Jilted

by Lilah Suzanne

  Link’s eyes light up. “I thought you might like it.”

  Carter continues to take in the space. The cement floors are gray, and the walls are white, but the beams and joists that are set in a basic grid throughout the loft have been painted in various bright shades: red around the dedicated living room space, blue around the kitchen, purple for an office with a desk built right into the beams, orange for a closed-in bathroom, yellow for an open bedroom space. “You live here?”

  Link perches on the corner of a sofa with one leg crossed over the other and arms loose as they track Carter’s exploration, asking with a coy head tilt, “Do you approve, Mister Architect?”

  The furniture is all metalwork in clean lines and simple shapes, topped with cushions and fabrics in bold, colorful patterns. Like Eli’s apartment, artwork is infused into the space without making it cluttered. And it manages to still be homey, which isn’t easy to do in an industrial steel warehouse. “Well, the building is likely a prefab,” Carter muses. “Built for durability, low overhead costs, and speed of construction. Certainly fits in with Sullivan’s ‘form follows function’ principles.”

  Link lifts one eyebrow. “And that is…”

  Carter strolls to a bookshelf built flush into a wall. Nestled among the books are colorful vases and bowls that Carter recognizes as Eli’s work. “Basically, it means the essence of a building should be determined by its intended function or purpose. In other words, a warehouse looks like a warehouse, functions as a warehouse, is a warehouse.” He sweeps an arm out to indicate the space. “A home should feel like a home, look like a home, function like a home.”

  “So,” Link says. “That’s a yes?”

  “That’s a yes.” Carter moves back to the living room area, stopping just at Link’s crossed legs, daring to lightly draw a finger around one knee, testing the waters. “Of course, even Sullivan considered the theory to be too dogmatic. After all, if we only designed for function, we’d all be out of a job pretty quickly.” He himself has a secret flair for Art Nouveau ornamentation. Carter walks two fingers up Link’s leg. “And you know my weakness for ornate French Creole and Italianate decorations.”

  Link’s legs uncross, bracketing Carter’s hips; ankles tucking around and pulling him closer. “God, enough dirty talk. Kiss me.”

  Carter kisses Link with slow drags of his lips and tongue. Warmth pools pleasantly in Carter’s belly; his thumbs caress the line of Link’s jaw. Link’s palm slips beneath the back of Carter’s shirt, and Carter moves in closer, breathing Link in, no longer shocked at how deeply and instantly Carter falls when his lips touch Link’s, willingly giving himself over entirely—

  Link pulls back, putting their foreheads together and pulling in a steadying breath. “In the interest of starting off on the right foot this time, I just—” They blink up at Carter, so close Carter can catalogue the flecks of green and yellow and brown in each iris. “I moved so quickly with Jamie, and it blew up in my face. I don’t think I can go through that again, and I—”

  “That’s fine,” Carter reassures. He strokes a thumb across Link’s cheekbone. “We’re just…” What did Eli say he and Paige were doing? “We’re hanging out, right? It doesn’t need to be anything more than that.” Carter would almost believe himself if the words hadn’t stuck in his throat like barbs. He wants this to be more, but he’s not sure exactly what that would mean, so when Link asks, “Are you sure?” Carter nods and loses himself in Link’s lips. Keeping things casual would be a lot easier if kissing Link didn’t mean getting pulled headlong into an undertow.

  Carter pulls away this time, intent on putting some space between their bodies, but he can’t resist ducking in and dragging his lips across Link’s throat to taste the lingering salty tang of sweat. Link moans into Carter’s ear and scratches fingernails across his back.

  He wants to drown in Link.

  Moving away to catch his breath, Carter gathers Link’s hair and tucks it behind one shoulder, exposing their neck and jaw and ear for Carter’s mouth; he bends forward, then something catches his eye. The far back window pane has been replaced, and, instead of clear, flat glass it’s done in colorful textured circles. Carter squints to figure out what the arrangement of colors is meant to be. “That’s interesting.”

  Link, dazed, with slow blinks and glassy eyes, says, “Interesting is not the word I’d choose.” Then they follow Carter’s gaze to the back of the loft. “Oh, that.”

  Carter walks closer to see the details of the glass, the way the circles are arranged, then reaches out to touch the ridges and bumps and indentations. The floor below is dappled in little pools of blue and green. “They’re wine bottles? The bottom part, right? Is it meant to be flowers or… a forest?”

  “I don’t think it’s meant to be anything in particular,” Link says, coming to stand next to him; their fingers brush Carter’s hip.

  Carter’s never been one for abstract art. He feels uncultured and simple when he can only see the details and never the full picture as the artist intended. He needs art to look like something. He drops his hand from the glass, feeling silly. “Oh.”

  Link scans Carter’s face for a long, searching moment. Looking back at the window, shoulders swaying a bit, Link comments blandly, “Jamie made that.”

  “Oh. She was an artist too?” That makes sense.

  “She dabbled, I guess. Jamie spent a lot of time trying to figure out what she wanted and who she was. I don’t know how much that had to do with your… with Matthew. I hope she figured it out.” Link’s tone sounds pained. Carter was naïve to think that Matthew and Jamie would stop coming up.

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  Link moves away from the window. “No. Clean break.”

  Carter slides his feet so a halo of green falls over his shoe. “I saw Matthew.”

  As they shrug back into the top half of the fireproof coveralls, Link, expression flat, flicks their eyes over Carter’s face. Without meaning to, Carter put distance back between them. If he and Link are really going to start off on the right foot and do this correctly, they both probably have to start with the people who brought them here. “We should talk about this.”

  “I know,” Link says. “How was it? Seeing him again?”

  Carter moves his foot in and out of the little green circle. He could tell Link the full truth: that finally confronting Matthew helped him to realize that by trying so hard to be someone Matthew could love, he’d lost himself. He could also tell them that the week he spent with Link because of that was happier than the seven years he’d spent with Matthew. When he’s with Link, he feels found. Confessing that is too much too soon.

  Carter finally decides on, “It’s complicated.”

  Twenty-five

  Carter tackles the kitchen remodel first, because it’s the smallest space with the least involved projects; other than the floor, he needs appliances and a fresh coat of paint on the cabinets after sanding them. The countertops are soapstone, which ages beautifully and just needs a bit of a polish. On the day his new oven arrives, Carter starts on a backsplash made of ceramic tiles in comforting neutral tones. He’s just gotten the little square tiles all lined up on the counter when Eli and Paige come back from a date. Eli plunks a cooler filled with beer and ice on the counter and nods at the rows of tiles laid out face down and ready for mortar.

  “What’s this?” He moves a tile out of place; Carter frowns and puts it back.

  “Backsplash.”

  “Do you even know what you’re doing?” Paige asks, hauling herself up on the counter, taking out a beer, and bumping several tiles out of the way, probably on purpose. Carter’s frown deepens. “In a sense,” he replies, moving the tiles back. “How hard can it be?” He’s not exactly an interior designer, but if he can plan out all the fiddly details of building a whole house, a kitchen backsplash should be no problem.

  Eli accepts
a beer from Paige, opens both of their bottles with an opener attached to his keychain, then points with the open top of his beer to the wall above the oven. “Well, how are you planning on arranging them? What sort of pattern?”

  Carter looks at the wall, looks at the tiles, looks at the wall. “A… next to each other pattern?”

  Eli gives a dismayed-sounding grunt, sips his beer, and looks at Paige, who says, “Now you see what I mean.”

  Eli nods and adds, “They’re a little boring, too.”

  “That makes sense,” Paige informs Eli, “because Carter is so boring.”

  Carter crouches to open his bucket of mortar. “I’m starting to understand what you two see in each other,” he mumbles. Then, louder, “Doesn’t Eli have his own home where you can go and not have to suffer through my boring and patternless backsplash?”

  Link is coming by with the finished table soon, even more reason for them go away. But they ignore him. Paige swings her legs, and Eli leans on the counter next to her. She fixes his hair and calls him “E,” and he toys with the seam of her sleeve, and they’re really cute and really in his way. Carter gets the first line of tiles in place, then stands back to size it up. It looks fine. Clean and simple and classic and—“It’s boring.”

  Eli and Paige “Mmhmm” in unison. Eli snaps his fingers. “I’ve got something in the car. Hold on.” He’s barely gone long enough for Carter to scowl in Paige’s general direction before he returns with a small wooden crate and Link.

  “Oh,” Carter says. “I didn’t hear you drive up.”

  “Had to park down the street.” Link, out of breath and clutching one side, leans in the doorway. “Suddenly really wish you’d asked for bookends or something. Whew.” Carter drops the trowel, heedless of the quick-dry mortar still smeared across it, and rushes to help drag the table the rest of the way in. It’s round and not huge, but heavy and awkward, with spindly stems grasping the top like vines. No, like branches.

  “It’s a tree,” Carter says. The base of the table has a wide, textured trunk, and the top is set on branches that are tipped with shining silver leaves. It reminds Carter of the tree they picnicked under the first day he and Link spent together—or, the first sober day they spent together. Carter still barely remembers the actual first day. He crouches to inspect the table; it’s made of copper tubing, he thinks, and reshaped springs, and cuts of metal siding for the leaves. “Wow, a tree. Thanks,” he says.

  Link nods.

  “That’s Carter-speak for he loves it, and he loves you,” Paige calls out.

  Carter’s neck goes hot, Link looks ready to bolt out the door, and Paige says, to a look from Eli, “What?”

  “Uh. Hey,” Eli says, shaking the crate he’s still holding. “I have some leftover custom tiles. Carter, why don’t you pick some out, and we’ll spruce up that backsplash?”

  A couple of hours and several beers later, Carter’s house has a backsplash of simple, classic tiles with a little eclectic flair thrown in. They sit together around Carter’s new table, Carter on the overturned mortar bucket and Link in one camping chair, Eli in the other with Paige draped sideways across his lap. The house is open to the mild evening: a soft breeze, chirping crickets, and the quiet noise of the neighbors going about their lives.

  He and Link and Eli are talking about a boutique that wants to feature some of Link’s work for “exposure” and no pay, when Paige, who had been unusually quiet, blurts, “So what’s the deal here?” She gestures between Carter and Link. “’Cause we’re all bored with the ‘will they, won’t they’ thing.”

  Link, perhaps still unused to Paige, stares at her, eyes wide. Carter sighs and replies mildly, “Paige, have you ever considered minding your own business?”

  She crosses her legs over Eli’s knees. “Not really.”

  Eli tries to change the subject to some issue he’s having with the owner of the warehouse, but Paige looks too unrepentant and Carter is too panicked about the look on Link’s face. Carter is already walking a very tentative line lest Link get spooked and run off again; he is trying so hard to not be pushy, and here Paige just—

  “Who is ‘we,’ anyway?” Carter says, when Eli’s story pauses.

  Paige kicks a foot in the air. “Like, the royal we. You know.”

  Carter leans forward in his chair to tell Paige exactly where she can stick her royal we, when Link finally speaks up. “We’re just… hanging out.” Their tone is off. Carter tries to read why in Link’s expression. Is that not what Link wants? Is Carter still being too pushy? He should never have dropped by and asked Link to make the table for him. Carter’s stomach twists anxiously, and he turns his turmoil onto Paige.

  “Since when do you care about my love life? Other than disapproving of it.”

  “You’re my brother, Carter.” She pivots, legs dropping to the floor. “Of course I care.”

  Carter’s arms cross; he leans away as she leans closer. “You certainly have a funny way of showing it.” He’s being defensive and unfair, aiming to wound. Paige has been really supportive lately, and he’d rather leave all of their antagonistic-sibling history behind; yet it stubbornly stays, weighing down the present. Perhaps there is no such thing as starting over.

  Link’s fingers drum on the table, breaking the silence. “So, the landlord?”

  “Oh. Yeah,” Eli says. “So the dude calls and—”

  “You were just so… you,” Paige interrupts, as if there hadn’t been an obvious attempt to move the conversation to less uncomfortable subjects. “And I couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t just, like… stop. Why you made things so hard for yourself.” She hops off Eli’s lap, then drags the cooler from the kitchen to the table, puts it next to Carter, and sits on it sideways. “I thought, like, maybe if I was hard enough on you, you’d try to fit in. Stop getting picked on at school and at home. I spent so much time making excuses for you, you have no idea.”

  It’s an old hurt; stale and scabbed over, but not gone. “Sorry that who I am as a person was so difficult for you, Paige.”

  “That’s not—urg.” She looks at Eli, who grimaces and shrugs. She blows out a loud, frustrated breath. “That’s not what I’m saying. I am saying…”

  Carter waits, arms still crossed defensively, for her to continue about what a burden he apparently was in front of Link and Eli, who are both are very clearly wishing they were anywhere else.

  “I am saying that I was wrong.”

  Carter sits up with a start. “What?” She was what?

  “Don’t make me say it again.” She rolls her eyes, without actual contempt, perhaps even at herself. “Honestly, I… I admire that you don’t care what other people think about you, who you are, who you date, what you’re interested in, what you wear. I worry about you and I haven’t always handled that worry appropriately, and I…” She sighs heavily. “…am sorry.”

  She is what?

  “Oh. I. Okay.” Carter looks from Paige to Eli, who is smiling at her with a mix of pride and fondness and an intimacy that makes Carter quickly look away, to Link, who is looking at Carter with a soft, encouraging smile. His heart trips in his chest.

  “I guess I… I haven’t always been very kind to you, either. So, I am also sorry.” There’s a moment of new understanding. It’s nice, but Carter doesn’t want to hug her or anything. The past is still the past, so he nods, for a start. Paige nods.

  Eli says, “Aw, what a sweet sibling moment.”

  Paige makes a gagging noise, and Carter hmphs.

  “Welp, I need to get home and get some sleep,” Eli says, coming over to tug Paige up from the cooler and winding an arm around her shoulders. They go upstairs to say goodbye. Carter is finally alone with Link, as he’d hoped to be all evening.

  “I should probably get going, too,” Link says.

  “Oh.” Carter nods, too much and too fast. “Yeah, of cours
e. It’s late.” He heaves himself up from the bucket to walk Link to the door. It feels like the other moment just before they’d ended up all over each other, that pull toward Link, that connection tugging them closer and closer. Carter holds back, and Link shifts awkwardly, then pecks Carter on the cheek, jogs down the front steps and calls, “Talk to you soon.”

  As he’s trying and failing to fall asleep, Carter contemplates exactly how slow is slow, because it’s starting to feel as if he and Link are going in reverse. He blames Paige and her big mouth. He rolls over on his side. No, that’s not fair; he blames himself. Next to his sleeping bag, Carter’s phone lights up with a message. Hoping it’s Link wanting to continue the evening after all, Carter grabs for it. But it isn’t a message from Link. It’s a picture from Matthew.

  Twenty-six

  The pleasantly warm spring weather is turning less pleasant by the hour, and Carter is adjusting to the deep South’s heat and humidity in the same way a lobster adjusts to being boiled alive.

  The house still has a long way to go, and Carter’s progress slows as he fights through the stifling weather in a home without air-conditioning. On the warmest morning yet, he gives up on hauling out old carpet and wall paneling—too hot for any of that—and sets up his laptop on the kitchen counter next to the largest window and the strongest fan in the house. Paige comes downstairs in a long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans rolled up to her knees, and hair in a ponytail beneath one of Eli’s baseball hats.

  “Off for a morning of clam-digging?” Carter comments.