“You want a drink?” he asked.
“Red wine, please.”
“You made it!” Sunshine threw her arms around me. Her name was fitting because she was as bright and warm as the sun. Her auburn tresses were long, to her ass, and plaited. She wore a flowing dress and had a band of daisies circling her head.
“Thank you so much for coming.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it.”
“Even though you don’t get my art.”
I didn’t. We’d discussed it. Art was art, but where some could study a dot on a white canvas and get immeasurable knowledge from that dot, all I saw was a dot. But I loved Sunshine so even if she drew only stick figures, it would be a work of art to me…a fact I had shared countless times with her. Damian approached with two glasses of wine and handed one to each of us.
“Oh my God. Where did you find him?”
“I hired him for the evening.” It seemed the easiest way to answer to avoid questions that would take the whole night and then some to explain.
“You need to tell me what agency you used if they have hotties like this in their stables.”
Damian had no reaction, but I was struggling not to laugh.
“I have to go mingle. Check out the painting on the end. I dedicated that one to you. Thanks for the wine, cutey.”
Before I could reply, she skipped away.
There was humor in Damian’s eyes when I glanced at him. “Shall we?” I asked.
He touched the small of my back and walked us toward the first painting and all the while I worked on keeping my balance because the heat stirred from his touch was nice, really, really nice.
“I think it speaks to the darkness in all of us. What do you think young lady?”
It was a black canvas with a white question mark in the center. I thought that Sunshine painted it while watching her favorite show, Gravity Falls.
“Um, it’s…” I tilted my head, like that was going to bring me clarity, but the older couple followed my lead. “I think…” I tilted my head the other way and they followed. I glanced at Damian. To the casual observer, he looked uninterested, maybe even bored, but I knew better. I would have paid handsomely to know what he was thinking because I swear he looked to be enjoying my discomfort.
“To me it speaks...” And then inspiration struck. “What do you think it means, darling?” And as I hoped, I successfully turned the elderly couple’s attention away from me and onto him. They waited with bated breath for the perils of wisdom he was about to bestow on us.
“I think it speaks to the ageless question…is there something after death?”
He said it so matter-of-factly; it just rolled off his tongue like he spewed nonsense like that every day—the man who didn’t speak except when it was absolutely necessary. The older couple looked at him like he was the messiah. I swear they were getting on their knees if we stayed much longer. But we didn’t, he led me away, giving them time to ponder his words.
“Where the hell did that come from?”
He shrugged, but his lip twitched and when he glanced down at me there was laughter looking back. I teased him. “You’re about to smile, you might want to pull it together.” But I was hoping he would smile—seeing every aspect of his face brightened by a genuine smile, one directed at me—because it was my very favorite of his expressions.
It had been two days since Sunshine’s show. The painting she had dedicated to me was of actual stick figures. I could still see Damian’s laughing eyes every time I closed my own. We were older and different but I liked the man he had become. The one who could spout that shit about the ageless question, could find humor in me suggesting he was an escort, could take me up against the wall and give me the best orgasm of my life while we were both fully clothed, held my hair back and made me greasy food after a night of overdoing it. Like the boy he had been, the man he was now was someone well worth knowing.
I finished the work I had planned for the day. I wasn’t in the mood for a movie because I was feeling a little too wired given the state of things. I needed a release and since sex with Damian was off the table, it was zombie-killing time. I fired up my Xbox, checked my arsenal and got to it.
I was a little rusty but into the second hour I was on a roll. I felt fairly confident that when the zombie apocalypse came I would make a dent in them before I turned into one myself. At first I thought I’d want someone to lop off my head because who wanted to be a zombie, but then it might be cool to see what it was like. A mindless, brain addicted fiend. There were worse things to be. When my phone rang I almost didn’t answer it, but it could be important. I put it on speaker.