19. Logan #2
He leads me up the stairs and I dimly register that there’s no real reason he needs to be holding my hand, but I’m happy that he does.
The second floor is just as narrow as the first, but there are skylights and taller ceilings, which make it seem much more airy. Gentle rain falls now along all of the glass, and I feel like I’m in some sort of quiet, magic dome.
His studio is at the end of the hall.
We walk through the door and it’s like I’m transported into a different place.
“I feel like I just walked inside your mind,” I tell him.
He smiles. “It’s a clusterfuck. But it’s my clusterfuck. I know where everything is, even if it doesn’t look like it.”
The space is a riot of color.
Every surface and wall has some of Chase’s projects on it, all of which seem to be more neon than the last. His art is also more impressive in person than in the pictures.
Every painting is thick with texture, and some of them almost have a 3D quality to them, with paint rising from the surface like geologic landscapes.
“I’ve seen this studio on your Instagram page so many times, and now I’m finally here.”
He ruffles his hair with his hands. “It’s not much, but for New York, it’s what I can afford.”
“It’s incredible, Chase. It looks even bigger in person.”
His videos don’t quite capture how nice the skylights look overhead, either. Chase has both of the paned windows open wide right now, and the last remnants of the rainclouds are moving off quickly.
As the clouds pass, a sudden light fills the space along with a gust of fresh air.
Chase gently closes the front door. It’s not much bigger than a bedroom, but it’s not the microscopic closet that Chase made it out to be.
Along one wall he has all of his supplies on a table, paints and cleaners and various brushes.
The rest of the space is full of paintings, some drawings, and some photos.
“Okay. I want you to pose for me a bit so that we can get a sense for where the best light will be,” Chase says.
“Can you kiss me first?”
He bites his lower lip, taking a step toward me.
He closes the gap between us, clutching at my shirt. “You need that from me?”
“Desperately, Chase.”
“Fuck, you’re amazing,” he utters as he leans in and puts his lips on mine. He kisses me firmly, openly, letting his tongue linger on mine before sucking on my lower lip.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Now I need you to pose for me, or we will never get this photoshoot started.”
“Got it.”
I watch him move around the space from corner to corner.
Some of his normal scatterbrained self is on display even now, but he seems to know this room better than anywhere else I’ve ever seen him.
He moves gigantic canvases around like they’re nothing.
He picks up a camera that looks like it weighs a ton, hoisting it up and propping it into a different corner.
I don’t know exactly what he means when he says he wants me to pose.
I start to unbutton my shirt and for some reason, my heart starts pounding like a mallet hitting my chest. I’ve always known that if a show or movie needed me to do a nude scene, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. The human body is beautiful to me, and I’ve never felt a need to be nervous about it.
But it’s going to be Chase taking my photos, so of course it has to feel different now.
Everything with him isn’t simple. Not for me, at least.
Chase looks over and sees me undoing my buttons, and he shakes his head. “Oh, no, no. I meant we can do some test shots with you fully clothed.”
I exhale and puff out a laugh, feeling my cheeks heat. “Sorry. I’m a little out of it.”
“Don’t apologize,” he says.
He’s being so accommodating.
Authoritative, but also formal in a way I’ve never seen before.
I expect him to crack a joke or come over and rip the shirt off of me, but he’s in photographer mode, still roaming around the room and rearranging things.
Fuck, I can’t handle him wearing those glasses.
They look so sexy on him, as if the shape of them only serves to highlight his cheekbone structure even more than usual.
“Do you wear glasses sometimes when you paint?”
“Not for painting. But for photography sometimes. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but having slightly blurry vision almost helps for painting sometimes.” He glances up at me. “Not for pictures, though. I want to see everything today.”
He instructs me on where to stand, leaning my arm up against the edge of the window pane, and then he proceeds to try out an enormous number of different cameras.
One of them I recognize as a Polaroid, at least. Some of the others are tiny, and others are big, clunky and heavy.
He even brings out an ancient-looking thing where he has to tuck his head underneath a blanket to look in the viewfinder, taking a test shot of me.
When he settles on which cameras he wants to use, he then instructs me into different positions.
First I’m standing, then sitting with my knees bunched, then lying down on my elbows on the floor, staring into the camera lens.
The sound of the city comes in through the windows. Cars move through the still-wet streets outside, and soon the light goes from patchy clouds into continuous sun.
“Okay,” Chase announces after a while, nodding at me. “Let’s fucking do this.”
He walks over to a pair of speakers on the table and fiddles with his phone until music starts coming out.
“Right. What should I do first?”
His eyes land on mine, and for a moment I feel the same intensity radiating from them that I felt on the first night we spent on the rooftop last year.
“Take off your clothes, Logan.”
He stands there watching me with a camera slung around his shoulder, making no attempt to hide that he’s going to have his eyes on me the entire time I strip.
That nervous feeling rears its head in me again as I start undoing my shirt buttons for real this time, one by one.
I fumble with one of them.
I try to get it through the button hole four, then five times, and Chase just watches with that smolder in his eyes. Something in my mind goes cross-wired and my cock perks up the next time I look up at him.
Two competing thoughts are surging through my mind.
Quit looking at me like you’re a fucking lion surveying its prey…
But also I want you to keep your eyes on me like this forever.
“Sorry,” I murmur as I struggle to finally push the button through its opening.
Chase steps forward.
He puts his hands on top of mine, right as I’m trying to undo the final button, and he grips my fingers, stopping me.
“Having second thoughts?” he asks in a low voice that also goes straight to my cock.
“Not sure I’m capable of having any coherent thoughts at all, right now.”
A glint of light reflects from the silver chain of one of his necklaces as he moves a hand up to my hair, smoothing it with his palm.
“This is your decision, Logan. Fully. You’re aware of that, right—”