Against the Wall

by Alexa Land

  Both of us were shaking by the time he eased out of me and dropped onto his side, still clutching me to him. He kissed me before whispering, “Thank you.”

  I reached up to brush his hair back from his damp forehead. “Thank you, too.”

  “Are you alright?” he asked as he caught his breath.

  “Definitely. Did you like it?”

  He grinned shyly and nodded. “It felt so good to be inside you.” I smiled at that and curled up in his arms as he asked, “What made you want to do that today?”

  “It was time. I’d been carrying around all that fear and hurt for too many years. I love you so much, Shea, and I trust you completely so there was no reason not to.”

  “It was a big step, though. I thought it would take longer before you were willing to give it a try.”

  “Everything that’s been happening lately has been a wakeup call. I’d been acting like I had plenty of time to deal with all these things in my life, but that’s not really true.” Shea pressed his eyes shut and I hugged him as I continued softly, “I really wanted to get past my fear, because I wanted to give that to you. To both of us.”

  “It’s surprising that you can talk about what’s been happening so calmly.”

  “Well, my first response was to totally freak out, as you saw. I scared myself with that drinking binge, I’ve never gotten drunk enough to lose time before,” I said. “But here’s the thing. My back may be against the wall, but I now realize I do have a choice. I can either get really angry about what’s happening to me, do stupid things and ruin the time I have left, or I can look at each day as the gift that it is. I hate the fact that I missed four days with you and I’m not going to miss any more because I can’t cope.”

  The trick would be to hold on to that positive outlook as everything kept unraveling.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Over the rest of January, I really tried to focus on the positive. That would have been a little easier if my motor skills hadn’t taken another downturn just three weeks after New Year’s. I was seeing my doctor weekly now. He’d upped all my meds as soon as he returned from vacation and immediately sent me for an MRI. I’d had so many of these over the last few years that they seemed perfectly routine.

  Doctor Halpern could offer no explanation for the sudden acceleration in the growth of my tumor. He consulted with a colleague in the UK, pored over the latest medical research and did every test on me he could think of, but in the end all he said was, “We’ll just keep watching you closely and fine-tune your meds. That’s about all we can do.” He was never one to sugarcoat it.

  During that same time, Shea and I kept ourselves busy by working on converting the big building my dad had given me into an art center. I’d decided this was a better use of my time than school, so I’d taken a leave of absence from Sutherlin. I wasn’t sure if going back would ever be an option.

  It turned out that a lot of our friends were willing to help with the art center. Skye in particular was incredibly excited about it. He was working on an enormous kinetic sculpture to hang from the lobby’s high ceiling, a whimsical mobile that would spin and sway at the slightest breeze. Dare usually accompanied him and helped out where needed. Skye was using scrap aluminum and cutting out wings of all sizes and shapes, which he embossed or painted or both, then hung from crisscrossed aluminum rods over twenty feet in length, suspended with steel cable. It was going to be phenomenal.

  River, Cole, Trevor and Vincent were around a lot, too. River, who was a caterer, and Trevor, a chef’s apprentice, decided the art center needed a good cafeteria. The building had come with a pretty basic kitchen, and the guys made plans to upgrade it. I gave them my credit card and told them to go nuts, and River’s eyes lit up as he went on about cooktops and various gadgets. Cole just chuckled and kissed his boyfriend’s cheek, then promised to reel River in before he spent the art center’s entire budget.

  Meanwhile, Vincent brought in a crew and wired the whole place with a state-of-the-art security system. I tried to pay him for it but he refused, saying that was his contribution to the art center. He also proved to be a skilled handyman, so he helped out in a lot of other ways, too.

  Christopher was also really enthusiastic about the art center and would show up at odd hours around his other obligations, usually with his husband Kieran. He’d volunteered to paint the walls of the huge room on the ground floor that would become the music center, and he really went to town. His style was a lot different than mine, his paintings incredibly detailed and photorealistic. Bit by bit, he was covering the walls with a fantasy trompe l’oeil landscape and it was going to be spectacular.

  My friend Zandra, who’d been MIA since moving to L.A. with her boyfriend, began driving up every weekend and helping out as well. Skye had told her about my medical condition and when she first came up, she burst into tears and hugged on me for a good two hours. But after that, she got it together and went to work on what would become one of the main studios, a big, sunny space on the second floor. She decided to go with fanciful illustrations on the walls, working in tandem with her boyfriend Scott.

  Meanwhile, Chance had been dealing with my news in his own way. He’d become really quiet, but spent a lot of time around me, haunting the building from behind the lens of his camera. He was documenting the transformation from generic warehouse and offices to a bright, vibrant art space. Whenever I asked him how he was doing, he insisted he was fine and changed the subject.

  And then, of course, there was Nana. She took the news of my brain tumor by going into full-on denial, then busied herself with the art center like the rest of us. Nana was a woman who loved projects. She’d show up every morning with her new chauffeur in tow, the two of them bearing bagels or doughnuts or some other treat, and would immediately get the big, industrial coffee pot going, which she’d brought on her first visit. After that, she’d bustle around, supervising and making suggestions.

  The old chauffeur had apparently resigned in a huff over some random antic that Nana had perpetrated. He’d been replaced with Jessie. At first glance, Jessie seemed like just another party boy, especially because the petite blond had selected a pretty sexy chauffeur’s uniform for himself. He wore form-fitting shorts and a tight, short-sleeved shirt with a chauffeur’s cap and combat boots, all black. To that he’d added a pink bowtie. My first thought when I saw him was, really? He looked like a strippergram. But Jessie was a lot more than met the eye and actually turned out to be a smart twenty-four-year-old with a quick sense of humor. I didn’t know where Nana had found him or what his story was, but the two of them clearly enjoyed each other’s company.

  “Isn’t he just the cutest little thing?” Nana gushed one day as Jessie left through the big front door to fetch some shopping bags for her. “I tried to set him up with Gianni, but my grandson claims Jessie’s not his type. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous? What part is not his type, the fact that Jessie’s adorable, smart, funny, or a gay homosexual? Because from where I’m sitting, all of those things add up to a catch!”

  Gianni often accompanied Nana or came on his own to help out where needed. His cousin Nico was in law school and since his classes had resumed, Gianni seemed a bit aimless. One evening after everyone else had cleared out, he stood on the roof with Shea and me, looking out over the city as we drank beer, and said, “My life sucks. Here I am in my mid-twenties. I’m single, I can’t find a job, and I’m living with my grandmother. This was so not the plan.” His eyes went wide all of a sudden and he turned to me. “I’m sorry, Christian. I just realized how that sounded. Here I am, complaining about my petty shit when you’re—” Gianni cut himself off abruptly and I squeezed his arm.

  “It’s fine, really. I want to know what’s going on with you, Gi.”

  “What kind of job would you want?” Shea asked him. “I could keep an eye out for you.”

  “I don’t even know,” Gianni said. “I used to think I wanted to be a nurse when I was younger because I had
this romantic notion of helping people, but I was such a failure. I did fine in nursing school right up until we had to do an internship at a hospital. That was when I learned that I’m incredibly squeamish. If there’s blood or vomit involved, forget it. Turns out it’s pretty hard to assist patients while losing your lunch.”

  Shea grinned and said, “I can see why that’d be problematic.”

  Gianni grinned, too. “Nursing would be a great job if it wasn’t for all the sick people.”

  A thought occurred to me and I asked, “Do you have a car?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I actually need to hire someone to look after my dad,” I told him. “He’s in good health, but he doesn’t leave the house. Right now, I visit him in Marin a couple times a week to bring him groceries, books, whatever he needs. I also just keep him company, since he’s so isolated. A few months from now, I won’t be in a position to do that anymore and I need someone to take my place. Do you think you’d be interested in a job like that?”

  “Absolutely! But why’s he housebound if he’s in good health?”

  I filled him in on my dad’s issues and added, “There’s one problem. He refuses to accept the fact that I’m going anywhere, so I’m guessing he’s going to be pretty stubborn at first.”

  That made him smile. “Given my family, I’ve learned to deal with everything from somewhat stubborn to utterly pig-headed.”

  “I’ll arrange a meeting sometime soon,” I told him. “It’s a relief to finally be moving forward on this.”

  He left for a date a short time later, and Shea put his arms around my shoulders, leaning against my back. We kept watching the city lights, the breeze stirring our hair as I rested my elbows on the wall around the rooftop. After a while he asked, “Did you give some thought to the idea of moving in with your dad? If you did that, Skye and I would be able to bring Zan the things he needed while being there for you.”

  “I thought about it, but there’s just no way. Even if I decided against moving into that care facility, I would need health care workers around the clock. I just can’t see allowing all kinds of strangers into my dad’s home, no matter how much their agencies promised discretion.”

  “So, scratch the idea of living with Zan. You could move in with me, or I could move in to your apartment and the nurses could assist you there. Either option is light years ahead of a nursing home.”

  “Can we please not talk about this now?” Shea sighed quietly and rested his head against mine. I turned and kissed him, then said, “You must be tired, baby. You’re always either at work or here helping with the building. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

  “Are you coming, too?”

  “Not yet, I need to fix the mural.” By ‘fix’ I meant paint over it and start again, for the fourth time. I was starting to feel a bit panicked, because I knew it was just a matter of time before I lost the ability to paint and I really wanted to get this done. That was probably why I was having such a hard time. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, but I couldn’t help it. This mural was incredibly important to me.

  “If you’re staying, I am too,” Shea told me. “I’ll get us some coffee and meet you on the balcony.”

  I headed to the second story, which was spanned by a five-foot-wide glass-fronted walkway that ran the length of the building. After I emptied some white paint into a tray, I grabbed a paint roller with a long handle, then began covering over my latest failure. I’d painted a stylized San Francisco skyline with musical notes weaving among the buildings. It was total crap.

  “Again?” a loud voice called from the street. “That one was pretty!” I walked to the edge of the balcony, a plastic tarp crinkling under my feet, and peered over the railing. Nana’s white stretch limo was double-parked in the street and she was sticking out the sunroof. Jessie was out of the car too, resting his forearms on the roof of the limo and smiling up at me.

  “It sucked, Nana. I just can’t get this right. What are you doing out so late?”

  She rolled her eyes so dramatically that I could see it even in the dim light. “It’s barely midnight. What, you think old people turn into pumpkins when the clock strikes twelve?”

  “Okay, what are you doing out so early?”

  “Come down here so I can talk to you,” she yelled. “All this screaming isn’t very lady-like!”

  I grinned at that and dropped the roller, then went downstairs and out the front of the building. When I was standing beside the limo, she said, “Jessie took me to a nightclub in the Castro. We got the whole place twerking! You shoulda been there, only you never have fun anymore. What happened to the Christian I used to know, the one that would run around shirtless and barefoot with his little silver flask? He was fun.”

  I shrugged and said, “I guess he grew up.”

  “Fuck that!” Nana exclaimed. “I mean, I get that you got some heavy issues you’re dealing with, but now’s not the time to go all serious on me. Just the opposite! Look at me, for example. I’m eighty fucking years old! I could be dead tomorrow! You think I’m going to squander even one day by sitting around fretting over how much time I got left? Hell no!”

  “You’re right, Nana.”

  “Of course I’m right! You shone so brightly when I first met you, Christian. You’re a star, through and through. Now you just gotta find your sparkle again. It’s still there. You just let all this shit pile up on you and dim your light a bit. But I guarantee you can shine again. Isn’t that right, Shea?”

  “Absolutely.” I hadn’t heard him come out of the building. He wrapped his hands around my waist and kissed my neck.

  “Come on, boys,” Nana said. “None of us are getting any younger. Let’s go out and have some fun.”

  “Why the hell not?” I said. Shea locked up the building before following me into the limo. “I’m going to text Chance and tell him to join us. He really needs to have some fun, too.”

  Chance sounded happy to hear from me and told us where to pick him up. He was nowhere near his apartment, so I wondered if he was working. He hadn’t had anymore incidents after the two right after I met him, but I still worried about him. I’d tried talking to him about a job change a couple times, but he always got extremely defensive. I’d even suggested hiring him to work at the art center but he’d given me a look and told me flatly, “Come on. You can’t hire someone with a criminal record to work around children. If anyone found out, it’d ruin the art center’s reputation.” That was when I found out he’d been arrested twice for prostitution. I thought he was wrong and that no one would hold that against him, but he refused to discuss it further.

  Once Chance was with us, I said, “You know, I’ve been promising my friend here a tour of all my hidden murals around the city. Would you guys mind if we did that before heading off for whatever sort of debauchery Nana has in mind?” Everyone seemed enthusiastic about that idea, and Chance asked us to drive him by his apartment so he could grab his camera.

  We ended up stopping at a liquor store too, then making a mini party of it as Jessie drove us around the city. Chance got out and photographed every mural, even ones I knew he’d seen before, and gushed over the ones he was seeing for the first time. He also kept taking pictures of Nana, Shea and me, and finally I borrowed his camera and took a few shots of him as well, despite his protests. “You’re not just an observer,” I told him as I leaned in close and snapped a selfie of the two of us. “You have a ticket on this crazy train just like everyone else.” He smiled happily.

  I was careful about how much I drank. Ever since my four-day bender, I’d been leery of alcohol. Shea and Nana decided to cut loose though, and after the first hour they were both drunk and singing along to the Elton John CD that she played over and over. I was glad that they were so jolly, because it counteracted the depressing fact that only eleven murals remained out of almost thirty that I’d scattered around the city over the years.

  Nana fell asleep after a while, her head back and mouth
open, snoring loudly. Jessie took Chance back to his apartment, then drove to Shea’s house and dropped us off. When I thanked him, he gave me a smile and a little salute. “Just doing my job,” he told me. “Have I mentioned it’s the best one in the entire world?”

  “Hey, roomies,” my boyfriend bellowed when he swung open the front door and found the three of them in the living room playing a board game.

  “Greetings, clearly drunken long-lost roommate!” Cas exclaimed. He was wearing a hat shaped like a wedge of cheese.

  “What’re you guys playing?” Shea asked as he wove his way over to them. “Can we play, too?”

  Leo glanced at me from beneath the brim of his orange baseball cap. It was adorned with two stuffed, yellow lightning bolts, one above each ear. “We’re playing Firefly, The Game. I’m not sure if it’s your hot boyfriend’s idea of a good time.”

  “Firefly as in Firefly? The most awesome, unfairly cancelled TV show of all time? Are you telling me someone made a game based on Joss Whedon’s masterpiece?” I asked.

  Ridley raised an eyebrow at me. He was wearing a top hat for some reason. “Are you just pretending to suddenly have some geek cred, or did you actually watch this show?”

  “I loved Firefly. Doesn’t mean I know how to play this game, though.”

  “Well, maybe you and Shea can team up and he can show you what to do. We’ve only been playing for a few minutes, so we can begin again,” Leo said.

  “Excellent,” I said as Shea and I settled on one of the oversized chairs together. “Quick, someone bring us some hats.”

  Shea explained the game to me, then fell asleep after about half an hour. He’d slid down to the floor, his head resting on my thigh. He was wearing Captain America’s leather cap and mask and looked impossibly cute. “I’m out without my pilot,” I said, leaning back in the chair and adjusting the R2-D2 mouse ears that Cas had acquired on a recent trip to Disneyland.