Chapter 20 Boone
BOONE
“Boone! My friend! Did I forget you were coming by?” Hopper asks, greeting me with a hug.
I grimace.
“Uh, no. I… I had kind of a weird day yesterday and just wanted to paint. Is that okay? I can come back at another time.”
He shakes his head. “No, stay. Stay! I just get into my head so much with my projects that I can’t remember what’s happening with who these days. In fact…” He pats the pockets on his heavy canvas apron. “When was the last time I ate?”
“Should we order something for you?” I ask, wishing I had something to give him.
“Actually…Liam is having something delivered,” he says, thumbing a gesture at the sculpt on the table. “I’m trying to fix her left nostril so it looks at least related to her right, and it’s driving me insane.”
I laugh. I don’t know Hopper that well, but I doubt sane has ever been his sweet spot.
“Can’t have that, now can we?” I ask, walking up to the piece I’ve been working on.
I can’t tell if it’s being in Hopper’s presence or the fact that I’m finally using materials that are really, really good quality, but it feels like my skills have improved by leaps and bounds in the last several weeks.
Hopper steps in behind me, quiet as a cat burglar. It used to throw me off, but I’ve become used to his stealthy ways, and now I barely even startle at his unexpected pop-ups.
“Think you’ll finish that today?” he asks, swaying with his hands clasped behind his back.
I take in the piece again. I had been planning on completing it in the next couple of sessions, but the violent image contrasts with the sweeter thoughts in my head.
Maverick, insistent and soft. Powerful and queerly beautiful. Eager but strong on boundaries.
Perfect.
“No, actually, I was…inspired today. I kind of want to paint in a different direction, just to see if I can.”
“Oh? What inspired you?”
Rune Maverick Bash.
“A guy I like,” I admit with a smile.
Hopper narrows his eyes. “Look, I don’t wanna seem judgmental, but is this going to be another one of your violent paintings?”
“God, no,” I answer immediately, shaking my head. “The opposite, actually.”
“Thank goodness,” he says, hand to his chest. Rocking back and forth, he continues talking, almost as if to himself. “If I thought you were violent with an intimate partner, you and I would be having a very different conversation right now.”
“Oh no, no, no,” I say, vehement as I hold up my hands. “I was raised by a good man, who was good to my mom, and I can’t imagine ever treating a loved one like that.”
“Whew,” Hopper says on a heavy exhale. His attention drifts back to his table. “Yeah, I need to go fix this nostril before it drives me insane.”
I laugh and grab a new canvas.
I don’t think I’ll ever bother with an initial sketch ever again.
Something about Hopper’s energy encourages me to just let the paint take me where I need to go.
Even when it’s not my best work, the bones of the painting come together quickly, and I find that I can make corrections on the fly or simply go with the flow.
I grin. Happy little accidents.
Even though the two humans probably couldn’t be more opposite, there is something a little Bob Rossian in the way Hopper approaches his art, and I’m better for having absorbed that.
Letting my encounter with Maverick change the direction of my painting today is something I would also attribute to Hopper, even as I apply the layering technique I learned with my more disturbing subjects.
I take a smoke break out in the garden while the first layer dries. Maverick and I exchange texts, and my mouth goes dry at the picture he sends over. I felt this yesterday but couldn’t put words to it: his sex appeal, even his ethereal beauty are secondary to who he is inside.
His soul.
Blech. I am so pathetic.
I don’t mind being pathetic for him.
I’ve been interested in men before, of course. Might’ve gotten my heart involved a time or two, but never once would I have described myself as pathetic. Certainly not with this stupid grin on my face.
Hopper sits with me, enjoying the silence of the garden. I want to tell him about Maverick. I want to tell him about me. I’m tempted to walk to the edge of the diving board and blurt out the truth.
I’m as terrified of his reaction as I am aware that I’m running out of time to tell him—because at some point, all of this not-telling will seem like a lie.
But, like every other day, I bite my tongue and enjoy the shared solitude.
We return inside and get back to it. Hopper never looks at anything I’m working on unless I’ve given him explicit permission, and I don’t know if I can ever let him see this.
While all of my work is abstract, the bodies intertwined with each other perfectly represent the intimacy I shared with Maverick. I’m probably delusional to think anyone would look at this piece and get where I was going with it, but it’s pretty fucking obvious to me.
I go back to the layering technique as Hopper continues his work on the wayward nostril, and it occurs to me that we both have faith that our projects will eventually come together.
As the day progresses, a few people start up some projects in the foundry, and the space takes on the familiar smells and temperature I’ve grown to appreciate. A little bit later, I step back and pull my phone from my pocket to take a picture.
I send a heavily cropped version to Maverick.
“That’s beautiful work,” Hopper says, appearing suddenly over my right shoulder, and I drop his very expensive paintbrush.
I guess I do still startle sometimes.
He grimaces. “Sorry, I didn’t ask to see it. You were just smiling so much that I had to know what you were working on.”
“It’s fine, Hop.” Considering he hasn’t mentioned that it looks like I’m holding his nephew in my arms, I ask, “So, I did okay?”
He rolls his eyes. “Did you do okay? Fuck no. This is brilliant work.”
If he knew I was his son, I’d be worried he was blowing smoke up my ass. As my friend, though, he’s definitely pointed out where I’ve fucked up the color theory or the shadowing.
I laugh and pick up the brush. “Thanks, Hop,” I call out as he goes to get the paint thinner.
As Hopper cleans, his eyes sparkle as they continue returning to the piece. Like he really, genuinely likes what I did. I try not to get emotional.
“I suppose it’s better than my crime-scene paintings.”
“There’s no ‘better,’” he says with air quotes. “Your crime-scene paintings are so visceral. It’s actually a little uncomfortable to see them sometimes.”
“Oh, sorry.” His opinion means the world to me, so I’m quick to explain, “I promise it’s just about getting it out of my head. I’m not a serial killer,” I joke.
His face splits into an enormous smile, and he laughs. “I know that. Even though I’m not a police detective, your vision is so clear that every time I see your work, I feel like I learned something more about you, even if they are hard to view sometimes.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head, scratching his overgrown five o’clock shadow.
“I have a pretty terrible history,” he says lightly, as if to protect me from a heavy truth. “But that’s also why I understand it.”
His smile falters, and he breaks eye contact. I let him find his words.
“I do sometimes sketch what I’ve been through.” He takes a deep breath and sends me a fragile smile. “I usually only do those in charcoals though. Because I burn them.”
My jaw swings open.
“Wait. You burn Hopper Hughes originals?”
See also: entirely not the point.
Hopper’s good humor returns. “No. I burn Hopper Hughes’s trash sketches about being locked in a closet for three days. No one wants to buy that.”
My eyes widen, and my throat constricts, shock and grief hitting me at once.
Who did that to him?
“That happen to you often?” I ask, not sure if he even wants to be talking about this.
He shakes his head. “No, it was just the one john, but honestly, the entire experience of being an underage teenage prostitute? I don’t recommend it.”
I take a deep, unsteady breath.
Compared to the moments when I just wanted to come out and tell him who I am, in this moment, I can’t help but wish I already had. So he understands that he’s not just saying this to some guy he barely knows, but to his son.
“I didn’t know that about you,” I say, my hands listless at my sides. “The only thing the articles ever say about you is that you had a rough childhood. I didn’t… I didn’t realize how rough.”
“Whaddya gonna do?” He shrugs. “Besides, I’m super claustrophobic, so juvie was wayyy more traumatizing.”
“You spent time in juvie?” I ask, my heart breaking for Hopper all over again.
He was harmed by the system that was supposed to protect him, a common occurrence, one I hope to atone for in my position as detective.
“Oh, yeah. I was in a mental hospital for a little while, but I think my benefits ran out? Anyway, I ended up in a halfway house, so…”
“And that’s where your brother found you, right?”
That part, at least, had made it to the internet.
He nods effusively, bouncing on his heels. “My father had just died, the bastard, and my brother was going through his desk. Found these papers that didn’t make any sense, sent his buddy to figure out what it all meant, and from that day on, I was never alone again.”
Tears spring to my eyes before I have a chance to control them.
“Oh no, did I do it again?” Worry settles into his brows. “Did I upset you? I never know where the line is. Please don’t be mad at me.”
I shake my head and wipe my tears. “No, you didn’t cross the line, I just… It’s very sad that you were alone. Nobody deserves that.”
“That’s true.”
“Can I give you a hug?” I ask, then immediately feel self-conscious. “Or would that be weird?”
“Who cares if it’s weird?” he says, throwing out his arms. “I love hugs.”
I step into his hold. Fuck. We are the exact same size. I give him the biggest hug I can without it being actually weird, then step back to wipe away a few more tears.
“I’m sorry if I made you sad,” he says, tilting his head, his expression of concern so sweet.
“You didn’t make me sad,” I say, shaking my head. “I was just thinking about how lucky I am.”
“Oh really? How are you lucky?” he asks.
“My mom went to New York on this big adventure and came back pregnant with me. She said the guy came from a really dangerous family, and when she showed up back in her old hometown, her old high school boyfriend wouldn’t leave her side.
And that’s who my real dad is. He didn’t leave my side either. ”
“So you didn’t grow up with your dad, but you did grow up with a dad,” he says.
I nod. “I don’t look like either of my parents, but I’ve never been alone. Not even once.”
“Sounds like your mom and dad are really special.”
I sniff. “They are.” I look back at my painting. “I’ve always wanted a relationship with my birth father though.”
“Even though he was dangerous?”
“I don’t think he was dangerous. I think he had some dangerous family members. Mom said he was real sweet, and I— I think she might be right.”
“Wait.” His eyes widen. “Do you know who he is?”
His question, so simple, raises the hair on my arms.
“I do,” I admit before I can think of anything else to say.
Hopper shifts, tilting his head the other way. “But you’ve never talked to him?”
I press my lips together and drop my chin, staring at the finished concrete.
I take a breath.
Then another.
“I have, actually.” I rock forward and back, then raise my head to look him in the eye. “But he doesn’t know I’m his son.”
Hopper’s brows shoot up. “Oh.” His hand goes to his chest. “Is there a reason you don’t want to tell him?”
“I…haven’t told my parents yet. And I don’t want them to think I don’t love and appreciate my dad and everything he gave me. It’s just…”
I rub my chest.
“Your birth father is the missing piece,” Hopper says, filling in the blank.
I nod.
“Are you ever going to tell your parents?”
“When the time is right.”
Hopper stands there, his priceless fingers playing on the air, working out the hue, value, and depth of my life. The shape and texture of it forming in his own mind’s eye.
“So…if you don’t look like your parents, you must’ve always wondered what your birth father looked like,” he says, his observation cutting straight to the heart of it.
“I did.”
“And do you?” he asks, tapping his chest as he takes in my brows and high Italian cheekbones. “Do you look like him?”
“Yes, I do.” My chin trembles, and I bounce on the balls of my feet. “We don’t look exactly alike, but we share a lot of the same features. We, uh, we have the same unique eye color.”
Hopper’s gaze tracks to my eyes. I’m standing under one of the many skylights, and sunrays reveal the depth of their dark navy-blue color.
His body, forever moving, goes unnaturally still. His eyes trace every detail of my face, as if for the first time. Then, a soft sigh of recognition.
“Boone?” he asks gently. “What is your mother’s name?”