“What’s wrong?”
“Just a little sore. The sculpting.”
Oh, yeah. His big chunk of marble lives in the church—in another atrium. Sometimes I forget.
“Have you been working on it more?”
“I slip in there when I need a break from the mural.”
Guilt fills me. That I’ve never even asked about it. He rubs my back almost every night as I drift off beside him. I don’t know massage like he does, so I rarely even try. Because I think it won’t feel good.
I move closer to him now, though, and toss my shirt on the bed. “Come here.” I close my hand around the top of a chair, drag it over to me. “Sit here.”
He’s holding a small pot of something.
I ask, “What’s that?”
“Just some CBD rub. Little bit of THC in there, too.”
“Helps your shoulder?”
“Yeah.”
He sits in the chair, and I kneel down beside him, take the rub. I push my fingers in and scoop some ointment out.
“Where is it?”
He presses the spot—it’s between his neck and shoulder—and I rub there lightly. “Tell me what to do,” I tell him.
His eyes close. “Harder.”
I rub harder, gliding my thumb around. He lets out a sharp moan.
“Oh. Did that hurt?”
“Good hurt.”
I keep rubbing, and he’s groaning, and I’m hard. I dig a little deeper, and his body stiffens.
“Too hard?”
“’S okay…”
I find a rhythm and intensity I know he likes, because he starts to slump against me.
“Fuck,” he moans.
“This bothers you a lot?”
“For years,” he says.
“You ever get it looked at?”
“Insurance.”
“They’ll pay for it.”
His lips twist, and his eyes cut up toward me. “I don’t have insurance.”
“You don’t?”
“I’m an artist.”
He groans again.
“A good one,” I add, rubbing harder.
“Fuck that feels good.”
“Does it hurt you every day?”
“It’s okay.”
“My doctor can take a look.”
He twists his face up in perplexed amusement. “No way. That’s too risky for you.”
“You’re my employee.”
He grins. “Is that what I am?”
“It is.” I rub my thumb around a little more. “And I need you in working order.”11VanceSomething shifts between us after that rub. He leaves, and I fall asleep. When I wake up, I text him, and he takes a long time to reply. All his texts after that are short and infrequent. He never tries to meet me on the church’s campus, and when I go home at six, sore as shit again, I’m wondering if he’s going to show.
I change into gray sweats and an old, torn Rolling Stones T-shirt and set up camp on the half-heart couch. I don’t want to be up in the bedroom, waiting—just in case he doesn’t come. The couch is danger too, though. Even the booth in the kitchen bothers me.
Every hour that he doesn’t text or show up ratchets up my tension.
And then it’s 10:40. There’s Southern Comfort in the cabinet. Of course. I take a bottle to the couch and take long pulls from it till I’m able to lie back without my heart racing. Still restless, though. I get up and walk to the front window. Why can I still feel it?
More to drink. Less feel-y.
The half a heart couch. I laugh at that.
At first, I don’t realize that the clomps I hear are footsteps. Then he’s right in front of me, an apparition, still in work clothes. He’s got something in his arms. He sets the white box down, steps toward me. His gaze sweeps me.
“V?” His feline eyes are wide, his perfect Luke face troubled. “V?” he says again. “What’s wrong?”
I put a hand over my face. Fuck him.
“It’s because I didn’t text,” he says.
“It’s because—” I fumble for the bottle. “Southern Comfort. When there’s Southern Comfort in the Joplin house…you gotta do it.”
He kneels by the couch. A sad smile twists his lips. “I can tell now,” he says softly. “I can see it when you’re lying.”
I laugh—try to. “I’m not fucking lying, dude. I don’t give a shit about your texts.”
He looks somber. “I brought something for you.” He goes over to the box, about the size of a typewriter case. “It’s for your shoulder.”
“What?”
“It’s a TENS unit.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll see.”
I get up to check it out, and the room tilts. I’m sort of drunk, I guess. As soon as I get over to him, he wraps both his arms around me. His lips press against my hair. When he draws back, he captures my hand.
“Let’s go upstairs. I’ll come down and get this in a minute.”* * *LukeI feel almost ill with remorse. For how thoughtless I’ve been, how unforgivably dense. The chill guy I met on my yacht a few years back— This guy whose hand I’m gripping right now isn’t him.
I should have noticed the night I slipped in and watched him eat his burger, told him to go home. Sometime between the yacht and now—sometime between the cabin and those minutes in the atrium the day he arrived—my Vance changed. Maybe it was when I acted like I didn’t know him in the atrium. It could have been that New Year’s night I left the hotel lobby as he came through the door.