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Grand Adventures Page 16

by Dawn Kimberly Johnson


  Dylan was actually one of three artists being featured at the grand opening, with Misa Oyama and a guy named Mikael Anisimov. Dylan knew Misa, who was an abstract painter and mixed-media sculptor, but Anisimov was new to him. They had a standing bet that he had made up his name. (Roan also wanted to add/subtract an extra ten if his real name turned out to be something bland, like John Smith or Michael Jones.) While Roan felt acutely out of place in stuffy, classy settings like this, he did have endless fun poking and prodding the stuffed-shirt types, even if it was behind their backs to Dylan alone. And sometimes they had decent drinks and nibbles, although not nearly enough.

  From the outside, the gallery was a stark white box, lit up with small pinlights so it seemed like the walls glowed. Although they found a parking space easily, there were a good number of cars in the parking lot, giving them hope of a decent crowd.

  The interior of the gallery also seemed to glow white, presumably the better to show off all the colorful artwork, and while Misa’s bright abstracts initially greeted them—and Roan liked them, being a general fan of good abstract art—a walk around the corner revealed the snack table and the start of Dylan’s section.

  There was already a man standing in front of one of Dylan’s photos—this of Roan’s back with fake wounds painted on, contrasting with his actual tattoos and drawn-on curse words—part of Dylan’s “war words” sequence (there were four of those in all). Roan grabbed an unknown nibble (meat in phyllo dough—smelled like a sausage of some variety), and a red drink that smelled of schnapps before standing beside the man. He made sure Dylan was out of earshot, greeting Misa, before he asked, “What do you think?”

  “It’s a beautiful photo,” the man said, gesturing at the picture with his drink. “But I really wish we could see this guy’s face.”

  “Why?” Roan wasn’t about to volunteer it was him. He never did. If Dylan mentioned it, fine, but he didn’t feel like talking about whether his tattoos were real or not. It was Dylan’s evening, and it was his time to shine.

  “I mean, look at his body,” the man said, gesturing down toward the other photos. Although they were from different sequences, there were four photos of a body-painted Roan in the show. One showed his chest, one his back, one his right arm, and another his stomach. There were no photos in any sequence that showed his entire face, because that was the deal. Roan would be Dylan’s living canvas, but only if he was effectively anonymous. “I can’t believe a guy with a body this cut isn’t gorgeous.”

  “It happens.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t buy it.” The guy faced him, showing him his good eye. He did just have the one, as the other eye was glass. Not only was it frozen and unmoving, but glass eyes had a certain reflective quality that normal eyes didn’t have. “Rick.”

  “Roan,” he offered.

  As he expected, Rick’s eyebrow went up. “Really?”

  “Really. Believe me, I wouldn’t have picked it myself.”

  “Why not? It’s not bad.”

  “Yeah, but if I had a nickel for every time someone called me Ron or RoAnne, I could pay for a new life with the change.”

  Rick chuckled. “You know you’re talking to a guy named Rick, right? It rhymes with a lot of things, as kids on the playground would be happy to tell you.”

  “You should stay away from the playgrounds. Kids are dicks anyways.”

  That made Rick laugh really hard, and Roan took the moment to try the hors d’oeuvre. It was fairly tasty but way too small. It needed to be about the size of a baseball to make him happy.

  A well-muscled man joined them, gazing at Roan with open curiosity. Rick put a casual hand on his brawny arm and said, “Jamie, this is Roan.”

  Jamie sized him up with a glance and said, “Hey,” holding out his hand.

  “Hey,” Roan replied, shaking his hand. He had a strong grip, but with those pecs, he’d better.

  “So who are you here to see tonight?” Rick asked.

  “I mostly like to people watch,” Roan admitted. “Although this Dylan Harlow guy is something else.”

  “Yeah, these pictures are great,” Jamie said, looking at the photo in front of them. “But I’d really love to know what this guy looks like.”

  “Could it be the artist?” Rick wondered.

  Jamie snorted. “You think these are a bunch of selfies?”

  “You never know,” Roan said, taking a sip of his drink. It was a designer cocktail of some stripe, overly fussy and overly sweet, and while it wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever had, Roan figured he’d abandon the glass first chance he got.

  Rick glanced around. “The artists are all here, right?”

  Roan held up his glass to hide his smile as Jamie and Rick looked around this part of the gallery at the other works of Dylan’s hanging up in the area. Dylan had included one of his “bleeding hardware” series, which was one of Roan’s favorites and was just what it sounded like: inanimate objects inexplicably bleeding, like the aftermath of violence with the actual violence removed. It should have been pretentious and campy, but Dylan’s photo-realistic art made it all look so creepy.

  “What’s this Anisimov’s art like?” Roan asked, as he was genuinely curious.

  Jamie made a sour face that pretty much said it all. “One step above velvet Elvis.”

  Roan allowed himself a chuckle. “That bad, huh?”

  “I hope you’re not talking about my work,” Dylan said, joining them. He put an arm around Roan’s shoulders, meaning that his cover was blown. Oh well.

  Rick and Jamie both looked at Roan with varying degrees of surprise. Rick seemed more amused than annoyed, which was a good sign. “Dylan, meet Rick and Jamie.”

  “Wow,” Rick said. “You’re Dylan Harlow? For some reason, I thought you’d be older.”

  “Really?” he replied, glancing at his work. “Is there something here that screams ‘old man’?”

  “Besides the half-naked hottie you’re painting on? Nothing,” Jamie said. Rick tried to give him a subtle elbow, but Roan saw it.

  Dylan dipped his head and smiled. “Fair enough.” Roan gave him the drink he had, and Dylan sniffed it warily. “How bad is it?”

  “Too sweet and yet still kind of bitter.”

  “Smells a bit like a Cactus Cooler, which would fit that description.” One of the caterer’s waiters was passing by with a half-empty tray, and Dylan deftly put the drink on it as the man moved on. Rick and Jamie were giving Dylan a look of curiosity, and when Dylan realized it, he said, “My day job is bartender.”

  Jamie raised his eyebrows. “So, you’re a starving artist, and yet you’re still getting this guy’s okay to paint on him? My hat’s off to you.”

  “I’ve heard he’s a slut,” Roan said.

  “Aww, don’t talk that way about my muse,” Dylan said, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead. That meant Roan was lucky he’d escaped getting a noogie in public.

  Jamie put it together. Although Roan’s outfit wasn’t formfitting, he looked from the photos to Roan’s body and back again. “Holy shit, you’re the model.”

  Rick looked him up and down slowly and gasped. “You are! Dude, you could have said something.”

  “He enjoys being a sneaky bastard too much,” Dylan said. Roan thought it was unfair he was just revealing his trade secret like that.

  “Were you in the military?” Jamie wondered. At Roan’s quizzical glance, he pointed at the photo of his back on the wall. “That scar looks like a bullet wound.”

  That revealed Jamie as an Army vet, and Roan could see his gaze settling on the scar that bisected Roan’s eyebrow and the ghostly one near his upper lip. He was probably sizing him up as a much rougher individual than he first thought, and he was correct. “No, I used to be a cop.”

  “You?” Rick blurted in disbelief and instantly slapped a hand over his own mouth, the horror blooming in his eye.

  Roan snickered. “Don’t worry, I get that a lot.”

  Jamie studied him with a n
ew respect, or something quite like it. “From cop to artist’s model? There has to be quite a story there.”

  Roan shrugged and realized there was no better time than now to escape. “Not really. Well, it’s been nice meeting you guys, but—”

  “Not so fast,” Dylan interrupted. He locked his arm with Roan’s and faced Rick and Jamie. “Since Roan here decided to do his comedy act and play dumb, why don’t we make it up to you by walking through my installation? I’ll answer any questions you have about my art, and Roan will answer any questions you have about him.”

  Roan looked at Dylan. “I will?”

  Dylan’s brown eyes fixed on him in a rather intense way. “Yes, or you’re sleeping on the couch for the rest of your life.”

  Roan sighed, because he knew when he’d been bested. “You can be so mean sometimes. Some Buddhist you are.”

  Dylan ignored that, giving Rick and Jamie a friendly smile. “Shall we?”

  The men exchanged a questioning glance, and then Rick shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  They started walking, and Rick asked, “So how many of those tattoos are real?”

  In retrospect, Roan realized he shouldn’t have been such a smartass. Too little, too late.

  Holding Court

  CARDENO C.

  To Eric and TJ, with love and hope for a brighter tomorrow.

  I.

  “WHERE ARE we going?” Esav Walters asked as he folded his six-foot-seven-inch frame into the passenger seat of his friend’s BMW. His knees were almost hitting his chin. “And why do you insist on spending tons of money for a car with bad gas mileage and no leg room?”

  “It’s a BMW,” Brendan Jones replied as he backed out of Esav’s driveway.

  “That’s nonresponsive,” Paul Richter said from the backseat.

  “We’re not in court. I don’t have to respond to Esav’s stupid questions.”

  Shaking his head, Esav said, “My questions are never stupid, and you’ve never appeared in my courtroom.”

  “And whose fault is that, Judge Walters?” Brendan asked sarcastically.

  “The state bar ethics committee, the ethics rules governing federal judges, and common sense,” Esav responded.

  “I think he skipped ethics class in law school,” Paul said from the backseat.

  “Bite me,” Brendan replied as he veered into traffic.

  “I think that’s what he was doing during that class,” Paul volleyed back.

  “Hey, are you sure you want to go out tonight?” Esav said. “Because you can turn around and drop me back at my place and then go home and get it over with.”

  “Get what over with?” Brendan asked.

  “He’s saying we want to screw each other silly, but we haven’t, so we’re bickering instead,” Paul said.

  “Oh. Never mind about the courtroom thing. I hate appearing before clueless judges. Seriously, Esav, who’d you blow to get on the federal bench?”

  “What Brendan is nicely trying to say is that this isn’t sexual tension,” Paul explained. “We genuinely enjoy acting like bitchy assholes to each other.”

  “The sex is okay too, though,” Brendan said distractedly. “Hey, where is this place again?”

  “It’s on Washington and First Avenue in the old county courthouse.”

  “Why are we going to court on a Friday night?” Esav asked.

  “The old courthouse,” Brendan said. “After they built that new glass-and-marble waste of taxpayer resources, the county sold the building, and somebody turned it into a wine bar slash coffee shop slash art gallery slash bookstore.”

  “That’s a lot of slashes,” Esav said.

  “Well, it’s supposed to be really cool, and I’m driving, so that’s where we’re going.”

  “Next time you guys ask me to go out with you, please remind me to say no.”

  Before long, they were pulling up next to a white brick building with huge metal letters spelling Holding Court attached to the front. A wood-and-brick half wall had been added to an area on the left side of the building, creating an enclosed patio space. Strings of bulb lights swooped down over the space, giving it a warm glow. New trees and flowers were planted in front, showcased by bright landscape lights. A crowd gathered outside the tall wooden doors, and the sound of laughter and music spilled out.

  Esav had driven by the place countless times over the years, but he hadn’t ever paid it much attention. Now it was impossible to miss.

  “See, what’d I tell you?” Brendan said as he pulled into the parking lot. “This is the place to be.”

  “It looks great,” Paul said.

  Esav grunted.

  Brendan hopped out of the car and joined Paul, who had managed to get out even quicker. Esav cursed under his breath as he hunched his broad shoulders so he could slide out of the car without getting a bruise.

  “I hate your car.”

  “Yeah, well, too bad. The car’s hot, and it’s not my fault your mommy gave you growth hormones instead of vitamins as a kid.” Before Esav could come up with a response that would be appropriate for a public setting, Brendan said, “Let’s go,” grabbed Paul’s hand, and dashed toward the doors.

  Esav straightened his blue button-down shirt, combed his fingers through his black hair, and followed them at a leisurely pace. The bar wasn’t going anywhere.

  Brendan and Paul were waiting for him when he stepped into the grand space. The rich wood-beamed ceilings soared thirty feet above them. Colorful stained-glass images of Lady Justice lined the very top of the walls, and beneath them, the cream plaster held dozens of paintings and photographs.

  “Wow,” Esav said as he looked around. “This is really amazing.”

  “See?” Brendan practically bounced. “We should check out the coffee shop and bookstore, but first—”

  Paul put his arm around Brendan’s shoulder, and in unison they pointed to a space over Esav’s shoulder and shouted, “Bar!”

  Esav chuckled at his friends’ exuberance, turned around, and started weaving a path through the crowd. With his size, it wasn’t a problem, because people tended to move out of the way for fear of being run over.

  He headed toward what used to be the judge’s bench but had been turned into a long bar. Above it hovered old ceiling fans that had been converted into chandeliers. Behind it, two giant lawyer’s bookcases held glassware and liquor bottles. And between those bookcases hung a painting that stopped Esav in his tracks.

  “Ow!” Brendan shouted as he ran into Esav’s back.

  “A little warning before coming to a sudden stop, big guy,” Paul said.

  Mesmerized by the artwork, Esav ignored them both.

  “Oh, this way!” Brendan said, apparently having found an opening in the crowd.

  “Come on, Esav,” Paul added.

  Esav couldn’t speak, let alone walk. All his senses were occupied by the image before him.

  A man lay in a four-poster bed. His arms were wrapped around someone who was perched on top of him, but only hints of that person’s skin showed because the image was made in that person’s perspective. The main subject of the painting, on the other hand, was very exposed: olive skin, furry chest, thick arms, a square jaw, black hair, green eyes, and an easy smile. Esav recognized that bed. He recognized that man. After all, he saw him in the mirror every day. But he hadn’t smiled like that in years. Not since the night of his graduation party. Not since the night he’d held Court Swanson in his arms.

  II.

  “HI, ESAV. How, uh, how are you?”

  Turning away from his old high school buddies, Esav moved his attention to the lanky guy standing next to him. The tall, lanky guy. The tall, adorable, lanky guy. His younger brother’s friend sure had grown up nicely. If twenty could be considered grown up.

  “Courtland Swanson.” Esav transferred his beer from his right hand to his left one and clapped Court’s shoulder. “How’ve you been?”

  “Good,” Court squeaked, cleared his throat, and then, in
a deeper voice, said, “Good. I’m good. Uh, congratulations on becoming a lawyer. That’s really great.”

  Esav’s parents had insisted on throwing him a party to celebrate finishing school and starting his first job at a big law firm. So he’d driven from his new apartment in Denver to spend the weekend at his childhood home in Colorado Springs.

  “Thanks,” Esav said, feeling his mouth stretch into a smile. Court was cute when he was nervous. And if memory served, he was nervous a lot.

  “I heard from Dylan that you got a really good job, but he didn’t remember what kind of lawyer you were going to be, so I, uh, thought I’d come ask you.” Court gulped. “Because you’re here anyway, and I’m here, and, uh, so, yeah.” He glanced down and scuffed the toe of his shoe back and forth on the pine floors. “Ehm. Yeah.”

  It was good to see that Court was just as sweet as an adult as he’d been growing up. A lot of the kids Esav’s brother Dylan brought around had annoyed the hell out of Esav, but never Court. He was always smiling and blushing and staring at Esav while pretending he wasn’t. Although the attention had been flattering, the five-year age difference between them had prevented Esav from thinking of Court as anything other than a cute kid. But he sure didn’t look like a kid anymore.

  At six feet seven inches, Esav was used to being the tallest guy in the room, but he was pleased to note that he didn’t have to look down too far to meet Court’s brown-eyed gaze. He figured the blond to be at least six two. And though his build was much leaner than Esav’s, his muscles had filled out nicely.

  His attention captured, Esav stepped closer to Court. “So, tell me what you’re up to these days.” He pushed the hair that covered Court’s eyes to the side, smiling when he heard a small gasp. “Are you in college?”

  “Art school.” Court glanced up, meeting his gaze. “Um, Esav?”

 

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