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Brian eyed the monstrosity on his desk, careful not to get too close to it. Cynthia was the one who brought it in; she could be the one to examine it in case it ended up exploding glitter or some other equally noxious material.
“Honestly, I’ve never met a more paranoid man,” Cynthia said. “Can’t you accept some flowers from your boyfriend without acting like the world’s about to end?”
“Do you know me at all?” Brian asked, walking around his desk to inspect the roses from another angle. “And do you know Justin? We don’t do bouquets of flowers. Bouquets of dildos, maybe.”
“So he wants to bring a little romance to your lives,” Cynthia said. “There could be worse things.”
“That boyfriend of yours has turned you soft,” Brian said. “Make a note for me to buy you some handcuffs.”
“Now, this part is interesting,” Cynthia said, and removed a small silver object from the ribbon wrapped around the vase. “This doesn’t strike me as something you’d want up your ass.”
Brian took it from her, dangling it carefully from his fingertips so it wouldn’t fucking stab him and cause him to bleed all over his new suit. As if on cue, his phone rang. Not wanting to risk setting the item down too quickly in order to unlock his phone, he waved his free hand at Cynthia, who rolled her eyes but quickly entered the passcode on his phone and handed it to him.
“Sunshine, what the fuck do you think you’re up to?”
Justin laughed. “What, can’t handle a couple of flowers?”
“Especially not when they come with murderous weapons tucked inside of them,” Brian said. “What kind of message are you trying to send, exactly? I love you, darling, and I hope you bleed?”
“It’s a compass, Brian,” Justin said. “You use them to draw circles.”
“I know what you use them for,” Brian said. “I attended the 8th grade. But the fact remains that the point is fucking sharp.”
“Aww, did Sleeping Beauty prick her finger?” Justin asked, sounding far too amused for Brian’s tastes.
“Justin, why the hell did you send me flowers and a math instrument?”
“Just thought it could be something you could use,” Justin said. “Everybody knows that circles are the new squares.”
Brian rolled his eyes. Justin had probably holed himself up in his studio for too long and had inhaled too many fumes or something. He did have a tendency to get fucking weird when he was on one of his productive streaks, and it had definitely sounded like Justin was churning out paintings by the dozen these days. Brian was probably getting off easy with flowers and a compass.
“Anyway, just wanted to see if you liked the latest delivery.”
Brian softened. For the past month or so, a Justin Taylor original had arrived at the manor every Thursday afternoon. They were probably worth a fucking fortune, but to Brian, they were priceless. The latest had been a portrait of Brian, painted in bold colors, standing in a room that in some angles resembled Babylon, in others his loft, and still in others, the manor he’d bought for them to live together.
Justin was more than a genius when it came to art.
He was a fucking god.
“Yeah,” he said. “I look ten years younger.”
Justin laughed. “Forever young, forever beautiful.”
“The perks of having a famous artist as a lover,” Brian said.
“Yeah, well … oh, shit. Sorry, I have to go. Call you tonight?”
Brian nodded, then remembered Justin couldn’t see him. It was the one of the many things he’d thought he’d get used to by now, five years after Justin had left for New York. And yet, he still always expected to turn around and see that flash of blond hair out of the corner of his eye.
“Later,” he said.
“Later,” Justin promised, and the line went dead.
Brian sat in an armchair in the manor, examining all the canvases Justin had sent over the past month.
The first one, Brian was sure, depicted their last time together before Justin moved to New York. It reminded him a bit of those old Seeing Eye books from when he was a kid. At first glance it looked like he was thrusting into Justin, the two of them clinging to each other as sweat glistened on their skin and they stared into each others’ eyes. However, if he unfocused his eyes and squinted, he could see there were actually multiple images making up that larger one, pictures of a young man standing beneath a lamp post, of two lovers dancing in the street, of two men kissing in the middle of a club. Genius, of course. Brian had almost been pissed it was too large to hang in the loft, until the next painting arrived the following week, and he’d realized he’d just have to dedicate one of the rooms at the manor to being the official Justin Taylor Gallery.
If the first painting had stunned Brian with its hidden images, the second blew him away with its hyper realism. It depicted Justin painting a portrait of Brian, whose hand was reaching out as if to grasp Justin’s wrist. It reminded Brian of something that would have been in one of Poe’s stories, if any of Poe’s characters happened to possess that look of unabashed love in their eyes. It unnerved Brian to look at it for too long; there were times he was afraid the image of himself would step right out of the canvas.
Then came the painting that convinced Brian to put all the canvases to a room in the back of the house, hidden out of the way, and available for viewing by invitation only. It was of Brian and Justin kissing, and while it only revealed their hands grasping each others’ faces, it was so intimate that it nearly made him blush. If Brian was capable of blushing, of course.
And finally, the painting that had arrived the week before last. Once again, Justin had worked his magic, revealing his undoubtedly otherworldly skill with a paintbrush. When Brian had first torn away the packaging, he’d thought he was looking at a portrait of Justin. However, in the process of finding a place to hang it on a wall, he realized it was also a portrait of himself. Yes, somehow Justin had managed to paint a picture of the two of them blended together, as if they were two souls merged into one. It was, in a word, breathtaking.
Brian didn’t know how long Justin was going to keep this up, or if he was going to have to open up another room of the house to hang more of the paintings, but he knew he’d definitely be coming to Britin more often, just so he could spend more time alone with them.
On a whim, he removed the compass from his briefcase and found a piece of paper to test it on. He’d always hated these fucking things in school. For one, he had stabbed his thumb with the prick more than a few times, and it was irritating as hell. For another, he could never get the damn things to work properly. Try as he might, he could never get the beginning of the circle to connect with the end. The lines would always be just a hair off, enough to resemble a circle, but not enough to please Mrs. Shelley, who would inevitably dock points for his inability to draw a simple shape even with the assistance of an instrument.
But either Sunshine had splurged on a better quality compass, or Brian had magically grown better at using it in the past three decades, because he managed to draw a perfect circle on his very first attempt.
Oddly satisfied, he set the compass and paper down on a table in the makeshift gallery, and packed up his things to go back to the loft.
By the time Justin called him that night, Brian knew Justin was up to something far more nefarious than simply generously bestowing artwork upon his long-distance lover.
For one, Brian knew for a fact that Justin had other projects to be working on, and shipping these canvasses to him every week had to cost him a fucking fortune.
For another, as he’d been gathering his items at the manor, he’d come across a notecard tangled up in the discarded packing materials Justin had mail his artwork in. The message was simple enough -- Figure out the theme yet? -- but the rather smug looking smiley face hovering above Justin’s signature was nearly enough for Brian to book a flight to New York to demand Justin reveal his game immediately.
But given it was fucking storming outside, he’d have to settle for tearing it out of him over the phone.
“You know I hate guessing games,” Brian said, pacing about the loft.
“What are you talking about?” Justin asked, and Brian could practically hear the grin on his face. “You love guessing games. Guessing what I’m wearing, where my hand is, how hard I am…”
“Jeans and a blue shirt, in your pocket, and at half-mast, given how you get turned on almost as much by getting a figurative rise out of me as you do a literal one.”
Justin laughed. “You’re getting good at this.”
“And you’re avoiding the question,” Brian said. “Just tell me what the fuck you’re up to.”
“It’s much more fun for you to figure it out on your own,” Justin said. “Personally, I think I left you more than enough clues, but if you can’t get it, you can always call Daphne.”
“I’m not calling Daphne to figure out your twisted mind,” Brian snapped, conveniently disregarding the fact that he’d done just that easily a hundred times since Justin moved to New York.
“A man needs to know when to ask for help,” Justin said in a sing-song voice.
“Fuck you,” Brian said, and, irritated with Justin’s chuckling, hung up the phone.
And then immediately called Daphne.
“Wow,” Daphne breathed. “These are stunning!”
“They’re something, all right,” Brian said, peering at the portrait of himself. Truthfully, the paintings had lost some of their aesthetic appeal for him once he realized there was something about them he wasn’t getting. Now they were less works of art and more a complex puzzle to be dissected.
“I think these might be some of Justin’s best work,” Daphne said. “I like them even better than the pieces he had in his last show.”
“So you’re saying I could charge $100 a ticket for people to view them?” Brian asked.
“Well, would you want them to?” Daphne asked, peering closely at the painting of Brian and Justin’s last night together in Pittsburgh. “Some of these are pretty intimate.”
“Doesn’t seem to bother you,” Brian said.
“I’ve seen both of you naked,” Daphne said. “And I’ve seen you fucking. More than once. These are nothing.” She glanced over at the one of their faces and hands, and her cheeks flushed. “Well, maybe not that one.”
Brian snorted. “So, have you figured out the pattern? Justin seemed to think you might.”
“Other than them being gorgeous depictions of how much you love each other? No.” She smiled at him. “But you knew that already.”
“Hmm,” Brian said. “There’s something we’re missing.”
“Do they have titles?” Daphne asked.
“Don’t know,” Brian said. He lifted the painting depicting he and Justin kissing and held it so Daphne could see the back. “Anything there?”
“‘Care less eyes, lips, and hands to miss,’” Daphne read slowly. “That sounds so familiar.”
“It sounds like word vomit,” Brian muttered, rehanging the canvas. “He was probably high when he named it.”
Daphne shook her head. “No, no. There’s something else to it. Turn around the painting of you.”
Feeling as though they were finally getting somewhere, even if it didn’t make sense, Brian obeyed.
“‘Thy soul, the fixed foot,’” Daphne read aloud. “Okay, that I know. Shit. What is it?”
“Fucking stupid as hell, is what it is,” Brian said, returning the painting to its place. “I’ve never injured my foot in my life.”
“Not like that,” Daphne said. “Do another.”
Sighing, Brian lifted the first painting Justin had sent him off the wall. “How about this one?”
“‘So let us melt, and make no noise,’” Daphne said, then clapped her hands. “Of course! It’s a John Donne poem.”
“Oh, good,” Brian said. “Now he’s sending me flowers, paintings, and poetry. Who knew New York would turn Justin into a romantic?”
“He loved it in high school,” Daphne said. “It was his favorite thing we read in English class. I remember it was the poem he chose to recite for one of our assignments.”
“Fantastic,” Brian said. “Happen to remember what the poem was about for those of us who chose to get our dick sucked instead of studying romantic poets?”
“Renaissance, actually.”
Brian blinked. “Sorry?”
“Donne was a Renaissance poet. The Romantics came more than a hundred years later.”
Brian rolled his eyes. “You’re worse than Justin. Fine. What did Donne have to say?”
“Oh, it was this really romantic poem,” Daphne said. “Donne was about to leave his wife to go on a really long business trip, and he was basically telling her not to cry, because it would cheapen what they had. That their love went beyond how normal people felt, who needed to actually see each other to have a relationship. Their love was so much more than that, just on a higher spiritual plane. Their souls are so intertwined that it doesn’t matter how far away they were from each other, or for how long, because on that higher plane, they’re always together.”
Brian nodded, his throat dry. He wasn’t much for poetry, Romantic or Renaissance or whatever the fuck they were calling it these days. He’d taken a class on Shakespeare in college, but that had been the last time he’d spared a thought to rhythm or rhyme schemes. Poetry was just the pretentious ramblings of egotistical twats who got off on people putting their words on Valentine’s Day cards.
Except somehow, hearing Daphne describe the poem, he had the sudden urge to track it down himself. Because if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought this Donne bastard had been in his loft the night he and Justin had said goodbye five years ago.
“There was something else in it,” Daphne said. “Some really cool analogy, where he compared he and his wife to...shit! I can’t remember. It was something that moved and stayed still at the same time.”
“A compass?” Brian asked.
Daphne grinned. “I thought you didn’t know poetry.”
“I don’t,” Brian said, and walked over to the table where he’d left Justin’s compass the other day. “But Justin sent me this in a bouquet of roses and then decided to play coy about it.”
Daphne laughed and opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the doorbell.
“Hold that thought,” Brian said, setting down the compass. “Actually,” he said, and unlocked his phone and handed it to her, “find that poem.”
It was, of course, another painting from Justin, right on time. Brian carefully hauled it into the gallery and set it on the floor next to Daphne before going into the next room to get some scissors. When he’d returned, however, Daphne had already made quick work of removing the painting out of the package.
“Swiss army knife,” she said by way of explanation, barely looking up at him. Then her eyes went wide. “Oh.”
Brian knelt behind her to examine the painting, laughing as soon as he realized exactly what he was looking at. “But Daphne, darling, I thought seeing me fuck your best friend was old news by this point.”
“There’s seeing you two fuck,” Daphne said, “and then there’s getting a front row seat where you’re practically in a splash zone.”
Brian laughed harder at that, then leaned back so he could better examine the painting. It was of Justin and him, of course, both of them naked and hard. Brian’s head was thrown back, his mouth open in a nearly audible moan, as Justin buried his head in his neck.
Brian was growing hard just looking at it.
Really, who needed to take dirty photographs when you were fucking an artist like Justin? There was a realism to this painting that a camera never would have been able to capture, likely because Justin had managed to imbue it with a tangled jumble of emotions -- lust, love, desperation -- that truly transported the image to the realm of extraordinary.
“Is this a part of the poem?” Brian asked. “If so, looks like I may need to add it to my bedtime reading material.”
Daphne cleared her throat. “Kind of, yeah. It goes back to the compass thing, there’s a line about growing erect … Donne was a bit of a perv. He liked to sneak those kinds of things into his poems.”
“I like him more and more,” Brian said. “So, tell me the rest of the poem. Why did my darling Sunshine feel the need to send me a compass when he knows a measuring tape is my favorite math tool?”
“Oh, right,” Daphne said, and reached for the compass and the piece of paper. “So Donne goes into this analogy using the compass. His wife’s the prick, ‘the fixed foot,’ the part that doesn’t move, while he’s the arm with the pencil, moving and roaming the world.” She set the compass upon the paper, stretched out the arms, and began drawing smooth circles on the paper. “See, it doesn’t matter how far apart the arms are. They’re always together, joined by this hinge at the top. Or, you know, their love.”
Brian nodded. “And the erect part?”
Daphne rolled her eyes and closed the arms of the compass so they were pressed tall against each other. “‘And grows erect, as that comes home,’” she recited, “which I’m willing to bet is the title of that painting.”
Brian peeked behind the painting. “You got it,” he confirmed. “So, basically, when the lovers are reunited, they fuck?”
Daphne’s cheeks flushed pink. “Pretty much.”
“Works for me,” Brian muttered. He glanced around the room, at all the paintings hanging on the walls, reminding him vividly of everything he and Justin had been through over the years and how much he hoped they’d get to continue to experience in the future. It was fucking pathetic, but in this room exploding with all of Justin’s colors, Brian could practically feel their love for each other radiating from the paintings. It warmed him like hot wax on the skin, painful at first touch before cooling ever so slightly to a seductive warmth.
Christ, but he missed Sunshine.
He rubbed his hand over his face. He’d thought it’d get easier with time, that eventually he’d grow used to Justin being in another state. They talked all the time, relied heavily on Skype, and texted and emailed each other constantly.
And yet when they saw each other face to face, which was fairly regularly but nowhere near as frequent as they would like, it always felt like Brian hadn’t seen him in years.
Sighing, he glanced up at Daphne. “Do you need to get back?”
“I could,” Daphne said slowly. Then she opened her purse and pulled out a bottle of Merlot. “Or we could drink this.”
Brian grinned. “I love a girl who comes prepared.”
“It’s just not a Brian and Daphne night without a bottle of wine,” Daphne said, and stretched to grab her Swiss army knife.
Brian slid across the floor until he was leaning against her side, then wrapped his arm around her waist. “Thanks, darling,” he said quietly, and kissed her cheek.
Daphne smiled and set the bottle back on the floor so she could wrap her other arm around Brian, enveloping him in a tight embrace. “Anytime, Brian.”
The wine sat untouched for quite some time. Instead they held each other close, seeking comfort in each other as they soaked in the presence of the man who wasn’t in the room.
Brian sat crosslegged on the floor of the gallery at Britin, staring up at all the paintings carefully arranged on the wall. It wasn’t that he was waiting for another painting to arrive. It was only that he didn’t have any meetings today, and the paintings tended to be delivered every Thursday between two and four. His mood definitely wasn’t souring because it was nearly a quarter to five and he’d been sitting on the floor for the past six hours. It was only because he forgot to bring a bottle of bourbon and his stomach was starting to growl, and he had yet to find a good Thai delivery place out here. He could drive back to Pittsburgh, but it had been raining all day, so the delivery guy could just be running late, and it would be annoying as hell to leave and then find out there was a priceless painting just sitting outside for him.
He eyed his phone, tempted to text Justin to ask him if he should expect a delivery today. Grumbling, he slid it across the floor until it hit the opposite wall. It was fucking stupid. Just because Justin had been sending him a painting a week for more than a month didn’t mean he should expect that. Justin was one of the most in-demand artists in the country. He couldn’t be expected to churn out a painting just for Brian on a weekly basis for the rest of his life.
Brian frowned. Of course, that would imply that he and Justin would live apart for the rest of their lives, which was just…
“Fuck,” he muttered. Now he was really regretting not bringing anything to drink.
Instead, he stared down at the paper in front of him. In what was either a fit of sentimentality or the desire to always stay one step ahead of Justin, a task that had become increasingly challenging with each year he knew him, Brian had printed out the Donne poem. The paper was covered with circles, large and small, some barely larger than a penny, others with entire arcs cut off from where the pencil had spun off the page. He’d found it nearly impossible to stop playing with the damn compass this past week. Even his staff had begun to notice, and he’d been finding it more and more difficult to come up with excuses for his art department to work circles into their designs.
The doorbell rang, startling Brian out of his musings. He carefully set aside the compass and poem and went to answer the door.
“Christ,” he said. This was easily the largest painting Justin had sent him, so big all he could see of the delivery man was the top of his pageboy cap. “Thanks.”
“Tell me where you want it,” the delivery man said when Brian reached for it. “I’ll drop it off.”
Brian frowned. He knew that voice. It wasn’t one he regularly heard, except…
“It’s a little heavy.”
Somewhere with Gus…
“Sir?”
Reading Gus bedtime stories.
He grabbed the package out of the delivery man’s hands and was immediately rewarded with Justin’s fucking gorgeous face. “Surprise,” Justin said. His smile was impossibly wide as he waggled his eyebrows at Brian.
“Holy shit,” Brian said, and he was sure he looked like a fucking idiot with his mouth hanging open, but there was Justin standing so damn casually on the front doorstep, as if he’d just come back from running to the store for some milk.
“Oh, shit,” Justin muttered, and Brian realized he was in danger of allowing the painting to slip from his fingers. Together, they moved the package inside the house and propped it up carefully against the wall.
And then, not sparing another second, Brian kicked the door shut and pressed Justin into the wall, kissing him with everything he had.
Brian wanted to touch Justin all over. He wanted to press his fingertips into his skin and see the little white indentations left behind. He wanted to kiss his mouth, his neck, all the way down his chest to his dick. He wanted to feel his cock hot and hard against his. And, more than anything, he wanted to fucking bury himself into him and pound into him, feel Justin pushing back against him, until the room exploded in a burst of flaming white light. He wanted to feel fucking everything, because suddenly he was all too aware of just how long it had been since he’d had Justin like this, and he felt he may fucking explode if he removed his hands from Justin’s body for even a second.
Their clothes were quickly tossed on the floor and Brian set about his mission, leaving a wet trail of kisses from just behind Justin’s ear all the way to just above his pubes. He was kneeling on the ground, his hands on Justin’s hipbones, nearly salivating at the thought of taking that hard dick in his mouth again, when Justin clutched his hair and pulled his head back.
“Wait,” Justin said, his voice slightly strained. “That package is important. Don’t you want to open it first?”
Brian resisted the urge to roll his eyes -- and, judging, from Justin’s laugh, he wasn’t entirely successful. “This package is far more important,” he said, and, not willing to waste any more precious time debating the best way to spend the first few minutes back together after several months apart, he swallowed Justin’s cock whole.
Christ, there was nothing in the world like sucking Justin’s dick. It made him feel like the most powerful man in the world, to have Justin’s cock in his mouth, to feel those almost imperceptible thrusts of his hips that he couldn’t quite hold back, to hear Justin moan and gasp as he tugged at Brian’s hair. He could make Justin come, could make this beautiful man come completely undone, with just the right flick of his tongue. The thought of it alone could instantly make Brian hard. He wanted to stroke his own dick, but he held off. It had been way too long, and it would be a challenge enough as it was to maintain his control to give Justin the fucking he deserved.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Justin whimpered in protest as Brian released his cock. “Why’d you stop?” he asked.
“Wasn’t planning on fucking anybody here,” Brian said.
“Brian Kinney, unprepared for sex?” Justin asked, pressing a hand to his heart in exaggerated horror.
“Shut the fuck up,” Brian said, and lightly bit Justin’s hipbone, eliciting a yelp from him. “You’re going to be paying the same penalty. I think I have a condom in my wallet, but --”
“Don’t worry,” Justin said, reaching for his messenger bag and pulling out a condom and a tube of lubricant. “I always come prepared.”
Brian stood up to give Justin a searing kiss on the mouth, then turned him around to face the wall. He squirted a bit of lubricant onto his fingers and pressed them into Justin, smirking when he groaned as his head fell back. It was yet another one of Brian’s favorite things about fucking Justin. He’d had tricks who’d try to remain stoic, as if they weren’t fucking turned on as hell by Brian fucking them. He’d had even more tricks who seemed to think they were auditioning to be in a damn porno and would moan and shout loudly enough to bring the entire building down.
And then there was Justin. Justin would grunt and groan, pant and moan, hiss and pant, whimper and shout… and there was never any doubt that his reactions were 100% genuine. It was fucking hot as hell.
“C’mon, Brian,” Justin said, shoving his ass back against Brian. “Fuck me.”
“Not so concerned about that package now, are you?” Brian asked, quickly sliding on the condom and lining his cock up with Justin’s hole.
“You presented a very convincing argument,” Justin said. “Some packages are far more impor-- fuck!”
There were some things that Brian could never forget about Justin, no matter how much time they spent apart -- his smile, his scent, the way he’d rub Brian’s shoulders whenever he was even remotely tense.
And, of course, the way he felt when Brian first slid into him, all tight and hot and fucking perfect, as if he was welcoming Brian home in the most exquisite of ways.
Justin reached behind him to grip his thigh, urging him closer. Brian wanted to take his time, to fuck Justin so slowly and thoroughly that he would fucking beg to come, and Brian would just wrench his climax out of him and hold him upright as he nearly collapsed from the intensity of it. He wanted to feel every clench of Justin’s ass, hear each time his breath hitched amplified in his ear.
But that would have to come later. Because right now Brian couldn’t help but slam into Justin like a man starving, desperate to bring them both off. Justin was chanting his name, his voice breathless, as he fisted his cock. Brian sucked at the base of his neck, drawing out a long, strangled moan from Justin.
“So good,” Brian said. “So fucking good. Justin. My… my…”
“Fuck, Brian. Harder. I… I need…”
“You need what, Sunshine?” Brian asked. He was pounding him harder now, pulling his cock nearly all the way out each time before slamming back into him. Each thrust made Justin cry out, made him squeeze Brian’s thigh so tightly he was certain there’d be bruises the next day.
“Touch me,” Justin demanded, and removed his hand from his dick so he could brace himself better against the wall. “Jerk me off.”
Brian closed a tight fist around his cock, stroking it in time with his thrusts. In nearly an instant Justin let out a surprised shout as he shot his load all over Brian’s hand. His whole body shuddered with the force of it, and Brian cloaked his body over his, holding him upright.
“That’s it,” he crooned, milking every last drop of Justin’s release out of him. “So hot.”
Of course, seeing Justin come, feeling his climax rip through his entire body like a fucking tidal wave, was fucking irresistible. Brian couldn’t control his thrusts anymore, could feel them growing increasingly erratic. And then all it took was for Justin to moan his name in that voice and Brian was done, coming with a strangled shout.
“Wow,” Justin said. “You okay back there?”
Normally, Brian would have smacked his ass for that kind of lip, but at the moment it was all he could do to remain standing, and he was only managing that by sagging against Justin and resting his head on his shoulder. “Peachy,” he said, using the last of his energy to purse his lips to kiss whatever spot of skin he happened to be closest to.
Justin reached for Brian’s hand, the one covered in his come, and brought it up to his mouth. When he sucked one finger into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the digit to lick up every last drop of come, Brian could already feel his dick give a hopeful twitch. Justin worked meticulously, not leaving a spot of Brian’s hand untouched. By the time he was done, Brian was not only feeling slightly less boneless, but ready for another round.
“How about we hit the shower?” Brian asked, pulling out and pulling off the condom. He tied it off and threw it aside before turning Justin in his arms so he could punctuate each of his words with kisses. “Or maybe the bedroom if you’d prefer to get off your feet and onto your knees.”
“Love to,” Justin said. “Although you do really need to open that package.”
Brian laughed. He’d nearly forgotten about the damn thing. “One track mind you have.”
“It’s important,” Justin said, gently pushing Brian away. “Go on. Open it.”
Sighing, Brian picked up the package, wincing a bit at the weight, and carried it into the gallery.
“Wow,” Justin said, looking around the room as Brian attacked the package with his scissors, “you weren’t kidding. You really hung them all up.”
“Well, how am I supposed to give a tour of the Justin Taylor Home Gallery if they’re stashed away in boxes?” Brian asked, tearing away the last of the packaging. “Oh.”
He knew immediately what line of the poem this painting was meant to illustrate. It was another painting of them. Their backs were rounded as they pressed their foreheads together, and the rest of their bodies seemed to fade into each other, as though they were two arcs making up the same circle. “‘Thy firmness makes my circle just,’” Brian said quietly.
“‘And makes me end where I begun,’” Justin finished, draping his arms over Brian’s shoulder.
Brian looked at him over his shoulder. “Are you attempting to give me some type of important message via metaphysical poetry?”
Justin laughed. “Daphne really did help you out, didn’t she?”
“I did my homework on my own, jackass,” Brian said. His words came out harsher than he intended, but his heart was pounding so loudly in his chest that he didn’t think it could be held against him. “Now answer the damn question.”
“Can’t you guess?” Justin asked, and kissed his cheek. “I’m coming home.”
Brian carefully propped the painting up against the wall, then spun so he was facing Justin. “What about New York?”
Justin shrugged and slid forward until his legs were loosely wrapped around Brian’s waist. “What about it? I’ve made my contacts. I’ve had my shows. I have enough of a name now that I can afford to be a little reclusive. In fact, my agent thinks it might actually help me. Nobody can resist an artist who vanishes from the limelight to create masterpieces that only get displayed at the most elite galleries a few times a year.”
Brian shook his head, still stunned. “But -- “
“But what?” Justin asked. “This was the plan all along. Do you not want me to come back?”
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Brian said. “Of course I do. But I don’t want you to leave New York before you’re ready and end up regretting it later.” And going back, putting us through all of this again.
“Well, I’ll need to go back occasionally,” Justin said. “To move the rest of my stuff down here, for one, and then the occasional prep for shows. But it won’t be any worse than your traveling for Kinnetik.” He cradled Brian’s face in his hands. “Throughout all of this, the thing that kept me grounded, the thing that kept me going, was knowing how much you loved me. That no matter when I came back, I’d still find you here, loving me as if no time had passed, just as much as I love you. Except I don’t want to wait any longer. I don’t want to ‘come back’ anymore. I want to be here, in Pittsburgh, with you.”
Brian swallowed. His body felt very hot, as if small flames were dancing all over his skin. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Justin was saying these words. It was that he couldn’t believe he was saying them now, that they weren’t nestled together in a dream, that it had come so entirely out of the blue.
“So, what do you say?” Justin asked, sounding uncharacteristically shy.
Brian sighed, studying Justin’s face. It had been ten years since he’d first seen him standing beneath that streetlight. Brian could still see traces of the same scared teenager in the man sitting in front of him. But he wasn’t just the same compassionate, passionate, brave, determined man he’d always been.
He was so much more.
And he was coming home. Coming home to him.
He cupped the back of Justin’s head, bringing his face closer to his own, and captured his lips in a tender kiss. Justin exhaled and deepened the kiss, pulling Brian close. Curled toward each other, they probably resembled Justin’s most recent painting, two lovers holding each other in a perfect circle.
A circle, and a love, with no end.