Neat

by Steiner, Kandi

  If it were up to me, I would have just opened the doors. I would have just hosted the first class tonight, and maybe gotten drunk on a six pack by myself later tonight when it was all over with.

  Still, I tried to find it in me to be thankful, to recognize that this was how my parents showed their love. They didn’t know much when it came to parenting, but they did know how to throw a party.

  Mom already had a glass of champagne in her hand when she scurried over to me, eyes watering as she took in my appearance. She went on and on about how beautiful I looked (though how I would have looked better had I taken the nose ring out), how stunning the shop was, how proud she was of me. Dad chimed in with his own prideful speech, saying he knew I had it in me. They both kissed my cheek, and my brother gave me a stiff hug, and my uncles and aunts and all the cousins bearing the Scooter surname shook my hand and congratulated me.

  And all the while, I stood there, numbly smiling, responding to their questions in a way that felt like it was someone else speaking entirely. Someone handed me a glass of champagne — Chris, I presumed — and my father gave a speech. Some people laughed during that speech. Some people cheered. Mom dabbed at the tears leaking from her eyes.

  Then, glasses clinked, bubbly was sipped, and the doors opened.

  The first thing I felt was a suffocating kind of overwhelmed. My parents’ friends were all the first to pile in, each of them pulling me into a hug or shaking my hand and marveling at how pretty I looked and how nice the studio was before they wandered off to find champagne and talk business with my dad. It felt like everyone was there — the mayor and his wife, all of Mom’s stuck-up debutante friends, all the officers and board members from the distillery, the police chief and his wife, though he was smart enough to stay away from me. It made my stomach churn that he was there at all, but I knew my father, and if there was a chance to invite his high-roller friends and remind them how powerful he was, he’d take it.

  Chris stood by my side with each person I greeted, smiling and taking over the conversation when I could no longer hold it. Of course, not many people stood to talk to him for very long. He was one of only a handful of openly gay people in our town, and let’s just say that the first wave of people in attendance were very old-fashioned folks.

  I thought I was living in my own personal hell, in a nightmare I wouldn’t be able to escape for hours. I couldn’t believe the grand opening of a studio I’d dreamed of for so long had turned into a social function for my fucking parents.

  But then, slowly, people who had no ties to my family other than the fact that they lived in Stratford began to arrive. Families wandered in, with kids bright eyed and excited to play with the paint and the ceramic knick-knacks I’d laid out for anyone to bring to life with color and heat. I found myself flitting around the room, talking to young high school students who were interested in art but unsure of where to start, chatting with parents about after-school opportunities and summer programs, visiting with the secretary of the nursing home in town about field-trip opportunities for senior citizens. I was showing children how to paint, showing adults how to mold a pottery vase with their hands, showing a group of young adults pretending they were too cool to be there a brochure on a midnight photography tour where they could learn how to shoot the stars in the sky with long exposure.

  So, the second thing I felt was that same pride my parents had. I felt joy, and accomplishment, and like I might actually be able to make a difference, to make art possible — even if it was just in the small town of Stratford, Tennessee. I watched so many eyes light up when I showed them something new, when they made the first stroke of color with their brush, when they lit up with the possibility that they could create something beautiful.

  An hour ticked by, and then another, with people coming and going, and me floating around the room to do my best to talk to every single person who stopped in.

  The third thing I felt was longing for the one person who had yet to show.

  Logan assured me last night when I was mid-flee from his place that he would be here. He said he wouldn’t miss it. Still, I didn’t know why I was surprised that he hadn’t come — especially after how I’d acted, how things had been at work. Why would he come? Why would he show up for me when I had run out on him?

  I tried to ignore that hollowness in my stomach, filling it with champagne and what hors d’oeuvres I could keep down, and keeping busy with my guests. I convinced myself it was okay that he wasn’t there, that I understood, that I didn’t blame him and I didn’t have a right to be a precious little baby about it.

  But when Chris pulled me away from a family I was working on painting rocks with — rocks that I hoped would be little surprise Easter eggs throughout our town — and told me a special guest had just arrived, the way my heart stopped called me out on my bullshit lies.

  Chris grinned at my dumbfounded expression, nodding to the door behind me before he sipped his champagne and twirled away to make himself busy. I closed my eyes, took a breath, and slowly — very slowly — turned around.

  Logan was just inside the door, searching the room, with that damn wrinkle between his brows on full display. He shifted uncomfortably, holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a small white box in the other. His chestnut hair, which was normally ruffled and hidden under a baseball cap, was parted to one side, gelled, every strand in its place. He’d shaved, giving his scruff a clean line that somehow made his jaw and neck even sexier than before. He wore a light-blue button up, cuffed at the elbows, the top two buttons left unfastened. It was covered by a russet vest, one that showed off his broad shoulders and chest, accenting the narrow waist that drew my eyes down to his dark jeans. I smiled when I noted the rugged leather boots under those jeans — boots that matched his vest. He was so devastatingly handsome, my throat tightened, a knot forming that I couldn’t swallow past.

  His eyes were a fierce honey gold, even from across the room under the hanging string lights, and when they stopped on me, and a smirk crept up on the left side of his face, that damn dimple popping under his cheek — I knew he’d found what he’d been searching for.

  My heart slowed as he walked toward me, as did the blood in my veins, and the breath filling my lungs. The people around me seemed to morph and fade until it was quiet altogether, until only the soft jazz music the band was playing and his footsteps walking toward me existed. He stopped with just a foot between us, and his eyes crawled over me, searing every inch, before he found my gaze once more.

  “Hi.”

  I let out a long laugh of a breath. “Hi.”

  “You look…”

  “Like a bride from the nineties?”

  “Took the words right out of my mouth.” Logan shook his head, brows folding together as he tugged on a piece of lace dangling from one of my wrists. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. You’re beautiful no matter what you wear. But… you just… you don’t look like you.”

  “What does me look like?”

  His eyes danced back up to mine, an uneasy smile finding his lips. “Effortlessly gorgeous in a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and off-white sneakers. Hair down.” His eyes fell to my lips. “Lips painted my new favorite color of dusty rose.” When his eyes met mine again, I found I could barely breathe, and when he leaned in a little closer, I couldn’t breathe at all. “Although, I prefer you in just my t-shirt and a messy ponytail.”

  Every inch of my skin heated when his breath touched my lips, but just as soon as the contact was made, he pulled back, handing me the bouquet of flowers.

  He looked sheepishly at the pile of other flowers on the table next to the bar behind me. “I feel super original now.”

  I laughed, tucking the bouquet into my arms. “Most of those are for my mom, I assure you.” I glanced around the room. “If you haven’t been able to tell yet, this is more a party for them than for me.”

  “Explains your dress.”

  I smiled.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier,�
�� he said, grabbing the back of his neck with his now-free hand. “I was thinking maybe if I waited a while, it’d give your parents a chance to get busy with other things and not even notice when I arrived.”

  My eyes fell behind him, where my father was talking to the mayor, but looking directly past him at where we stood.

  “I think you could have dressed up in a cat mascot costume, complete with the head piece, and my dad’s radar would still go off when you walked in the room.”

  “He’s looking at us, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, but I brought my eyes back to him with an assuring smile. “But whatever, let him look. I’m glad you’re here.” I swallowed then, as the truth of that statement really sank in. “Really, I am.”

  Logan nodded, and a silence fell between us — with him looking at me, me looking at him. There were so many words left unsaid between us last night, so many things I knew I needed to tell him. I needed to put us back in the casual zone — fast — or perhaps, push us all the way back into the friend zone we’d existed in before.

  But I couldn’t.

  The longer he stood there, the more I wanted to fall into him, to pull him into me and kiss him right there in front of God and my family and everyone else.

  It was insane. I was absolutely certifiable to even consider it.

  And yet, it was all I wanted.

  “Speaking of the cat,” he said. “Where is Dalí? It’s not Dalí and Mal’s Art Studio if Dalí isn’t here, is it?”

  “He’s upstairs. God knows he’d probably shit himself and hide in the corner shaking being around all these people.”

  “Or he’d just walk under their feet and eat the crumbs they drop, flicking his tail in a bored fashion as he frolicked from person to person.”

  “And he’d whisper peasants under his breath.”

  “Of course, because it’s his kingdom, after all.”

  I chuckled. The name of the studio had been the one thing I hadn’t been able to figure out, and when we started filing the necessary paperwork to open the doors, we had to pick one. It’d been Logan who had suggested Dalí and Mal’s, and when he’d said it, I could have kissed him for how perfect it was.

  Okay, I maybe did kiss him.

  My parents hated it, of course. Even Chris wrinkled his nose at the name when I’d told him. But it was perfect, for more reasons than just the fact that we had a shop cat. Salvador Dalí was one of the most unconventional artists of his time, and one of my biggest inspirations. Honoring his name with the name of my studio was perfect.

  And, of course, Logan knew that.

  Because Logan knew me.

  “I… uh…” Logan held up the square, one-inch thick box in his hand, bringing me back to the moment with him. “I got you something else.”

  “Anal beads?”

  Logan barked out a laugh, shaking off the tension that had been hanging over us like a cloud. “Not exactly, although now I kind of wish I had.”

  “Next time,” I teased, and then I took the box from him, giving it a little shake like a kid at Christmas before I carefully pulled off the top. Inside was a simple gold frame around an all-glass, thin shadow box. There was a white rectangle in the center, and above it, written in black script, were the words Dalí and Mal’s First Dollar.

  I frowned, tracing the words with my fingertips before I looked up at Logan, confused.

  “It’s… you know, it’s for your first sale,” he said, shrugging and reaching for the back of his neck again. He pointed to the rectangle inside the frame. “You put your first dollar there, and then you can hang it up behind the register. I mean, I know it’s a Square register now, and everything is digital, and your first class will probably be paid for with card. But, you could take a dollar out of the register, anyway. And pretend. You know? Just, as a symbol.”

  I smiled.

  “It’s a thing, a lot of old businesses used to do it. I think new ones still do. I don’t know.” He let his hand drop, reaching for the frame. “It’s stupid. I’m sorry.”

  I yanked the frame out of his reach. “No! I love it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I chuckled, touching his arm. “Logan, I love it. It’s thoughtful. It… it means you believe this place will be around for a while, that it will have history.”

  “It will,” he said immediately, effortlessly, as if he’d never believed anything to be more true in his life. “It will, Mallory. Because it’s you.”

  His hand covered the one I’d placed on his arm, squeezing it, holding it for a moment before he let it go and cleared his throat, taking a sizable step back from me.

  “I’m going to go make myself scarce,” he said. “Talk to the other tour guides who are here from the distillery, keep busy, stay out of the way. You know, just so I don’t give your father an aneurysm, or anyone else in this town ammo for Sunday morning church gossip.”

  I laughed, looking around the room at the eyes that were on us. “Might be too late for that, but yes, good idea.”

  “I’ll see you around.”

  “Wait,” I said before he could turn away. “Can you stay after?” I swallowed. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  He cocked a brow. “I’d love to stay after, but I think your dad might actually murder me if I’m here when everyone else is gone tonight.”

  “Sneak upstairs in an hour. If anyone asks, I told you to check on Dalí. And just wait there until I call you down.”

  Logan shook his head. “Sneaking around like teenagers. Why do I like it?”

  “Because you’re a troublemaker.” I shoved him playfully. “Now go, be invisible.”

  We both laughed like it was a joke, and it might as well have been. I wasn’t the only one who watched Logan for the next hour as he talked with families and couples and kids, showing them the different stations of the studio just like I would have if it were me talking to them. He handed out brochures, event schedules, showed pieces of my art on the walls and spoke of my education like he’d been the one to give it to me.

  Logan treated that grand opening like it was his own.

  And I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

  Mom’s friends were tittering around the cocktail tables, eyeing Logan with suspicious glares. Dad hardly ever took his eyes off him, and even the other tour guides from Scooter were leaning in close, whispering conspiracies as they watched him.

  I managed to call a toast near the end of the night, holding my champagne high as I thanked everyone for a memorable evening. It was the only way I could get the attention off Logan, and I watched out of the peripheral of my eyes as he slipped away and up the stairs while I talked. When the glasses were clinked and a hearty hear, hear! rang out, one by one, people began to leave, the band died down and started to pack up, and though everyone seemed to be looking around for Logan again, he was nowhere to be found.

  “Proud of you, young lady,” my dad said at the end of the night, when everyone was gone other than me, him, and Mom. Malcolm had ditched after an hour, and even Chris had finally left, at my insistence that I could clean up on my own. Dad pulled me into a stiff hug, one that felt foreign and awkward. “It was a great night.”

  “It was,” I said. I gave Mom a hug, too, and kissed her cheek. “Thank you both for coming, and for doing all this,” I said, gesturing to the lights, the tables of leftover food, the corner where the band had been. “I never would have made it so special.”

  “We’re just so happy you’ve found your place in this town,” Mom said, eyes welling again.

  Dad looked around me, as if he was sure Logan was hiding in a corner somewhere. “That Becker boy was sure here a long time.”

  I shrugged, pretending like I didn’t notice. “Was he? I was so busy making the rounds, I guess I didn’t realize.”

  Dad narrowed his eyes at me, and I knew without him saying so that he didn’t believe me for a second. Thankfully, he didn’t press, just patted my arm. “Well, we’re going to head home. Don�
�t forget, Monday is Christmas Eve, and we have the annual Christmas Party at the distillery with all the employees and their families. I’d like you to be presentable,” he said, waving a hand over my dress. “Wear something nice like this again.”

  “This is literally the only dress I own, Dad. Other than the one I wore to brunch on Sunday.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a dress,” he said. “Just… I want you to make a good impression. Okay? Can you please do that for me?”

  I sighed — and I’ll admit, it was a bit of a dramatic sigh, even for me. “Yes, yes, got it. I won’t show up in jeans.”

  “Thank you.” He leaned in, kissing my forehead before he placed his hand on the small of Mom’s back and led her toward the door. They gave me one last wave after their coats were on, and then they were gone, and the door was locked, the lights were out, and the studio was finally empty again.

  Well.

  Almost empty.

  Logan

  Dalí was curled up in his favorite place — directly in the middle of my chest — when Mallory called for me to come downstairs.

  I lifted a brow, scratching behind his ear as he closed his eyes and purred, leaning into the touch. “You’re going to hate this, but I gotta go.”

  The cat creaked one eye open, as if he was telling me our relationship was over if I left that spot.

  I chuckled. “I know, I know. But, there’s a pretty lady calling me downstairs, and I can’t make her wait.”

  “Are you talking to my cat?”

  Mallory leaned against the frame of her front door, smirking at where I lay on her couch with Dalí. As if he sensed there was no use in trying to keep me in my spot, Dalí stretched on my chest, his claws kneading my skin, then he hopped down and trotted over to his food bowl.

  “He’s been the best conversation of the night,” I said, sitting up.

  Mallory shook her head. “Let me get out of this fucking dress, and then I want to show you something.”