Homecoming

“Justin? Justin, honey? You said you wanted to be up by eight.”

Justin drew a deep breath as he woke, clutching the pillow beneath his head. He was tempted to roll over and bury himself in a tight roll of blankets and goose feathers. He stopped himself to shake his head quickly, his neck and shoulders becoming involved as the movement woke him further. No. He sat up quickly, emerging from the disorientation he felt on waking up in his mother’s guest room. “Yeah, I’m up. Thanks Mom,” he answered. Her hurried response passed him by as she left for work, letting him know Molly had left for school already, don’t forget that the house and car keys were on the kitchen table, don’t lose them. Her steps receded, and from down the stairs came the front door’s faint sound as it opened and then closed. Then all was quiet.

He forced himself out of bed, then across the hallway to the shower. Quickly, he went through the morning routine: piss, shower, shave, slap on a bit of aftershave for that fine first impression – not too much nor too little –then back across the hall to get ready for his appointment. He wondered if he should be more nervous. He wondered if he should be nervous at all, because he wasn’t, he really wasn’t, even though his entire life was about to change. Again. Maybe that was it. He’d change his life so utterly and so quickly – the last time for the move to New York eighteen months before – that the prospect of doing it again didn’t even faze him. In fact, if anything, he felt nothing more than challenged. He wasn’t sure if he needed to be challenged at the moment; New York had been pretty fucking exhausting, and he was ready for a change of pace.

Still, his pace couldn’t slow just yet; he glanced at the clock and knew he’d have to hurry. He took his clothes down from where he’d hung them the night before, pausing to run his fingers down the front of the brushed cotton/silk blend of the cobalt blue shirt he planned to wear. Brian had bought it for him, almost two years ago, but it was a classic cut and still good as new.

Brian.

Justin took a deep breath. Now he felt a slight flutter around his stomach, a cat’s whisker brush across his abdomen and then gone. “Fuck,” he whispered. That was the real question mark, wasn’t it? The one thing to send sure shivers along his nerves. He wondered if the effect would ever go away.

* * * * * * *

“Are you Ms. Carwin?” Justin asked, glancing from the door sign to the young woman sitting behind the desk. He’d expected someone much older. And wearing something more professional than a plaid work shirt over a plain white tee. He bet she had on jeans. And tennis sneakers, too.

“Laura, please. Mr. Taylor?”

Justin smiled in response. “Justin. I hope I’m on time?”

“Close enough. Have a seat.” She reached for a buried file and pulled, so that the others on top of it fell onto the floor. “Shit! Oops, sorry.” She smiled, glancing over at him. Justin reached down to pick the folders up from where they’d fallen. Was she apologizing for swearing, or for the files hitting his shoes? “Thanks.” She took the files from him and tossed them toward the side of the desk, where they landed on top of the stack and perched there precariously. She had already opened his file and swiveled to her computer. “So, you want to talk about registering for fall, and basically finishing your degree, right?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” He took a deep breath, prepared to launch into the explanation he’d rehearsed on the plane ride in from New York yesterday. “I’ve been living in New York City. I looked into taking courses there but PIFA’s courses translate strangely and the equivalent courses are sometimes there, sometimes not, so the reciprocity doesn’t always qualify me to be as far along as I would be if I just came back. If I can come back…”

Laura just nodded absently but didn’t answer him right away as he had hoped she might; she remained focused on the computer screen. Justin desperately wished he could see what she was reading there, just so he would know exactly what to say next, or just to know where he stood.

“Okay,” she said, “Well, you don’t have enough credits to just take a few classes somewhere else and transfer the credits from PIFA to fill out any requirements. The ones they accept, I mean, which it doesn’t look like you have a lot of. I assume you were looking into transferring to another school and staying in New York?”

She was looking at his transcript. Justin felt his shoulder muscles relax as he agreed. “Exactly… I thought about transferring my credits here out, but most of the programs at the same level as PIFA’s are at schools with general course requirements that would add on at least another year of classes.”

“Yeah, we get that a lot. Math for Art doesn’t quite fit the same category as Algebra 101. Even though the actual work load…” She cleared her throat. “Not your problem. Anyway! Not a big fan of math and science intro courses, are you?” Laura laughed, finally looking over at him.

“No, it’s not that, it’s just that I’m interested in art, not calculus. And I’m really not interested in being an undergrad for three more years. So I figure I’d check out coming back.”

“Well, that’s much easier, especially since you still need to do the internship, and it’s easier to apply to companies we already work with.”

Justin nodded, not commenting. He still felt burned that his work at Vanguard had gone uncredited.

“Okay, so, you definitely want to return to PIFA? That would be great!”

He wondered how she could be so positively cheery without even knowing him. Great, a knee jerk bureaucrat, he thought, and felt a touch of annoyance. She obviously didn’t know the leadership here at this fine institution. “I guess you haven’t seen my record,” Justin snapped.

“Well, actually, I have,” Laura replied, her laughter abruptly dying. “I was here when you got suspended. It’s a small school, everyone knows everything. Even us administrator types. I was also here when Stockwell was indicted, and a lot of people thought you were a hero, one of those persecuted political crusader types. The problem is, business hates crusaders, and educational administration, for better or worse, is big business. Essentially, you undercut your employer. If you have that big a problem with the business your company is doing, you don’t sabotage the company providing you with a livelihood, you either try to change it by working in the system, or you get out. Turncoats may be following their conscience, but nobody respects a traitor, don’t you think?”

Justin worked very hard to be sure his chagrin did not show on his face. But Laura must have seen something there, because she continued, “That isn’t necessarily my opinion, I’m just telling you like it is. But,” she dropped her voice and leaned forward conspiratorially, “one of my colleagues heard I had an appointment with you, and he tried real hard to get this interview. Wanting to vet you personally, Justin Taylor, cost me boxes of Godiva and a gift card from the store of my choice. Lots of people think you’re the most interesting student we’ve had here in years, and this guy made me promise I’d do everything I can to talk you into returning.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really.” Laura sat back. “Controversy, it’s great for artists. But the fact is,” she continued, picking up his file, “You don’t need that kind of promotion. Your work is great. Rage is well known. So? You’re welcome to come back any time. I assume, though, you wanted to stay in New York?” She shut his file, and tossed it onto the stack, where it promptly slid onto the floor, taking a slew of others with it. Justin bent to retrieve them, allowing himself a moment to decide how to respond. He straightened, and placed the files back on her desk, being careful to ensure that he placed them on a flat surface and they stayed put.

“I want to get my degree,” he finally answered. “New York is great, but I want to widen my options. I want to qualify for more work so, I can, you know, eat.”

“I know what you mean. I love New York, but it’s insanely expensive.”

“Did you ever live there?”

“No, but I do go there with Julian, sometimes. Oh, sorry, you know, Professor Levin? He teaches life drawing, oils and watercolor classes. He’s teaching ‘Still Life with Oils’ this fall, if you’re interested. Fine arts, anyway - you do need two of those classes. He has a bunch of pieces in the galleries up there.”

“Yes, I saw some of them. Actually, I ran into Professor Wakefield in Chelsea a couple of months ago, at a gallery opening of some of her work. She recognized me, and suggested this. So here I am.” He didn’t say that he had originally dismissed the idea. But the idea had apparently not dismissed him, because it kept popping up, usually on nights he lay sleepless, when all of his inadequacies came to haunt him. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to return. But he was a hell of a lot closer now than he had been two months ago.

Brian.

“Oh! Well, any nudge works for us.” Laura smiled. “So, Justin, do you want to come back?”

“What would I need to do?”

“You mean, would you need to sign a loyalty oath or something?”

This time, finally, Justin laughed, startled as it rumbled out of him like avalanching boulders. “No, I mean like needing to apply, or write an essay explaining where I was, or any formal paperwork…”

She shook her head. “Nope. Until you formally withdraw or transfer, you’re still an active student. And since you don’t owe any money, you can just register for the fall.”

* * * * *

Later, he tried to excuse what he did next, or more specifically where he went next, by telling himself that he had been distracted. Yep, he was distracted, trying to figure out if he was going to come back to Pittsburgh.

But come back? Come back here? Come back to Pittsburgh? It felt like a step back. But it wasn’t, it really wasn’t; he had promised himself on the plane ride down that he would keep his mind open. He had told himself to make no snap decisions, certainly none based on emotion, until he had all the facts in hand. And this was a big not-step-back, this would be a step forward, right? He needed a college degree. He had to get his degree, damn it. Living in New York like a pauper was awful. Even worse, it was frustrating. Coming to Pittsburgh wasn’t going nowhere; he was building a road under his feet, as his friend Jim would say, and god knew Jim would know. It took a long time to succeed. Nothing happened overnight, and in New York things only happened overnight after you’d been working at them for years, for years and years. Getting his degree was a way of opening up his options, so he could at least get an art-type job and stop battling grabby patronizing paws at his serving job night after night, a job that made him too tired to focus on his art during the day. This was a smart move, and god knew PIFA had a great program. His PIFA degree was a hell of a lot closer to the end than to the beginning, so it wasn’t like he was coming back to his starting point; he would be taking a step back to take more steps forward. So maybe this was a pause, a progressive pause. Yeah, he liked that phrasing. And if he’d learned anything in New York, it was the power of presentation. Progressive. (Pause.) Perfect!

Of course, the real question remained, the one that lurked behind all the others: was his inclination in this direction motivated just by the degree that awaited him here?

Brian.

That couldn’t be a factor. It just couldn’t. So Justin turned his thoughts back to the interview he had just left, reflecting on the good news he had received. He could reenroll any time he wanted, no loyalty oath or bullshit necessary. That was good to know, right?

“Justin!!! Oh my GOD!!!”

Justin was so focused on puzzling out his options that he literally jumped, and came to his surroundings in time to see that he was opening the door of the diner, and inside, Emmett had leaped out of his seat in a booth and was rushing toward him.

Shit. He was not at all ready to visit old stomping grounds. Instinct had pulled him here, an old habit that had not yet died. Behind Emmett, Brian swiveled around in his seat to look toward the commotion.

Brian.

Feeling sick and totally at a loss, Justin focused intently on Emmett’s approach. Emmett dashed into him, catching Justin up against his strong, tall body, and hugged him hard. “Oh, my GOD, I haven’t seen you in ages! You’re so lucky Debbie’s not here, she’d kill you for not telling us you were visiting! I assume you haven’t told us, Michael’d have let us know, wouldn’t he?” Emmett turned and glared at Michael, who was biting his lip as his eyes darted from Brian, to Justin, and back. Brian kept his gaze focused on Justin’s face.

Michael shook himself. “No, Ma didn’t tell me anything, and we all know she would have. What are you doing in town, Justin?” Michael stood up as Emmett marched Justin to the booth. Justin mustered a warm hug for Michael who returned it a bit woodenly, before sliding back down to sit.

“Sit, sit!” Emmett commanded, but Justin, all too aware that Brian hadn’t stood, or even said anything, just shook his head. This was wrong, this was all wrong. He hadn’t meant to see Brian this way; he hadn’t meant to see him at all unless there had been a warning, preparation, not just for his sake, but for Brian’s, too. This was too unexpected; it looked careless. Worse, it looked thoughtless, as if Justin couldn’t be bothered with thinking of how Brian would feel if he just showed up. As if he expected him not to give a shit, as if Justin didn’t give a shit. And that wasn’t the case. That was not the case, but it certainly looked that way, Justin knew damn well.

And Brian, Brian who looked just as amazing as ever, maybe a bit thinner. Did he look thinner? Sitting there like something carved out of marble, except for the eyes, the eyes that were alive with… what? Justin couldn’t tell at all, he was too busy panicking.

“Um, no, I…” Brian wasn’t moving across the booth’s seat to accommodate him anyway. Was Brian as shocked by this sudden encounter as Justin was? But that was fine, it wasn’t as if Justin wanted to sit and make small talk. In fact, he was feeling a bit sick from the shock of suddenly seeing his ex… whatever he was. But, god, did Brian look good, even better than Justin remembered, and he realized he must be staring, so he ripped his glance away to smile nervously at Emmett and Michael again.

“It’s okay, there’s not a lot of room anyway,” Michael chimed in, his glance moving from Brian to Justin and back. Justin sent him a small, grateful smile. He opened his mouth to follow up with an excuse to quickly retreat, but Brian chose that moment to speak.

“Have a seat, Sunshine,” he finally said. “What are you doing in our little burgh?” He picked up his cup of coffee, and raised one eyebrow.

“Um, well.” Justin sat where Emmett tugged him, on the edge of the booth seat next to him. Michael grimaced as he was jammed into the corner against the wall. Justin sank reluctantly onto the seat cushion, feeling like a small fish floating across from a shark. His thighs trembled, ready to bolt at the slightest aggression. “I’m just, you know, in to see my mom…” He cast his gaze to Brian’s left, and realized someone else was sitting on the seat next to Brian. So maybe the lack of welcome wasn’t personal. Now that he turned his attention to the inner corner of the booth, Justin wondered how he’d missed the strange man. Greek. He was definitely Greek, with those high cheekbones, dark, classic features and curly black hair. He looked vaguely like someone Justin had fucked a couple of months before, a guy who had gone on and on and on about his trip back to “the old world” for so long that Justin had stuck his dick in his mouth just to shut him up. This guy was much better looking, though, his eyes deep liquid beneath carefully groomed eyebrows and long lashes. They stared at each other curiously.

“Hi,” Justin said, actually relieved there was something else to focus on. “I’m sorry, we haven’t met.”

“I’m Adam.” Adam smiled, full lips, generous smile. And a forearm resting with casual intimacy on Brian’s shoulder.

His forearm resting with casual intimacy on Brian. On Brian.

“Brian?” Justin couldn’t help the question, his gaze flying to Brian’s.

“Adam, this is Justin. Justin, this is Adam. Adam’s the guy I fuck more than once.”

Justin stared at Brian’s unwavering, inscrutable regard, feeling a sudden white noise blot out the background. His eyes fell to the table top. “Oh,” Justin whispered. He knew the script.

There was silence for far too long, and suddenly Justin realized he was looking at the scratched surface of the table and he didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there like that. “You know what? I gotta go.” He had no idea where his voice was coming from, but it kept talking, and that was good. “Um, Michael, I was gonna stop by Red Cape later, I brought some, um, Rage stuff…” He stood abruptly. He had to leave, before he vomited in everyone’s coffee. As he swiftly made for the door, he heard Michael calling, “Justin!” and Emmett’s hiss, “You didn’t tell him?”

But he just kept walking, forcing himself to walk far enough from the diner where he could run without being seen.

“Justin!”

Michael fell in step next to him.

“Justin, you can’t be upset…”

Justin kept walking, hoping he would get to his mother’s car before he had to actually hit Michael. He couldn’t risk his only steady source of income. Damn it, he needed Rage, probably as much as Michael did.

“Okay, but you did stop speaking to him!”

Justin stopped then. “Is that what he told you?”

Michael continued to walk several more steps, and stopped several paces beyond where Justin stood. He turned to answer, “No, but he used to tell me about the emails you would send him, and then one day he stopped talking about them. Okay, so I assumed you stopped sending emails to him…”

“He never answered them, Michael. Or, he’d write a line for every twenty I’d write, just asking me if I had enough money. Or if I had enough supplies. He never said anything about himself. And any time I’d call him, I’d ask him, I’d ask him ‘when are you coming to see me’? and all I’d get was silence. I got tired of doing all the work.”

“Well, he sucks at that stuff, you know that.”

“I needed more than that. I needed more!”

“Isn’t that why you left in the first place?”

“Who is he?” Justin abruptly changed the subject, unable to stand the interrogation. Especially since these were the very questions he’d been avoiding for days.

“Who, Adam?”

“No, the fairy godfucker, of course Adam! Where’d he come from?” He refused to ask why Michael hadn’t told him. Brian was his best friend. Justin had moved on. Ben told him not to interfere. Blah, blah blah. Justin knew the script.

Michael pulled his head back. His eyes ran over Justin’s face, and Justin wondered how he must look, to have that expression of fucking sympathy crawl into Mikey’s gaze. “He’s nobody, really. Really, Justin, Brian said he was a trick, something like that, a trick that came to…”

“Dinner,” Justin finished when Michael trailed off, realizing all this implied about the insinuation of Brian’s… whatever, into Sunday night over at Michael’s mother, into Brian’s life. Brian’s tricks didn’t come to dinner; Justin should know. “When’d this happen?”

“A few months ago,” Michael answered.

“Do they live together?”

“Live together? Brian? No… look, I don’t think it’s like that.”

“Then what is it like? Cuz they looked pretty comfortable.” Comfortable together. Brian with someone else. Justin’s throat started tightening up. “Do you mind if we go in here? I need some water.” Justin abruptly turned into a corner drug store, where he headed toward the back, desperate to get the acidic taste out of his mouth.

“Sure…” Michael trailed him through the door, and over to the cooler, up to the cash register where they waited in a short line. “After you left, he didn’t go back to tricking.”

Justin snorted. It’s not that he really doubted Michael; the man wasn’t clever enough to have a great deal of guile, but that was the point. Michael wasn’t exactly Sherlock Holmes in reading the signs. Brian wouldn’t have to put much effort into deceiving him. Or, more to the point, Michael would have been looking for Brian’s usual modus operandi. If Brian had changed his method, ordering tricks up off the internet more frequently, for example, Michael would only see the outward sign of a habit change. He wouldn’t try to figure out what it meant. Michael already had an answer; it was Justin who asked the questions, which explained why Justin had been Brian’s lover, and not just his friend. Had been.

“No, I mean it. Okay, he probably had a trick over to the loft every so often, but he stopped going into the backroom constantly, and I didn’t see him just snagging guys for quick blowjobs randomly. We’d go out, guys would cruise him, I’d point them out and he’d just shrug! I thought he was sick again, but he wasn’t. It wasn’t that.”

Justin paid for his water, ignoring the way the cashier avoided looking at them. “I doubt he’d tell you, anyway.”

“He used to delight in telling me all about his tricks, thank you very much,” Michael reminded him, holding the door open for them to emerge. The sun was hot after the frigid air of the store, but at least it wasn’t making Justin feel like his skin was curling up into his bone marrow anymore. He twisted the top off the water bottle and took a deep gulp. The liquid loosened his throat, and cooled the burning in his gut.

“I heard about Adam from my mother,” Michael continued. “She said people in the diner were talking about how Brian’d just seemed to lose heart for fucking like a jackhammer…”

Justin snorted water out his nose, and choked.

“You okay?” Michael asked, thumping him on the back.

“Like a jackhammer!” He couldn’t help laughing.

Michael chortled. “Yeah, Mom has a way with words. But after you’d left, when Brian fucked someone, the guy would talk like he’d hit the lottery or something.”

“Brian? Not fucking around?”

“Weird, huh? I asked him about it, too. He just shrugged and said in that sarcastic way he has, ‘What can I say, Mikey? The thrill is gone.’ Then he sort of laughed, but he meant it. He missed you. He did! I was worried, and then one day, he shows up, and Adam was with him.”

“Who is he?” Now Justin genuinely wanted to know. Now that the shock had worn off a bit, he started to remind himself that if he was moving to Pittsburgh, he wouldn’t be coming back. Michael was right; he and Brian hadn’t spoken for so long. Seeing him with someone was a shock. Of course it was. Justin just wished he’d been more prepared.

“He’s some photographer. He’s a nice guy.”

“Brian’s with a nice guy? Really?” Justin fought to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

Apparently he hadn’t been very successfully, because Michael glared and retorted, “Does it make a difference? It’s not like you and Brian are together!”

* * * * *

That question echoed in Justin’s brain later, after he had stopped crying, determined to dry up and not to let his mother know anything was wrong. The truth was, Justin had hoped… okay, he had expected Brian to come after him. When he’d left for New York, he had not expected that Brian would just let him leave, that that would be the end of their story. Back then, Justin had figured that Brian’s pursuit into New York would spell out a real change in Brian, a real changed, not a nebulous change coming from shock and resulting in sudden wedding proposals, an unreal kind. Going from pure hedonism to sudden monogamy, no, that wasn’t real change. If Brian had come after Justin in New York, that would have been thoughtful; it would have been deliberate. It would have been a choice. If a snarky, complaining Brian had followed his lover’s ass to New York and set up a weekend at the Four Seasons every so often, it would have meant same-as-usual Brian had changed his no-pursuing policy. It would have meant that Brian was capable of revising his policies. It would have meant that Brian was ready to accommodate Justin without changing his personal style, his personality. It was not out of the question that Brian would be capable of that. And so Justin had hoped (had been certain) when he left that Brian would come after him.

And then Brian hadn’t.

Only now as he stretched out across this strange bed in his mother’s guest room did Justin realize with clarity sudden and sharp as a knife blade, it had been Justin himself who had been unable to accommodate the beloved. Justin had had his own set of expectations which he had decided Brian should fall magically into. Apparently, even as Brian had been changing, as Brian’s needs had shifted toward new paths, Justin had been unable or at least unwilling to see because Brian’s needs hadn’t fallen in with Justin’s own. Because Justin had been dead set on his own ways, it was Justin who had refused to accommodate Brian. Oh, what irony! Brian hadn’t needed New York; he’d needed something else. But Justin had wanted New York more than he had wanted Brian. Justin had wanted to have it all, New York, Brian, all on his own terms. The complete lack of compromise he had attributed to Brian was really Justin’s own. As Emmett had once observed, Brian had raised Justin well. But Brian had raised Justin in an image he had since outgrown.

Justin barked out a laugh, stopping immediately when he heard it emerge from his throat as a sob. What good would crying do? Brian hated displays; he liked action. So, action it was. Justin swiped his hands across his cheeks, and hauled himself off the mattress.

By the time Jennifer came home, Justin had gotten his sorry ass in and out of a second shower that day, where he washed off the day’s residua of regret. Molly sat at the kitchen table doing her homework, and Justin determinedly cut vegetables for a pasta primavera. Jennifer paused to kiss Molly hello before bestowing a similar greeting on her son. Then she leaned back against the counter, and smiled, saying, “I could get used to this!”

Justin glanced over at her. “Actually, Mom… do you mean that?”

“Why? Is there more to this than a very long overdue visit?”

“Well.” Justin focused on chopping the carrots into even bits. “Actually, I did come to see you, I did! But this morning, I went over to PIFA. That’s why I needed to wake up early. I’m thinking about going back.”

“Oh! And…?”

“They actually want me to return.”

“That’s always good for the ego.”

Justin looked up at her sharply. Behind them, Molly piped up, “Are you moving back to Pittsburgh?”

Glad for an excuse to focus anywhere but Jennifer’s sharp gaze, Justin turned toward his sister. “I’m thinking about it, Molls. Would you be upset if I temporarily moved into the guest room?”

Molly smirked, typing even as she answered him. “Just so long as you don’t take up all my time in the bathroom. Besides, Dad’ll hate it, and anything Dad hates is cool with me.”

Justin turned his head in time to see the look of real distress on his mother’s face, so he continued to address his sister. “Does he still hate me, Molly?”

“He’s an asshole,” Molly shot back, still typing even as her mother’s sharp reprimand of “Molly!” drew Molly’s attention fully to the two standing near the stove. She rolled her eyes. “It’s true, Mom!”

Jennifer set her lips, unable to refute the charge but obviously not liking Molly’s language.

“I’m sorry, Justin,” Jennifer began, but Molly interrupted her. “Don’t be. At least you don’t have to spend time with him. Him and his born again girlfriend, they’re so ridiculous.”

“Craig thinks I encourage my own daughter to wear all black and dye her hair purple.”

“Purple?” Justin had a hard time imagining a Goth Molly, as he eyed her strawberry blonde hair and candy pink shirt.

Molly grinned back at him. “Yep, Dad thinks I worship the devil.”

“Because…” Jennifer prompted.

“The coven thing was a joke!”

“She did research! Your sister convinced Craig and that Cheryl person that she was a witch. She had the Wickie rituals and history memorized. Seriously!”

“You said you were proud of me! And it’s Wicca, Mom.”

“I was proud of you for the research, not the joke.”

Justin snorted. Referring to their father’s girlfriend as “that Cheryl person” was hardly going to discourage his sister’s attitude. He said nothing, however; he didn’t want to disrupt the real love and support he detected between his mother and sister. No matter how dysfunctional it was.

Molly rolled her eyes. “Anyway. He’s an asshole, Justin, he has no sense of humor at all.”

“Molly, language!”

“So he still hates me.” Justin had expected that. It still stung.

“He hates everybody who doesn’t agree with his stupid way of looking at things. He’s totally immature, thinking everybody needs to be just like him. Jesus died for you, god is great, the fags and feminazis” (“Molly!”) “are ruining the world, abortion is evil, oh, until they come up with a test to figure out which fetuses will be gay or liberal, then off with their little pre-born heads! You know, poor little white guy rant. I’m almost glad the economy is going to tank, I hope his store goes bankrupt.”

“Don’t say that!” Jennifer exclaimed. “Your father’s business isn’t the only one that affects.”

Justin turned to study his mother sharply. He regretted not having asked how she was, really, since his return. He had simply assumed she was fine. Surely, she would tell him if she weren’t. He closed his eyes briefly, absorbing his own stupidity. He had a bad habit of making assumptions, believing people would voice their concerns. He certainly did… mostly. He really had to stop projecting his own self-image onto everyone else. God, he really was a self-centered jerk. Shaking himself mentally, Justin turned fully to his mother, determined to set aside the issue of Craig, since there was nothing he could do about that asshole. “The real estate business is stagnating, huh?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Mom.”

Jennifer’s gaze fell onto the carrot sticks Justin had finished cutting up, and her fingers nervously picked one out of the pile. She tossed it into her mouth and crunched on it as Justin continued to stare. “Yes, okay, things aren’t so great. But we’ll be fine, and of course you’re welcome to stay here. If you and Molly can work out a bathroom schedule you both agree on.”

Molly’s mouth twitched upwards into a smile. She turned back to the computer. Justin was grateful she had stopped paying attention when Jennifer abruptly asked him the one question he was avoiding.

“You’re sure you’re coming back for school, Justin? Not for anything else?”

He didn’t even ask to what she was referring. “Did you know about Brian’s boyfriend, Mom?”

Jennifer took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me change out of my work clothes before I answer that?”

“If I get you a glass of wine, will you answer my questions more directly?”

Jennifer smiled. “I knew. Everyone knows. Apparently, it’s quite the bit of gossip.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You’d been gone over a year and a half when Brian and this man showed up together. And I know you two weren’t talking. I didn’t want to upset you for no reason. Would it have mattered if I’d said anything?”

Justin focused on not slicing his fingers to ribbons along with the red pepper. “I don’t know. We hadn’t been talking for over a year at the point when Michael says he showed up.”

“I think he was lonely without you.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Brian? Tell anyone anything? I don’t know if he even acknowledged it to himself. I talked about it with Debbie, about how lost he seemed. It wasn’t noticeable, not like that. His friends apparently didn’t notice anything. Just our motherly instinct.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Justin tried not to sound accusatory.

“You were busy in New York. You hadn’t even been home for the holidays.”

Justin shrugged. “I told you… it was just bad timing. I had to work.”

“I know, honey.” Jennifer regarded her son for a long moment. “Are you coming back here for him, Justin?”

The red pepper was going to be chopped too small if he continued. He had taken care of all the prep work necessary for dinner, and cooking should wait for at least a half an hour. Justin made himself set down the knife, and gave his mother the courtesy of looking at her despite his own discomfort with the question. “I better not be, huh? No, Mom, the reasons I want to come back, it’s not about Brian. New York’s not the place for what I want to do right now.” He paused, and thought about how best to explain. “New York’s amazing, like there’s a heart thumping under you anytime you’re on the street. Brian thinks the thumpa-thumpa of Babylon is hot, it’s nothing compared to New York all the time. But it sucks if you have no money. The life of a starving artist is not romantic. You have to work, at a real job that pays for what you want to do, but then there’s no time to do what you want to do. And without money, I couldn’t set up the kind of work I really wanted to do. I can’t afford the kind of space I need for the work I want to do right now.”

Jennifer watched, wary. Justin realized he hadn’t answered her question.

“PIFA can help me. I can get my degree to open up options for financing myself. And I can work on some projects I have in mind, that I simply don’t have time and space for while living in New York.”

“So, you plan to go back to New York after finishing at PIFA?”

“Why do I need to decide that right now? I don’t even know if I’m going to come back yet! I’m just looking at my options!”

“Is Brian an option?”

“Not anymore!” Justin spit out, and then stopped, horrified. Jennifer folded her arms over her chest, and Justin hurried to change the subject. “I wouldn’t be coming back for him. But I haven’t even decided if I’m coming back. I’m still thinking about it. I am!”

Jennifer studied him. “Okay. Let me ask you something.”

“As opposed to the non-interrogation up to this point?”

Jennifer huffed a breath and ignored his question. “Don’t think about it, just answer this question immediately: Standing here, right now, do you miss being in New York?”

“No.” Justin paused, and considered that. “Yeah, I love it, but do I miss it? No. Being away is a relief. I feel like I can breathe again.”

The smile on Jennifer’s face seemed a little sad. “Okay, honey. I’m going to go change my clothes. I’d love for you to stay with us and go to school, if that’s what you think you want to do. I’ll be back in five minutes; why don’t you open that bottle of wine you suggested? You look like you could use a drink.”



* * * *

When Justin pushed into Red Cape Comics later that night and saw Ted and Michael huddled over some papers, he groaned. Damn it, he really wasn’t in the mood to see Brian’s accountant, and yeah, okay, so that wasn’t fair, but he just couldn’t deal with Ted right now. He wanted to absorb himself in Rage, in the drawing, in the moment of creation. With Rage, he escaped from a world where he had bills he couldn’t pay, a bank account that was rapidly dwindling, and prospects for which he had to fight. Gayopolis took him away from his beloved, but emotionally exhausting creative projects. Rage was easy. He knew the world Rage inhabited, a world Justin could just wing into and shape as he flew through. He could already feel the image coming to life in his head, pulsing in the tendons of his hands, the colors and shapes turning his and Michael’s fantasy into a solid vision on the page. So what if he was indulging his nostalgia for the hard-core Rage. Rage drove him crazy, but he knew the character, the feeling, he knew Rage intimately. He controlled the figure, the story. Well, okay, technically Michael was in control of the story, but Justin could usually talk him out of stupid story lines. Justin had talked Michael out of some seriously bizarre shit. But then, Michael had talked Justin out of turning Rage into a pus-covered disease carrier that one time, so Justin supposed they were even.

“Hey! Justin!”

“Hi, Justin. Good to see you,” Ted greeted.

“Hi, Ted. How are you?”

“Okay, and you?” The phrasing was careful as ever, but Ted’s face seemed more relaxed, so even though the wrinkles had deepened around his eyes and mouth, he looked more appealing. Something had settled in there, although…

“Is your hair red?” He probably shouldn’t have said anything; it just popped out.

Ted’s face turned that very color. “Well, um, yeah… but it’s just mahogany highlights. Is it really red?”

Justin laughed and shook his head. Damn it, he should know better than to tease Ted. “No, it’s just the overhead light caught a glint of it. Definitely mahogany, very distinguished. So, are we meeting, Michael?”

“Actually, Ted’s part of today’s meeting. I wanted you to hear this. Well, ’cause, okay. Here’s the thing. Right now, we’re selling an average of 750 issues a month, right?”

Justin let his bag thump onto the floor. “If you say so.”

“Right. It’s 750 a month, and we average just over two issues a year. Ted thinks if we push up to three issues a year, we’d push the numbers closer to a thousand. Anyway, even if we don’t do that, what I’m thinking of, is incorporating.”

“Incorporating?”

“It makes really good sense; we’d save a ton of money in taxes, and we could even invest in trying to expand our readership. What this means, is that we write off our expenses against the corporation, and each month we draw a salary from the corporation.”

“Wait… where does the rest of the corporation money go?”

“Oh, that’s the beautiful part of it.” Ted’s face brightened as he spoke, the earlier blush fading as he assumed a comfortable authority over his subject. “The corporation money pays for everything that supports your production of the work, and you write it off on the corporation expenses. So it’s not taxed. Well, it’s not taxed as income. That means, if your home is the work space, the corporation pays your rent, and the space is written off as a business expense. So instead of paying rent out of your income, it’s a business expense and a write-off. Business expenses also pay for whatever art supplies you require each month…”

“Wait, even if I use the supplies for other stuff, like, say, school?”

Michael glanced at him sharply, but Justin ignored him.

“Yep, even that, as long as the primary use is business-related.” Ted continued talking, explaining that setting up Rage, Inc. would allow them to use another third of the income to support their living expenses, instead of paying it off into income tax. And they’d only pay income taxes on the straight salaries drawn from a fraction of the corporate expenses. At least, that’s what Justin thought he said. Ted seemed to understand it, that was for sure. “All you need to do, is figure out how much you need for spending cash each month, and that will be your employee income. The corporation will pay the rent on your work space, in other words, your rent, your supplies, as well as any entertaining costs, traveling to any conventions for promotion, and any advertising.”

“Which means we can try to expand our reader base. Maybe you could do some promotion in the West Village!”

Justin hesitated.

“Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

“Sure,” Justin answered, turning to Ted. “Isn’t it a bit complicated?”

“Not for a brilliant accountant! I can’t tell you how much money I’ve saved Brian. We had a party when he became a millionaire, actually, he’d never have saved that kind of money if I hadn’t…”

Justin bit his lip, and Ted trailed off.

“Sorry.”

“No, Ted, it’s okay. How much do you charge?”

Ted read the glint in his eye, and laughed. “You can be my wingman when you’re around. Holidays and whenever.”

“Oh! I thought Blake…”

Ted shrugged, and replied without actually using his (apparently ex) boyfriend’s name. “He fell off the wagon. We broke up. But hey, now that I have money, I’m a pretty good catch…”

Justin mouthed “good catch?” to Michael, who smiled.

“…but I have to attract the introductions first. You and Michael are the perfect wingmen. Well, when you’re around.”

This was a perfect opening to tell them his news. Justin said, “Actually, I’m going back to school. At PIFA. So I’m going to be around a lot.” He grinned, realizing how right the decision felt. A relief, as if a huge bird that had perched to peck at his flesh had suddenly flown off; he felt a sudden, unexpected, and joyful lightness. His smile shone in the gloomy room. “So let’s see if we can push it up to a tertiary output, since I’ll have more time, and we can collaborate much more easily.”

“Tersh… what?”

“That’s three a year, Michael,” Ted supplied. “That’s great! Welcome home!”

Michael chewed on his lip. “Does Brian know?”

* * * * *

“Does Brian know, no, Brian does NOT know,” Justin muttered to himself as he paid the cab driver who had picked him up at his mother’s condo. He might have to pick a car for himself if he was moving in with his mother. He wouldn’t be able to keep borrowing hers. Not that he needed it tonight, since he was planning on getting 1) drunk and 2) laid, not necessarily in that order, and so here he was at Babylon. He considered his dwindling resources as he tipped the cabbie. He figured he still had enough to cover his first semester, and then, hopefully, he would qualify for loans. He’d have to visit the financial aid office and get some solid advice. Living with his mother would probably allow him to save more, but he really didn’t want to live at her home unless absolutely necessary, no matter how reassuring the recent discussion. And besides, from Ted’s recommendations about Rage, it sounded like he wouldn’t have to worry about rent so much. God knows, it would be nice to not fight Molly for shower time. And, if he got a cheap place close to PIFA, he could save on car insurance, to say nothing of a car loan, if he even qualified for one. Plus, his mother’s place was hardly equipped to handle the sort of art work he was itching to get back to. His place in New York had seriously limited his canvass size.

But, for now, Justin only wanted to celebrate his decision. Remembering his discussion with Michael, he had specifically asked them if Brian still frequented Babylon often. Justin only came here tonight because he had been assured Brian tended not to go out much during the week. Plus, according to Ted, Brian had a big presentation tomorrow, and Ted would kill him if he showed up looking like shit.

“Well,” Ted had added, after Michael shot him a look, “I only thought that. I didn’t say that.” Under Michael’s continued scrutiny, he added, “Okay, Brian never looks like shit.”

But, of course, where Justin Taylor and Brian Kinney were concerned, the gods had their own little laughs. Just after Justin emerged from the back room after a very satisfying carnal encounter and made his way over to the bar. He looked out at the dance floor, wondering if the bartender had rushed to serve him immediately because of the smile or because he remembered him, not that he cared. Favoritism was a beautiful thing. And there he was, Brian fucking Kinney, on the dance floor with his new boyfriend. His new whateverthefuck. Boyfriend, Justin schooled himself, hoping that sick feeling in his gut on seeing Brian would go away. It shouldn’t be there at all. He swallowed his liquor down, hoping to get back the drunk feeling he’d had not five minutes before.

He forced himself to watch. Brian still couldn’t dance. Adam apparently could, but had slowed to Brian’s tempo to accommodate the slightly taller man’s arms around his shoulders. Adam wasn’t short; in fact, he was only an inch or two shorter than Brian. But Brian was such a commanding presence, he dwarfed everyone. Justin smirked slightly, watching the two men, more specifically, watching Brian, remembering how he had needed to sync in with dancing Brian or risk a neck injury. It hadn’t mattered; Brian always turned their private space into an area pulsating with a different beat, his own Brian space, much, much hotter and more rewarding than simply grooving to the music. Brian’s shirt was open, and Adam kissed his way up the tender side of Brian’s neckline, up to his jaw, before Brian pushed his hand into Adam’s hair, holding his head in place to be thoroughly mauled while his other hand descended to the small of Adam’s back, and he ground their hips together.

Justin turned back to the bar, signaling for another drink. Maybe if he got drunk enough, he could stand this until it became familiar. If he moved back to Pittsburgh, he’d have to get used to this, unless he planned to avoid all the places he used to go, to avoid Debbie’s and Red Cape, the diner and Woody’s, to say nothing of Babylon. And fuck that, fuck Brian, fuck whatever had or hadn’t happened between them. This was Justin’s home. It always would be. Until Brian kicked him out of Babylon, it was still the place with the hottest guys, and Justin would be fucked if he was going to abdicate to Popperz just because he had a history with the stud… oh, right, ex-stud of Pittsburgh.

Or maybe Justin was just a masochist.

He ordered a triple, and swallowed half of it before resolutely turning back to the dance floor to scan for his next trick. He didn’t need to look at Brian and his whatever. He could stand it. He would stand it. Right now, he needed more sex, more booze, and a lot more oblivion.

Adam was laughing now, grabbing Brian by a belt loop and trying to drag him off somewhere. Brian was smirking, and then he raised his eyes to the bar…

And his gaze interlocked with Justin’s, for a long moment. The amusement in Brian’s face fell away. He continued to gaze in Justin’s direction as he said something in Adam’s ear. Adam smiled, and nodded, and then moved toward the stairs, in the direction of the VIP lounge. Brian sauntered across the dance floor to the bar.

For a moment Justin considered bolting, but he was just drunk enough to quash the immediate impulse. Brian drew up next to him, and ordered a beer. Then he turned to consider the young man in front of him. “Well, well, if it isn’t the ubiquitous Justin Taylor.”

“I’m not stalking you, Brian.”

“And why would you be? I just came over to say hello, and to let my bartender know your drinks are on the house.”

He could handle this flash of annoyance. “I can take care of myself.”

“Ah. Flush with cash, are we? So, you’re doing well.”

The questions were a little too close to those Brian had emailed him, always the attention on Justin, never offering anything of himself. “So how are you doing, Brian? And how long did you wait after we broke up before you decided to replace me?” Right for the jugular. Brian’s face went blank immediately.

“Oh, we broke up. Is that what happened.”

“You know damn well what happened!” Oops, okay, maybe he was a little drunk already. That last drink should have been a single. Actually, he should have gotten out of here the second he saw Brian. Definitely masochism, then.

Brian responded, with a coolness Justin could only envy. “What I do know, is that you’re starting to sound like a betrayed housewife, and we both know we were never married. So, if you’ll excuse me, the… what did you call him? Right, your replacement is waiting.” Brian slammed his shot glass down on the bar and sauntered off, following Adam.

Justin left immediately, as he should have ten minutes before, and he thus failed to see Brian turn on the stair case to watch his hasty retreat.



* * * *

Brian’s brooding gaze cut through the gloom of the half-lighted VIP area. He watched a naked Adam, kneeling, sucking the cock of a beautiful man, while he stuck his dick deep in the mouth of another man, and a third fucked his gorgeous ass. While he had made a token protest to Brian’s desire to watch him in a foursome (“You sure you don’t want me to suck you off?”), he clearly enjoyed the arrangement. Brian could watch this forever. Adam was absolute, classic beauty. Naked and fucking, his aesthetic perfection was even more apparent. Some men were actually scary to watch as they fucked; they got way into sensations, and contorted so that bits of their bodies curled up in horrifying ways. Not Adam, who was used to being watched so that arranging himself in graceful poses was secondary. He had worked his way through college as a model, only now working behind the camera. Brian had not tired of watching him in all the time they had been together. Adam had caught his attention, an attention that had flagged markedly after Justin’s departure. That waning interest had bothered Brian. A lot. The loss of interest in other men had scared him; Brian had actually scheduled a medical appointment to make sure that physically, everything checked out. It had. He stopped pursuing answers when a doctor recommended a psychiatric appointment.

Adam had been the first man to really capture Brian’s interest since… since. The first time Brian had seen Adam, he’d wanted him with a sharp pull he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Oh, he’d been fucking around, but as he’d told Mikey, the thrill was gone. His dick enjoyed it far more than he did. He still remembered the first time with Adam, the satisfaction of sinking into a tight ass and really, truly enjoying the total absorption he hadn’t felt in ages. When Adam had begun to show up in the same places Brian frequented, he hadn’t denied himself a repeat of that pleasure – again, and again. Now they played together. It was fun; it was easy. Brian supposed they were something like friends. Friends with benefits. They never talked about it. Brian of course preferred that. Why question something that allowed him to forget?

Here, in the big VIP chair reserved for him alone, dick in hand, Brian stroked himself lightly and waiting for the sharp pleasure he felt at Adam’s gorgeous perfection to hit him. But despite the increasing speed of the writhing naked tableau across from him, Brian’s desire only seemed have slowed down.

White-blond flashed in the corner of the room, and Brian’s breath caught as he turned his head to the left, his stomach clenching sharply. But it was just Kit, a regular in the lounge area.

Kit smiled at him, and Brian gestured him over. It had been a while since his dick had been anywhere outside Adam’s ass, and Brian suddenly felt annoyed by that fact. More than happy to be of service, Kit made his way across the room. A triumph to share with the boys tomorrow, claimed by the legend. Brian was so exclusive these days.

Brian felt strange lips slide over him. He closed his eyes.



New York, so difficult to work his way into, proved depressingly easy to leave. Justin had sent an email to Jim, basically the house dad in his former apartment, to tell Jim that he would be up with a check for his last month rent. In the email, he officially gave his 30 day notice. The following Sunday, Justin took his mother’s car and headed back to Brooklyn, where he proceeded to load his possessions into the back seat and trunk, and then it was done. He had already quit his restaurant job. Not that they would care.

He had a few pieces hanging in a couple cafés around New York. He had an entire series going up in Sal’s place soon. But no galleries. Simon, and the review from Art Forum, hadn’t gotten him very far. Two gallery owners had openly expressed disappointment at the size of his works after the description of his more massive pieces from the magazine.

Brian would have appreciated that; everyone was a size queen. He wouldn’t have appreciated knowing Justin had been told to come back when he had more of the same. He would have appreciated even less how discouraged Justin had been. Of course, Brian hadn’t even asked. And Justin had been too embarrassed by his struggles to tell him.

But his place in New York had cost him $750 a month for a tiny room on the third floor of a house in Bay Ridge shared by six others, so that even the large living area on the ground floor couldn’t accommodate them all, and the projects Justin itched to do clearly took up too much space. Art studios were just as expensive as apartments. In New York, space was space, it was all at a premium. At first, he had rented time in a studio, until the work he had no choice but to leave there had been damaged. None of the other artists took responsibility. And for that, his savings had been eaten up?

Justin took the ride back up to New York on a Saturday night. He was glad to have the excuse of his mother’s car to tell one of his (now ex) roommates that he had to have it back no later than Sunday afternoon. It was too late for Celia to organize a party for Saturday, although she did manage to get a bunch of people to stay in the house long enough to greet him when he showed up Saturday at nine o’clock.

“You sure you don’t want to come out with us?” Jason asked.

“It was a long drive. I’ve got to be up too early, but thanks,” Justin answered. Everyone left soon after, everyone except for Jim. Jim was 43, and had been working to make it in the New York scene for twenty years. His amazing sculptures graced several galleries, but despite solid reviews, he hadn’t caught the attention of serious money. “That’s all it is, man,” he said to Justin so many times Justin had Jim’s words stuck in his head like a litany. “The attention of a Trump, the attention of a Trump! Right time, right place, that’s all it is. Overnight success is a matter of a lifetime of work.”

Justin didn’t want to be an overnight success after years of hunger. He wanted to be a successful working artist now. He didn’t need starvation then Trump. He needed a steady clientele and sustained interest from the art community. And it seemed to him that everyone he’d met in New York was either an overnight success, or a struggling loser. Of course, he’d been mostly exposed to the struggling losers. He WAS a struggling loser.

Jim wasn’t exactly struggling as an artist. He had a name, and he had shows. But the name hadn’t translated to dollars, not enough for him to live alone. Justin loathed three of his former housemates; he couldn’t imagine having to live with roommates for another 20 years. Jim was the exception.

“I’m not surprised, you know,” Jim said as he handed Justin a beer and they sat on the couch looking across the room at the beginning of Jim’s latest idea, a textured piece built from small pieces of cloth, a riot of colors.

“My leaving?” Justin asked. He usually understood what Jim meant. The other roommates had complained about Jim’s cryptic non sequitors.

“Yeah, you never really fit here. I mean, you fit in as well as anyone else. It’s just…” He squinted, the lines around his eyes reminding Justin of just how old he was. “Your outlook was out of sync. You were never much of a kid. Your outlook is more jaded, and you can’t be jaded if you want to survive years of the bullshit this life demands. Not when it comes to the work, you gotta be an idealist about that. There was just… I don’t know how to explain. If you wanna make it in New York, your work’s gotta be here, it’s gotta be of this place, and you seemed too aware of the movement of the machine without that movement voiced in your work. It seemed held outside this place. Like it was happening for you somewhere else. I dunno, man, you were always off. Now you are off. Seems right.”

Justin thought about that. Then he shook his head, and asked, “Do you regret it? Doing this?”

“I’ve given up everything for it,” Jim finally answered, after a pause. He gestured across the room to his latest sculpture. “That’s my life. And that’s okay. I never really wanted anything else. It’s enough for me to sit here, with this thing, in this room. You’re not that single minded. Not about this. That look in your eyes? It’s called loneliness. You stare at your art, and you see something else. It isn’t your lover.”

Justin gulped at his beer. “When’d you get all philosophical?”

“Always have been. It’s why you love me.”

“Yeah, and why you confuse the hell out of everyone else.” Actually, Jim was confusing the hell out of him now. He never pulled his punches, one of the things Justin liked about him, but he also liked to talk shit. A lot of shit, apparently.

“They keep me from becoming a hermit. Without having other people here, this house would fill up with my work. If you became a hermit, Justin, it would be because someone’s not there, not because your best company is art.” Jim chuckled. “Yep, you’re still young, though. If you were older, you’d tell me I was full of shit, even if I were right.”

“Especially if you were right.”

“Damn straight.”

Justin drove back the next afternoon, hoping Jim’s promise to email wouldn’t prove empty. Instead of driving back to his mother’s, though, he drove to Debbie’s. Jennifer had said she would be there. Justin figured he could bring her the car, so that she could get home in her own wheels. It was the least he could do.

* * * * * *

“SUNSHINE!!! You little shit!!”

In Debbie’s embrace, he felt welcomed home fully, and he relaxed into her expansive bulk even though she was suffocating him. “Hey, Deb,” he got out, hugging her back, and trying not to be too obvious about looking toward the people sitting at the table set up in Deb’s back yard. He knew Brian was there; he had felt it the second he stepped in through the front door, and walked toward the kitchen where Deb had been taking a pie out of the oven. She finally set him away from her, and looked at him carefully. “You’re too thin,” she declared, turning to the counter, and handing him a bowl of salad. “Here, take that out, will ya? That’s for Brian, not for you, you’re going to have my potato salad, it has lots of mayonnaise.” Part-way to the refrigerator, she stopped. “Oh, shit, you know about Brian and Adam, right?”

Justin nodded, but didn’t speak.

“And you’re okay with it?” she asked, suspicion the road under the vehicle of her voice.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

She eyed him for a moment. “Yeah, okay, sure you are. Just so long as you boys behave.” Then she led him out to the backyard.

He noticed Brian first, of course, and Adam sitting next to him, not touching but at this point they hardly needed to, not when Justin’s memory supplied him with Babylon’s dance floor last Thursday, in Technicolor, and his imagination filled in their visit to the VIP room all on its own. What really surprised him was Lindsay, sitting across the table from them and next to Ben and Michael, Gus by her side. “Justin!” she called, getting up and coming over to greet him. “What are you doing here?” She smelled like lilacs, and the smell made him violently nostalgic.

“I could ask you the same!” Justin deflected.

“Oh, well, you know… actually, I moved back.” At Justin’s look, she added, “Without Mel.”

His eyebrows shot upwards.

“They got divorced, Mel’s in Canada, Mikey’s suing for custody of JR, or at least trying to get her ordered back to Pennsylvania. Are we all caught up now?”

“Brian!” Lindsay chastised. She grabbed Justin’s hand, and turned to her son. “Gus. Do you remember Justin?”

Gus stopped reading his book, and stared up at Justin with big, solemn eyes.

“Hi, Gus. You’re a lot bigger than I remember you,” Justin greeted the boy.

“You used to draw pictures,” Gus finally said.

“Yep, that’s right.”

“Yeah. I remember,” Gus said, then turned back to his reading. Justin looked back at Lindsay, who looked sad, before stealing a covert look at Brian, who was staring at his son with a helpless, barely concealed pain.

“The divorce was hard on him,” Lindsay whispered.

“What happened?” Justin asked, walking with her a little distance away, out of the sun and under a tree, where the drinks cooler was set up.

Lindsay shrugged, grabbing a wine cooler. “Moving’s stressful. Changing jobs is stressful. Too many stresses; we didn’t survive them. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s basically it. More importantly, how are you?” She led Justin back to the table, and Michael moved over to make room for him.

“Hi, honey,” Jennifer called, emerging onto the back stoop and walking over to the long table. “Did my car survive the drive?”

Debbie cracked, “I know Pittsburgh’s rough, but it’s not like he drove it from New York!”

“Well, actually, he did. Up and back again.”

Justin answered the puzzled looks by turning to Michael. “Are you telling me you haven’t blabbed it to everyone yet?”

“I told Ben,” Michael answered.

“I think it’s a fine decision. School is important,” Ben added.

“And, hey, I can keep my mouth shut!” Michael exclaimed.

“I sure hope not!” Deb’s laugh boomed across the yard. “Now, about what, exactly?”

“I moved back,” Justin answered. He ignored the stunned silence. “Can someone pass the potato salad?”

* * * *

Brian was drunk. Justin knew Brian was drunk. Apparently, Adam knew Brian was drunk. Justin also knew that trying to discourage Brian from getting sloppily drunk by getting him to eat was not the solution. He tried not to feel glee as he watched Brian snap at Adam that he was fine and to get that fucking potato salad away from him.

Justin wanted his mother to take him home. She was helping Lindsay and Deb clean up in the kitchen, however, and Justin knew she wasn’t even aware of Brian’s state out here in the yard. And Justin was trying very hard not to draw attention to the fact that his attention was on Brian. Instead, he talked to Michael, and to Gus.

Poor Gus. He was obviously a very unhappy kid. He didn’t frown, and hadn’t smiled but for once. His eyes had lighted up when Justin presented him with a hastily drawn cartoon sketch of Gus in an airplane, shooting down a tank.

“What’s the tank doing in the air?” Michael had asked.

“Shut up, Michael, it’s creative,” Justin replied.

“Yeah, well, if J.T.’s ass sprouts wings and he takes to the skies, I’m firing you.”

Justin snorted, his attention returning to Gus, who had placed a small hand on his forearm. “Adam’s an artist too.”

“Oh?” Justin asked, looking up at the man across from him. Adam smiled and nodded down at Gus. Justin was pleased that Adam seemed as uncomfortable as he was. Brian didn’t seem uncomfortable. Then again, tension did not easily survive seven glasses of whiskey.

“I’m a photographer,” Adam supplied. His hand was under the table, and Justin wondered darkly what it was doing there. Putz, he thought. Probably just resting on Brian’s leg. I’d be giving him a hand job. Brian’s hand was resting on the back of Adam’s neck, playing with bits of the hair at Adam’s nape. “I showed Gus how to take pictures.”

“Yeah, he gave me a camera!” Gus exclaimed, smiling for the first time that night. Justin watched the transformation in the boy’s face with awe. Then he looked up at Brian, whose face had softened with pleasure.

Oh, wow, Justin thought. He wondered if Brian knew how he looked. Then Brian looked up, met his gaze, and smiled slightly.

“He’s very talented,” Adam put in.

“He has a good teacher,” Brian filled in, tapping his long forefinger against Adam’s cheek. Adam smiled. Justin so wanted to hate him, but listening to Gus speak with enthusiasm for the first time that night about how to take a picture of a moving object (“You gotta have the setting up on a higher number!”), he just couldn’t. The man was polite, and gorgeous, and talented. He could see exactly what Brian saw in him. But it was Brian. Brian.

On the other hand, what the fuck was Justin’s problem? He and Brian were through. For six months, Brian basically grunted long-distance, while Justin had chattered about everything under the sun except what he was really feeling. Not that Brian had ever asked him how he was feeling, just how he was doing. Are you eating enough? Do you have enough money? Nothing important. It wasn’t a conversation if it was one-way. Justin wanted to hear Brian say he still wanted to be with him; Brian only wanted to hear about Justin’s career, and his health. He had never once mentioned them as a couple; he had never attempted to make plans. He had never even mentioned coming for a visit. And Justin certainly didn’t have the means to return, even if Brian hadn’t urged him to focus on his work.

They had quietly parted, separate minds following their respective bodies, a parting without the big declaration of the breakup before. Justin had already asked the question once: If we want different things, then what are we doing? Had he needed to repeat himself? No, definitely not. He distinctly remembered sitting in front of his computer screen, having typed out a long email that came down to that exact question. If we want different things, then what are we doing? And it just felt like plowing up old ground, so much fucking work for something he already knew, and he had been so tired. He had been deeply unhappy, missing Brian, dealing with a sense of continual rejection. It was bad enough he was dealing with constant rejection in his professional life, over and over, but dealing with the rejection of Brian’s infrequent contacts, that had been too much. Justin couldn’t put all the work into their relationship anymore. He needed Brian to give more.

And then after the breakup-that-wasn’t, the year of Justin trying to ignore a pain that tore at his midsection. There he had been in New York, trying to become somebody. And there Brian had been in Pittsburgh, happy with the somebody he already was.

If we want different things, then what are we doing?

He remembered the resignation with which he had deleted the email, completely unable to deal with the thought of the devastating answer he knew he’d get to that question. After he’d stopped trying to contact Brian, practically begging him for something he was never going to get, he just hadn’t heard from Brian anymore. Justin remembered all too well the year that followed, the pain that should have faded, and didn’t quite.

Those final months in New York, Justin had realized he was not only unhappy with his professional status (or, more to the point, his lack thereof) in New York, he was also not allowing himself to weigh his options because he didn’t want to risk opening a wound that had just begun to heal. And at this stage, Justin couldn’t afford to make his decisions based solely in emotion.

“You decide where you want to be.” Not good enough, not good enough! Justin was always exactly where he wanted to be. The problem always was, Brian wasn’t there with him. But Brian hadn’t seemed to think this was a problem. Why fight the inevitable?

So, really. He wasn’t back because he missed Brian. Missing Brian would have kept him away, if he’d been thinking emotionally, and he wasn’t. But maybe he should have thought a little more emotionally about this.

Because here he was now, sitting across from Brian, watching him and his new boyfriend grope at each other. Justin thought if his mother didn’t finish up soon, he was going to have to commit hari kari with the bread knife just to get away.

“We’ve got to be going, it’s someone’s bed time,” Lindsay said. She picked up Gus, who began to cry.

“Here, I can help,” Brian offered, but Lindsay held Gus despite his squirming body, and shook her head. Gus cried, “Daddy, come with me!”

“No, it’s okay, I got him. Gus, you’ll see daddy tomorrow night, remember?”

Gus continued to sob, but nodded against her shoulder. Lindsay smiled at the table vaguely, and then made her way into the house to say goodbye.

There was an awkward pause.

“So, Justin, you’re coming back here to school? What made you decide to leave New York?”

“Yes, what made Justin decide to leave New York?”

Justin ignored Brian, and addressed Adam’s question. “It wasn’t where I needed to be for what I want to do right now. I actually only need the equivalent of three semesters at PIFA to get my degree, plus I can work on some projects I couldn’t do in the city. I was stalling professionally up there.” There, that made sense, and he really didn’t want to go into it around Brian.

Brian, however, had a way of cutting through the bullshit, no matter how painful. “So you ran away again.”

“Brian!” Michael exclaimed.

“You know, I’m going to go see if the ladies need help,” Ben remarked, getting up quickly and making his way into the house.

“I did not run away!”

“Let me guess, it turned out to be harder than you expected, so the first easy out, off you go.”

“I think I’ll go see where Ben went,” Michael decided, before getting up himself and moving off.

“There are things I need to do here. There’s nothing keeping me in New York right now,” Justin answered hotly, feeling a flush come into his cheeks.

“Nothing in a place like New York? Yep, always off to the shiny horizon, it holds all the answers for little Sunshine! Everything is expendable.”

“You’re one to talk. Your motto is, if they don’t like it, fuck ’em.”

“That’s Emmett’s motto, mine is ‘fuck ’em ’til they like it’, and move on.”

Justin just shook his head, stung. Adam stared from one to the other. “Okay. I’m sorry. I thought you guys had broken up amicably.”

“Is that what he told you?” Justin asked, at the same time Brian groaned, “Who the fuck’s been talking to you?”

Answering Justin, Adam replied, “Brian didn’t tell me anything, except the break up was mutual.”

“See, even you admit we fucking broke up, just like I said!” Justin cried. Brian glared.

“As for who’s been talking, well, everybody. It’s not hard to hear things, and no, I didn’t exactly ask,” Adam added at Brian’s scowl. He turned back to Justin. “But you’d been gone for well over a year by the time I met Brian. And as far as I knew, it was over when you left. That’s what I heard.”

“Well, at least they were right,” Brian said, finishing his glass.

“They were not right! You wouldn’t talk to me!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t talk to me!”

“You left, Justin. And then you cut me off. You cut everyone off, as near as I could tell.”

“So instead of asking me, or, god forbid, talking to me, you just asked everyone else?”

“I didn’t ask. It was obvious, you got absorbed in New York, and you were gone.”

“I was not gone! You knew exactly where I was! I didn’t leave you.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Um… maybe you guys need to talk,” Adam inserted, standing. Brian stood with him, and pulled him flush against his body. Justin looked away, but he still heard the reply. “Maybe I need to get my dick sucked. Justin was long gone when I met you, end of story.”

“And it’s over?”

“I just said, end of story. This is bullshit! I’m going to fuck you, so let’s go.”

Adam laughed. “Later, Justin,” he said, but Brian didn’t say anything, just pulled Adam out of the yard with him.

Justin’s head fell onto the table. “Justin! Ready to go?” he heard his mother call from the back door.

“Oh, fuck,” he whispered, too shell-shocked to even cry.



* * * * *

“Okay, so.” Michael scrunched his mouth up, as both he and Justin thumbed through the last issue of Rage they had produced. “Do we have Rage and Zephyr figure out who has J.T.?”

“Sure! Who has him?”

“What I was thinking, was, we can bring back The Tarantula! He was pretty popular.”

“Oh! Sure, he’s fun to draw.”

“So, okay. J.T. just stopped communicating from Urbania. So we start there, with Rage all concerned he hadn’t heard from him…”

“No. It’s more in character that Zephyr be more concerned about J.T.’s sudden silence.”

Michael studied Justin’s face, noted how his gaze had dropped to study the cover of their last issue, but obviously he was not really seeing it.

“Fine. Zephyr is all concerned J.T.’s missing, while Rage keeps insisting nothing can be wrong since J.T. can take care of himself, and insisting he was just off pouting over their broken engagement…”

Justin laughed. “Oh, please!”

Michael smiled in response, happy he’d gotten Justin to laugh. “Yeah. Okay, so, Zephyr insists they investigate the trail J.T.’d gone off on. But, we don’t want Rage to look clueless…”

Justin snorted, and Michael ignored him.

“So, J.T. should be proactive in captivity. That way, both Zephyr and Rage will be right.”

Proactive? Justin thought. “So, J.T. was in The Tarantula’s web, but he escapes on his own?”

“Yeah, something like that. But how would that make Rage and Zephyr necessary? I really don’t want to do just a straight forward rescue; the same old formula’s getting kind of boring. So, if we have J.T. more engaged in defeating the Tarantula, we can grow the character.”

Justin’s eyebrows raised. “Ugh, please say develop, not grow, Michael, grow is a reflexive verb.” It was a pet peeve, and Justin narrowed his eyes at Michael’s respondent eye roll. “So you mean J.T. actually grows a brain? You see what I did there Michael?”

“No,” Michael shot back, “he develops the one he had, Mr. Smarty Pants. The one in his ass!”

Both Justin and Ben burst out laughing. “How about,” Ben added from where he stood at the stove, stirring some healthy shit that was making Justin’s mouth water like mad, “you have J.T. escape from the main web in the Tarantula’s lair, but he can’t get out of the entire complex. So he’s hiding, and Rage and Zephyr need to find him. And when they do, the Tarantula’s right there, and there’s a big fight, and whatnot.”

Justin considered that. “I like that, actually.”

“Yeah!” Michael agreed. “Only now we have to figure out why he can’t get out of the complex.”

“Have you figured out how we’re going to explain how a tarantula can spin webs when real ones don’t?” They had received several emails, some much more indignant than others, over that little problem, from more than a couple zealous fan boys.

“Yeah, I already got that, he’s absorbed the power of all spiders, he just took on the shape of a tarantula because it’s scarier than others.”

“Oh.” Fine.

“So, J.T. escaped but not completely,” Michael went on, “That’s a great idea! But how would J.T. be able to do that, is the question. I mean, it’s the Tarantula’s space, wouldn’t he know all its secret places?”

“Well… maybe his charming personality can persuade one of the Tarantula’s henchmen to help him.”

“You mean the power of his ass will seduce the guy into falling in love with him.”

Justin smiled. “J.T., the greatest fuck in the world. Even Rage can’t stay away.” A wave of regret washed over him. If only.

Michael cleared his throat. “Well, why don’t you work up something with Rage and Zephyr discovering the entrance, see what works. Do some of J.T. fucking the henchman, and hiding in the lair. Maybe you’ll come up with some ideas about how that works. And when you get some stuff done, we can talk about the set design.”

“You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you?” Ben glanced over his shoulder before opening the oven door. The heavenly smell of warmed loaves of bread wafted out.

Justin groaned. “If you don’t feed me whatever you’re cooking, I’m going to be forced to steal it. That smells divine!”

“Well, I’m glad you’re staying in town!” Ben laughed. “With appreciation like that, you are welcome at my table any day.”

“Are you glad I’m back, Michael?” Justin asked. He waited, hoping Michael would be honest. He thought their collaboration face-to-face again was off to a great start, but he wanted to clear the air if anything… okay, if Brian was going to be an issue. Justin did not want a repeat of the post-fiddle-fuck issues, with Michael and him skating around the cracking ice of their relationship.

“You’re asking me about the situation with Brian.”

Justin tilted his head.

“I’m concerned, of course I am. Brian was really thrown when you left, and he’s doing okay now. But, whatever happens between two people, nobody really knows. Relationships are complicated.”

As Justin’s eyes widened, Ben brought a bowl of pasta covered in a pesto-tofu creation and a basket of bread to the table. “Brian was devastated, Justin,” he said. “Michael thinks Adam’s a rebound. He thinks you and Brian are such control freaks that actually falling in love with each other makes you want to run for the hills in opposite directions, which is exactly what happened.”

“You think I went to New York because I’m in love with Brian?”

“He thinks you went to New York because he was in love with you.”

“What?!” Justin exclaimed, turning to Michael.

Michael’s stare at Ben conveyed betrayal and resignation at once, but Ben ignored him, instead calmly brining three plates to the table along with silverware and napkins. He placed the dishes in front of the other men. Then he sat placidly in his own chair. Michael finally stated, “When we talked about this, only two nights ago I might add, you told me to just say that relationships are complicated! Not that I was upset that Brian was hurt and I’m worried he’s going to get hurt all over again! Even though that’s what I really think.”

“Yes,” Ben replied, unfolding his napkin and placing it on his lap. “I said you should say that. But I didn’t say what I should say.”

“I want to know why love made me go to New York.”

“Okay, fine,” Michael snapped. “You guys are totally in love with each other, but you’re also control freaks with lives completely planned out in your heads. Love is the thing you can’t control, it makes you crazy, so you don’t put it into the mix. You figured, if you stayed in love, you wouldn’t have the life you’d dreamed of since you were what, a baby, so you ran away. And Brian was changing for you! It threw you off. Literally, off you went. And left him, devastated. Again. And apparently without any heart for the sex and drugs route. Not that I’m too unhappy about that.”

“You said he would never change.”

Michael shrugged. “I have been known to be wrong. Once in a while.”

“I did not run away,” Justin averred. “And how the hell would I know he’d changed, I was in New York!”

“Fine.” Michael rolled his eyes. “But I think a part of you got it before you left. He totally changed, and you couldn’t predict that narrow little life path you’ve got your mind set on, and that freaked you out. But, get over it! You can’t control things, not really, and you really can’t control love!”

“Oh, my god,” Justin moaned. “I’m being quoted a Cosmopolitan advice column. You know that crap is for sixteen-year old girls, right, Michael?”

“See! That’s what Brian would say! You’re a sarcastic little shit, it’s all him.”

“I was born a sarcastic little shit.”

“Even worse! You were born just like him! And yeah, okay, Adam’s a total rebound, and you guys are total morons who need to get your heads out of your asses.”

“Or, get your heads back in your asses, as the case may be,” Ben added.

“He was actually happy with you, Justin,” Michael put in, helping himself to an enormous serving of pasta. “You were happy with him. You guys are both trying to manage too hard, and you’re fucking it up completely, and Brian’s hurt, and I hate that.”

“I thought you said he was fine.”

“Sure, now.” Gesturing with his fork, Michael finished, “Stop trying to figure everything out, and just go with it!”

Justin stared from one to the other, and back. Zen Michael? What the fuck? He shook his head. “We broke up. It’s over.”

“Pfft!”

“Here, Justin,” Ben said, handing him the bowl of pasta. “Welcome home.” He leaned over, and kissed Michael soundly. “See? I told you you’d know what to say.”



* * * *

They were wrong, Justin thought later that week, replaying the conversation with Michael in his head for the thousandth time as he got ready to go to school. It was true, nobody truly knows what happens in relationships except for the people in them. And not even then.

And Justin sure as shit was learning that he couldn’t plan things. He’d never had a predictable life. And maybe that was the point; he sure as shit wanted a lot more control than he had had to this point. Getting back to school, taking is seriously was a big step in that direction.

So he couldn’t get distracted from school, and the whole Brian thing was way too distracting. He came back to Pittsburgh for his art, and that’s where his focus was going to be. Instead of trying to settle back into his old haunts, he needed to focus on being back in school. Running into Brian clearly had been a mistake. Hearing Brian say it was over just about killed him, which is why he had never sent that email to Brian, all those months ago. Hearing Brian say the words aloud to his new boyfriend was even more painful than he imagined. Michael had no idea the pain he was blithely dismissing in the name of true love. Such bullshit; he and Brian were over. And wasn’t that for the best? They just kept hurting each other.

Okay, he admitted to himself, he hadn’t returned just for school. A part of him had really, really hoped Brian would be waiting for him. Part of him always expected Brian. Michael was right about that; he carried Brian with him, no matter where he went. Justin always thought they had something that time wouldn’t change. It’s only time. Apparently, he had completely misunderstood Brian’s meaning.

So now, as Justin felt the water of the shower sluice across his body, he allowed himself to look back at the painful scene at Deb’s, and he told himself he really heard Brian say that it was over. Justin accepted that. Really. He had heard the truth, finally, the truth he had known all along. He hadn’t wanted to give up Brian, but he had. Brian certainly knew it was over; he had gone on with his life without Justin. Justin should have known Brian wouldn’t fight for them; everything in their history told him so.

So really, this was good, Justin reminded himself as he stepped out of the shower and toweled off. Picking up tricks in Popperz was working out just fine. It was good to know, for sure, that he and Brian were through, so he could focus on school and not get distracted. That was for the best.

Justin had two classes today, one in graphic design, and one of the two independent studies he was taking this semester. Justin felt the excitement that came from starting something new course through him as he considered the projects he was planning. He had forgotten what having a solid goal was like, to be given an assignment for a specific purpose. He had a week of classes under his belt, and his life had taken on a solid feeling. He had even started talking to some interesting people in his classes, and had gone for coffee with a very interesting boy named Alex. Cute. Not the kind of hot Justin usually went for, but Justin was ready for a genuine friend, not an easy fuck. He could get sex at Popperz, or anywhere, and he did, as often as he liked. He didn’t want to be with anyone. It felt as if he would never want that again.

He missed Brian. He had missed him in New York, but he had been in denial there, still too angry to make much room for the real sorrow, which was hitting hard now.

But Justin was determined to fill his life. He had found an apartment close to PIFA, and that helped balance out some of the sadness. His mother had expressed reservations about the place, but of course she would. The room was cheap, big, and the rent was nowhere near what he had paid in New York. A kitchenette made up the North side of the apartment space, and a bathroom with a small shower comprised the only other room, tucked into the far end, near his bed. It was hardly homey, but spacious and freeing. It suited his current mood.

He also had some promising leads for work so he could help his mother out if she needed anything. The crashing housing market was hitting her hard. At the very least, Justin was determined not to be a drain. He had made the choice to return to Pittsburgh and he would do this on his own terms. That was the point.

He would not be a drain on anyone, never again. And so far, the plan was working out. Rage, Inc. was paying for his apartment, and Ted had told him he could write off his tuition against the corporation.

“That’s legal?” Justin asked.

“Depends on how you bill it.”

“Fine, but if the IRS comes after us, you’re paying the penalty.” Ted had laughed. Justin and Michael had figured out an equitable division of expenses and payments, and so long as Justin didn’t go crazy, and they pushed publication up to three times annually, Rage would cover his living expenses for the next couple of years while he finished school.

He was moving into his new place the following week, and for now, he had one week to go at his mother’s. He enjoyed Molly and his mother, but the condo was ideal for two, and a bit crowded with three.

That, and he had to take the bus to PIFA from his mom’s place, which was all the way across town. His apartment was a quarter mile away from campus. And, already, in his head, he could see the huge canvas he was going to set up on the far wall there, where the indirect light gave the perfect glow for work he could already see.

But first he needed to settle his account for the first semester’s tuition, and he had just enough time before his first class. Ted needed the receipt for the write off. He smiled. Him and Michael. Who’d have thought. Justin headed out into the warm September afternoon, lifting his face to the sun and hoping for the best.

* * * * *

And now Justin was pissed. He’d been pissed all day.

And didn’t that figure? Warm fuzzies and “I’m come home to my art!”, to screaming meemies all in the space of a day, an hour actually. Actually a minute, over the desk of the student accounts officer who had had no clue that anything was wrong with the information he was imparting about Justin’s account balance. Zero balance, nothing owed, and all kinds of Brian Kinney in control of Justin’s life all over again. Still? Still. Did anything really change?

Was the man everywhere? Bad enough that Justin had carried him in his head and locked him away (tried to lock him away) in the back pantry of his heart while he was in New York; here in Pittsburgh Brian had a hand everywhere, so at the slightest dusting his fingerprints sprang into view. Justin couldn’t get away from the man.

His anger had drawn powerful work from him at school, becoming more powerful as his feelings emerged onto the canvas.

“That sweep there is beautiful, Justin!” Professor Kaniker told him. “If you find a model, it might help with the proportion, though.”

The work had only fed his fire, and he needed to burn that fire off. And of course he fell right back into the very method Brian had taught him, drinking and fucking the pain away. This had only pissed him off more, realizing what a good disciple he still was. The liquor he consumed at the clubs had only fanned an anger that was only nominally about the money now, the money and his independence. The tricks hadn’t been the distraction he needed. He’d even pushed the last one off his dick when he realized the mouth on his cock was only keeping him from where he really wanted to be. He had buttoned up his jeans, and now he was here. He didn’t wait for the elevator, but stormed up the stairs and banged on the heavy metal door. He waited only a second, before lifting his hand and banging again.

“Yeah, what?” Brian opened the door, looking irritable, eyes sleep-heavy, wearing only a pair of grey sweat pants that sagged off his lean hips. Justin barged past him.

“Are you alone?” Justin demanded. “Or is your boyfriend going to witness this?”

“What the fuck, Justin? It’s three o’clock in the morning!”

“Are. You. Alone?”

“He doesn’t live here, so, no. What do you want?” Brian walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He took out a bottle of water and placed it on the counter. “Here. You’ll need this.”

“You can’t pay my tuition, Brian!”

Brian shrugged. “You never changed your address, I kept getting the bills.”

“Bills? I wasn’t going to school!”

“If you don’t officially withdrawal, you still have to pay the fees.” Brian chuckled. “It’s amazing you manage to have five dollars for a latte.”

“I don’t drink lattes.”

“Well, you could if you paid more attention to your money.”

Justin grabbed the water, shrugged off his LA leather jacket, and let it drop next to the stool on which he sat. “Why isn’t your boyfriend here?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Brian answered, standing in front of him.

Justin’s lips twisted.

“Stop that!” Brian snapped. “He’s not my boyfriend!”

Justin had jumped at Brian’s bark, but just said, “Fine, he’s not your boyfriend. Where is the guy you fuck more than once? Forgive me if I’m disturbing your domestic bliss!” Justin was suddenly very conscious of the fact that Brian’s chest was bare, and that time had not softened his body’s hard sexiness. Justin’s breath suddenly seemed to evaporate in his lungs, and he focused on pulling deep at the air, trying to even his breathing.

“Why are you here?” Brian abruptly changed the subject. He leaned forward, sniffing the air around the area in which Justin sat. “Enjoy Popperz?”

Justin snorted. “Are you keeping track of me? Boy Toy, actually.”

“But not Babylon.”

“No. No,” Justin repeated. “I can’t… Don’t change the subject, Brian! You can’t pay my tuition.”

“Why not? What’s a few more thousand on top of what you already owe me?”

“Are you kidding? Why are you doing this? I don’t owe you anything!”

Brian turned his head, his eyes losing that hard, wary edge they’d held ever since Justin’s return. “You know why I’m doing this.”

“Brian...” Justin was at a loss. Something shivered in the air between them, and Justin could feel exactly what it was. His body remembered, and he became very aware of his skin, rubbing against the fabric of his clothes. Brian. “Nothing’s changed,” Justin whispered. No, nothing had changed. “Tell me. Tell me why.”

Brian shrugged. “Don’t make such a big deal about it.” He turned away.

“It is a big deal! What do… what do you tell him?” So

Brian leaned heavily against the counter. “I don’t tell him shit. I’m not settling down into domesticity or anything equally ridiculous.”

“You weren’t with me, either.”

“I almost was.”

Justin reached over and touched Brian’s shoulder. Under his hand, he felt Brian flinch. He was warm, and Justin inhaled sharply, as he smelled Brian’s musky arousal. “Tell me,” Justin whispered. He needed to rip open the wound and expose the desire that poured through him like blood, the desire that was always there, that led to this constant, sharp, bittersweet pain. Pain and desire whenever he was near Brian, and the confusion he felt, the lack of clarity whenever this hard, beautiful man was near him. Justin had great clarity, except for this. He wanted to rip away his attraction and surrender to it all at once.

“You’re here,” Brian answered, “so who cares why?” and he leaned forward to capture Justin’s lips in his own. His body surrounded Justin’s, his hands reached for him, under his shirt and stroking the skin on his back. His teeth captured Justin’s lower lip, holding it still for his tongue to taste, before sweeping inside and back, sucking Justin’s tongue in its wake. His lips, so soft and urgent at once, his mouth covering Justin’s, encouraging Justin to taste in return, to feed. He pulled Justin to the bedroom, laying him down and following him onto the bed.

* * * *

Warm, hands. Breath and lips. Hard, desire, warm palm on him. Hard cock inside him, gentle, rolling, pushing against the body behind. A red glow signaling harsh light beyond his closed eyes, but he wouldn’t open them to day, not yet. Hardness gently pushing into him, encased in the warmth of bed sheets and their two bodies, rocking slowly, breathing, gentle. Stroking Brian’s forearm, the skin, so smooth, the flexing of muscles, rocking back and the hardness, deeper. A pool of sensation spreading out, slowly intensifying. Coming in slow motion, his flanks clenching, Brian’s whispered, “Justin,” the feel of Brian’s orgasm. Lying together after, Brian’s chest deeply breathing against his back, the red glow of suppressed daylight, Brian softening inside him.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Justin became fully conscious of his body, the dull ache in his ass, the languor in his muscles, the warmth of the legs tangled in his, Brian’s sudden inhalation.

“Brian, what the fuck!?” Adam.

Oh, well, shit.

Justin forced his eyes open, cringing into wakefulness and getting uncomfortably ready for an ugly scene, and pulled away from Brian, sitting up. Brian had rolled away, and was depositing the condom in the trash can on the other side of the bed. Not at all discreet, but why bother at this point? Then Brian rolled up and out of the bed, pulling on the sweat pants he’d tossed off the night before. Justin couldn’t help admiring Brian’s hard flank as it flashed past him, wondering how he had lived so long without seeing that beautiful body.

He wondered if he could give him up again.

“Brian?” Adam stood at the foot of the stairs to the bed, not looking at Justin, but staring at his lover.

“What?”

“That’s all you have to say? It’s one thing to fuck anonymous guys, I know you do that. But he’s your ex! And not just that, you slept with him!”

“So? You’ve walked in on me with tricks.”

“A trick. Is he a trick? Is this just a trick to you, Brian?”

Justin was up and in his clothes by this point of the conversation. He heard the pleading pain in Adam’s voice, and it was all too familiar. Brian was who he was, nothing would change him. Brian was all unfulfilled expectations, and ordering those expectations into oblivion. Brian, demanding desire submit. But Justin could never submit. He could never quell his desire for more. Desire colored his world. Adam was learning, same as Justin had.

He felt a terrible sorrow, hearing in Adam’s question the echo of his own past. In the silence that hung in Brian’s space, Justin looked at Adam, and said, “I’m sorry,” because he knew that Brian would never say it. Then he left.



Brian watched the door shut behind Justin. He knew he had to let him leave, even though he wished he could rewind the day, and hit a pause in the middle of those twenty minutes when he had awoken and felt Justin’s body next to his, and pushing into him, needing to be inside his beautiful boy. Bodies seeking and finding what had been missing for so long, fucking him awake, the clock ticking.

You’re here, he’d said, and he wanted so much for Justin to understand him. He must have because Justin had stayed, had opened up to him.

Just as he’d wanted. Brian always got what he wanted. He felt a sour lump rise in his throat, and he crossed to the kitchen to get a bottle of water out of the fridge.

“Brian?” Adam asked now, the strain of tears in his closing windpipe. “Please, say something.”

“What do you want me to say?” Brian asked. He gulped at the water bottle. Cool relief.

“I love you!” Adam said, and looked stricken. It was the first time he’d said it, but he seemed to come to some decision even as the words hung on the air. “I do, I thought we were moving toward that.”

“What was wrong with what we had before… that?”

“Why are you risking us?”

“I’m not going to do the drama thing,” Brian said, losing patience. “I’m taking a shower. You can leave or not.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Fine,” Brian snapped, and moved toward the bathroom.

He had met Adam at Lindsay’s gallery. Adam’s was the first show she had organized since moving back after the disastrous excursion to the wilds of Canada. Apparently, the breakup had been traumatic, worse with the children involved old enough to know what was going on. Gus was still crying for his sister. He told Brian he felt that he was a bad brother because she was taken away from him. Brian was furious, and had thrown as much money as Michael needed to regain custody of his daughter, or at least get J.R. and Mel’s ass back in the state. All the toys in the world, all the trips to the zoo and whatever hellacious kid places he could dig up in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area had not helped very much in restabilizing Gus’s emotional world, which had paid a heavy price for the end of Lindsay and Melanie’s relationship.

He had met Adam at the first night of his show, and the man had interested him immediately. Of course he wanted to fuck him. He did fuck him, in Lindsay’s office, as reviewers and patrons alike no doubt wondered where the artist had gone, and Lindsay covered the absence, as usual. Adam was well traveled, settling in Pittsburgh for a stint of teaching at Carnegie Mellon and his show at the Bloomberg, with possible plans to remain if things worked out, not only at the university, but between him and Brian as well. He had not said as much, but Brian knew. At first, Adam had been a fuck, like all the others since Justin left. A more interesting one, but he was a trick in a host of them, filling up the hole left in the absence of the only one who mattered. The filler of random tricks wasn’t working; they had become boring and annoying, more effort than the pursuit was worth. At night, after Brian had showered the smell off, he would lay in his empty bed. The old relief and contentment with his beautiful loft, his ongoing successes as an ad man, his knowledge that he still had appeal to random men, none of that lulled him to sleep anymore. Instead, he lay awake and conscious of what wasn’t there.

Adam had truly become a fixture in his world, not when Deb got her claws into him, or through Adam’s collaboration with Ben over a course involving gay imagery in photography, so much as when Adam took an interest in Gus after Lindsay had gotten him to look after the boy one evening. Apparently, she and Adam had bonded over his work, and spent time together outside the gallery. Gus got his first camera from the photographer, and for the first time in a month, Gus showed a real enthusiasm for something beyond the mindlessness of video games. He had taken to obsessive absorptions, throwing a ball against a wall for hours on end, playing video games without expression, and staring blankly at the television. Once, Brian had walked into the Lindsay’s living room, and Gus was staring at the television screen. The television had been off. That had scared the holy hell out of Brian.

But it wasn’t just Gus. When Adam was around, that deep-seated ache that Brian carried around, an ache that bloomed into a fresh harvest of pain when Justin broke off communicating even sooner than Brian had expected, all that abated. Adam brought new life not just to the son, but to the father as well, and before Brian knew it, he wasn’t really tricking much, or even at all, just fucking Adam whenever he was around. And he was around a lot. It had seemed that Adam was the flavor of the month; suddenly around everywhere, and then in Brian’s life. It was just so easy.

As Gus developed an interest in photography, Adam helped him with camera settings, helped him to take pretty damn good pictures for a child his age. And Gus would squeal, and turn to Brian, calling, “Look, Daddy, look at this!” and show him the picture. Upon arriving home, Brian would sit Gus on his lap in front of the computer, and they would go through the pictures Gus took on his “hunting trip” as he called them, “shooting” things out in the wild. Gus and Brian took these photography field trips alone, just the two of them, but Gus liked Adam to go along when he was around. So did Brian. When Adam was with him, he didn’t think of what wasn’t there.

Adam even helped in some of Kinnetik’s campaigns, offering his expertise on the photography of the Sheer Gloss Lipsticks campaign, showing his diversity in judgment of commercial art and fashion models. He was talented, and interesting. The family liked him, and as soon as Debbie had her talons in him, he was a regular at dinners at her house. Brian didn’t correct them when they called Adam his “boyfriend,” even though he wasn’t. Adam was the guy he fucked, a guy he could talk to, who knew to cover his teeth for oral sex and could touch the spots that turned Brian on without Brian having to direct him. Brian’s boyfriend had broken up with him, but Adam drew the pain away, a pain Brian didn’t want to admit he had, but a pain he couldn’t really deny deep in the morning at three a.m. When Adam was there, he had distraction, and sometimes three a.m. passed without Brian noticing.

He knew he was a bastard to Justin, that Justin had expected him to come to New York, or at least talk to him. Justin didn’t have the resources to make sure they would see each other as much as he had said he wanted. But long distance relationships didn’t work. Brian was tactile; he needed to feel Justin under him, on his tongue, in his mouth, between his legs. And those emails, in which Justin raved about New York, they only sharpened the edge. Brian knew, he knew New York was fantastic, of course he knew, it was everything he’d ever wanted, and everything he’d never have.

Just like Justin.

He couldn’t tell Justin, don’t call me, don’t email me, you’re hurting me too much. Because he fed on those emails, on the echo of a desire he couldn’t seem to let go. But it was only time, only time before Justin committed himself fully to that life away from Brian. All the emails revealed that fact; Justin was pursuing that new life, and there was no real space for Brian there. Brian had a fully realized life of his own in Pittsburgh; he was set. There was only room for quick visits, stolen time. He loved Justin, he still did, and always would. But Justin’s art demanded a life that excluded Brian. He was too young to limit his choices now, no matter what he said. Justin’s leaving, all those emails, underscored that he was moving on. …knowing how way leads onto way/I doubted if I should ever come back…* Justin was gone, his communications a voice echoing back to Brian from a future that was all too clear.

But suddenly he was back. Brian had not expected that, not at all. He had expected Justin to keep moving forward. And frankly, he was fairly pissed about the sudden reappearance. Pissed, and deeply conflicted. God, he wanted him, he wanted him! Wanted something he could never have. The pain of the months after Justin had left was so deep, and he had no wish to reexperience that deep loss. But when Justin had come to his loft the night before, confused and oh so touchable, he proved too much of a temptation.

Brian was grateful Adam was there for Justin’s reappearance, and he knew he would rot in hell for feeling that way, grateful for Adam not because he cared for him and the man was a support, no, Brian could bear the pain on his own if he must, difficult as it was, thank you very much. Adam was a shield. The feeling of abandonment was still too fresh. And now Justin was back. By his own admission, he was back for school, because in New York, artists were a dime a dozen, and those without degrees were a penny a dozen. Justin realized he wasn’t positioned properly, and he’d come back to finish his degree, and then take it with him when he left again. New York had chewed Justin up and spit him out, but it had done that to a lot of people. Justin was the most resilient fucker he knew. He was also ruthless. He went after what he wanted, even though he never considered the consequences of those goals to other people. Selfish little fucker. Brian was damn proud of him. That ruthlessness would take Justin far, as it should. Justin was the hottest little shit on the planet, and he’d become a big hot shit, soon enough. As it should be. The kid was not done with New York, not by a long shot. And he’d leave again. It’s what he did. Justin would be off to New York again with his degree, to the next shiny new horizon, leaving Brian to pick up the pieces of his shattered heart. It was a fucking cliché.

As he toweled off, he realized he probably should have been more honest with Adam. But he hadn’t expected Justin to return, not for more than short visits, anyway. And the truth was, he hadn’t promised Adam anything. Well. Maybe it was time to change the status quo. Maybe the status quo had changed the minute Justin stepped back into the city limits. Maybe the status quo had changed permanently the minute Justin stepped foot on Liberty Avenue.

Brian stepped back into the bedroom as he dried himself, and crossed to his dresser to open the drawer and pull out a pair of jeans and a black tank. He stepped down the stairs, and toward the kitchen. Adam had made a pot of coffee, and he sat on one of the stools, waiting. Brian sat on the stool next to him, and picked up the mug of coffee with sugar that Adam had placed there for him. He took a deep sip and rubbed his jaw.

“How do you feel about me, Brian? I thought, maybe we were moving in a direction toward something serious. I mean,” Adam hurried on, “before he came back. Seriously.”

“I like you,” Brian said, and stopped. He went on, “He’s here. It’s what it is. What might have been means shit.”

“Yeah, but we’re good, I know we are. Please, think about what I’m saying. If he hadn’t shown up, I’m just asking you, were you maybe falling in love with me?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Because I came into your loft, which you gave me the key to, to find you in bed with another man! Not just another man, a man you were in love with!”

Brian closed his eyes and shut his lips firmly on the impulse to correct the verb tense in that last bit. “It’s not like that,” he said, not elaborating, knowing he was being deceptive. It was exactly like that.

“Then, what? Is he just like a trick? Brian?”

“No,” Brian answered. He stood abruptly, and moved to the center of the floor of the loft. “You want me to tell you something you want to hear. I can’t do that. I like you. That’s all.”

“But where are we going? You can’t tell me you’re happy with this, fucking around, drifting… Brian, I’m not with you just for the sex.”

Brian smirked, moving toward Adam and draping his arm over his shoulder, reaching around his waist with the other hand, grabbing into his groin. “Nothing wrong with that.” This, he knew.

Adam shrugged him off hard, and stood. “For fuck’s sake, stop toying with me! We’re good in bed, okay, but there’s more. You introduced me to your family, your son…”

Brian’s face hardened. “I didn’t introduce you to him. He introduced you to me. We should leave Gus out of this. What we have has nothing to do with him.”

“Leave him out of it? How can I? I like the kid, he’s part of you, he’s part of what I think of when I think of us. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“Adam,” Brian tried. “It means something. I… care about you.” He took a deep breath and held his arms out. “But this is it.”

“What if he came and said, Brian, I want you, dump that guy. What then?”

“He won’t say that.”

“How do you know that?”

Brian laughed humorlessly. “He won’t. He won’t follow through. He never does.”

Adam stared at him. Then he moved over, and draped his arms around Brian’s waist, and dropped his head on Brian’s chest. Brian put his arms around Adam’s back, pulling him close. “Can you promise me? Please. Can you promise me he won’t take you away.”

Brian sighed, resting his chin on Adam’s head. “I’m not going to be taken by anyone.” That was certainly true.

“You’re such an asshole. I’m in love with an asshole.” Adam raised his head, and kissed Brian gently. “Tell me what to do.”

Brian impatiently pulled away. “You need to do whatever makes you happy. I can’t tell you what that is.”

“Brian, I love you, and he doesn’t. You even said as much! You’re not such a fool as to just ditch a sure thing for a candle in the wind!”

The repetition had begun to grate, and besides, Elton John? That was just plain tacky. Brian gave into the feelings he’d been keeping tightly under control. “What the fuck, Adam? We’re good, but it was never a big love thing between us. I like you, I like to fuck you. You’re around a lot, so it’s easy. It’s good. Moving toward something else, what else? I wanted what we have, period. All this love shit? Love means shit, trust me, I know.”

Adam stared at him, shocked. “So let me get this straight.”

Brian snorted.

“No jokes, damn it! Are you trying to tell me that you’re not over your ex?”

Brian looked away.

“Answer me!”

Brian felt only impatience. “Fine. Justin can do whatever he wants. I can’t… I won’t stop him. The little fucker.” The last, a caress, which Adam heard all too clearly.

“You don’t want to. He’s going to rip your heart out again, and again. Is that what you want?”

Brian refused to answer. He looked away.

Adam laughed harshly. “I’d feel sorry for you if you didn’t deserve what you’re going to get. I can’t believe… couldn’t you have told me this a while ago? All I was, was a defense against someone who keeps crushing you, because you can’t defend yourself? Is this what this is?”

Brian only looked at him. He wished he would leave. This whole conversation made Brian feel lost. This should never have happened. Why didn’t Justin stay in New York? Every extreme feeling Brian had ever had in the last few years centered around Justin. “I like you. I wanted to fuck you, and we’ve both enjoyed that. Everything with Justin… It has nothing to do with you.”

Adam’s disbelieving snort echoed through the loft. “Yeah. Right. Okay, so, I’m leaving. Good luck to you, you know, you’re going to need it. He’s going to rip out your heart and crush it under his boots as he walks away all over again. Just don’t come looking for me to pick up the pieces!” And Adam stormed out.

Brian locked the door behind him. He headed back to bed, and buried his head in the pillow, a pillow still heavy with Justin’s smell. It calmed his troubled thoughts, even though he knew this had all the effect of a drug masking pain symptoms.

* * * * *

“Hello?”

“Justin? It’s Lindsay. Look, I hate to ask you this on such short notice. But I need to work the gallery tonight, and Brian had an unscheduled meeting. I was going to get this girl we know from the GLC, but she’s not available…”

“You want me to sit with Gus?”

“It’s only until 11 or so.”

“Sure, Lindsay, no problem.”

* * *

Justin showed up at Lindsay’s apartment at six, and walked into the kitchen to see Gus at the table, drawing on a tablet. He looked up with those big eyes, so like his father’s.

“Hi, Gus,” Justin greeted.

“Hi,” Gus answered shyly. “You’re staying with me?”

“Yep, I am.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, Justin, thank you so much for doing this for me! Help yourself to whatever you like. There’s beer, but please don’t drink more than two…”

“Is this the standard Brian speech?”

Lindsay stopped, and she laughed. “Yes. Yes, it is.” Her eyes twinkled. “Okay, the standard Justin speech. Help yourself to any food you want, but please leave me some of the ice cream. And Gus may have some of that,” she placed her hand on Gus’s back as he looked quickly up at the mention of ice cream, “but not after 7:30. And, don’t let him drink anything substantial after that time, either.”

“I like water next to my bed.”

Lindsay smiled, sadly Justin thought. “He doesn’t like to wake me up anymore. You know I don’t mind, baby.”

“I know.”

“Okay, I’m off! You have my cell, and the emergency numbers are on the fridge. I should be back around midnight.”

“Bye Lindsay!”

“Bye, Mom.”

She headed out, and Justin sat across from Gus at the table.

“Will you draw me again?” Gus asked, looking up with his grave little eyes.

“Sure! You don’t want to do something, like play a game?”

“After you draw me, we can play Candy Land, okay?”

Justin smiled. “Anything you want, buddy.”

* * *
Four hours later, Justin sat alone on the couch, working on a sketch. His final project for the class was going to be an enormous amount of work, and the professor was concerned about his ambition for the piece, in light of the time restriction.

Justin found the challenge exhilarating. Stressed? Sure, but this was nothing compared to the pressure he’d felt in New York. Here, he had goals, and set parameters. Things fell into place, and everything had started to make sense again.

The blocking on this project was giving him trouble, but he was working it out. Luckily, he didn’t need a model for this particular subject.

He heard the sound of the door opening from down the entrance hall to the right. He closed his sketch pad and set it aside, stretching the cramp out of his neck. He was glad Lindsay was back; he was ready to go home.

“Hey, Lindsay,” he called.

But then Brian appeared in the doorway. He leaned on its frame, regarding Justin. From Lindsay’s sound system, Billie Holiday crooned, “…the night is cold, and I’m so alone/I’d give my soul, just to call you my own/hugging and kissing, oh what we’ve been missing/lover man, oh where can you be…”

“Um… hello,” Justin offered, glancing down at his sketch pad to be sure it was closed.

If Brian was disconcerted in seeing Justin, he hid it behind his slouch. He pushed off the doorway, and sauntered across the room. “Want a beer?” he called back to Justin, as he headed into the kitchen. Justin bit his lips, suppressing a laugh. Poor Brian, he was so much more predictable than he wanted to appear. “Sure,” Justin answered.

Brian returned and handed him the beer, and then dropped himself onto the far end of the couch, facing Justin. “So, I was wondering where you’d disappeared to,” he said.

“I didn’t disappear.” Fuck, that sounded defensive. “I’ve been working.”

“Oh, yes. Finishing your degree. That’s why you haven’t been to the diner. Or to Deb’s. Or out at Liberty’s various drinking establishments.”

“I’ve been to Red Cape.”

Brian grunted. “Mikey’s happy.” Brian regarded him for a long moment, with a serious look that reminded Justin so much of Gus’s earlier stare that he couldn’t refrain from remarking on it.

“Gus looks at me just like that.”

“Like what.” Brian took a long drink, draining half the bottle.

“That grave stare, as if he’s measuring my character. He looks so much like you, it’s scary.”

Brian smirked. “Scary? Beauty never hurt anybody.”

“Modesty works, too.”

“Not as much as proper appreciation for one’s assets. If you know what you have, you can maximize its potential.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “Right.” He drank, not knowing what else to say. “How’s Kinnetik?”

“Amazing. Of course.”

Billie sang into the spaces between them.

“Is it always going to be this awkward?”

“I’m not awkward.”

“Of course not. Uncomfortable then.”

“I’m not uncomfortable, either. Sounds like you have a problem. You should work on that.” Brian stood, and moved to the stereo. He flipped through the CDs. “Jesus, CDs, I’m going to have to do something about this.”

“It’s not broken, but you’re going to fix it.”

“Well, now she’s single, she may want to exchange songs with her new lesbian friends. Or hetero male friends. Who the fuck knows. CDs are so awk… big.”

“Right. Cuz big is bad.”

Billie cut off abruptly, and Brian dropped a new CD into the player. Spyro Gyra picked up the jazz theme, with a faster beat.

“Wow, old school!” Justin exclaimed as Brian rejoined him on the couch.

“The fresh and new’s your department. I’m old and set.”

“Pfft! Young, beautiful you? Is this the Brian Kinney we all know and…” Justin cut himself off.

“New version of the same old me. Young and beautiful never lasts, that’s why it’s such a hot commodity. Trust me, I know. Fresh and hot to old and crotchety in the blink of an eye.”

“I’m sure Adam doesn’t think so.” He realized he sounded petulant, and squashed the desire to take his words back.

Brian turned a hard look on him, and Justin suddenly realized Brian had a new wrinkle at the corner of his left eyelid. “Adam left.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh.”

“Is it because…?” Damn it, he shouldn’t ask, and he really shouldn’t feel that hope burn deep inside, in places he refused to countenance.

“Of course it is.”

The music filled the air, and Justin filled his lungs. In. Out. Slow. He tried to calm his heart beat.

“Does that make a difference?” Brian’s words were not as nonchalant as he surely wanted them to be.

“No,” Justin answered, without thinking. Fuck, he hadn’t meant to cause that crushed look that shadowed Brian’s face, hidden immediately, but still moving just below the skin. “I do love you,” Justin offered as penance. Brian’s gaze focused sharply on him. “Adam had nothing to do with how I feel about you, anymore than the tricking had to do with how I feel about you.”

“I’m glad you figured that out.”

“But there’s always something. Some hole in you that I can’t… that you won’t let me fill. I can’t deal with that.”

“You mean you won’t. Is it why you keep choosing to leave?”

“I didn’t leave you; I’m always moving toward something. A more complete life, for myself. That you keep pushing me toward; hell, you expect it of me! That doesn’t mean you’re excluded, I thought you wanted to be part of that! This last time, I really had hoped you’d want to come with me.”

“I do,” Brian insisted. “I do want that.”

“Then why do we keep ending up back here?”

“Because it doesn’t matter what I want.”

Justin shook his head, knowing that he couldn’t tell Brian it did indeed matter. His words would only get swallowed up in the black hole Brian’s stark response exposed. The black hole, and the fathomless love behind it.

But it did matter. And Brian’s admissions here meant more to Justin than Brian could ever know. Talk was cheap, but it painted the surface of that which was very dear. Justin smiled gently, reassured suddenly. Brian.

He changed the subject, and was gratified by the easement of the pain that had been drawing across Brian’s features. Justin felt a familiar confidence strengthen in his bones, and realized he hadn’t felt this way in far too long. “Can I sketch you?”

Brian’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t know, can you?”

You have no idea, Justin thought, but he only said, “I mean, will you pose for me?” He hastened to explain, “I’ve been, uh, sort of using your figure in a project for my life drawing class. But an actual model helps.”

Brian nodded, assenting, as if this was perfectly natural, much to Justin’s relief. Justin picked up his sketch pad, to move into the chair to the left of the couch, giving himself a better angle to see the other man.

“Take your clothes off, please.”

That elicited the too familiar smirk. “You know,” Brian said pleasantly, as he stood and shucked off his clothes with an efficiency that brought back memories. “You’d think I’d have suggested this first. Taking orders from you is hot.” He sat. “Sometimes. Don’t get ideas.”

“One leg propped up… one arm over your head, rest it there, perfect. The other one on your stomach, relax it… you have the most beautiful hands I’ve ever seen, have I told you that?”

“No.” Brian’s chest had flushed slightly. “This is very Titanic. I want my billion dollar diamond now, Leonardo.”

“It was Billie Zane’s.”

“Even better, he’s much hotter.”

“I need your penis soft, Brian.”

Brian choked back a laugh. “That is definitely the first time I have ever heard that ! No,” he refused. His hand descended, stroking himself. “You want a soft penis, you don’t want me.”

Justin ignored him. Brian sighed, and took his hand off his dick, putting it back on his stomach where Justin had originally ordered it. “Fine, but I can’t guarantee it’s going down anytime soon.”

“That’s fine.” He could sketch around it. Could he? Yes, he could.

But it did go down, and Justin smiled. At that, Brian felt something tug at him, not where his prick insisted on satisfaction, but higher, somewhere in his chest.

* * *

When Lindsay returned, she stepped into a darkened living room. A movie played on the television, and on the couch, Justin slept with his face turned into Brian’s shoulder. Brian looked over and rolled his eyes at her smile. He moved his free arm, and switched off the television. Justin started, and opened his eyes. “Mmff?”

“Mom’s home, time to get up,” he gently coaxed, petting Justin’s hair down from where it had kinked out of placed, mashed against him.

“Oh, hi Lindsay. Brian stopped by…”

“I see. Good thing I don’t have a rule about having boyfriends over.”

Justin blushed scarlet. “Oh, no! We just. Um. Brian just stopped by…”

“I’m teasing, Justin. How was Gus?”

Surprisingly soon into the reassurances, Lindsay said, “I don’t mean to rush you, but I’m kind of tired. Can we go now, so I can get back here quickly? Not to hurry you out, I just…”

Brian interrupted. “No, the lad’s riding with me tonight. I’m taking him.”

Justin opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. Apparently the evening was not yet over.

* * * *

“So, this is where you live,” Brian said, peering up at the building.

“Yep,” Justin said.

“It’s a shithole.”

“But this time, my shithole’s on the fourth floor, not the 19th. AND, I have a bathroom of my own!”

“In the apartment.”

“Amazing, huh? I’ve come so far.”

“Are you going to invite me up?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Brian shrugged, but Justin could tell he was hurt. Placing his hand on Brian’s forearm, he offered, “We can’t go back. And I don’t… I felt pretty shitty being the other man.”

“You weren’t,” Brian insisted. “You aren’t.”

Justin shook his head. “It feels that way.”

“Justin,” Brian said, lacing his fingers into the younger man’s when he would pull away. “I never pursued him. It wasn’t like that.”

Justin smiled sadly. “You never pursued me, either.” He pulled his hand away, slipped out of the car, and disappeared into the front door of the squat brick building.

Brian sat for a long moment. “That’s not true,” he whispered. But Justin wasn’t there to respond.

* * * *

“Should J.T. be skinnier?” Justin handed the sketch over to Michael, who sat next to him at the table. Michael’s critical eye wandered over it. “You might want to put the shadow of a rib on him. Good suggestion, Ma.”

“Well, Just look at Sunshine, he’s skin and bones!” Deb exclaimed, bustling into the dining area and placing a basket of bread next to the chips and salsa she had placed in front of Justin earlier. “Honey, you need to eat.”

“How long has J.T. been trapped in The Tarantula’s web? Because he wouldn’t be skinny enough for ribs to show after just a week or so.”

Michael turned to the next set of panels. “We don’t need to say. It’s the beauty of comics; time can be as vague as you want. But it’s long enough, his ribs should show. And Ma’s right, you’ve lost weight.”

“My ribs aren’t showing.”

“Yes, they are,” Brian called without looking up from where he sat with Gus on the couch. Gus had started taking pictures of all of his friends, “portraits,” he called them. He liked the word, because it was new to him. Brian and Gus sat on the couch across the room, Gus tucked into Brian’s side. Brian was carefully examining Gus’s portraits.

Michael shot a pointed look at Ben, who shook his head and smiled, but continued to look at the drawings, ignoring Justin’s blush.

“Oh, hey, this is great!” Michael pointed to the carefully worked close-ups of J.T. unhooking and rehooking the connections in the web, creating a new corridor for his escape. As J.T. worked, the panels lost their side borders, connecting with a long, web-like design that pulled the reader through the page, moving the reader with J.T. through his tunnel as he crawled, first away from the top left hand of the design, down right to the middle, straight right, and then up, and a long slide to bottom page left before the panel doubled back, and continued to weave seemingly haphazardly around the entire page. The design was a complicated chutes-and-ladders, J.T.’s maze-like escape weaving through previous parts of the web-like design, creating a big knot of a picture, finally depositing him in a cave-like enclosure at bottom right.

“You like that?” Justin asked. “I thought it might be visually confusing.”

“Maybe you can have the web squeeze in at certain points and the ones behind can expand, so a reader can see more of the later progression? Or maybe expand it to two pages, so your eye slides from left and catches here in this expansion, before coming in on the top right and then sliding down here…” Michael moved his hands, clarifying his idea.

“That might work…” Justin started, suddenly aware that Lindsay was depositing salad on the table.

“It’s brilliant,” Brian said, setting down a bottle of wine.

“What do you think, Gus?” Justin asked, lifting the sheet to show Gus. Showing Gus a picture of J.T. crawling around did not need to be cleared with Lindsay, but she ran a quick eye over it anyway, Justin saw. Gus paused in climbing into the chair across the table, and looked, studying the picture for a long time.

“Cool,” he said. “Like Escher.”

Justin’s eyebrows shot up. “Escher?” he asked.

“He likes Escher,” Lindsay laughed.

“Mom’s got a book.”

“The lad’s a genius,” Brian supplied. He smiled down at the boy, and took his seat next to him at the table.

“Better get your work out of the way before it gets marinara sauce on it.” Carl entered the room with a large bowl of pasta and sauce.

“Wait!” Gus interrupted. “Adam’s not here.”

The entire room fell silent, and then everyone looked at Brian. Gus looked up at his father. Brian answered, “He can’t make it today, Gus.”

“Oh.” Gus seemed disappointed, but then he busied himself with selecting a bread stick from the basket in front of him. Justin turned away as he put the mock-ups aside, in the living room. He did not want to see anyone looking at him.

* * *

“You’re going to have to tell him,” Lindsay said to Brian later, as they stood outside in Deb’s back yard, Brian smoking a rare cigarette. Gus wanted him to quit.

“What’s to tell?”

“Brian. It’s bad enough one parent went through a breakup, but Gus is going to notice that you don’t want to be around Adam anymore. Especially if you’re kissing up to someone else. He has enough problems with people he loves disappearing around him.”

“It’s not my fault your breakup scarred him!” Brian shot back.

Lindsay stood quietly for a moment, watching him. “I know I fucked up with Mel, Brian. And believe me, I’m devastated by what our breakup did to Gus. But he seems to be getting better. Especially if Mel gets her ass back here with his sister.” Lindsay prayed that day would be soon. The courts seemed to be leaning toward Michael’s case. It helped that Mel had not been able to secure legal work up in Canada. It had been one of the reasons for their falling out. Mel probably would have had to return to the States anyway, even without the pressure Michael was putting on her. “I just… it’s the reality of the situation, right now, whether we like it or not. He’s fragile. And if you think it best I explain that his friend isn’t coming around because daddy’s still in love with someone else…”

Brian stared at her hard, and took a deep drag of the cigarette. He exhaled, the smoke shooting out into the night. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll figure something out.”

* * * *

The banging on his door startled him awake. Justin leaped up, his heart beating fast as a baby bird’s. He crossed the room to the door, and called, “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, open the fucking door.”

Brian? What the fuck? Justin opened the fucking door. “Brian, what…”

He was pushed back into the room, and the door slammed behind Brian, the lock engaged simultaneously. And then Brian grabbed his wrist and pulled Justin hard up against his body, his mouth descending on Justin’s, hard, lips taking lips, opening Justin’s mouth and sucking his tongue into Brian’s wet depths.

They were on his futon, Brian pushing him down onto the thin mattress. The briefs Justin wore melted off him. Brian turned him on his hands and knees and then pulled him up, Justin’s naked back flush against Brian’s chest, Brian’s mouth descending to his neck and his left hand cupped Justin’s achingly hard erection. Justin reached his arms up and behind him, grabbing Brian by the hair and pulling his mouth down to his, his neck straining around, the muscles screaming in protest but he didn’t care. The feeling of Brian’s soft lips desperately covering his own was too exquisite. Justin heard the sound of Brian’s zipper, his harsh breathing, then a condom wrapper ripped through the stillness of the apartment. He was pushed onto his hands and knees, Brian’s fully clothed body covering his, his knees nudging Justin’s legs apart. And then Brian was inside of him, filling Justin’s body. Justin arched his back, trying to accommodate, still not used to penetration. Brian’s hand stroked him, and his cock hit his prostate. Justin cried out as he came hard, Brian’s name on his lips.

* * *

“I’m getting you a new bed,” Brian said. He pulled his shirt off, folded it, and tossed it to join his carefully folded pants at the end of the mattress. Then he lay on his back, and folded his hands over his chest.

Justin propped himself up on one elbow, so he could look down on the other man. “No, you aren’t. Unless you’re planning to live here.”

Brian just snorted in response, but Justin could see the gleam of his open eyes through the gloom.

“What the fuck, Brian? What was that?”

“What, that I want to fuck you in a comfortable bed?”

“You don’t need a bed for that.”

“No, I don’t.”

Justin shivered, thinking of all the possibilities that statement opened up. He reached out, and traced Brian’s nipple with his forefinger, gratified when Brian shuddered. “That was hot.”

“Of course it was.”

Justin sighed, deciding not to question this right now. They’d wanted to fuck, and they had, end of story. Certainly, he had wanted Brian again, ever since the night in Brian’s loft, hell, even before that. He’d never actually stopped wanting Brian, from the moment he’d seen him, all those years ago. And the fire burned just as hot between them, hotter actually, condensed to a white light he carried near his heart. Or in his groin, Justin thought, grinning suddenly. He always wanted Brian. And right now, he would just as soon enjoy the next fuck they were about to share, rather than talk about it. Justin’s tongue followed his finger onto Brian’s body, and Brian groaned, his hand moving to Justin’s head, weaving his fingers into Justin’s hair and tugging on it, pushing Justin’s head to descend toward his cock. Justin went with the pressure; he was on his way anyway. Why fight a good thing?

When he woke in the morning, Brian was gone.

* * *

“Why did you want to see me, Brian?” Adam asked.

Brian looked up from his Blackberry as Adam slid into the seat across from him at the coffee shop near Kinnetik. Damn it, he should have been more clear about this meeting, Brian thought, as he saw the hope in Adam’s eyes.

“Gus was asking about you.”

“Oh.” The light faded.

“I want to talk to you before talking to him about your not being around anymore.”

“Don’t want to just say you ditched my ass?” Underneath the sarcasm, Brian heard sorrow. He wished he didn’t.

“He likes you, Adam.”

“I want you to like me.”

“I do like you.”

Adam snorted. Brian wondered if Adam knew how much of an admission it was for him to use the word “like” in regards to another person, and realized that he couldn’t. Adam had not known Brian back before Justin. He knew Brian could act like an asshole, but he had never met Brian when it had been less an act and more just a plain fact. There was a world of difference in the distinction, and Adam would never know. He called Brian an asshole when they had broke it off, but he would never really know.

“I never promised you anything. We didn’t have that sort of relationship.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Adam’s tone turned hot, dark eyes on him, and Brian saw there were circles forming under them. “I’d hoped for more. You never said that there might not be more.”

“I didn’t think we even needed to have that kind of discussion.” He watched Adam carefully. Maybe this had been a mistake. “We didn’t date. We hung out. I really didn’t think it was anything more than that.”

But something seemed to break through to Adam as he shook his head. “You really are a shit. People warned me about you. They said you were an asshole. And yeah, you were distant, a lot. I didn’t realize it was because you were with him.”

“I wasn’t, until the end.”

“I don’t mean physically,” Adam shot back. “Brian, I really like Gus. I love him. But I love you, too, and it would be too hard to keep seeing him. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us anyway. A clean break is best. Besides, I’m leaving Pittsburgh when the semester’s over. I’m not going to pursue teaching here.” Brian just nodded, as Adam got up to leave. “But,” Adam continued, “I will say goodbye to him. Because you want me to. Could you talk to him beforehand so he isn’t too upset when I see him?” Brian nodded again, and Adam leaned down, pressing a kiss to his lips. He paused, his face only inches from Brian’s, his mouth opened slightly and his eyes closed, and then he shook his head, straightened, and walked away without looking back.

Brian sat at the table, his coffee growing cold in front of him.

* * * * *

Brian watched as his son carefully traced a line across the tablet in front of him. Next to him at the work table, a young girl looked over at his picture, said something, to which Gus shook his head. He pointed with his marker at something on the tablet.

“He’s a very talented little guy, Mr. Kinney. His artistic ability is very well developed for his age.”

“Yes, he’s had some good role models,” Brian answered the teacher seriously.

Gus chose that moment to look up, and he smiled spontaneously and naturally on catching sight of his father. Brian’s heart tugged; Gus didn’t smile so easily these days. He smiled back, and for a moment his love for his son overwhelmed him. Then he remembered why he had come to pick Gus up.

“Dad!” Gus called, hurrying across the room. Brian saw that the other children had looked up. “Hi!” He rushed up to Brian and hugged him at the hips. He was getting so big. Brian bent down and squeezed Gus around the shoulders. “Your mom’s hung up for a bit, buddy, want to go get something to eat?”

“Did you bring the ’vette?” Gus asked. He’d been angling for a ride in it for a while now.

Brian smirked. “You know your car seat doesn’t fit in it.” Brian had taken the Jeep out of its parking garage, as he always did when he had what Lindsay called their “play dates.” “My play dates do not involve Gus,” Brian had snarled. But he had come to really look forward to his one-on-one time with the little guy, even volunteering to relieve Lindsay’s schedule as a working mother, sitting with Gus on the nights Lindsay needed to work at the gallery.

“Can we go to the diner?” Gus asked.

“I have ice cream back at the loft,” Brian replied.

“And chocolate sauce?”

“Yep,” Brian answered, taking his son’s hand, and walking with him out of the school. Brian could see Gus struggling with this knowledge. “Your mom would say it was okay.”

“Okay,” Gus said happily, climbing into the back of the Jeep, into his car seat.

Forty minutes later, Brian sat on a stool next to Gus, watching him stir the ice cream into a soupy mess. The kid liked his ice cream to approach liquid. If someone topped it with whipped cream, he’d stir the whipped cream into the mush. Finally, he scooped up a spoonful and ate it. Then he folded the liquefying edges of the bowlful into the colder center.

“Gus, I want to talk to you about Adam.” He had spoken to Lindsay about this, and despite her recommendations that he wait for Gus to bring up the subject again, Brian negated the idea. He had assured Lindsay he’d be gentle, but direct.

It was so easy to say that when he was talking to Lindsay. Looking into the little face that looked up eagerly toward him, he found the idea much more difficult to implement.

“Adam really likes you, you know that.”

“Yeah, I really like him too. Are we going to go see him?”

“No… Adam and I decided we don’t want to be together. So Adam won’t be coming around anymore.”

Gus looked down into his bowl, stirring. “Oh.”

“Is that hard to hear?”

Gus said nothing.

Brian leaned forward. “Look at me. Gus.”

The little boy looked up again, his dark eyes troubled, with a suspicious sheen forming over them.

“I wanted to tell you. Since you asked about Adam the other night at your Grandma Deb’s. I couldn’t talk to you about it then, with everyone there.”

“Why did you break up?” Gus’s voice trembled a little.

Brian thought about that, and knew the best approach was honesty. “I like Adam, Gus. Of course I do.”

“Otherwise you wouldn’t kiss him.”

“…Right. But Gus, I don’t love him.”

“Maybe you could. One day.”

Oh my god, Brian thought, my son is a 16-year old lesbian. “It doesn’t work that way. Not for me. But I do want to love someone, Gus. And as long as I’m with Adam, I couldn’t find someone I could really love. Do you understand?”

“No!” And now the ice cream was soup, and Gus was dissolving in tears. Brian reached out to touch him, to sooth away the hurt, but Gus pushed away from him, and ran into the bedroom.

Brian sat on the stool for a moment, but then went after his son. He walked up the steps, and sat on the bed, staring at Gus’s back. “Gus, Adam’s going to be leaving Pittsburgh when his job is done at the college. He wants to see you before he goes.”

Gus rolled over, and Brian felt actual pain at the sight of the tear tracks on his face. “Why does he have to go?”

“Sometimes that’s the way life is,” Brian answered. He reached out and brushed Gus’s tears away from his face. “Adam’s a great guy, but he wasn’t who I want to be with. And it was unfair of me to ask him to stay with me when I wasn’t going to love him.”

Gus sat up, and threw his arms around Brian’s neck, his head burying into his shoulder. Brian held him. After a while he stopped shaking. Brian had been lulled into a sort of trance, rocking back and forth with the small body warm against his, so he missed what Gus said. Pulling back slightly, he asked, “What?”

“My ice cream melted.”

Brian smiled. That, he could fix.



* * * * *

“So, what are your plans?”

Justin shifted a bit. “You mean, today? I have to get back home and work on a project…”

“No. I mean, in Pittsburgh.” As soon as he said it, Brian groaned. Fuck. But damn it, he wanted to know.

Justin pulled his body, his nice, warm, naked body, away from Brian’s and sat up, looking down at him. “I can’t believe you’re asking me this. You.”

Brian sat up, leaning back on his forearms, watching Justin pull his jeans on. “I ask what your plans are, you get dressed to go. Guess I have my answer.”

“You don’t have shit,” Justin answered.

“I know you’re leaving.”

Justin turned, and rested his hand on Brian’s chest. Brian entwined his fingers in his. “Stay.”

Justin bit his lip, then shook his head. “I can’t. I need to work on a project. Why don’t you come over later?”

“Because when you’re working, you get in a groove and ignore me.”

“You know, when you pout like that, you look like Gus.” Justin laughed.

Brian tugged him, and the smaller man fell across his chest. Brian rolled and pinned him to the bed. “I meant, what are you plans when you’re done here.” He damn well knew Justin had avoided answering his questions.

“Where, here?” Justin teased, licking at one of Brian’s nipples.

Brian restrained himself from divesting the warm body beneath him of his pants. He so totally could. “Justin.”

Justin sighed, and relaxed. “Can’t we just enjoy this?”

No, Brian thought. Oh, well, fuck, when did this happen? Brian wished he could appreciate the terrific irony of knowing exactly how Adam had felt in their break-up conversation the morning after Justin happened. He shook his head; he could think about that later. Or, never. Yeah, never was good. And anyway, this wasn’t about being needy for himself. It wasn’t about what he, Brian Kinney, wanted. “Gus was really upset with Adam’s leaving. I don’t want him to get attached to someone new, and repeat the drama.”

“You’re saying, Gus might be upset if I leave?”

“Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

“No.” Justin twisted out of his grasp. “I always knew you’d be a good dad. Once you got used to the idea.”

Brian propped himself up on an elbow, watching Justin pull a sweater over his head. “You’re not answering the question.”

“That’s because I don’t know the answer.”

Brian frowned. “What do you mean? It’s a simple question. A simple answer. One, you’re staying here, two, you’re going back to New York.”

“You really are unbelievable,” Justin murmured.

“Fine. Then tell me why you came back here in the first place.”

“Do you want me to say I came back for you?” Justin asked.

Yes. “No, of course not.”

Justin stared down at him. “I came back for me, Brian. But I was hoping you’d be here.” He turned to walk away.

“That’s the reason you ran away from New York?”

Justin turned back, his eyes narrowing. He seemed ready to respond; Brian could see the hot words practically falling off his tongue. But then he paused, and seemed to actually consider the question. He asked, “Will you go with me to New York?”

“Right now? Sure, I don’t have to go run my multi-million-dollar company. Ted can handle it. What the hell.”

Justin snorted. “No! I mean, For a weekend. Soon. Go up on a Friday night, spend Saturday in the city? I want to show you New York, not just tell you.”

“Next weekend?” What the hell. Nothing going on then. Much. Maybe the company wouldn’t fall apart with Ted and Cynthia standing night watch.

“You can do that? Great!”

“Just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me take care of the hotel and travel arrangements.”

* * * * *

“This is not the way to see New York,” Brian grumbled, glancing around the train at the other riders. Justin had assured him he would not be the only rider wearing Hugo Boss leather and “jeans that cost more than their entire wardrobes,” although the latter was definitely true in regard to the homeless man at the other end of the car with the overflowing shopping cart chewing his toothless cud and mumbling to himself. Brian eyed him.

“Don’t stare, if you don’t see them, you’re invisible.”

The great Kinney brow wrinkled. “Isn’t it the other way around, ostrich-boy?”

Justin replied. “Everybody in New York’s a target. Living in denial is the only way to maintain your sanity. This is our stop.” He stood, and Brian followed him, watching the cargo-clad ass twitch its way through the turnstiles and up the stairs into Brooklyn. Justin needed new jeans, some fabulously expensive ones. Brian couldn’t wait to go shopping. Maybe tomorrow. Today, they were seeing Justin’s New York. Tomorrow, they were definitely seeing Brian’s; starting at 5th Avenue and 52nd, and working uptown: Rolex, Armani, Gucci. Tiffany’s.

“You lived here?” Brian asked, finally looking around after they’d walked a couple of blocks. At ten in the morning, the place was practically deserted. All the shops were closed up, except for a corner grocery store, outside of which a group of sketchy-looking young men loitered.

“Don’t stare at the drug dealers, Brian,” Justin muttered. “Remember what I told you about being invisible.” Although, personally, Justin couldn’t imagine Brian ever managing invisibility.

“I’m not staring,” Brian bit off, looking toward the row of stores, all shut up behind metal gates. “So, this is… quiet.” He had vowed to be nice. Or, to try anyway.

“It’s the Sabbath, usually there are a lot of the Hassidim around. They’re probably inside, chanting or something, I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “There are a lot of artists in this neighborhood, too, but it’s only ten. Everyone’s still in bed. Mostly sleeping off hangovers.”

“We could still be in bed. Sleeping off my hangover. Or… something.”

Justin didn’t need to turn to see Brian’s accompanying leer in his direction. “We’ll find you a Starbucks once we hit Manhattan again. You can find something there.”

“I’d like your something better.”

“Yeah, that might be a bit much, even for New York. Most people wait ’til after dark to start fucking in the middle of the street. Here it is!”

They turned off the street where trees wept their brown leaves onto the pavement, then walked up the front steps of a cement building that stretched five stories upward. Justin pulled out a set of keys.

“You still have your keys?” Brian asked, looking away. He needed to make sure the skeevy drug dealers weren’t following them.

“Yeah, I forgot to give them to Jim when I left.”

Great, thought Brian. Sunshine had been living in a building where spare keys were floating around god knows where in the hands of god knows how many people. Not that he cared. Except that he did.

Justin locked the door behind them, and led Brian through the front hallway, to a dark living area to the left.

“Hey, man, look at the latest!”

The older man standing in the gloom gestured at Justin to take in some sort of erection made up of… band aides? No, ribbons, glued around wire, looping around itself. The entire structure reached almost to the ceiling.

“Wow, amazing!” Justin exclaimed, stepping over pizza boxes and around the couch to take a closer look. “Jim, this is Brian, Brian, Jim.”

“Hey,” Jim tossed off, not even looking at Brian, but watching Justin’s reaction to his sculpture instead. “They’re those ribbons people wear on themselves to commemorate stuff, you know, the red ones are AIDS ribbons, pink ones are breast cancer…”

“Making up a rainbow. Amazing distortions you’ve got this worked into.”

“Yeah, I call it ‘Loyalty Knots.’”

Justin peered closer. “Interesting, trying to figure out where to place loyalty when there are so many worthy choices. The thing’s center keeps shifting, depending where you look.”

“You got it!” Jim turned to Brian. “What do you think?”

Brian wished he could say something profound, but he couldn’t even see the damn thing. He glanced around for the windows, but they were facing in the wrong direction, away from the sun. And appeared to look out at the wall of the building next door. That would explain the gloom. “What Justin said.”

This caused Jim to laugh. “Well, that explains where your center is!”

Brian did not fail to catch Justin’s concerned glance in his direction. “You’re Jim? Justin’s told me… pretty much nothing about you.”

“Yeah? Justin told me plenty about you.”

Seeing Brian’s narrowed gaze, Justin hurried in with, “He’s talking about my art, Brian.”

“Yep, pretty fucking eloquent. I was wondering when you’d show up. I mean, in person. As opposed to what he carries around with him.”

“Jim.”

Jim shrugged. “Just cuz you don’t like it said out loud, don’t mean it isn’t true.”

“Is my old room still empty?”

“Nope, but Heidi’s not here. Go to.”

Brian tramped up two flights, following Justin’s ass again. Just for a day, he reminded himself. Justin could trail him into Versace, and Prada, and Gucci… as long as they let him in, in those pants. “So you were drawing me.”

“Painting actually… this was my room.”

It wasn’t a room; it was a closet. Brian peered into the room, past Justin’s arm as he pushed the door open. There was more light here, but the room was taken up with a mattress on the floor. Besides the mattress, there may have been a five foot by two foot space of spare floor. The ceiling was fairly low as well.

“But the light’s good,” Justin said, reading Brian’s mind. “I got some work done in the morning. And, I had a futon I folded up, so it opened up the space some. But you’ve seen the canvases I’m working with now. There was just no way here.”

“Didn’t you rent studio space?”

“I tried. But I had to share, and the corner of one of my canvasses was soaked in brandy one morning. And the share schedule… it didn’t work out.”

“Where we going next?” Brian asked, already turning and tramping down the stairs, not waiting for Justin to lead this time. He needed to get out of this rabbit warren. Okay, so he got Justin’s point; there was no need to linger in it.

“Back to the city. Jim, we’re leaving!” But Jim was no longer in the living room. And Justin’s further calls failed to raise him.

“Come on, I need to get the fuck out of here,” Brian finally interrupted Justin’s worried regard.

“But I need the door locked behind me; I need to leave my keys.”

“Mail them back,” Brian answered, pulling Justin by the jacket out the front door. They stepped into the crisp fall air, and Brian sucked in a grateful breath. He stared up the taxi-less, Starbuck’s-less street, and resigned himself to getting back on the train, caffeine free. This time, he planned to stand up, even if it was a 25 minute ride. “I need coffee.”

“Okay, I know just the place,” Justin told him, hurrying to catch up after locking the front door.

“Thank god.”

* * * * *

“Justin!!” A very sturdy woman bore down on him, bustling around the tight squeeze of tables, knocking aside one of the dark chairs in her rush to reach him. She clasped him to her bosom, but Justin seemed to enjoy it, hugging her back. Holy fuck, Brian thought, he found New York Debbie.

“So!” NY Debbie said after releasing Justin and turning to Brian, “We meet at last.”

Brian nodded, as she turned back and yelled, “Hey, Kyle! Look, the model’s here!”

A man at the coffee counter glanced her way after a moment, probably used to her exclamations, before doing a double take and looking back. His face broke out in a grin. “Hey, which number are you in real life?” he called Brian’s way. “Number 10?”

What the fuck. “I was born a 10,” Brian replied, “Do you have a 10-shot latte?” But Justin was rolling his eyes, elbowing him in the side, and gesturing at the walls. Brian looked to his right, at a painting entitled “No. 7.” It was an indistinct rendering of Brian’s back, as he lay on his side, away from the viewer’s eye. Brian glanced around the café. There were other paintings with the same theme, one Brian’s clear profile, his form leaning up against the right side of the painting, others more abstract, all nudes. Suddenly aware of how the conversation in the busy café had dropped a notch, Brian turned his attention to the woman, and told her, “They’re not exaggerated.”

“Ha!” the woman responded. “Justin’s a genius! I’ve already sold 2, 5 and 6, and they’ve only been up a couple weeks!”

“That’s all? Just three?” Justin teased.

“Well, I sold #2 and #5 the first day I mounted the exhibit, and so I bumped the price way up. I sold #6 yesterday, but maybe $3,000.00 was a bit ambitious.”

Justin gaped at her. “Three thousand…”

“Yeah. The guy was French though, so I’m thinking the Euro’s inflation let him do that. I’m gonna adjust back down, see how that goes. The response is great. I’m thinking they’ll go well around $1,750.00. I’m keeping #3.”

“Works for me,” Justin laughed, then turned to Brian. “I have work in a couple other coffee shops. This is really why I wanted to bring you here. Sal’s Art Café is the best to get work put up in.”

“Yep, I’ve launched more than one career!” Sal elaborated. “He’s a genius, I knew it the second I saw your work.”

“Brian needs a latte,” Justin put in, watching Brian stare at #3. “They’re not all you,” Justin told him.

“I tell my customers they are!” Sal laughed. “Good for business. Everyone likes a beautiful man.”

“That’s the truth!” piped up a dark-haired beauty sitting at the table behind Sal. He had been eyeing Brian from the moment he stepped in the shop. Brian was too busy taking in the art to pay more than cursory notice.

Justin went to get their coffees as Brian continued to look at the paintings. He took a seat at an empty table further in, against the wall. As Sal had indicated, three of the paintings had the red “sold” stickers next to them. He was deep in thought when Justin rejoined him. “It’s only a triple latte; Kyle says if you want more, get an espresso.”

“What happened to ‘the customer’s always right’?” Brian took a sip.

“It’s a question of aesthetic. Balancing taste and commerce is an art in itself.”

“Yes, it is.”

Justin did not ask what he thought of the pieces. Brian wondered if the way his eyes would not look away from No. 4 told Justin all he needed to know. Justin got Brian’s attention back, however, when he said quietly, “I wanted to see this myself because it wasn’t up when I left. But I wanted you to see, too, that I wasn’t running away with my tail between my legs. Things are going in the right direction here.”

Brian set down his cup, his stomach suddenly twisting. “Then why did you leave?” Time to turn and face this, whatever it was. This was it.

Justin propped his elbows on the table, his hands cradling his coffee cup. Underneath the table, his leg snaked around Brian’s calf, and Brian was reminded they hadn’t fucked that morning, before Justin was rushing them out of the hotel room. They would simply have to go back before continuing on. Unless the bathroom here was bigger than a closet.

Justin took a while before answering the question. Maybe he had become distracted by Brian’s answering pull back on his leg. “Every time I met with gallery owners, they wanted to see my big pieces. I don’t have enough to show them. And, fuck, I have those big pieces in me! But you saw where I was living. And I didn’t have the proper resources to rent the space I needed, not here.”

“But you do in Pittsburgh.” Ah.

“I ran into one of my old professors at a show here a couple months before I came back, and then I called some others, and they wanted to work with me on the projects to take to the galleries when they’re done. I only have four actual required classes; the rest can be electives. Three semesters, I’m done.”

Brian’s latte burned a hole in his gut. He forced himself to drink it to the dregs, though. Then he stood. “I’m going to get an espresso,” he said, before abruptly walking away, despite Justin’s “Brian!”

He was more composed when he returned. He sat, and said, “So, you finish accumulating a bunch of brilliant work in Pittsburgh, and then, what? Back to New York?”

“Not exactly.”

“Because that’s exactly what you should do.”

“You’re unbelievable!” Justin practically yelled, before hearing how loud that sounded. He stood. “I’m getting a piece of strudel, give me a couple minutes.”

Brian gazed at the paintings some more; they were exquisite. Justin’s technique had grown, even in the relatively short time (endless time) he’d been away. There was a growing complexity that Brian couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Do you honestly think we’ll have gone through all this, for me to just flounce on back to New York as if nothing is happening?”

Brian blinked at him slowly. “Something is happening?”

“I honestly don’t know if you noticed, so here goes. Brian, in the last month or so? we got back together. Now I know,” Justin continued relentlessly, holding up a hand to ward off Brian’s protest, “this doesn’t fit in with your neat little world view of ‘Justin needs to leave the nest to grow old and bitter and thus be a better artist’ philosophy, but fuck, I missed you! There were days I couldn’t work because of it, and that’s supposed to help me?”

“Time heals all wounds.”

Justin shoved his plateful of confectionary monstrosity out of the way, to lean across the table. “Not this one. Up to the day I left, I would go to Central Park and just walk around, not seeing anything. I was in mourning…”

“Oh, please,” Brian scoffed, picking up his espresso and taking too deep a sip. Bitterness filled his mouth.

“Fine, I was moping!” Justin returned. “We all know you didn’t, you went out and found Adam.”

Brian stared down into his tiny cup. “I didn’t find him,” he finally said. “I wasn’t looking. It just kind of happened.”

Justin leaned back and studied Brian’s expression. Fuck. He chose his next words very, very carefully. “That’s fine.”

“Doesn’t sound fine.”

“It is. We fucked up. I should have known you thought you were letting me go. I should have made clear I wasn’t going to let you. So, be warned. I’m not going to let you.” Maybe it was regularly fucking Brian again. Maybe it was being back in Pittsburgh, where he wasn’t under so much stress, and had time and space to think, and feel again. But being around Brian, and feeling, really feeling, what had been missing. And he knew they could make this work, as long as he didn’t walk away. He didn’t have to. And he wouldn’t. It was that easy.

He wasn’t going to lose Brian. Not if he could help it.

Brian finally looked up. “Justin, you shouldn’t be focused on that. You should be focused on this.” He gestured toward No. 8, the most abstract of the pieces.

“I focus on that better when I’m with you!” Justin returned, happy to have an opening to repeat this part of his argument.

“Yeah, and what happens when you’re done at PIFA? You go scampering back to the city. And it just starts all over again. Or, I should say, ends. Again.”

“Number one,” Justin said, around a bite of strudel, “I’m not going to let you blow me off so easily. Again. I will remember that grunts from you are other people’s ‘I love you, Justin.’”

“Who else has been saying they love you?”

Justin, into his strudel as well as his point, ignored him. “Number two, I do love New York. You love New York, I don’t even need to see you in the Prada store to know that, but I’m going to remind you when we get there, so be prepared.”

“How did you know…?” Brian shut his mouth. He was getting far too predictable.

“But I’m not coming back here until I can afford the kind of space I want. That might mean taking freelance graphic assignments until, or if, my art takes hold. Which is another reason I wanted to get my degree. I was looking for graphic work, and I need either a portfolio of commercial stuff, or a degree, ideally both. I’m taking a graphics course now, and next term or the one after I can finally do my internship and get hands-on experience.”

“At Kinnetik.” Brian had a sour feeling. How convenient.

“No, actually, with our history on my record that would look bad. I was hoping you might help me find a good company, though.”

“Why don’t you just use the money Sal’s making for you?”

“Because it’s not commissioned work; I sold these pieces to her outright. For a fraction of what she’s selling them for,” Justin added, unnecessarily.

Despite the fact that Justin looked quite cheery, Brian expostulated, “What!? You… sold them straight?”

Justin rolled his eyes. “It’s not like I have an agent. Or even had a name to negotiate commissioned work. Sal got them at fair market value, and exposure here is really a big deal. She’s pushing my value up, now all my work is worth more. Marseille, another café over on 7th, they’re doing a couple pieces on commission. They’ll probably push the prices up now, and then I can have some money, and a reputation to seduce me an agent. I’ll definitely be able to if I get the big pieces I’m working on into a gallery, and probably some smaller stuff. Which I should. I’ve generated the interest; now I need the product.”

“You have it all figured out.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I’m set in Pittsburgh.”

“I know.” Justin eyed his plate wistfully, and fingered a final crumb into his mouth. Another piece would be piggish, wouldn’t it?

Brian stared at Justin’s lips, at his tongue licking the last of the sweetness from them. Practically growling, he tore his line of sight up to the sapphire gaze staring back at him. “I’m not coming to New York. I’m set in Pittsburgh.” He was repeating himself, but he wasn’t sure Justin got it.

“Yeah, and I’m going to headquarter there too.”

“What?”

“Why not? When I have enough money, maybe I’ll rent a studio up here, probably back in dumpy old Bay Ridge, or hopefully Chelsea if I’m making enough – you’d probably prefer Chelsea – anyway, so I can be in New York to do marketing shit and network. But I’m going to work out of Pittsburgh.” Home.

“Marketing shit.”

“Yeah, schmoozing, gallery stuff, pimping myself, and probably even work on stuff if I have to stick around long enough.” Justin waved his hand in the air. “I’ll figure it out. Actually, three of the professors at PIFA, that I know of, do exactly what I want to do. They show in New York all the time. And in Chicago. And L.A. And… well, you get the picture. As I said, I ran into one of those guys at a gallery here a few months ago, actually.”

“Right before you moved back.”

“Yep.” Justin nodded, staring Brian down. “I need to know you want this to work.”

Brian hesitated, and then he said, “Justin, whatever you want. Whatever you need to do.”

Justin started smiling, a huge smile, happiness suffusing his face.

Brian blinked at him twice. “Can we go to Prada now?”

“Yep! Are you going to feed me an outrageously expensive dinner?”

“Already have dinner reservations at Taste.”



One Year Plus Later

“Your stuff is the only reason everyone’s here.”

“Brian.” Justin swatted him in the chest with the back of his hand as they stood, side-by-side, looking at the Justin’s contribution to the senior show. The two enormous canvases were mounted in a corner, at a right angle. One was an abstract, cool colors and crazy angles. The other was more obviously Brian nude, warm tones and graceful human form. Justin considered the pieces part of a single study.

“I’m not kidding,” Brian continued, handing Justin a cup of merlot. “It’s all anyone’s talking about at the cheese and cracker table.”

“It’s after eight, you’re eating crackers?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, the bar’s there.”

“Ah.”

Justin’s head turned to take in two older men approaching them; Brian watched the apprehension in his smile of greeting. “Professor Kaniker.”

“Justin, this is my friend, Alec, the one I told you about. Alec, Justin, the one I told you about.”

“Oh!” Justin extended his hand, and shook that of the man he was introduced to. “Mr. Blake, it’s a pleasure to meet you! Professor Kaniker didn’t tell me you would be here.”

“No,” Alec replied. His eyes shifted onto the paintings. Brian noticed he kept trying to focus on Justin, to be polite, Brian supposed. Finally, the man gave up, and turned toward the work. “He just sent me images of your pieces, and I had to come and see for myself. I thought he was kidding when he told me a student had created these. They are very sophisticated.”

“Thank you,” Justin said. He hesitated, not wanting to interrupt Alec’s regard, but not wanting to be rude, either. Finally, he turned to the other man and said, “This is the model, Brian. Brian, Professor Kaniker, and Alec Blake. Mr. Blake owns the Blake Gallery on the upper West Side.”

“Mmm, yes, and I want to include these pieces in the emerging artists exhibit we’re mounting in the summer. Of course, we’ll have to figure out how to display them. This just won’t do. Maybe across one whole wall…”

Justin blinked, several times. “Oh!” He glanced over at Professor Kaniker, who was smiling broadly.

“Everyone’s here to see your work, Justin!” Professor Kaniker exclaimed.

Brian thought the color that suffused those pale cheeks was just adorable. Not that he would ever say that. And he forbore mentioning that Justin seemed to be emerging a lot in the past couple years.

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” Justin began to protest.

“I just told him the same thing,” Brian added. He seriously doubted that the two art critics he had seen, and the faculty who had all made a beeline into Justin’s corner, had come for the other crap. One student had filled his space with sculpture pieces that looked like a dog had shit all over the floor, and he kept using the word “scatological” to describe it.

“See? Your model knows the good stuff when he sees it,” Alec chuckled.

“My model owns the most successful ad agency in the city,” Justin replied dryly. “He damn well knows good art.”

Brian tamped down his annoyance at being spoken of in the third person.

“Mr. Kinney, I presume?” Professor Kaniker exclaimed, reaching out to shake his hand. “You know, maybe we can discuss Kinnetik becoming involved with our internship program. I understand you’re already well acquainted with it.”

While Justin choked on his wine, Brian, despite the sudden interest shown him for being more than just a pretty penis, excused himself to move across the room and intercept Lindsay, whom he had glimpsed entering the PIFA gallery. She looked around, and smiled as Brian approached.

“I thought you weren’t going to make it,” Brian greeted her, taking her by the elbow and steering her toward the wine bar.

“Mel agreed to watch Gus at the last minute,” Lindsay replied, taking up a cup of white. Mel had returned to Pittsburgh months before, and was once again working at her old law firm. She said she had no interest in another long, drawn out legal battle with the father of her child, and now that the political climate seemed to be shifting, there might not be a need to stay fled. Lindsay personally believed Mel’s inability to find work combined with the need to actually have work while living in Canada, was more to the point. She only confided that to Brian, however, knowing he’d keep his mouth shut. She and Mel were trying to get along as exes. “Justin’s work is amazing,” she sighed, turning and eyeing it from across the room. “I’m assuming you’re keeping me away for a reason?”

“He’s talking shop with some guy named Alex or something. Drake. Blake.” Brian shrugged. He was still miffed at being initially dismissed as Justin’s model and spoken of as if he were nothing more than a pretty boy on the grand artiste’s arm. Understandable that his beauty had distracted the other men from politeness, but still. His presence should command respect. Damn it.

“Alec Blake?” Lindsay practically squealed in response.

“Who’s Alec Blake? Please tell me he’s not stealing my partner in crime, or comics anyway,” Michael joked, coming up to the cracker and cheese spread, grabbing a plate and piling it high.

“Some gallery owner,” Brian replied.

“I was just looking at some of the stuff across the way, reproductions of old comic book figures. It’s pretty cool!”

“It’s been done,” Brian responded dismissively, earning him a glare from an older woman wearing entirely too much makeup. Probably the artist’s mother. Like her opinion mattered. The stuff was recycled Warhol.

Michael eyed the wine. “I still think it’s cool.”

“Gus really loves his room, Brian,” Lindsay continued, strolling off toward the center of the room to free up the space around the refreshment table. Brian shrugged. “It was so nice of you to take his needs into account.”

“He’s my son,” Brian said simply. The first night Gus had stayed at Brian and Justin’s new place, Justin had been in New York, at the opening of his friend Jim’s exhibit. He and Brian had agreed it would be best for Gus to stay overnight with his father, just the two of them, the first time. Gus had been slow to warm to Justin, although a great deal of his animation had returned, especially after Mel and J.R. returned to Pittsburgh. He remained wary of his father’s lover, however. That first night, as Brian had tucked him in his new bed, Gus asked, seemingly out of the blue, “Dad, you’re with Justin now, right?”

“We live together, I hope so,” Brian joked.

Gus hadn’t smiled back, but instead had turned his gaze down toward the bedding. Uh oh, Brian had thought. “Do you love him? I mean, you more than like him, right?”

“Yes, Gus. I love Justin.” Brian paused. It was weird to hear his own voice say that. Resolutely, he underscored the sentiment. “I love him a lot.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

When Justin came back from New York, Gus had thrown himself into his arms. Over Gus’s head, Justin raised an eyebrow at Brian, who had just smiled.

Someone backed up to see a sculpture mounted in the middle of the gallery, and Brian steered Lindsay away from the crush. As they moved, Lindsay asked, “How is the new apartment?”

“It’s not an apartment,” Michael joked, re-approaching them after successfully negotiating a plate in one hand, and a cup of wine in another. Brian mouthed the words as Michael recited the litany. “It’s a penthouse suite with panoramic views.”

“Of downtown and the Allegheny,” Justin added. “Hey, Lindsay.”

“Your work is amazing, Justin!” Lindsay exclaimed, hugging him. “Can I go look now?”

“You couldn’t before?”

“Brian was playing sheepdog.”

“I never play dog, but I do like the position,” Brian cracked.

“Brian!” Lindsay half-laughed, half-cried, as Michael rolled his eyes and Justin blushed. Brian slung his arm over Justin’s shoulder, and Justin lifted his face, laughing. Brian couldn’t resist; he kissed him, relishing the feeling of his lips, the slip of tongue.

“Is your mom here?” Michael asked, after they two men had broken off kissing but remained breathing each other’s air, foreheads touching, laughing softly. My orbit, thought Justin. Home. He looked over at Michael, who was shaking his head and smiling in amusement. Brian squeezed Justin’s shoulder, pulling him close to his side, and Justin leaned in.

“She and Molly were here earlier,” Justin answered. “Molly has a date, they had to leave.”

“Wow! Molly’s dating?”

“She’s only a year or so younger than sweet little Justin was when I took him home, gave him a rim job and fucked his brains out.”

“TMI! TMI!” Michael practically yelled, as Justin moaned, “She’s way too young for that! Brian!”

Three people in the near vicinity turned and stared.

Brian smirked. His work here was done.