I swallow the last of my wine and turn toward him. “What were you going to say about your place?”
He doesn’t answer right away, finishing his beer before he takes my empty cup and leaves to discard both. Unbothered, I slip behind another few guests until I’m positioned in front of a second picture, this one in color. Freshly mowed grass. A brand-new gravestone, made for someone who didn’t live to see their 27th birthday. And a muddy boot, its shoelace coming untied, angled to suggest an intentional stop and the chance to mourn this loss. Lovers? Siblings? Friends? A stranger who caught the eye of this passerby and gave them a chance to say goodbye to a dozen people they’d forgotten?
Adrian probably knows a lot less about this one, and it doesn’tmatter when I ache either way.
Then Darren returns, his hand just under the back of my jacket when he steps closer than necessary, even in a crowded room. “I haven’t really done anything to the house since Beau moved out. It’s a nice little place. Nothingneedsto be done, so I just—haven’t.”
It makes little sense that a man who doesn’t stop moving hasn’t redecorated several times over, but I let that go and approach from an angle that feels less like a diagnosis I’m not qualified to make.
“And it’s never strange—bringing guys back to a house that’s very much the one you shared with your husband, and not one that you’ve made your own?”
He licks his lips and watches me carefully. “How much have you changed about your house in the past nine years?”
“I don’t bring anyone home.”
“Neither do I.”
It’s immediate, my recollection of Darren’s invitation to stay at his house the night of my accident. At the time, I’d been so far gone to my vulnerability, and I hadn’t considered the possibility that there was anything that could’ve turned Darren upside down. I know he’s prone to the kind of sex that wouldn’t often follow him home, but I’m shaken by the knowledge that there’s been nobody at all. I’m suddenly curious whether our same filthy conversation would’ve taken place in his bedroom too, or whether he was only willing to drop to his knees on my floor. Then my voice fails me for reasons I can’t explain, but he’spatient with me all over again, and I don’t fight hard enough to thank him. Not yet.
Eventually, I clear my throat. “So, is there really an erotic section here, or were you just giving Beau a hard time?”
He smiles slowly, a beautifully crooked little thing. “I have given Beau many, many hard times, but there is also an erotic section here, and I’d be happy to spend some time there with you.”
“There are probably a lot of people over there already.”
“Is that your way of saying you’d rather stay where we are?”
“No,” I answer. “It’s my way of saying we’re going to end up pressed even closer together as soon as we get there.”
His hand falls away from me, but I catch him easily, my pinky linked with his so I don’t lose him when he leads me toward the back of the gallery. The layout of the primary space is simple—four rectangular pillars in an otherwise open room—but beyond that, there’s an area separated by a pony wall on the left and a more closed-off section to the right. I assume the latter is for the restrooms, and probably a small office, but we end up surrounded by at least a dozen people murmuring about the display here. I think hanging these in the furthest corner of the gallery was probably for Adrian’s comfort, but he should be ridiculously proud, and I guess I’ll have to tell him that later.
For now, I’m caught up in quiet lust.
Two fingers pushed between barely parted lips. A hand splayed over a deeply arched bare back. Fingertips nearly lost in the dark curly hair at the end of a happy trail. The tip of atongue tracing a vein that must be exactly where I think it is, except that the picture is cut off so precisely that nothing more is given away. A zipper being tugged downward, over a bulge prominent enough to suggest something weeping with need, and from where I’m standing just behind Darren, I don’t deny that it’s a sensation I know well.
Darren reaches back for me, his hand slipping between us to stroke me once, then twice. “Are you getting hard while looking at my ex-husband’s dick?”
“Pretty sure I’m getting hard thinking about yours.”
“Jake.”
“What? Did you think I wouldn’t answer your question?” I ask, the tip of my nose brushing against the shell of his ear before I leave room for plausible deniability. “In all the time you’ve known me, have I ever been shy?”
“Not at all, but you’ve always been private. And you’ve never had a man touch you like this in the middle of a fancy gay party. Wasn’t sure you’d let me get away with it.”
My eyes fall to a picture of a man’s chest, covered in dark hair just starting to gray, and wet streaks of milky white. It must be Beau again, unless Adrian has other models willing to bare themselves like this, but I don’t care who it is when I envy the state he’s in. I twitch, and Darren adds more pressure just before he takes his hand away, but I focus and keep my voice steady.
“I’m plenty private, and I’ve never hadanyonetouch me like this in the middle of a fancy gay party,” I clarify. “And I think you have a good idea of what you can get away with.”
“Do I?”
“We can’t cause a scene. I won’t do that to Beau or Adrian.”
Darren nods, his back still turned. “And we can’t leave yet. We haven’t been here that long, even if I think we’ll both spend enough on these pictures to cover the cost of an apology.”
“You planning to hang nudes of your ex in your bedroom?”
“No, but if you want to hang them in yours, don’t let me stop you.”