The Colors Between Us

by Kate Hawthorne

  As if on cue, Pete wandered into the room and wound his way around Donny’s ankles, meowing and rubbing against his jeans. Donny put his phone and wallet in his pocket and pulled his sweatshirt over his head, then looked down at Pete.

  Pete looked up at him with his tiny little eyes and meowed again. Donny leaned over and picked him up, kissing the top of his head before tucking him easily into the warmth of the pocket on the front of his sweatshirt. Pete offered a muffled meow of acceptance, then burrowed into the pocket and settled.

  Donny grabbed an iced coffee from his fridge, tossing the lid in the trash, before he snatched his keys from the counter and headed out.

  Chapter 4

  An Inspiring Fresh Start

  Roland had been up all night. He hadn’t slept more than twenty minutes. He hadn’t showered, shaved, or even changed out of his pajamas. He hadn’t eaten anything, and all he’d had to drink was the top quarter of another bottle of vodka.

  His studio space was trashed. There were broken paintbrushes everywhere, splatters of colors he’d unsuccessfully mixed were dumped or spattered into piles on the floor. He’d broken more than one plate and one of his larger palettes in a fit of desperation at his inability to get what was in his mind onto the canvas.

  Roland collapsed onto the floor and made a good-hearted attempt at ripping his hair out of his scalp as he let out an anguished scream of frustration. He kicked furiously at a stack of canvases he’d started and abandoned over the course of the night. None of them were right. He couldn’t get it fucking right.

  Canvas after canvas of blue, but blue what? Roland sure as shit didn’t know. He’d used through all his black and white paint and was quickly running out of all his blue. The stack of failures to his right revealed abstract stripes of color, mostly gray and blue, splattered with black lines and dots, and then larger blobs of ink as his despondency mounted and he’d resorted to throwing paint at the canvas with his bare hands.

  He just wanted to cover up his failures. Hide the fact he wasn’t capable of creating something that didn’t look like shit anymore.

  The only paint he hadn’t touched were the two containers of mixed blue he’d made before bed. He didn’t know why, but when he looked at the shade, it resonated inside of him. There was a hum in his chest, and he knew there was something important he was supposed to create with it but also knew what he’d done last night wasn’t it.

  A small voice in his mind suggested if he opened the blue up, he’d be able to create what he was meant to, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it yet. Everything in his studio had faded to a dull gray-wash of misery, except those two containers of blue.

  Roland took a large swallow from the vodka, blandly notating it was quickly sliding past the three-quarter line. He glanced down at his watch and found it to be nearly seven in the morning.

  He stalked into his kitchen and pulled a knife from the butcher block and found his way back to the studio. With no pretense, he slammed the tip of the blade into the corner of the canvas and sliced. He tossed the canvas over his shoulder and repeated his assault on the next one, then the next, and the next, until he’d destroyed them all and the tip of the knife had snapped off somewhere in the mess.

  He threw the knife across the room and let it bounce off the wall and land with a thud on the concrete floor. He needed to do something about this mess. Rather, he needed to find the energy, or the concern, to do something about this mess.

  Roland was backsliding. He knew it. He saw the signs. What was the point of continuing this charade any longer? How could an artist make something worthwhile when they couldn’t even see color? Roland was as much of a failure as the paintings he’d just destroyed. Someone should stab him with a…

  No.

  Not that.

  Roland took a drink of vodka then threw the bottle at the wall. It shattered gloriously. The vodka fanned out in a display so frenetically perfect it looked as if it had been planned. Shards of glass glittered on the floor, rocking back and forth in puddles of liquor as though they were little boats meant to keep him from drowning.

  Roland reached out and collected the two containers of magic blue paint, tucking them under his arm. He stumbled to his bedroom and picked his phone up from the nightstand, unplugging it roughly from the charger before dialing down to the building concierge.

  “Hello, Mr. Wilson. How can we assist you today?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded chipper and entirely too optimistic for Roland’s mood.

  “Can you please send up a cleaning service?” His voice came out with more of a slur than he intended.

  “What do you need attended to, Mr. Wilson?”

  “The bedroom at the end of the east hall.” Roland kicked his pants down his legs, tripped on them, and fell against the side of his bed.

  “Just a standard clean?”

  “No. I want it cleaned out. Everything inside it needs to be gone.” Roland righted himself, finally.

  “Very well, Mr. Wilson. Someone will be up before eight this morning. Will you be in residence?”

  Roland could hear the keys of a keyboard clacking on the other end of the line.

  “I am, but I’ll be in the master suite. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Of course, Mr. Wilson. If that will be all?”

  Roland hung up the phone.

  After a drunk stumble to his bathroom, he filled the tub with water a few degrees hotter than he could tolerate and sat down, letting his head slide under the surface. He held his breath as long as he could, puffing out his cheeks to prolong his submersion. When he could take it no longer, he burst above the surface, a mess of tangled hair and red flesh. He curled his fingers around the edges of the tub and ground his fingertips into the cool porcelain, gritting his teeth together.

  You’re going to invest your whole life in something you’re not even good at, Roland?

  The memory of Stewart’s voice was an unwelcome visitor.

  Your vision lacks depth.

  Even after ten years, Stewart’s words were relentless.

  Your parents did you a disservice by encouraging you to follow this silly dream of yours, Roland.

  “Stop it,” he choked out.

  If you stop now, it’s not too late to get a normal job and be a supportive part of this relationship, Roland.

  “Stop it,” he protested louder, dunking his face back under the water and holding his hands over his ears.

  It’s selfish of you to insist upon pursuing this fool’s errand, Roland.

  “Stop it!” Roland screamed into the water, the resulting bubbles gurgling up around his head before quickly disappearing back under the calm, flat surface.

  He tore his head from the water, hair flowing wildly and leaving puddles all around the bathtub. He struggled to calm himself, his heartbeat erratic in his chest as tears bloomed in his eyes.

  He pulled himself out of the bathtub and stepped onto the cold tile floor. He slipped one foot back and forth in a puddle while he stared at his complexion in the mirror. His cheeks looked sunken, his skin color sallow. He hadn’t shaved in two weeks and the hair on his face was starting to get unruly. He reached his fingers inside his beard and scratched at his chin, tugging the hairs down only to watch them curl back up.

  Roland reached back and wrapped his hair in a ponytail, wringing it out onto the floor. He grabbed for a towel and tossed it onto the largest puddle and then padded barefoot into his bedroom, collapsing on top of the comforter, soaking wet and naked.

  Roland opened his eyes, unsure of how much time had passed. He reached up to move his hair out of his eyes and it was dry, so it had been at least two hours. He shifted his weight up the bed to grab his phone from the nightstand. He clicked the screen on and the digital read out of 9:27 p.m. stared him right in the face.

  Roland had slept for over twelve hours without waking once.

  He sat up and fumbled for his pajama pants, finding them on the floor where he’d discarded them earl
ier in the morning. He pulled them on and went to inspect the progress the cleaning crew had made in the studio. He stopped in the kitchen and wrestled some ibuprofen from a child-safe bottle and swallowed them dry. He picked up the two containers of blue paint and carried them with him to the end of the hall.

  His studio was clean. As impeccable as the day he’d bought the place. He walked over to where the vodka bottle had landed and traced his fingers across the wall. There was the slightest hint of discoloration on the paint, but if you didn’t know to look for it, you’d never notice. And just like he’d instructed, everything was gone. The polished concrete floor was bare, showing only residual paint stains that had escaped his tarp in the past. The broken knife, gone. The failed attempts at getting his heart onto canvas, also gone. Easels, gone. Everything, gone.

  Roland sat the containers on the windowsill, pulling back the curtains to let the city lights in. He should have been able to find inspiration in this. Everyone found inspiration in the city. From the homeless kids on the street that had fled the Midwest hoping to find acceptance here, to the rich celebrities who only ever came to this part of town as part of their multi-million-dollar movie contracts. Everyone found something here, whether they liked it or not. Everyone except Roland.

  He lay down on the floor, flat on his back, and spread out like a starfish. His shoulder blades pressed uncomfortably into the cold concrete and he lay his palms open on the ground. He stared up at the dramatic art deco coving of his ceiling and still felt nothing.

  He fished his phone from his pocket and opened the app for Frank’s Delivery, tapping out his order. Once complete, he laid the phone beside him and turned his head to the side. He couldn’t see out the window from the floor, but he could see the lights from the street reflecting off the plastic paint containers. Roland closed his eyes and saw another fleeting glimpse of blue, but nothing lingered long enough to materialize into anything worthwhile.

  He folded himself up into a sitting position, then stood. His knees cracked, and he was suddenly, painfully aware of his age. He walked to the kitchen and opened the freezer, pulling out his last bottle of vodka. He clanked it down onto the counter and squatted down and opened a cabinet under the kitchen island. He fished around until he felt what he was looking for and grabbed at the binding of an old sketch pad.

  He laid it on top of the counter and opened it up, flipping through page after page of drawings— landscapes, faces of strangers, skylines. There had been a time when Roland would draw everything he saw.

  His first gallery show had been right before Stewart left him. It had been a success. There were drawings in the back of this sketchbook that he’d turned into large scale paintings. Those were the days when things spoke to him and inspired him.

  Before he could do something to ruin the sketchbook, he slammed it closed and threw it back in the cabinet. He twisted the cap off the vodka just as his cellphone rang. He sat it on the counter and pressed the answer button.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Wilson, you have a delivery.”

  Roland recognized the stern and un-friendly voice of the night doorman.

  “You can send him up and let anyone from Frank’s up in the future.”

  He screwed the lid back onto the bottle and crossed the condo to his front door. He pulled it open as the elevator dinged with its arrival. There was a commotion as the doors opened, and whoever was inside pushed a cart piled high with easels, blank canvases, tubes of paint, and boxes of brushes out in front of them. A clipboard was piled precariously on the top and as the cart rolled over the transition from the elevator to the hallway, the clipboard fell.

  “Fuck,” a soft voice mumbled from behind the tower of boxes. The person stepped out of the elevator and reached around to pick up the clipboard and place it back on top of the stack. He fumbled it because he seemed to have a cat carrier in his free hand.

  Roland held the door open, brushing his hair back from his face and his jaw fell open. The delivery boy looked up and shook a long stand of black hair from his face and blinked at Roland before his mouth split into a wide and honest smile.

  Blue eyes met his, and Roland was sure the world had stopped turning. He had two containers of paint that very shade of blue on the windowsill in his studio.

  “Holy shit, it’s you,” Roland whispered.

  Chapter 5

  Donny Makes a Bet

  Donny set the cat carrier down on the ground and raised an eyebrow. “It’s me. As expected, since your doorman just told you I was coming.”

  Roland hadn’t stopped staring, and Donny wasn’t sure what to do, so he fumbled the clipboard again, like a pro, then handed it to Roland while he pushed the cart into the penthouse.

  “I didn’t order a cat.” Roland gestured toward the carrier but quickly returned his eyes to Donny’s face.

  “I know, man, but he’s got some issues right now, and I can’t leave him alone. So, Pete’s with me. I’ll leave him outside while I unload everything if you want.” Roland turned away and looked inside his condo. Donny pursed his lips and attempted to subtly eye fuck Roland while he had his back turned.

  Pete’s trip to the vet earlier in the morning had gone well. He only had an infected splinter in one of the pads of his front right paw. The vet bandaged him up and sent Donny home with some antibiotics that Pete needed once a day for a week. When they’d gotten home, Donny became certain the vet had never in his life tried to administer any sort of medication to a cat. The whole ordeal ended with tears, a four-inch gash down the palm of his left hand, and he was only fifty percent confident Pete ended up with more than twenty-five percent of the prescribed dosage. So, to be safe, Pete was on delivery duty with him for the rest of the day.

  Donny just wanted to make sure Pete didn’t bite off the bandage, and Roland was his last delivery for the day, anyway. He’d actually been at home when Frank messaged him, begging him to take the delivery. Donny got double pay for the late hour so he said yes, packed Pete up in the carrier he’d bought after the vet appointment and took off toward work.

  “He can come in. Why is he with you?” Roland asked, stepping forward past Donny as he reached down for the handle on the carrier.

  “He has a bum paw. I just want to make sure he doesn’t mess with it while it’s healing.”

  “What happened?” Roland walked inside and sat the carrier down on the kitchen counter and stuck his finger inside, wiggling it around to entice Pete.

  “Be careful.” Donny held up his bandaged palm. “And he had an infected splinter in one of his little feet. I just got him a week or so ago. Someone left him and his brother and sister in a box behind my work so I took them home.” He finished pulling the cart inside and looked around the spacious living room.

  Roland’s place was exactly what Donny envisioned when he heard the word penthouse. It was a sprawling space that looked like it took up almost half the floor. The living area was a huge open floor plan type thing, connected to the kitchen and separated only barely by a large marble topped breakfast bar/island combo. There were two hallways, one off either side of the living space, which Donny assumed led to the bedrooms, or offices, or studies, or whatever kind of rooms a place this big had tucked away into the corners. Maybe there was a sex dungeon. If Donny could be so lucky.

  Pete let out a little meow and Donny looked down to see him rubbing his head against Roland’s fingers through the confines of the carrier.

  “Can I take him out?” Roland asked.

  “Can you tell me where you want all this stuff?” he countered.

  Roland stared at him, his eyes tracing all the lines of Donny’s face in a way that felt more intimate than it should.

  “Yes.” Donny propped his weight against the cart.

  “The door at the end of the hallway,” Roland offered in return as he unlatched the carrier and opened his hands for Pete.

  Donny watched the kitten scamper happily into Roland’s outstretched palms, not the least inhibited by
his bandaged paw. Pete meowed and leveraged himself up Roland’s arm to his shoulder. He stretched across it like he was a goddamn parrot and meowed softly as he wove his way into Roland’s tangled hair.

  Donny rolled his eyes and pushed the cart ahead of him and into the room at the end of the hall, like Roland had indicated, but was surprised to find it completely empty.

  “Anywhere in particular?” he called over his shoulder.

  Roland approached him, parrot Pete still burrowed into his hair. “Wherever. I’ll set it all up later.”

  Donny nodded and pushed the cart to the window in the corner and started to stack the boxes on the floor. Roland flipped the light switch on and it startled Donny. He looked up and blinked, trying to get his vision to adjust to the sudden brightness. Roland’s face tensed, and then softened, like he’d seen the culmination of all his dreams manifest right in front of him.

  No one had ever looked at Donny that way before, and he’d be lying if he said a small part of him didn’t wish the intent behind the look was meant for him. He could get used to the intensity harbored inside those bottomless green eyes, and he longed to see how beautiful they looked when Roland was desperate to come. Donny watched a range of emotions fly across Roland’s face, from shock, to desire, to sadness, before his features finally settled on something that might have resembled tentative happiness. Donny wanted to fuck Roland right out of tentative and into absolute.

  Donny couldn’t stop his lip from tipping up into a smile before he looked down and straightened the boxes on the ground so he could busy his hands.