Brush Strokes

by E S Karlquist

  He locks Sandwich into her cage while Daniel is gone. Usually she can hop around freely in his room while he’s at home, but he isn’t sure if Daniel is comfortable with the risk of stepping on her in the morning.

  “Do you want to finish the episode?” Daniel asks as he enters the room again.

  To be fair, Todd doesn’t remember much about the plot, but he likes this. Hanging out. So he nods.

  He curls up against Daniel’s side, pulls one leg to his chest, and stares with unseeing eyes at the screen as he allows himself to be distracted by Daniel’s body heat once again.

  “Are you tired?”

  Todd nods against his knee. “Yeah, you?”

  “Sorry?”

  Swearing internally, Todd straightens and turns toward Daniel. “Sorry. I said yeah and asked if you’re tired too?”

  “A bit,” Daniel confesses. “I kind of like the show we’re watching, though, that’s why I’m forcing myself to stay awake.”

  Because he hasn’t hung out with anyone in a long time. Because of midterms. “We can hang out tomorrow as well, unless you have to leave early.”

  Daniel shrugs. “Around lunch. I have afternoon practice.”

  “Oh, okay.” Todd glances at Daniel’s wristwatch, wondering if it’s a good idea to be awake at three-thirty in the morning the day before practice. Daniel probably knows, though, so he doesn’t comment on it.

  Todd lies on his side after a while, with his head resting just nothing away from Daniel’s thigh.

  Netflix’s combined curse and blessing is the automatic continuation of the episodes, but tonight Todd doesn’t mind when a new one starts.

  “Do you want to watch another one?” Daniel asks. He’s leaning back against the wall now, and Todd suspects that he’s getting pretty sleepy as well.

  Todd, too tired to lift his head and speak, reaches up and squeezes Daniel’s forearm once.

  “Is that a yes?”

  Todd squeezes again.

  There’s a moment of silence before Daniel says, “Okay, if that meant no, I can’t tell.”

  Todd snorts. He probably should just sit up and speak the way he’s fully capable of doing, but then Daniel continues:

  “Do it again if it means yes.”

  Todd squeezes once.

  “How efficiently we communicate.” Daniel sounds amused.

  Smiling to himself, Todd doesn’t withdraw his hand from Daniel’s arm.

  He has no clue when he falls asleep, but it’s amidst a bunch of onscreen murders. When he wakes, he’s partially covered by his duvet, and his face is pressed against something solid and warm.

  Alarmed, Todd bolts upright so fast that his vision blurs. When it clears, he takes in Daniel’s barely-awake form. He’s blinking, probably woken up by Todd’s commotion.

  The laptop is placed on the nightstand. Todd must have fallen asleep, and Daniel must have decided not to wake him up or perhaps he tried and failed.

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” Todd says without thinking. He doesn’t remember that there’s no use, until Daniel’s reply doesn’t come.

  When he starts to get out of bed and give Daniel his promised space, Daniel reaches out to stop him.

  “God, just go back to sleep.”

  It takes Todd a second to decode Daniel’s words and then he sighs. He is tired and he doesn’t feel like putting sheets on the couch and finding a spare blanket. If Daniel doesn’t mind, then neither will he. He’s shared a bed with Mela a billion times. It’s no biggie.

  He turns over and ignores the overwhelming heat beneath the covers. He goes back to sleep with his back pressed against Daniel’s arm.

  * * *

  The next time Todd wakes, it’s light outside, and Daniel is still asleep. He’s on his back, with his light hair barely a contrast against the white pillowcase. His eyelashes are fanned against his high cheekbones, and his lips are slightly parted.

  He’s gorgeous.

  Todd swallows and nudges him gently. It’s probably already close to lunch, and if Daniel is supposed to make it to practice, he might not want to sleep all day.

  Daniel only groans and tries to turn away. After a few nudges, he slowly blinks awake. The next moment is one Todd’s going to store away for a long time.

  Daniel’s eyes search, unfocused and aimless with sleep. Todd watches the small crease form between his eyebrows, as if he can’t place the string lights or the wall art. And then, Daniel’s eyes find his face and take in the state of Todd’s hair, sweep down to his lips, and finally connect with Todd’s gaze. Then, a smile slowly spreads across his face, and the crease between his eyebrows smooths out.

  “Hi,” he says, voice soft, and the way he looks at Todd makes him want to kiss him.

  “Morning,” he replies, unable to keep himself from smiling back. “Will you teach me how to sign that?”

  The question is out before he can stop himself. It’s not Daniel’s job to teach him. Worried that he has ruined the moment, Todd sits back on his haunches.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Daniel frowns, and Todd wants to smack himself for making that smile disappear. Instead of replying, Daniel reaches over to the bedside table and gets his hearing aids. Todd watches him close the battery door and then put them in.

  “Come again?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I know that it’s not your job to teach me. There are classes for that.”

  “Can you repeat that?”

  Todd does, doing his best to say the exact same thing.

  “I don’t think there’s an entire class for teaching you how to say good morning.” Daniel grasps his wrist gently. “You need to stop apologizing so much. Asking me to teach you one sign isn’t the same thing as asking me to teach you the entire language, and I’ve already told you that I’m fine with you asking me things. I’m capable of saying no, you know.”

  Todd relaxes, concentrating on Daniel’s fingers on his skin.

  “I don’t speak for anyone but myself, though.”

  “All right,” Todd says.

  “Was it good morning?” Daniel asks.

  “Yes.” Todd does his best to concentrate on Daniel’s hands and arms as they move. He has obviously slowed the movements for Todd’s sake.

  “One more time?” Todd leans forward on his knees to see better.

  Daniel smiles and does it again. He says the words as he signs them, and that definitely makes it easier.

  Todd shuts off the part of his brain that’s terrified of failing and tries to mimic the hand movements.

  “No, wait,” he says, immediately knowing where he went wrong, and tries again.

  “Good.” Daniel reaches up to adjust where Todd’s hands meet slightly, so that his fingers don’t touch his palm, but the fingers of his other hand. He smiles when Todd tries again and nods his approval.

  “Thanks for teaching me.”

  “It’s my pleasure.”

  Todd smiles to himself and does the sign a few more times, just to practice. Daniel’s watching him the entire time, with an odd look on his face that Todd can’t place.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asks then.

  “What?”

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did.” Daniel’s face is still so soft and open. “You were right. I really didn’t want to miss out on your bed.”

  “Well, you got the unexpected addition of me in it.”

  “Which was nice,” Daniel says, as though sensing that Todd is about to apologize again. “Otherwise I would’ve tried harder to wake you up.”

  Todd has to admit to himself that waking up with Daniel definitely is one of the better things he’s done in a while.

  “It was a good night.”

  “Yes.” Daniel smiles. “It
was.”

  Todd looks at him, while his gaze has drifted off to look at the knickknacks in Todd’s bookcase again. He’s freaking gorgeous, and he’s in Todd’s bed, and nothing happened. It’s somehow both a disappointment and a relief. He taps Daniel’s arm to get his attention.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks, to distract himself from Daniel’s naked chest and stomach as he sits up. When he looks around, he finds that the sweatpants he forgot at Daniel’s last week are lying neatly folded on his chair under the closed laptop.

  “I’m always hungry.”

  “Do you like pancakes?”

  Daniel stares at him. “Like isn’t a strong enough word.”

  Todd snorts at the unexpected excitement on Daniel’s face. “I make mean pancakes.”

  Watching Daniel eating pancakes is the most distracting thing Todd has ever been through, and he once took a croquis class with nude models. Daniel eats more pancakes than anyone Todd knows and he eats them with such enthusiasm that Todd suspects he doesn’t do it very often.

  “Don’t they let you eat pancakes when you’re a swimmer?” he asks, with a bite of pancake pushed into his cheek.

  Daniel frowns, then shakes his head. “It’s really difficult to read your lips when you have something in your mouth. The way you shape your mouth changes.”

  “Sorry, I’m just gonna—” Todd points to his mouth and gulps down the last of his pancake, wincing when he can feel it go all the way to his stomach. He chugs some juice and then wipes his mouth on a paper towel. When he looks up again, Daniel is smiling slightly.

  “What I said was: Don’t they let you eat pancakes when you’re a swimmer?”

  “Come again?”

  Todd repeats the question.

  “If I can eat pancakes?”

  Nodding, Todd adds: “Because you’re a swimmer?”

  Daniel licks syrup from his bottom lip. “I can. I just rarely let myself, because it’s not very healthy.”

  “I have pancakes at least once a week.”

  The look of disbelief Daniel gives him makes Todd laugh.

  “That’s so unfair.”

  “The only one stopping you from doing the same is you,” Todd can’t help but point out.

  “I’d sink like a stone if I did.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” He sips his coffee but remembers to put his mug down before he continues. “Besides, I read somewhere that muscles weigh more than fat.”

  “What?”

  “Muscles weigh more than fat.”

  Daniel kicks his foot under the table. “Stop it. Don’t enable me.”

  Biting his lip, Todd suppresses a smile. Like this, Daniel is like any other friend, except for the way he makes Todd’s skin tingle and his world narrow to whatever space they’re in.

  “Can I ask you something?” Daniel asks, making Todd look up.

  “Sure.”

  “It’s about your brother,” Daniel says tentatively.

  Evan also has a way of making Todd’s chest too tight, but in a very different way. This isn’t a moment Todd wants to spend talking about Evan.

  “Go ahead,” he says anyway.

  “He called you when we met for coffee, if you remember?” Daniel speaks in a careful way that reminds Todd of when he was a kid and tried to get a snack from the fridge while his parents were still sleeping. He still knows which floorboards creak.

  “Yeah.”

  “You said that you weren’t going to call him back, and I got the impression that it wasn’t just because you didn’t have time then and there.” Daniel pauses. “Was my impression correct?”

  Looking away, Todd licks his dry lips as he tries to find his voice. “Yes.”

  “You have to face me.”

  He turns toward Daniel as much as he can. “I’m sorry. I said yes.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  Daniel scoots his chair closer, and Todd gets flashbacks of the first time they met. Once again, he’s fascinated by the size difference of their thighs.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Daniel says, pulling him back from his thoughts.

  “It’s okay.” Todd swallows and digs his fingers into his own thigh. “It’s not that big of a deal, really.”

  At that, Daniel keeps quiet, watching him intently, and Todd takes a breath before he continues. He hasn’t talked to anyone except Mela about this.

  “Evan’s four years older than me and he’s always been the good one, you know? He was great in school, valedictorian and everything. He’s pretty great at anything, really.” Todd shrugs, and there’s bitterness in his tone now.

  “What did you say after school?” Daniel asks.

  “Valedictorian.”

  Frowning, Daniel seems to puzzle over it, but Todd starts fingerspelling, reaching the I before Daniel’s sighs at himself.

  “Valedictorian? Of course. Keep going.”

  “I looked up to him a lot when I was younger. I did everything I could to be like him, but I never quite… managed. Um, school hasn’t been very easy for me. I have trouble concentrating and theoretical stuff takes a long time for me to learn. It mostly just goes in one ear and out the other.”

  “Theory is difficult for you?” Daniel checks in.

  Nodding, Todd continues. “The last few years, I’ve discovered ways that make it easier for me, like using flashcards—” He digs his phone out to show Daniel his app. “—but, Evan, he’s amazing at everything he tries, and everyone who meets him loves him. He went to school in L.A., and he was great there too. Naturally.”

  Scratching his knee, Todd swallows the unwelcome lump in his throat.

  “We got along much better when he was there, and we talked on the phone a lot. I kind of came to accept not being able to be him, so I decided to be me instead. I got my own interests and group of friends.”

  “Wait, you’re speaking really fast, can you slow down for me?” Daniel stops his fingers where they’re scratching at his sweats. “And repeat what you said after telling me that you spoke on the phone a lot.”

  It’s easier talking fast. That way he gets away from the subject sooner. Speaking fast now, however, excludes Daniel from whatever he’s saying, and that’s the last thing he wants. So he slows to his normal pace and, even though it burns a little more to repeat his words now when he can’t rush them, he sticks to it.

  “Okay, keep going.”

  “I sort of had my own thing, with the art and stuff. It was a really great time, actually.” He glances up at Daniel, who’s still looking at him with intense focus, as if he doesn’t want to miss a single word. “As I said, it’s not really a big thing. He did an internship in L.A. and then moved to Vancouver to work with TV show production and he stopped caring, I guess.”

  “Come again with the last bit? Where did he move?”

  “Vancouver. He works with TV show productions. And then he stopped caring.”

  Daniel nods.

  “It was kind of a drawn-out process, where he forgot promises and to call or things that mattered to me. He never understood my interests, and I think he’s thought of it like I’m wasting time and education on something useless. After a while I guess I just gave up on caring too.”

  He doesn’t feel like talking about Evan’s endless promises to come home for a visit and never actually showing up or forgetting Todd’s birthday two years in row or how he canceled last minute on Todd visiting him, forcing Todd to leave the airport with his packed bags. He doesn’t want to mention the constant comments on Todd’s choice of college and his love for art. They aren’t big deals one by one, but after a year of constant letdowns and then not being told about the move to Vancouver until it was already happening, Todd decided he’d had enough.

  Staring at his own hand for a long while, Todd wonders what Daniel is thinking. He’s so quiet. Then, slowly,
as if to give Todd a chance to pull away, Daniel’s hand moves from his own knee to Todd’s, squeezing gently.

  “Can I say something?” His voice is so soft that Todd can barely hear it.

  When he looks up, he finds Daniel’s gaze and the concern on his face. “Yeah.”

  “Is this the first time he’s called you since he moved to Vancouver?”

  Shaking his head, Todd threads his fingers together to stop himself from putting his hand over Daniel’s. “No, he calls at least once a week nowadays.”

  “And you don’t pick up?”

  “No.”

  Daniel’s quiet, and Todd can tell that he’s trying to find the right words. “If he calls you once a week, do you really think he’s stopped caring?”

  Beginning to pull away, Todd swallows the acidic taste in his mouth, but he stops pulling away when Daniel squeezes his knee again.

  “I don’t mean it like that. Not like a criticism of you.” He untwists the knots of Todd’s fingers and rubs his thumb over Todd’s knuckles. “There’s nothing wrong with how you feel. If you don’t want to talk to him ever again, then don’t. I just want to put it out there, that if you want to reconnect with him, I really think he’s trying to reach out to you.”

  “I doubt he thinks he’s done anything wrong,” Todd mutters.

  “What?”

  “I doubt he thinks he’s done anything wrong,” Todd repeats.

  “You won’t know if you don’t give him a chance to prove you wrong.”

  “Or right,” Todd adds.

  “Or right,” Daniel agrees. “It seems like it’s wearing on you. Maybe you’ll be able to close that box for good if he really doesn’t want to talk it out. Maybe you won’t need a box at all if he does.”

  Todd takes a breath and allows himself to meet Daniel’s gaze for a long moment. He looks honest, as if he really does want the best for Todd.

  “Okay,” Todd says finally. “I’ll think about it.”

  In return, he gets a smile almost identical to the one he got when Daniel woke up.

  Soon Daniel leaves for practice. Todd wishes he had an excuse to hug him when they say goodbye at the front door.

  Chapter Six

  Todd tries to focus on preparations for his classes, he really does, but his thoughts always return to Evan and the conversation he had with Daniel this morning. Now, it’s obvious that Evan’s been trying to get a hold of him. Mom and Dad have gotten involved during the last few months, and, if Todd’s honest with himself, he knows that Evan wants to talk to him. No one calls this often unless they want someone to pick up.