Never: A MM, Opposites Attract, Fairy Tale Retelling Romance (The Pennymaker Tales Book 4)

by Tara Lain

  “Sorry. Wish I was. Anyway, I work for an ad agency, and I’m searching for a new look. Something amazing and revolutionary. I saw your art and came back on the chance I’d find you.” He pointed at Parasol Girl. “She remembers. I was here about 9:00 p.m., and I asked her if she knew who the artist was. Right?” He stared at her. “You remember?”

  The elf glanced at her.

  She shrugged. “Guess.”

  The guy of many ethnicities said, “So what do you need this new look for?”

  “Uh, a campaign for peanut butter.”

  “How much you gonna pay for it?”

  “Well, we’d have to negotiate that. Discuss it.”

  “Gonna pay a retainer?”

  Wen kind of chuckled. This guy had seen Good Will Hunting one too many times. “Usually we negotiate a flat fee.”

  The guy leaned forward toward the elf. “Sounds like a rip-off to me, Peter.”

  The elf—Peter?—gazed at Wen with a bright but unreadable expression. In that amazing group of people, Peter should have faded in. Instead, the pure vitality of him vibrated at some pitch only dogs would hear—dogs and Wen. It was almost painful to look away.

  Many Ethnicities said, “What advertising agency?”

  “What? Oh, Allworth Creative Communications.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  Peter looked over his shoulder, smiled, and said, “How many advertising agencies have you heard of?”

  The guy raised a shoulder. “None.”

  They both burst out laughing. Peter looked back at Wen. “Doesn’t matter ’cause I don’t sell my art for shit.” He whirled and sprayed another swath of white down the middle of the creation.

  “No. No, please!” Without thinking, Wen raced toward the group, wove between them, and slammed into the wall, pressing his body against the painting. “Please don’t destroy it.”

  Whoa. Face-to-face. The boy Peter stood only a couple of feet in front of him, that extraordinary face even more amazing up close—lashes thicker, cheekbones sharper, lips fuller. And the eyes—as green as an emerald in an ad for Tiffany.

  Peter cocked his head. “If we don’t erase it, the subway cops will. Why should I let someone else destroy my art?” He grinned. “There’s always more where this came from.”

  “Can I—can I take a picture of it before it’s gone?”

  “Sure. Knock yourself out.”

  Wen pulled his phone from his pocket. “Would you pose with it?”

  “No chance, man. I’m not for sale. Take your picture or it’ll be gone.”

  Wen snapped photo after photo. Finally Peter stepped in front of him. “Enough. Come on, you guys.”

  With the cans of white paint Parasol Girl had given them, they started spraying the wall. As more and more of the brilliant colors and swooping shapes disappeared under the sameness of the spray paint, Wen fell back against the tile on the pillar and held his stomach. Destroying something that beautiful, that original—it had to be a sin, if there was such a thing.

  Finally Peter stepped back, glanced at the now blank wall, and tossed his spray can back in the girl’s bag. He turned and looked surprised, maybe, to see Wen still standing there. “You don’t look so good.”

  “That was a crime.”

  “You ever see the mandalas the monks make on the ground out of sand? Those things are, like, epic. Every color and line, sheer perfection. The first wind that comes—poof. You gotta learn.” He smiled and spread his arms. Sumo Guy stepped over and picked him up like they were about to dance a pas de deux, raised him over his head, and Peter raised his legs back to flying mode as Sumo Guy headed up the stairs.

  Wen pushed away from the wall. “Learn what? What do I have to learn?”

  Peter’s voice, dancing and full of music, floated down the subway stairs. “Art’s ephemeral, baby. If you want it to come back to you, you have to let it go.”

  “Wait, please. Where can I find you? How can I get a hold of you?”

  “No one holds me, man, and you’ll find me in Neverland.”

  Gone, all of them, like so much smoke—or fairy dust.

  Wen let out his breath. Every cell in his body vibrated in horror and disbelief—with an underpinning of magic. Did it really happen? Had those people, that boy, really been there? He stared at the plain white wall—blank. Like Wen’s chances of success.

  Chapter Three

  Dragging around a subway station at 2:00 a.m. seemed like a ducky idea the night before. This morning? Forget about it. The subway might as well have run over him, he felt so crappy, and he had nothing to show for it.

  Photos of samples from artists and graphic designers worldwide crowded his screen. I need to reset my eyes—and my brain—and my heart. Nothing did it for him like the explosion of wondrous originality on that subway wall.

  Or Peter, that amazing boy.

  But you can’t have it or him either, so get over it.

  For just a second, Wen dropped his head to the desk.

  “This isn’t an encouraging sight.”

  He jerked his head up. Laila leaned against the opening in his cubicle. Wen grimaced. “Sorry. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “The kids okay?” Laila had babysat for John a couple of times so Wen could take Michaela to a movie or out to dinner by herself.

  “Yeah, they’re great.” He glanced up and caught her knowing eyes. “Or as great as kids with an uncertain future can be.” He grinned to diminish the doom.

  She stared at his screen. “Nothing?”

  “Nope.” With a shrug he wiped a hand over his face. “Maybe there is and I just can’t see it. I ran across this amazing art, and I just can’t get anything else in my brain. Why don’t you sit down and look with me?”

  She dragged a chair over to his desk and started scrolling through the links on his laptop. “So if you saw great art, why are we looking for something else?”

  “The artist isn’t interested in selling anything.”

  “Seriously? Most artists would give their teeth to get a commission that could help pay the bills.”

  “Not this one.”

  “Can I see the work? Where’s the link?”

  “No link. The art’s gone.” The thought of that creation disappearing under white paint made him cringe.

  “You mean someone else bought it?”

  He shook his head and sighed. “I mean the artist painted it over with white spray paint.”

  “What? Where the hell was this?”

  “In the subway.”

  “The subway? I’m so confused.” She laughed.

  He sat back in his desk chair. “I saw this art in the subway and went back there last night on the chance that I might, you know, catch the tagger in the act.”

  “This art is graffiti?”

  “Yeah. The artist showed up and painted over his work. He said the subway people would do it if he didn’t and that art is ephemeral.”

  “Was he on drugs?”

  “Maybe. Plenty strange.” The image of the kid flying in above the head of Sumo Guy flashed in Wen’s mind, and it made him laugh.

  “What did it look like?”

  Wen pulled out his phone and opened his photos. He held the phone out to Laila. “Disregard the white stripes painted down the middle. He was in the process of destroying it.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “I agree.”

  “It’s so—“

  “Yes.”

  “And he destroyed this?”

  “Yep. Said there was plenty more where that came from.”

  She looked up. “So let’s go get some.”

  “Can’t. I have no idea where I’d find him. When I asked how to reach him, he just gave me a snarky answer. I’m guessing he won’t go back to that subway station, at least for a while, since he knows I’m looking for him. Later’s too late.” Wen took his phone back from Laila and resumed searching through art samples. “All I know is his name is Peter. Actually, I don’t know
that for sure, but one of the guys called him that.”

  “Guys?”

  “Yeah. He was with this totally weird posse. Bizarre.”

  “Really sounds like a drug addict.”

  Wen nodded, then stared at her dark eyes. “But if he’s on drugs, you’d think he’d want money for more.”

  Peter Panachek stood in the aisle between cubicles in the big ad agency and stared two rows over where, if he bent a little, he could just spy Wendell Darling, the one who’d stayed up all night just to see him. The pretty man was sitting at a desk talking to a dark-haired girl. Wonder if she’s his girlfriend?

  Peter adjusted his dark glasses and shifted the pizza box he carried when he’d waited for the receptionist to go to the restroom and sneaked into the office. Wish I could go closer. Wendell’s fair hair gleamed in the light. His boyish face brightened and his hands waved like a music conductor as he spoke. So animated. So graceful. So original despite that silly, silly suit he wore. Peter wanted to eat him with his eyes.

  “Hey, kid, are you taking that to the break room?”

  “What? Oh, uh, yes, sir.” Peter glanced at the stocky man in the turtleneck that made him look like his head grew out of his chest and tried not to laugh. He wanted to pull out his pens and draw him. Why were so many ad agency people assholes?

  “It’s down that hall on the left. Get going. You shouldn’t be loitering here.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry.”

  He hurried toward the spot the guy had pointed to, passing by rows of cubicles with bodies in them, like boxes of people. Peter shuddered. They called this agency creative. Jesus, as if you could yank creative ideas from people’s brains like so many prize chickens.

  When he saw the door marked Break Room, he glanced back. Turtle Man was looking the other way. Peter stepped into an empty cubicle, squished the box that had held pizza before his five roommates got ahold of it, and pushed it in a trashcan. Then he walked the other direction down the hall, cut right, and approached the aisle between cubicles that passed by Wendell Darling’s desk.

  Pulling his dark cap a little lower, he turned again and walked with purpose toward his target. As he got closer, he slowed and listened over the buzz of people talking on phones. Appropriate, since all their voices sounded phoney. He giggled at his joke. Have to remember that.

  As he got closer, the dark-haired woman’s voice stood out. “What about this look? It’s got some of that same vibrancy and power you liked.”

  Peter poised for the response, almost holding his breath.

  Wendell said, “But none of the humor or whimsy. We need that if we want to animate.”

  Peter exhaled slowly at the sound of his voice. Why do I like it so much?

  The woman said, “How about this?”

  “Do you like it?”

  She made a snorting sound. “Not compared to your subway genius.”

  Peter froze. Subway? What about the subway?

  Wendell exhaled with a hush Peter could hear even down the aisle. “Face it, we’re not going to win with anything less than extraordinary. Henderson’s already decided we’re crap. It’s going to take a nine-point earthquake of an idea to change his mind. Good enough isn’t going to cut it.”

  Peter leaned against the cubicle wall to listen. A couple of people were clicking their computer keys nearby sounding like insects, but no one was paying any attention to him. He cocked his head toward Wendell’s cubicle. Are they talking about me? Maybe he sees people in subways all the time. Does he think my painting was a nine-point earthquake of an idea?

  “Hey, buddy, what the hell are you doing lurking around here?”

  Peter shot a glance over his shoulder. Turtle Man hurried toward him.

  Shit, get out of here. Breaking into a trot, he rushed toward Wendell Darling’s cubicle just as the girl with the dark hair stepped out. With a teeth-jarring jolt, he slammed right into her, she fell back, and he bounced off the sidewall of another cubicle. “Sorry. Really sorry.”

  “Stop that guy!” Turtle Man ran toward him. Damn.

  Wendell stuck his head into the aisle, and for an instant their eyes met. “Wait. Who—? Are you—?”

  Run!

  Dodging lookie-loos who peered out of their offices, Peter raced down the aisle, leaped over a mail cart, and plowed straight through the front doors of the ad agency. He kept running down the hall and into the stairwell before he stopped to catch his breath.

  He slammed against the wall, his chest heaving, and then he leaned forward, hands on his thighs. Whoa. His stomach clenched. Why did I go in that place? I hate places like that.

  His heart slowed a little and he raised his head, soaking in the quiet of the ugly service stairs. That’s where Wendell Darling works. Strange. How could anything creative get done there? All that fear and anxiety.

  He doesn’t belong there.

  Peter inhaled slowly. Who am I kidding? Of course he does—or he wouldn’t have chosen it.

  Peter shook his head to dislodge the memories. I’m the stupid one for even walking in that hellhole because of some guy I don’t even know. Some guy from trash world, selling his soul on the open market.

  Peter closed his eyes and sucked in a long column of air. That moment in the subway when the guy ran to the wall and tried to protect the painting played on the screen of Peter’s brain.

  Wendell has eyes. He can see. So few people can. I can’t just let him drown. Can I?

  Wen pushed through the revolving door of his office building—or maybe his life. It felt more like the building was on his back. With a snap he raised his umbrella and one of the spokes popped, letting the fabric sag inward. Rain dripped on his shoulder—of course.

  Drooping like the umbrella, he dragged though the puddles toward the subway. He and the account team had come up with ideas, and the art directors were drawing them up, but he didn’t have much hope. Some of the creative was damned good. If they’d presented the concepts to Graham Henderson originally, he probably would have gone for one of them. But now? Nah. Wen needed the da Vinci of New York or nothing. Yeah. Nothing.

  Funny, though. That guy who’d run out of the office earlier looked like Peter. No telling for sure since he’d worn a big cap and sunglasses, but he looked so familiar. Why would Peter have been in Allworth? For an instant when he saw the guy in the aisle, Wen’s heart had soared, thinking Peter had changed his mind and come looking for him, but then the guy had run like a deer out of the agency. Arnie said he was some kind of potential thief pretending to be a pizza delivery boy. Weird.

  Wen trotted down the stairs onto the subway platform. Though it was past prime commuting time—again—a crowd still surged toward the trains. Friday night rush. Lots of people stayed in town to drink and now hurried home to angry spouses or anxious kids. Like him, only with drinking. He stood on the edge of the pack of bodies waiting for the train. He didn’t want to push through the crowd. No energy. He didn’t mind standing for his ride home.

  His neck tingled, and he glanced back. Nothing. He shrugged. People pushed against his back as the train screeched into the station, and Wen let them carry him toward the door. Someone jostled his shoulder and half spun him, but he pressed between a couple of anxious men and found another spot to shuffle forward.

  A body hit his back, soundly but not hard. Wen stepped forward but didn’t manage to lose the contact. He glanced over his shoulder into a sea of faces, but no one looked guilty, so he scooted forward. The warm pressure on his back came again. Someone’s sure in a damned hurry. Oh well, just get on the train.

  The bodies pressed toward the opening into the subway car—and the contact with his back came again. Just a few more paces. As the guy in front of him stepped up into the train car, Wen tensed to take his turn and sucked a breath. Something warm pressed against his neck, just for an instant. He tried to spin, but the bodies around him tripped him, and he half fell into the train. Grabbing a metal pole to hold himself up, he looked back and scanned the still surging
crowd. Bored-looking businessmen and tired women marched behind him. Wen craned his neck. He glanced at the woman beside him who was putting in her earbuds. “Did you see someone behind me—?”

  She shrugged. “Besides me, you mean?”

  “Yes. I mean, someone sort of, uh, touched me—” The train lurched forward, and Wen bent down to look out the windows. As the train speeded up, he straightened. “On the neck.”

  She laughed. “Well, it wasn’t me.”

  “Oh no, I didn’t mean—I mean—”

  She grinned. “Wish I’d thought of it.”

  That made Wen laugh. “Thanks.” He looked up. “I mean, I think.”

  “Of course, I’d have to explain it to my husband and three kids.”

  He snorted.

  “I’ve had my ass grabbed and my breasts fondled on the train. If that makes you feel better.”

  “Thanks.” He laughed.

  She finished putting in her earbuds and closed her eyes to enjoy whatever she was hearing. Wen leaned his head against the pole that held him up and tried to relax for the ride. If only he could get over the feeling that someone was staring at him – to say nothing of the soft tingling on his neck.

  Peter huddled against the window at the end of the subway car, his back turned to Wendell, but he could see him reflected in the glass. Funny. He looked like a kid playing dress-up—all buttoned-down suit and white shirt. But his pretty, shiny gold hair was too long to look corporate, and his pretty, shiny face looked full of starlight and dreams, partly obscured by the clouds of worry and doubt.

  Come on, enough with the poetry. He shook his head, but his eyes crept back to the window reflections.

  The night before, Peter had been sure the guy was a spy, but when Wendell stared at Peter’s work, he looked like he’d seen the face of a spirit. If Wendell Darling was a spy, he was a damned amazing one.

  Two stops later, Wendell got off, and Peter waited until the last second before he leaped through the still open doors. He stood behind a pillar until Wendell climbed the stairs out of the subway, and then he scurried to the next pillar, pressing his face close so he could peek around the edge.