying it, so I assume this request for assistance is exactly what it sounded like: a sexual proposition.
It’s that which has my cock half-hard in my chinos, and my heart beating quicker than it should be at rest. It’s insanity, it’s desperate, and it’s reckless, of course, but as we’d sat at that table in the tea shop, I’d understood that Asher was now an itch which had to be scratched. For my health, if nothing else.
We stop at a set of lights, and Asher looks over at me and smiles that small smile that makes me think he’s having similarly sinful thoughts.
“I’m just around here,” he tells me. “It’s sort of an up-and-coming neighbourhood, or so the agent told me when I signed the lease.
I don’t plan on staying around very long, so I’m probably not gonna see it come up.
” The light changes, and he, very smoothly, turns the car around the corner.
“You’re not planning on staying around?”
He shrugs. “Not really. I had this idea that I’d try and live in every state in the US at least once, except Arkansas, because like, why would I do that.
So, I’ve done Ohio, New York, DC, and my sister is out in LA, and she’s been trying to get me to move out there with her.
But I like my independence. Who wants to shack up with their big sister? ”
“I’m an only child, so I really couldn’t say.” My parents had me quite late, sort of a last-minute thing, or so I’ve heard it told. “Are you close to your sister?”
Something flutters over his face, but he turns his head to check his blind spot, and so I’m not sure what it is.
“Um, we were close, as kids. But she moved out—sort of up and disappeared, joined a rock band, and never looked back.” The tone I sense is anger rather than hurt. “We speak now, but it’s… different.”
I decide to stay in the safest lane. “She’s in a rock band? That’s… interesting.”
His eyes dart to me. “You’re not into rock music?”
“I didn’t say that.”
He smirks. “You didn’t have to. Most people, when they hear my sister is a rockstar, are usually way more impressed by it.”
“Sorry?” I try. “Wrong audience, I suppose.”
“It’s cool. I’m not actually big into rock music either.
I prefer EDM, techno, that sort of stuff.
” I know what techno is, but EDM sounds like a department in energy and sustainability.
“Her band is kinda cool though, sort of more alternative than rock. They actually won a Grammy last year.” His voice lifts with a note of pride.
“That’s an award, yes?”
Asher laughs out loud. “Yeah. A pretty big one.” Shortly after, he pulls the car into a space on the left, sets it into park, and turns off the engine.
He gestures out the window at a cute, white-gated building.
It’s a quiet, leafy street with a row of larger houses opposite, and what looks like a school a short distance up the road. “And this is me.”
“Seems like a nice neighbourhood.”
“Better than the one I was in back in New York. A guy got stabbed a block down. I love the city, but man, it’s like the Wild West out there.
I think all those people squeezed onto this really small area of land drives them a little crazy.
” Outside, he hands me the torture device and the painting, while he carries the plant pot.
“We can come back for the others,” he instructs and heads toward the building.
Out of his bag, a small leather crossbody, he retrieves his keys and unlocks the gate, through which I follow him up a set of stone steps into a little courtyard area.
In the centre, under a pool of sun, is a seating area; a woman, perhaps around sixty or so, sits reading on a wooden bench. At the sight of us, she lifts her head.
“Oh, Asher, sweetheart, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” She has a deep southern accent and looks at Asher with warm brown eyes.
“Speak for yourself, Doreen. Did you get your hair done?” He’s talking loudly as he makes his way across the courtyard, around the seating area via a paved path.
She pats it, smiling wide. “Just a little colour refresh, nothing fancy.”
“Dunno. Looks pretty fancy to me. Frank seen it yet?”
“He never noticed!”
“Straight men, what are they worth?”
“Absolutely nothing, baby, absolutely nothing.”
Her eyes land on me then, and I offer her some version of my diplomatic smile. “Well, who’s this handsome specimen?”
“Picked him up at the antique store over on Banyon. He was on special.” Asher throws me a wink over his shoulder as I follow him towards the back of the complex.
“Damn, you lucky little thing, I never find anything good when I go there!”
Asher laughs, and then we’re in a little corridor, balcony overlooking an alley on one end, a large plant propped up by the grate.
He unlocks his large, solid door and nudges it with his hip, holding it open for me with his foot.
I follow him inside and set down the items in the corner of the large open room.
“I’ll go grab the sewing machine,” he says. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll only be a minute.”
It’s a large, open-plan space which is again clean and tidy, light flooding in from a wall of windows, which includes a little outdoor veranda area.
The first thing I notice is the array of canvases propped up all around the space, leaning against furniture and taped to the walls.
Given I just brought a painting upstairs that he’d bought at a thrift store, my initial thought is that he collects paintings, but many of them are half finished.
There are also blank canvases of varying sizes piled in the corner, as well as a little trolley full of paintbrushes and paints tucked into an alcove by the balcony.
Out there, a paint-splattered apron hangs on the wall, another larger canvas on its side against the railing.
This one also appears to be half finished.
It’s abstract but looks like a male form; musculature prominent in a palette of pinks, reds, and oranges.
He’s an artist. A talented one, too. Given what I know of him so far, the way he dresses and talks, this actually makes a lot of sense.
I’m still admiring the painting on the balcony when I hear him return. His cheeks are flushed, and he’s panting a little as he carries the machine to his small dining table and sets it down. “I swear that was heavier than it was when I put it in the car.”
“Do you sew?”
“A little, yeah. My mom taught me, but I actually reckon I can fix that and sell it online for a good price.” I stare at him in wonder. “Drink?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
He nods and goes across to the kitchen and opens the fridge, pulling out a bottle of water, which he drains half of before setting it down on the counter.
“You’re an artist?” I ask, gesturing at the paintings.
“I’m a lot of things,” Asher says, coming toward me. “That’s you, by the way.” He’s looking at the one outside on the balcony with a scrutinising look.
I startle with surprise. “Me?” I look at the painting again.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you after that day, so I tried to get you out of my head.
” He lifts his bottle and drinks again. The idea of him painting this while thinking about me is.
..enthralling. It doesn’t look like me, but then it doesn’t particularly look like anyone. So if he says it is, then it is.
I tilt my head as I study it. “Am I… naked?”
“I paint the human form better without clothes,” he explains.
He pulls his eyes away from his painting to look at me, and everything goes very still and very quiet in his apartment.
Asher is smaller than me by at least a head, and he stares up at me now with baby-blue eyes filled with unmistakable desire.
His cheeks still have that delicious pink flush, and I wonder if he flushes like this during sex.
I want to find out. It feels like a lifetime since I’ve felt the tight warmth of another body wrapped around mine.
In truth, it’s been less than a year, but Felix feels like a beautiful and distant dream.
The desire and want I used to burn with for him has faded, something of another time and place.
And here is this, now. A new want, A new desire.
And it is as lush and loud and intoxicating as it had ever been before.