“I like the traditional ones,” she answered defensively. “Nothing’s wrong with a chicken cordon bleu.”
“But that’s so uninspired. Chicken and ham, dude! What’s exciting about that? Try out the wacky shit sometime!” Her voice went sing-song as she continued. “I can guarantee that you’d liiiike iiiit…”
“When’s the last time I’ve enjoyed a recommendation of yours?”
She looked between the two of us. “Um. Remember that one time that I convinced you to come downstairs and head to the bar with me? When I mentioned the totally hot British guy, sipping away at his–”
“Point taken,” Riley quickly interjected. “Point very, very taken.”
“Oh?” I chuckled between bites. “That sounds like a story.”
“Don’t you dare,” she cut in, glaring daggers at Reiko. Well… very dull, half-joking daggers, but daggers nevertheless.
“Try something cool next time, and I won’t!”
“Fine.”
“Fine, what?” Reiko smiled widely.
“Fine, I promise to try something ‘cool’ next time,” Riley answered in defeat.
“See! I don’t really ask for much, do I?” She laughed, aiming the question mostly my way. “It’s all bellyaching with this one. Total stick in the mud. Set in her ways… sometimes, you’ve just gotta break her out of that shell, you know?”
“I think I’m starting to see that,” I grinned.
Riley looked between both of us.
“I don’t think I like you two being friends.”
“Oh, c’mon bruh!” Reiko laughed again, throwing an arm around my shoulder. “Inseparable as fuck. We’re two peas in a pod! Two beans on a stalk! Two…”
The scraping noise started up again, and she almost lost her shit completely.
“Goddammit, Parker!”
When she leapt off the barstool and went to go rescue her expensive restaurant equipment from her crewmember again, Riley and I shared an eye roll as we tore back into our sandwiches.
I realized in that moment that just I couldn’t ignore it anymore. This girl was absolutely wonderful, and I deeply enjoyed our time together…
…And I thought that I might just love her.
Riley
The next time I lifted a paintbrush, I was astonished at how quickly I slipped into the zone. The colors came naturally to me, and the delicate, intricate swiping of bristles against canvas sang a chorus of victory into my ears.
A few hours later, I was facing another landscape painting. To the untrained eye, it was just like my previous, failed paintings – dozens of them, sitting in the Closet of Doom in my apartment.
But this painting didn’t belong there.
I gazed at the soft strokes of paint, at how the creek raced down the forest floor. It hooked a steady bend in the foreground, pouring down a steep, brief drop-off into a bed of smoothed large stones. The water turned white with activity, rustling towards the viewer, carving its path through the trees.
There was no other life here, no traces of animals nipping at the rushing water or tucked away behind the flora. It was only a glimpse into the woods, flowing with berry bushes, strong and sturdy trees, and sprawling branches.
All of which gave way for their passionate, reigning god: the roaring, rustling creek, choosing its own place and cutting a path of life through the rest.
I smiled to myself: the magic is back.
I began to clean up, washing my brushes and checking the easel to ensure the paint would dry to an optimum efficiency. The last thing I needed was for my first acceptable painting in months to fuck up in the cool-down process.
For the first time that day, I thought about Connor and Reiko. They had both grown busy with their prospective jobs, and I’d been filling my time with Lex…
But Connor in particular was starting to become somewhat of a hassle.
It had been obvious since high school that he was developing feelings for me. The advent of college, and even disappearing for a year off to Finland, had done nothing to push those feelings down… and now that we were growing into our mid-twenties, he was finding it hard to keep himself restrained.
He thought, perhaps, that he was being sly with the obvious glances, the lingering gaze, and the way he’d drop whatever he was doing to come drag around me if opportunity struck. The only reason I didn’t see more of him than Reiko was that he was kept so busy running his record store.
But as soon as Lex Lambert had entered the picture…
Perhaps it was because Lex was clearly hanging around, and I was clearly fine with it. Maybe it was because Connor knew that I was a total Anglophile, and that dating – or even just fucking – a handsome, older British man was too much for him to ignore.
Either way…
He was clearly aggravated about this.
That’s why I kept myself occupied a lot of the time. I started to blow him off, when I was really hanging out with Reiko, or sometimes I’d tell the truth and let him know that I was going over to Lex’s place, or he was coming to mine.
I thought back to the previous day, when he’d cornered me at my place and invited me out for breakfast. Reiko was busy with the shop, and I didn’t have any excuse to not go… and I felt a little bad about constantly blowing him off.
So I had gone out with him.
“There’s something wrong with him,” Connor confided over a half-eaten stack of pancakes and some bacon slices. “What’s he doing, hanging around here anyway?”
“Connor…” I muttered. “Don’t do this.” The conversation had been going so well. We’d been talking about his record business and my paintings, but inevitably…
“Don’t do what?” He asked, almost accusingly. “He doesn’t have a day job, he lives out of some cheap hotel, he was just sitting and drinking every night until you showed up… he goes and visits around the city, but why is he here?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean, I never bothered to really ask him most of those details,” I answered defensively. “He’s some kind of football player on vacation here. What’s to know?”
“He wears high-end suits and disguises how loaded he probably is,” Connor stated, remaining on the offensive. “It’s suspicious.”
“It’s pissing me off,” I replied.
“You too, huh? I knew you weren’t that dense.” He grinned, swallowing down another bite. “Let’s see what we can dig up on this guy. Have you even googled him?”
“No, Connor, you’re p
issing me off,” I told him. “Just fucking drop it, okay? If there’s something there, he’ll tell me, alright? I trust him. I don’t need this to get complicated. I like that it’s something simple… something easy. There’s a hard deadline set, and he’ll be gone soon. Just let me fucking have this while it’s here to be had.”
Connor looked positively wounded. “But Riley, I just don’t want you to be–”
“To be hurt?” I hissed. “I’ll be fine. You’ve known me for a long time, Connor. I’ve got thicker skin than most. I’ll manage.”
“Speaking of that…”
I noticed him take a deep breath.
Oh, no. Not now. Don’t do this.
“Riley… I tried to keep it to myself, but I can’t help it anymore,” he began, clearly lowering himself to the point of complete vulnerability in front of my eyes. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. Ever since we were kids, and I fought off that bully for you–”
“This isn’t the time,” I insisted.
“When is the time, Riley?” He demanded. “It’s never the right time, is it? Because you don’t want to hear it. And that’s fine for you and all, but I can’t help the way that I feel–”
“Connor, please stop,” I pressed. “You know that I’m with Lex. If you had to let this out now, you could have waited another month or so–”
“That’s not good enough,” he told me under no uncertain terms. “I know that you’re falling for him. God, Riley, it’s so fucking obvious. And I’ve seen how he looks at you, too. You’re both going to hurt each other, and that’s all there is to it.
“And then I’m going to have to come in and scoop you up, just like I always do when you get too attached to a guy.”
I paused warningly, raising an eyebrow.
“…Excuse me?”
Connor realized his mistake, but it was too late for him to back out of the corner he’d painted himself into. “Wait… that’s not what I meant. Riley, you know that I’ll always be there for you–”
“We’re finished,” I told him, rising up from the seat and tossing down a ten and a five onto the table in front of him. “I’m taking a few days. I’ll contact you first. Leave me alone.”