7. Sleepover
Sleepover
Like habit, Gus opened the skinny door to his attic bedroom, and the boys walked in one after the other.
Bridger glanced around, his face slowly brightening as he soaked in the private space.
Gus had framed some of his favorite nature drawings, which now adorned the wooden walls.
His sketching pencils and art supplies sat at the computer desk, which faced a starry window.
Gus’s cozy, sage-blanketed bed was illuminated gently by an heirloom lamp that gave the room a warm noir glow.
He was so relieved that he had switched out his cowboy bedding his first week.
Bridger passed by a small boxy TV perched on a stand that held a sparse VHS collection of classic movies. The shelf also displayed an assortment of colorful pebbles, jagged rocks, and bundled twigs from varying Montana trees.
“Sorry, I don’t have much,” Gus sheepishly apologized. “I kinda just filled the room with whatever I could find around the cabin.”
But Bridger’s face seemed to reveal he was anything but let down. He tilted his head back to see twinkling lights strung along the attic’s rafters. Gus followed his gaze.
“These old Christmas lights were in those.” Gus gestured toward a few dusty cardboard boxes still neatly tucked in the corner. “I bet my dad hasn’t hung them since I was a kid. Some of the bulbs don’t even work anymore.”
“Damn… I wish my room was this cool,” Bridger remarked.
Gus chuckled.
In the starry moonlight of the open window, the boys sat at Dan’s oak desk with the clunky jewel-toned Apple computer. Gus lifted Bridger’s polished but unpainted board onto his lap.
“What kind of design do you want?” Gus asked, pulling out his acrylics.
“Flames!” Bridger blurted out.
Gus nodded. He leaned toward his computer and searched for a few examples he thought Bridger might like.
“There! Like that one, but better. You can do better, yeah?”
Gus grinned. “Yeah.”
He applied a shadowy background to Bridger’s deck, upon which he painted streaks of fire using varying deep reds, amber oranges, and vibrant yellows.
Bridger peacefully observed Gus’s eyes and hands ebbing and flowing as he expertly brushed the colors across the slick wood grain.
Bridger could only describe Gus doing art like he’d describe himself skating.
It just feels right. Natural. A few minutes in, as Gus moved to create wisps at the edges of the flames, Bridger got an idea.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his MP3 player and started some music.
Bridger placed one earbud in his own ear and reached over to put the other in Gus’s.
As Bridger’s fingers grazed his ear, Gus glanced up, surprised by the intimate touch.
The computer’s bright display and the starlight coming through the window cast a dreamlike glow over the two as Gus caught Bridger’s smirk and slowly smiled.
Both boys bobbed to the music together. Gus dipped his brush in a gold blend he’d mixed, and painted some more strokes of the fire, his beautiful design taking shape.
Bridger swayed to the tunes and watched Gus fill in each and every detail.
Soon the shadowy inferno was fully finished.
Bridger reached for his new skateboard and inspected it with awe.
Gus smiled with satisfaction. “Should be dry by morning.”
“How’d you learn all this art stuff?” Bridger inquired. “How are you so good at… everything?”
Gus’s chest lifted at the compliment. Then his face slowly drooped as he looked down toward his feet.
“My mom… She was the real artist,” Gus shared, tilting his gaze back up. His eyes settled on the bitterroot painting on his wall. “I just wanna be as good as she was.”
Bridger’s brow furrowed as Gus leaned back in his chair seemingly lost in thought. He regretted having asked anything at all.
“I’m sorry you lost her,” Bridger sympathized.
Gus shrugged slowly, then let his head fall. He looked over at Bridger and decided he trusted him enough to open up for once.
“When I draw… I think of her. She had a boring job she hated, I didn’t like school. So we’d stay up late every night together just making… beautiful things,” Gus revealed.
Bridger tilted his head and offered a supportive, melancholy smile. He leaned his board of flames against the wall near their feet to safely dry right next to Gus’s homemade board. The flame and mountain designs glinted together in the lamplight. Bridger turned back to Gus, wanting to hear more.
“No one in my family ever went to college. No one traveled. She wanted me to be the first to have that option, to have a choice in what I did. Not to be stuck with a life like she had after leaving Dad,” Gus continued.
“Wow,” Bridger breathed before continuing. “She sounds great.”
“She was.” Gus slid down in his seat and laid his head on the back of his desk chair, thinking.
His eyes went distant as memories flooded back to him.
“She was so pretty… She had this long, reddish-blonde hair. It smelled like lavender,” Gus remembered, then smiled.
“She always snuck me into art galleries without paying. She loved bad romance movies and takeout food. Sang awful songs in the car at full volume.”
Gus chuckled at the memories. Bridger scooted in closer, earnestly gazing at Gus as he kept talking.
“She never lazily said my art was good and went on with doing whatever. She always looked at it, really looked at it, and gave me great advice to improve something. I loved that.”
Gus cleared his throat and tried not to let his eyes water.
“When I couldn’t sleep, we’d share pints of cookie-dough ice cream at midnight… I miss that.” His voice trailed off.
Bridger’s eyes held a sensitive stare. He leaned forward and rapped on Gus’s knee. “I wish I could have met her.”
Gus nodded at Bridger. He paused, then turned to the dusty boxes in the corner.
“Actually. I think…” Gus stood up. “I think we might have old tapes in the attic here somewhere. Hold on…”
Gus stepped toward the corner of his bedroom while Bridger watched with hopeful curiosity. Gus shifted around boxes until he found a small one labeled Megan’s Home Movies.
“I can’t believe Dad kept these,” Gus laughed, glad he had avoided tearing up too much.
After bringing the small box closer to Bridger at the desk, Gus fished out one of the old cassette tapes and pushed it into his TV’s VCR slot.
He pulled one of the top blankets off his bed and sat on the soft, faded patterned rug on the wooden floor, wrapping himself in the warm fabric of the blanket.
As the first video started playing on the boxy screen, Bridger got up from his chair and snuck over to sit with Gus on the floor.
They bumped shoulders. Gus glanced over, keenly aware of their closeness.
Gus and Bridger watched scenes Dan must have filmed over a decade ago featuring Megan and a young Gus.
Gus’s mom did indeed have pretty strawberry blonde hair, freckles dotting her kind face, and a bright captivating laugh that lit up Gus’s dark bedroom.
Both boys smiled as they watched baby Gus run around the yard outside, his mom waddling behind in chase.
A fresh-faced Dan flipped bratwursts on the grill.
There was footage of Gus eating some birthday cake, of Megan painting a lake landscape on a large easel in Dan’s woodshop with Gus play-painting beside her, of toddler Gus squeezing two tubes of oil paint all over himself and the living room couch.
Dan’s and Megan’s laughs echoed through the attic as they caught him.
“Oh no! What did you do, Gus?” Megan cooed. “Show us what you did.”
“I w-ike colors!” toddler Gus chirped back.
Megan looked right up at her husband, her gaze slightly off-center from the camera lens. She smiled wide, her infectious giggle echoing through the TV speakers. Her eyes sparkled when she laughed.
Gus missed those eyes so much.
“See. She’s the best.” Gus pointed out to Bridger, then caught himself. “Or was the best.”
Bridger nodded.
The boys kept going through the cassette tapes Dan had saved, watching childhood memories Gus had forgotten. Gus found himself wishing he had thought about the tapes sooner.
With the shimmering blue TV light reflecting off them both, the sounds of laughter on the screen, and the tiny twinkling Christmas bulbs above, the room had an electric charge.
Bridger’s bouncing knee brushed Gus’s thigh and his skin warmed with gentle heat.
Gus couldn’t help himself from slowly glancing over at him.
The skater boy was still facing the TV. Gus studied Bridger’s face.
Why did he want to sleep over? His friends ditched me yesterday.
Gus looked away as reality sunk in. He got his new board.
After he takes it home tomorrow… are we done?
In the video, Megan grabbed the camcorder from her husband and pointed the lens back at Dan. He cackled with so much joy, Gus almost didn’t recognize this man as his father.
“Ha. Dude. When your dad laughs, he looks just like you.” Bridger nudged Gus, and another bolt of electricity fired through him.
“What?” Gus looked over, ignoring the buzz in his legs. “You think?”
Bridger paused the video.
“Yeah. Look!”
“No way.”
“Gus. Be serious. You guys have the same smile, same dimples.” Bridger lifted a finger to Gus’s face. It stopped a breath away to point at his cheek. He smirked. “That same lost look with doe eyes when you get confused.”
Gus paused at Bridger’s words. He’s watching me that closely? Are doe eyes bad? Gus grunted a hmph and inspected his dad’s face on the screen. “I guess.” He shook his head. “But he’s not like that anymore.”
Later, as they were about to finish the last of the home movies, Bridger started yawning.
“Want the bed? I can take the floor.” Gus offered, standing up.
“Nah, man. It’s your room.” Bridger waved casually. “I’ll just take these and crash here.”