6
M arin sat in the back of Celeste’s Camry parked outside of Blake’s apartment—contentedly watching a Banksy documentary on Celeste’s phone—while Blake tried to make some sense of his life. He rested against his bike as he addressed Celeste, having followed behind the sedan.
“And you’re absolutely sure that if I fail he’ll really… he’ll die ?” Blake asked, worrying his thumb and forefinger together.
“For the fiftieth time: yes! ” Celeste huffed at him. “Asking me again and again isn’t going to change the situation. What else do you want me to do?”
“Take some responsibility, at least!” Blake snapped. “If you hadn’t tricked me into kissing him, his life wouldn’t be at stake.”
“He’s got a point you know,” Marin chimed in over the documentary’s narration.
“Besides, if we’re going to pull this off we’ll need as much manpower as possible,” Blake told Celeste.
“Ugh. I guess you have a point.” Celeste sighed, puffing a lock of blonde hair out of their face. “Fine. From now on you’ll have me at your beck and call, free of charge.”
“Yeah, don’t think you’re getting another goddamn cent out of me.” Blake glowered at Celeste who gasped, pressing their fingertips to their chest in offense.
“Wow, really?” they shook their head. “I get you a new boyfriend and this is how you thank me?”
Blake flushed and ignored the comment. “Look. We might as well start sorting this out now. Go park your car and we can reconvene inside.”
Celeste made a great show of continuing to huff and puff, but acquiesced to Blake’s directions without further argument. “Might as well get this one out of the car first; you’ll have less of a distance to carry him.”
Blake nodded and ducked into the back of the Camry, his tone soft as he addressed Marin: “Hey, I’m gonna carry you up to my apartment, are you ready to go?”
Marin shook his head. “No, I want to find out what happened after the painting got shredded.”
Blake nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll pull it up for you on Netflix when we get up there.”
Marin hesitated, squinting at Blake and then glancing back at the gasping and gawking auction goers on the phone. After a moment, he nodded his assent.
“Okay,” he said, extending his arms out towards Blake.
Blake slid him out of the side of the Camry, picking him up in a bridal carry once more.
“I’m in apartment 2F,” he told Celeste, rounding the front of the car. Celeste shook their head and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Thanks for driving him.”
“You’re fine. It’s…” they glanced at Marin and then adopted a guilty look. “I’m sorry. I fucked around and I found out and it was at your expense.”
“No, it was at Marin’s expense,” Blake corrected, his voice terse. “Go park.”
“Okay,” Celeste replied, and Blake heard the sound of the Camry’s door closing behind him. By the time he’d reached his apartment door, the car had peeled away into the lot.
“I’m gonna set you down,” he let Marin know. “Do you think you can stand?”
Marin nodded, determined. “I think I can manage it.”
Blake lowered him to the ground and Marin touched down gingerly; first on his tippy toes before thunking back onto his heels. He teetered for a moment, arms akimbo, before he found his footing and flashed Blake a smile.
“Easy-peasy,” he said.
“Easy-peasy.” Blake released an anxious breath.
He’d been half-expecting Marin to pitch face-forward into the concrete.
He took a moment to dig around in his pocket for his keys before opening the door and stepping into the living room.
Ryan’s bike helmet and keys were on the kitchen counter, but his door was closed and the light was off.
Blake turned to Marin and whispered, “We have to stay quiet. My roommate is asleep.”
Marin nodded and took a careful step forward.
Blake reached out to support him, grabbing his torso before he could topple over.
Marin clamped his hands onto Blake’s thick biceps, giving him a shaky smile before taking another, more confident step.
Little by little, Blake led him into the apartment before closing the door behind them.
Marin stopped in the middle of the living room, peering around.
For the first time in his life, Blake was ashamed of the abysmal state of the stereotypical bachelor pad that he and Ryan shared.
In the living room, there was nothing but an old sleeper sofa from Goodwill, the TV, and a PlayStation on a cinder block table in the middle of the room.
“Where is Netflix?” Marin asked.
Blake had to chew his lower lip to keep from laughing. The cute quip was a welcome change of pace, and a little of the tension seeped out of his bones.
Marin pointed at the PS4. “Is that Netflix?”
Blake reined himself in, smothering a laugh behind a cough.
“No, but it has Netflix on it. Netflix is a…” He shook his head.
He was not in the mental space to be explaining streaming to a merman.
“Here—uh—why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you set up while we wait for Celeste.
The PS4’s gonna be too loud right now so I’ll grab you something else to watch it on. ”
He guided Marin to the sofa, settling him down onto it before dashing into his room and looking for the iPad that he’d inherited from Matt. While the tablet was charged, he was also locked out of Netflix and nothing short of waking up Ryan was going to get him logged on.
“Shit. Uh…” As he exited his bedroom, he glanced up at Marin, who was peering over at the tablet in curiosity. “Sorry, I can’t pull up the same documentary right now. Is there anything else you’d like to watch?”
“I saw something about ‘Project Runway’ on the little TV in Celeste’s car?” Marin asked. “That looked promising.”
“Sure, let me pull up a clip,” Blake agreed. But before he could select a YouTube video, the door swung open and Celeste strolled in, dumping their purse next to Ryan’s helmet.
“ Quiet ,” Marin warned them with a wince.
“Your boyfriend’s asleep,” Blake filled them in, pointing towards Ryan’s door.
“He’ll live,” Celeste said, sweeping their judgmental gaze over the living room. “Jesus, now I know why he’s never invited me over. It looks like a homeless encampment in here.”
“Real classy, Celeste,” Blake scowled; even Marin was shooting them a scathing look. Celeste folded their arms, making a point to glare at the floor.
“Okay, so I’m here,” they said. “Now what?”
“Hold on, I need to grab some paper or something,” Blake told them, heading back towards his room. “I want to take some notes.”
After excusing himself, Blake rooted around his closet for several minutes before he managed to unearth an old poster board and a pack of markers that had gone unused for a class project.
He returned to find Marin and Celeste poring over the iPad, watching a gay man have a mental breakdown over a miniskirt.
“Okay,” Blake said, moving the PS4 off of the makeshift coffee table and laying the poster board over it. He uncapped a red marker and divided it into bottom and top. “Celeste, can I see the picture of the poem again?”
“Sure,” Celeste said, kneeling down beside Blake.
They handed over their phone, upon which the picture of the vase was displayed.
It was less zoomed in than it had been before, displaying a small collection of other sculptures and ceramics around it.
Blake was about to crop the picture so that he could better view the verse, but paused when a familiar logo caught his eye.
“What is that?” he asked, adjusting the picture to enlarge the logo.
Marin leaned down between him and Celeste, squinting at the screen. “It looks like it says ‘Lakeside Art Studios’,” he read.
“It does,” Blake confirmed, closing the gallery and opening up a Chrome tab. He plugged the name into the browser, nodding to himself. “That’s what I thought.”
“What?” Celeste asked, angling their head to better view the screen. “You recognize it?”
“Sure do,” Blake confirmed. “I recently took an art therapy class there last semester—it’s right over in Folsom.”
“Huh,” Celeste remarked. “Small world. Well, at least we have a lead to go off of.”
“It looks like it opens at ten,” Blake reached out to divide the bottom of the poster into four columns, labeled Monday through Thursday. Inside of Monday’s column, he jotted down “Lakeside Art Studios AM” .
“Okay,” said Celeste. “But what about work that day?”
“I have a doctor’s note,” Blake recalled. “It’s good for three days, so I’ll have to figure something out about Thursday, but there’s no way I’m going into work while someone’s life is on the—”
“Wait,” Marin interrupted. “I think you should go in for at least one day.”
Blake blinked, taken aback. “Why?”
“There’s probably information about who manufactured me somewhere on the premises, right?” Marin pointed out.
Celeste snapped their fingers, nodding in agreement. “Going into work would be a good excuse to look around for paperwork or something like that!”
“That’s a good point,” Blake agreed. “But if I’m working, then when would I have time to look for that stuff?”
Marin shook his head. “Leave that to me. You can bring me with you and I’ll look around while you’re working.”
“Would that really be okay with you?” Blake asked, frowning.
Marin had spent the last twenty or so years bound to Water Zone—it was a little messed up to bring him right back the moment that he’d managed to escape.
That, and Blake would be wasting eight of their precious few hours to save Marin on nothing more than a hunch.
“It would probably be the best place to find out that information, right?” Marin returned.
He glanced over at the phone, appearing deep in thought.
“Unless you think this little TV can help us find out about where I come from? It seems like you were able to look up information using it fairly quickly.”
“You can use it to access a database called the Internet,” Celeste filled him in. “Leave that part to me. I’ll see what I can find online while you guys are at the park.”