Chapter Seventeen #2
Old, polished mahogany shelves held a truly expansive collection of books, both contemporary and antiquarian, many of their leatherbound spines housing copies of the country’s most foundational texts, and all of them crammed neatly—but also haphazardly—into floor-to-ceiling shelves.
It was a cacophony of colors and textures, eras and binding, genres and languages, and the books overflowed from the shelves into stacks on the floor, spilling out of order and tumbling everywhere, gathering as much dust as any of his mother’s maids would allow.
Someday, an archivist would come in and ruin all that beautiful anarchy.
But it hadn’t happened yet.
Theo rounded the corner and two familiar voices filtered out into the hallway.
“—still doing that bullshit art of his, is he? How much does he make per piece, anyway?”
“It varies, Lloyd, but he won’t tell me exactly. I only find out when I read the news. His friend Diego usually tries to write the articles about him.”
“How ethical is that, keeping your best friend in your pocket at a newspaper? The free publicity for a buddy borders on a conflict of interest, so they’d both better watch it.
The second someone discovers his identity, he’s—oh.
” Lloyd’s head snapped over as Theo hovered in the doorway, ducking so he wouldn’t hit his head on the old, low frame. “Ted—”
“Teddy! When did you get here? Why didn’t you tell me you were on your way?
” His mother leapt up from her chair and hurried over to him, immediately smoothing her hands along his father’s vintage black leather jacket.
The way she pursed her lips told him she wasn’t pleased with his choice of attire: black T-shirt, black jeans, Air Jordans.
Lloyd was wearing a three-piece suit, like he’d come straight from a lecture, and Eleanor was still wearing one of the designer pantsuits she favored for court days.
They preferred that he dress similarly for these dinners.
But he’d never been that buttoned up.
“Hey, Mom.” He bent down and pressed a light kiss to her cheek. “I did text when we left and when we got here. Did you not get my messages?”
“I—” She blinked in confusion and then ripped her phone out of her pocket before frowning at her screen. “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry, Teddy, I don’t know how I missed those.” The lapse was momentary, and her frown was quickly smoothed away with a smile. “But I’m so happy to see you. You look really good.”
Lloyd stood from his usual antique armchair and extended a hand. “Hey, Teddy!” His steely blue eyes swept over Theo’s shaggy dark waves. “Your hair’s getting long, kiddo.” He slapped his nephew’s shoulder fondly. “You working too hard in that studio of yours to remember that haircuts are a thing?”
Theo rolled his lips together.
Not this again.
Every single time he saw his uncle, the first thing out of his mouth was a comment about his appearance.
He opened his own mouth to say something terse in response but was quickly cut off.
“Lloyd—” Eleanor glared at her younger brother.
“Lay off. He’s not one of your students.
He doesn’t work at a firm and he can wear his hair however he wants.
” She stood on her tiptoes and plucked at the curling ends of her son’s thick, dark waves with a smile.
“I think it looks handsome. It suits you.”
But Lloyd was still grumbling. “He should have been one of my students. He has the talent and the brains for it. What a waste.” He sighed and shook his head before squeezing Theo on the arm again. “Ah well. At least that hair hides those Dumbo ears of yours, eh?”
Theo’s face slowly fell.
There it was.
Another reminder.
His ears were too big. They did stick out from the sides of his head. He had grown out his hair to hide them.
He was always too big, too awkward, too out of place.
His mouth was too wide, his teeth too crooked, his nose too large, his face too long, his brow too heavy.
It was a wonder he didn’t have a permanent bump on his head from the number of times he’d knocked it on the doorways in this old-ass house once he’d hit a growth spurt in his teens.
Wedging himself into seats on the subway was an ordeal.
He usually just opted to stand instead, trying his best to make himself small and unnoticed in a corner somewhere.
Trying his best to stay out of the way. To avoid the gaping stares. Avoid the attention.
He took up a lot of space.
He never fit anywhere.
It wasn’t like it was something he’d ever asked for, or even wanted.
He didn’t need his uncle, of all people, to be constantly pointing it out.
And yet.
The feeling in his chest twisted tighter.
He closed his eyes and counted to three.
“Lloyd,” Eleanor said with a sigh. “Do you want me to talk about how short you are?” That earned her a glare in return, but she only scoffed and shook her head, taking her son’s massive hand in hers.
“Come, sit with me, Teddy. Tell me what you’ve been up to lately.
” She led him to a chair before turning to the nearby bar cart, pouring a glass of scotch, and pressing it into Theo’s hand.
He stared blankly down at the amber liquid. His leg bounced, and he clutched the glass so tightly in his fingers, he half wondered if he might shatter it.
This wasn’t a casual question about what he’d been up to. Oh no. It was never as casual an inquiry as she made it seem.
He was always put under a microscope when he came to these things, and it was hardly his fault his mother was too preoccupied to check in on him regularly.
She called sometimes, sure, but she was a busy woman, and she’d been juggling a few major corporate cases for their firm.
They kept her up and at work until late, and he knew she couldn’t be bothered to do more than send a cursory text to her son to ask him about his latest piece—which was already begrudging, given his history. He’d given up on calling her himself.
It was why she insisted on these quarterly weekends so firmly.
It was to alleviate her own guilt.
And to keep a close eye on him.
He tapped his fingers against the glass but didn’t drink any of it. He hated scotch. That was Lloyd’s preference, not his. He didn’t even really drink. “I’ve been working on a new piece.”
“Oh? For Sullivan Lightworks?”
“Well, yeah, actually—one for Jessica. You remember her, right?”
“Didn’t you date her in college?”
Theo stared at her open-mouthed. “No, Mom. Jessica’s a lesbian.
” And he never even had a girlfriend in college, but he didn’t feel like pointing that out now.
His uncle didn’t know and that was the last thing he wanted him to latch on to.
Just another thing to tease him about. “She’s the one who came home with me for Thanksgiving junior year?
Because she’d just come out and it hadn’t gone well with her parents at the time? ”
Eleanor pursed her lips together thoughtfully, her brow wrinkling while she struggled to place the name and the time. “Junior year? I’m so sorry, honey, that whole fall is a blur.” She turned to her brother. “Was that when we were handling the Henderson case?”
He shrugged.
Theo rolled his jaw in annoyance. “Yeah. Well, anyway, she’s opening a new bar called the Cherry Stem. I’m under contract for delivery of a neon sign for it, and it’s almost complete. I just need to finish the wiring.”
“Oh that’s wonderful!” His mother looked relieved. “I’m so glad you’re doing more work under your LLC.”
Theo’s eye twitched.
“I’m also working on a new Lightm4st3r piece. It’s coming along nicely, I think.” It wasn’t. It was going horribly. There was a reason he hadn’t launched a new abstract piece in—what was it now? Eight months? Ten? More?
Silence.
The siblings exchanged a glance, and an eerie feeling prickled at the back of Theo’s neck. He rubbed his hand nervously along it, and it was burning hot to the touch.
Great. It meant his big, stupid ears had gone scarlet as well.
He drew in a deep breath and held it.
One.
Exhaled slowly.
Two.
“Are you still doing work under that persona?” Eleanor finally ventured. Her question was awfully tentative. A little too cautious. “You haven’t done a piece or posted about anything in so long, I’d wondered if—”
“No, I haven’t given it up. I’ve just been a little…blocked lately, is all. It happens sometimes.”
It had never happened to him before.
Theo held his breath at the empty.
Three.
Lloyd swirled the scotch in his own glass. “You know, Teddy, you don’t get much out of that…venture. Is it really worth it?”
The next breath he inhaled was sharp.
Oh boy.
Here we go.
He didn’t get to four.
“You could always just go back to law school.”
Theo slammed his glass down on the antique coffee table so hard, some of the liquor sloshed over the edge.
“I’m not going back to law school.”
“Why not?” Lloyd’s eyes narrowed as he studied him.
“Because I don’t fucking want to.”
“What, is there something wrong with—”
Theo’s heartbeat was rushing in his ears.
“LLOYD.”
His uncle startled when his sister stepped in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest. He blinked up at her, his brows still knit into a scowl.
“Enough. We’re not getting into that now. Drop it.” A bell rang in the dining room, and Eleanor glanced over her shoulder toward the hall. “Dinner’s ready. Let’s eat before anyone gets hangrier.”
Theo rose easily out of his chair and shoved the scotch bitterly into his uncle’s chest. When Lloyd shot him a dark look, it brought him a not-insignificant amount of pleasure that his uncle had to crane his neck as far as he did to look up at him.
He let go of the glass, barely giving Lloyd half a second to catch it before he swept hastily out of the room.
Thinking about that one miserable year at Yale was the last thing he wanted to do tonight.
It was the last thing he ever wanted to do.
Theo picked at his dinner.
Something was off.