by Land, Alexa
“Actually, I need to get going, too,” I said as I got up and followed them. “I’m working the lunch shift at the restaurant. Thank you for having us over, Nana.” I snuck one last look at Vincent as I left the sun porch.
*****
I got to Nolan’s a little early, but since they were busy, I traded my sweater for an apron and went right to work. My friend Hunter was there, having lunch with his boyfriend Brian, Brian’s brother Kieran, and Kieran’s fiancé Christopher. “Hey Trevor,” Hunter said as I came over to his table. “How’s it going?”
“It’s been a super weird morning,” I said. “How are you?”
“Exceptionally well, thanks.” He squeezed his boyfriend’s hand, which was interlaced with his on the tabletop.
“Trevor!” an excited voice behind me called out. I turned to look at Skye, who’d just burst through the front door. He came up to the booth and said, “Oh hi Christopher Robin, and friends of Christopher Robin.” Then he turned to me and said, “Have you already heard?”
“Heard what?’
“Okay, before I tell you, you have to promise not to be embarrassed.”
“Oh God, what?” I asked, dread immediately balling up my stomach.
“Well, someone uploaded your cooking show to the internet. It’s already gotten over five thousand hits,” he said. I dragged both hands over my face and moaned.
“What cooking show?” Hunter wanted to know.
“Do you have a smartphone?” Skye asked, sliding into the booth beside him. “I’ll show you. I’m Skye, by the way, and you are absolutely gorgeous.”
“I’m Hunter, and thanks,” he said with a grin, handing over his phone.
Skye tapped the screen a few times, then said, “Actually, now it’s nearly at ten thousand,” and held up the phone so everyone at the table could see it. I leaned in and cringed when I saw what was on screen. The video began just as Nana appeared on camera. Within a matter of seconds, everyone at the table was howling with laughter. This got my employers’ attention, and Jamie and Dimitri came over to see what was so funny. Soon they were cracking up, too.
For most of the video, I was on the right edge of the frame. But when Nana made her comment about sweating like a whore in church, the camera panned to me and zoomed in for a close-up. I was bright red, sweat absolutely pouring off me, my eyes as big as stop signs. “Oh God,” I muttered. Dmitri put an arm around me, laughing so hard that I thought he was going to rupture something.
It ended shortly after the part with the fat-free cheese, and I blushed furiously as everyone around me broke into a round of applause. “Remind me later to murder you, Skye,” I said.
“Hey, don’t kill the messenger,” he said. “I just thought you should know that you, your foulmouthed senior friend, and to a lesser extent, my brother are the latest internet sensation.” Skye handed the phone back to Hunter and winked at him flirtatiously, then slid out of the booth. “Alright, my work here is done. I need to get back to school and concentrate on my final project. Don’t tell me you finished yours already, Christopher.”
“You two know each other?” Hunter asked.
“We’re both juniors at Sutherlin,” Christopher said. He told Skye, “I did finish my final project, but I also volunteered to help set up the year-end student exhibition, so I’ll be on campus all week. I’ve heard rumors that you’re working on something epic for the show, by the way. I can’t wait to see it.”
“I may not get it done in time though, in which case I’m so screwed.” Skye turned to me. “Trevor, if you manage to forgive me for spilling the beans on your video, would you please come help me with my sculpture this evening? River will be there, too. All my other friends go to Sutherlin and I’m trying to keep my project a secret before Friday’s art show. I really want that big ta da moment.”
“Sure. When and where?” I said.
He spun around and plucked a pen from the apron of a passing waiter, then grabbed my hand and wrote an address on my palm. “Thanks,” he told the waiter with a sexy smile, returning the pen where he’d found it. He turned back to me and said, “We’ll be there all night, so just come when you can. Alright, I’m off. Ciao babes!” With that he spun around and breezed back out the door of the restaurant.
“Wow, that boy is a force of nature,” Hunter remarked.
“He really is,” Christopher said with a smile. “He and his BFF Christian seem to be competing to see which of them can get in the most trouble at school without actually getting kicked out. I think Skye’s winning, which is no small feat since his pal is pretty much a straight-up criminal.”
That expression shouldn’t have made me miss Vincent, but it did. I excused myself and went back to work, scooping some empty plates off a nearby table and carrying them through to the kitchen. Stop thinking about him, I admonished myself, and began the unpleasant task of rinsing a stack of dirty plates in the big industrial sink, since the dish washer was getting a bit behind.
Stop thinking about his dark eyes. And the way he smells, like rain and clean cotton and Vincent. Stop thinking about fitting perfectly in those big arms. Stop missing the sound of his voice....
“Okay Trevor, I think you got it sorted.”
I glanced up and realized Fergus, the dish washer, was smirking at me. “What?”
“That plate. You’ve been rinsing it for a solid five minutes, mate. I’m pretty sure it’s clean.”
“Oh. Right.” I shut the water off and stepped back from the sink.
“Million miles away there, laddie.”
“Yeah, I guess I was.”
“I’m a bit jealous, to be honest. Been a long time since I found anything, or anyone, that distracting.” He gave me a friendly smile, and I went back to work.
Chapter Seven
“Hey, you found it!”
“Yeah, barely. Half the address disappeared after I washed my hands,” I said, stepping inside the warehouse. “What is this place?”
“Sutherlin College leases properties all around the city for students that need bigger studios than the ones on campus. I got to use this one for the semester as part of my scholarship program.”
As he closed and locked the door behind me, I came around a wooden partition and stopped in my tracks. “Oh wow,” I murmured, “that’s absolutely amazing.”
Skye had sculpted two giant men, each maybe twelve to fifteen feet high even in their crouched positions. It looked like invisible forces were dragging them apart, their expressions pure anguish, each caught in a desperate struggle with arms outstretched, splayed fingers reaching for the other, though they were yards apart. The sculptures were open frameworks composed of found objects, all rusted bits of metal, yet somehow the lines of their bodies were fluid, their faces surprisingly expressive.
“I got a little carried away,” Skye said, coming up beside me and scratching his cheek. “When I first envisioned it, I thought they’d be maybe eight or ten feet high. Then that happened,” he said, gesturing toward his creation.
“It’s spectacular. Does it have a name?”
“Not yet. I’m hoping something hits me by Friday, that’s when it’s due.”
“Are you going to finish in time?” Half of one of the figures was still just a heavy steel armature.
“No,” River shouted from across the warehouse as he tugged on a bent piece of metal jutting from the sculpture, “because he’s the world’s biggest procrastinator! Like today, he just had to visit you at work to show you that video! And before you got here he spent twenty minutes going through his MP3s, because he insisted he had to have the perfect music or he couldn’t get any work done!”
“Not to make matters worse, but if you guys want to take a break, I brought pie,” I said. Both brothers dropped what they were doing and came right over. We ended up sitting cross-legged on the cement floor while I unpacked the bag I was carrying and explained, “There was some kind of screw-up at the restaurant. They got sent ten coconut cream pies from the bakery tha
t does their desserts, and when my bosses called to tell them about it they were told to keep them. Everyone on the lunch shift got one.” I lifted the pie tin out of its cardboard container, then set it on the box top and handed out plastic spoons.
Skye shoveled a big scoop of pie in his mouth and mumbled around the dessert, “Oh man, I love your job. I want to work there too, do you think they’d hire me?”
“Sure,” River chimed in. “There aren’t nearly enough blue-haired lunatics on their payroll.”
Skye smiled at his brother. “You’re so supportive.”
I licked my spoon and said, “It actually is a great place to work. My bosses announced today that they’re shutting down for a week in honor of the Fourth of July, and we all get the days off with pay.”
“Sweet,” River said. “Now you won’t have to ask for time off when we cater the wedding.”
“Yup.”
“Damn, I wish I knew Christopher well enough to wrangle an invitation to his wedding. But since I don’t, you guys have to take me with you! I’ll bet that big beach house is amazing,” Skye exclaimed. “I’ll work! I’ll chop onions, or scrub pots, or do whatever you need to earn my keep.”
“No you won’t,” River said. “You’ll run down to the beach and we’ll never see you again.”
“I will not! I know I’ll have to pull my own weight so you can justify bringing me along. C’mon, pretty please?”
“No.”
He turned his big blue eyes on me next. “Come on Trevor, I know you’re not as much of a hardass as my brother. Take me with you! Don’t you need someone to chop things and help with clean-up?”
“We kind of do, actually,” I said.
River rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you know what? If we bring Skye along, we’ll still need someone to chop things and help with clean-up, because he’ll be too busy crashing the wedding to actually do any work.”
Skye frowned at him. “Will not.”
“Yes you will, and that’s going to reflect badly on my catering business. I can just picture it!” River raised his voice a couple octaves and said, “Hey, who’s that spazzy, blue-haired kid up on stage with the band, convincing them to do a mash-up of Stairway to Heaven and Lady Gaga? Oh, that’s the caterer’s deeply annoying kid brother. Wow, that caterer is totally professional! Let’s hire him to do our next big event!”
Skye chuckled and said, “That was an awesome imitation of some crazy sixty-year-old woman talking to herself.”
“Thank you.”
After we’d eaten our fill of the pie and I packed the rest up for later, River went back to trying to remove a bent piece of metal from the leg of the sculpture, with the aid of a crowbar this time. Skye wandered to a little table and began messing with an old, beat-up laptop, which was hooked to a speaker. After a few moments, Stairway to Heaven started blasting from the speaker, coming in on the middle of the song. He then abruptly switched over to Bad Romance and jumped back and forth between the two repeatedly, sort of DJing on the fly. It actually kind of worked. Finally he left it on Lady Gaga and began dancing around the room, arms over his head, lean body gyrating to the music, totally unselfconscious. I’d always admired people that could be so free, since I was nothing like that.
All of a sudden there was a loud pounding on the door. Skye gasped and rushed to the speaker, turning it down as a really deep voice yelled, “Hey, open up in there!”
“Who is it?” Skye called.
The guy outside the door answered in a normal tone of voice. “It’s 2009! We want our music back!”
“Christian!” Skye yelled, his face lighting up as he ran to the door. “Hi honey!” he called. “I miss you!”
“In that case, open the door and let me in!”
“No! You know I want to surprise you with this sculpture, and it’s not done!”
“I’ve come up with a solution! Open the door and see.”
Skye grinned and tugged the door open, then laughed delightedly. A moment later, he led someone around the partition, the two of them hand-in-hand.
Christian was tall, thin, and barefoot, dressed only in a pair of low-slung black jeans, a black silk blindfold tied around his head. His body was adorned with silver, a big cross pendant centered between his pierced nipples, bracelets and rings clustered on his long, graceful hands. His hair was a tangle of dyed black spikes, and he was holding a half-empty bottle of booze. He looked like a total rock star.
I was surprised when he pulled Skye to him and kissed him deeply, then said, “Mmmm, why do you taste like coconut?”
Skye pushed him back with a laugh and said, “Because I ate pie, you letch. And way to slip me some tongue.”
“You’re welcome,” Christian said, flashing a perfect smile. “Where did the pie come from?”
“Trevor brought it from work.” Skye picked up his hand and led him over to me. “Christian, this is Trevor. Trevor, Christian.”
“Hi,” I said.
Christian reached out and touched my chest, then ran his hand up and caressed my face. “Hi Trevor, You feel cute. I hope you’re not. I’m already jealous of you, because Skye won’t shut up about you.” He grinned, then pulled me to him and planted a kiss on my mouth, the tip of his tongue darting over my lower lip. “Mmm, you taste like coconut, too. That’s kind of hot,” he said as I stepped back in surprise.
Skye rolled his eyes and said, “Awesome first impression, Z.”
“You know, I can actually hear you rolling your eyes,” Christian told him.
“What? How?”
“I know the tone of voice that accompanies the eye roll.”
“Yeah, well you should. You inspire it often enough. Are you done molesting and quite possibly alienating my new friend now?” Skye asked him.
“I guess,” Christian said.
“I’m here too, Z. But if you try to slip me some tongue, I’m totally kickin’ you in the nuts,” River called. Just then, the piece of metal he’d been working on came off in his hand, and he let out a triumphant whoop.
“You know it gives me a stiffie when you get rough with me, big bro,” Christian called back flirtatiously.
“You’re a total perv, Z. You know that, right?” River said, then tossed the piece of metal onto a pile in the corner, where it landed with a clatter.
“Thanks for noticing,” Christian said with a bright smile.
I asked, “So, how do you get Z out of Christian?”
“Z is the tag he uses for his graffiti art,” Skye explained.
“Does it stand for something?”
“Yes! It stands for truth, justice, and the American way,” Christian quipped. “But also, it stands for Zane, my alter ego. Or, he used to be my alter ego, but now Zane and I are merging. I don’t know where he ends and I begin anymore,” he said ominously. “Creepy, huh? Someday there will be no more Christian, only Zane. And I can’t fucking wait!” He smiled cheerfully from beneath his blindfold.
“That’s it,” Skye said, plucking the bottle from his friend’s hand. “I’m cutting you off. I always know you’ve had too much to drink when you start talking like a low-budget stage magician.”
“Ooo, harsh!” Christian exclaimed, but he was still smiling. Then he changed the subject by saying, “So, I’m actually here to help, believe it or not. Put me to work Skye, I want you to finish your masterpiece on time.”
“Have you even started your own term project?” Skye asked him.
“Well, no. But so what? I’ll just, I dunno, piss on a pregnancy test and glue it to a canvas. I’ll claim it’s a statement about the oft-ignored plight of male infertility, and I’ll call it Womb for Improvement.”
Skye laughed and said, “I can totally see you doing that. And it’s actually not the worst idea you’ve ever had. Did you just make that up?”
“I did.”
“Your mind is a strange and questionable place.”
“Thank you. What I’d really like to do, of course, is take the faculty on a field trip and s
how them the rather monumental installation I recently completed down on Market Street. It’s some of my best work.”
“But then they’d kick you out of school and throw your ass in jail for vandalism.”
“Well, there is that,” Christian said. “But enough about my term project, or lack thereof. Tell me how I can help you.”
“You can’t, not blindfolded.”
“We can fix that.” Christian yanked off the blindfold and tossed it aside. He had pale green eyes, their soft color offset by smudged black eyeliner, and they went wide as he took in his friend’s sculpture. “Oh Skye, it’s amazing. You’re amazing.”
“And you’re totally evil! I told you I wanted to keep it a surprise!”
“I am surprised. God it’s beautiful,” he murmured, wandering farther into the warehouse and circling the sculptures in a figure eight, his expression dazed and rapturous. Finally, he came to a stop and knelt down beside one of the figures, tilting his head back to take it all in. “It’s the best thing you’ve ever done, Skye.”
“You say that every time.”
“That’s because you top yourself with each new piece you create. Just when I think you’ve reached the absolute zenith of artistic achievement, you find a way to surpass it.”
Skye grinned, crossing the room to his friend and resting his hands on his shoulders. “You don’t have to lay it on that thick, Z. I’ve already forgiven you for ruining the surprise.”
“It’s your own fault for letting me in here,” Christian said, smiling up at his friend. “You know I have no willpower whatsoever. When you think about it, you should actually be praising me for leaving the blindfold on as long as I did. But the rest is no bullshit. The sculpture’s fucking brilliant, Skye. You’re going to blow everyone away at the student exhibition.”
“If I finish, and if I figure out a way to actually get them to the exhibit hall. They weren’t supposed to be this big.”
“Bigger is always better, Skye. Don’t let anyone tell you different,” Christian said with a grin, jumping to his feet. He caught sight of me then and crossed the room to me. “Oh hey, you are cute. Really cute. Wanna get out of here for about twenty minutes?” He gave me the most flirtatious smile I’d ever seen.