Chiaroscuro (17 page)

"There more food to be had," Ben said, "but not until later. First there needs to be fun. Like..." He paused, thinking that as much as he liked Jamie there was still a lot about him he didn't know. Would he prefer golfing or movies or a day at the beach?

No, Jamie was an artist--and he had a strange head. Ben smiled to himself as he sipped his coffee. Nothing ordinary for Jamie's birthday.

"Like the Discovery Museum," he announced and put down his cup.

Both Dune and Jamie stared at him. "Isn't that for kids?" Jamie said.

"Little kids?" Dune added.

"Yup," said Ben, feeling absurdly pleased with himself, "the nephews love it. And we're going to go. I'll call and make sure it's open today, and if it is then we're going to go and play all day. Because we deserve," he looked pointedly at Jamie, "to be big kids today."

Jamie dropped his eyes to his plate. "I really don't--"

"No," Dune said softly, "you really do. You need this, Jamie."

Jamie fidgeted with his fork. "But it's so silly."

"Like you've never been silly."

"Is he silly?" Ben asked Dune.

"Not so much lately, but I have known him to be very silly indeed."

"Well, that settles it," said Ben with a nod. "I haven't seen you be truly silly and I think I ought to."

"Guys," Jamie said, "I just found out my boyfriend is cheating on me. I'm not going to be silly today."

"Could you, perhaps, surrender to a childlike sense of wonder?" Dune said.

"We'll accept that," said Ben.

Jamie sighed. "I suppose I have no choice when you both gang up on me."

"None." Ben grinned at Dune in triumph.

"And if it's not open today?"

"I'll think of something else. You are not going to spend your birthday moping in a dark room."

He looked at them both again, sighed and got to his feet. "Right. All right. I am in your hands. I'll go have a shower, then, and we'll meet back here, I suppose?"

"Yup," said Ben with a nod, and then leaned over and kissed Jamie's forehead. A smile flickered in his eyes and he touched Ben's cheek. Across the table, Dune smiled to himself and drained his coffee cup.

"How about if I meet you two at the museum," he said, rising. "And we'll all come back here after for--after."

"After?" said Jamie.

"After. There will be after." Ben had no idea what the after would be, but damn it, Jamie would have one.

***

The Discovery Museum was the perfect antidote to heartbreak. They spent the day going through the exhibits: seeing the story of the Monkey King, making art in the workshops, watching dancers in the theater and walking through a miniature San Francisco. They trailed after each other holding hands--"The buddy system," said Dune, "so we don't get lost,"--and while at first Ben thought Jamie would grow tired of it, when they decided to stop for a late lunch he realized Jamie hadn't let go of him for over an hour.

They got paninis and coffee at the museum cafe, and Dune got some brochures to look over while they ate. "So you've brought your nephews here?" Jamie said to Ben.

"Yup--they love it. They're hands-on kids."

"Big family, then?"

"Big. Four nephews and two nieces and another yet-to-be-determined who'll be born in January. And my mom still wants more, if you can believe it."

"I believe it. Mums tend to," Jamie said with a faint smile.

"Mine does," Dune said and turned a page. "Both of them. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to pull that off--all the women I know have fathers for their babies already or aren't ready for kids."

"You could place an ad," Jamie offered.

"I'm sure that will end well," Dune said with a sour look.

"An idea. Or adoption."

"Ask me again in ten years."

"Your mom pokes you about grandkids, too?" Ben asked Jamie, and Dune kicked him in the shin under the table. "Oh--er--did she--"

"No." Jamie drank some coffee. "I need a refill. Be right back." He rose from the table.

"Ow," Ben said pointedly to Dune once Jamie was out of earshot.

"Don't ask him stuff about his parents," Dune said.

"Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir. Anything else I should know? Phobias, trigger subjects, allergies?"

"He's allergic to acrylics." Dune shut the brochure and pushed it aside. "I have a strange feeling I ought to ask you your intentions."

Ben drank his coffee. "My intention is to give him a good birthday. I like him."

"I know you do. I'm glad you do."

"Are you in love with him?" Ben asked directly.

Dune looked taken aback. "No," he said, shaking his head, "no--I love him a lot, but--no. He's my best friend but--no. I want him happy. I don't want him for myself."

Ben took a bite of his panini. "Oh."

Dune watched him for a moment or two. "And you, as you've made clear, don't do love."

"After what's happened, can you blame me? I made Tristan cry--that's enough bad karma for one lifetime. And I don't ever want to be that guy, you know, the guy who's wrecked by disappointment."

"Hm." He ate his panini with a knife and fork, using precise, neat bites. "And love never ends well, of course."

"How many gay couples do you know who've been together long-term? Aside from your parents, who break all the rules anyway."

"I know quite a few, actually--I know couples who've been together for twenty years and who've been together for five. I even know straight couples who are still married."

"You know what I mean," Ben muttered.

"I do. I know it doesn't always end in heartbreak. Falling for a kid who's not ready to come out or be a real boyfriend was a bad idea, but Jamie's a romantic. He falls hard when he falls."

"Does he fall a lot?" Ben asked.

"Not since I've met him, but he's told me about the other guy. Stuart. Another subject you're not to bring up."

"Yes, sir." Jamie was taking a long time to refill his coffee--Ben looked around for him and saw that he was still at the counter, talking to a tall fellow who was holding a small blond boy. Jamie was smiling--but he had been a lot today. Actually, they both looked pretty happy. Ben said, "It's not going to work between him and me, is it? We want different things out of relationships."

"He has relationships--you cruise weddings for booty."

"I am not that bad!" Ben protested.

"I think you have a formal wear fetish," Dune said, grinning. "If I ever want you to jump me I'll wear a tux."

"Utterly untrue," Ben said though he felt a flush of heat at the thought of Dune in a tuxedo. Time to change the subject: "Do you know that guy Jamie's talking to?"

Dune looked over his shoulder and turned back to his lunch. "That's Daniel. Jamie used to be his boss."

"Oh. He's, um, tall."

"Everybody looks tall compared to Jamie. It's a scale thing."

"He's not that small."

"No, I suppose not." Dune turned to look at Jamie again. "He has a big presence."

"Who does?" Jamie said as he walked over with a fresh cup of coffee and Daniel and Daniel's food, as well.

"You, of course. Hey, Daniel."

"Hi, Dune," Daniel said cheerfully, and the little boy in his arms looked at them sleepily, his face scrunched as if he wanted to cry but was too tired to fuss.

"And this is Ben," Jamie said and Ben held out his hand for Daniel to shake, which Daniel did heartily. "He used to be in the art department with me at Virtuoso. Sit, Daniel, sit," he said, pulling over another chair.

"Hi, Ben." Daniel sat carefully, adjusting the boy in his arms who whined a moment at the movement and then snuggled into his neck. "This is Henry. He's missing nap time and so is not the best company."

"He's a cutie," Dune said, leaning over for a closer look. The boy looked at him through his shaggy blond hair and smiled a tiny bit. "Hey, little guy, are you tired?" The boy nodded and hid his face in Daniel's neck again.

"Taking the family for a day out?" Ben asked.

Daniel was eating a sandwich one-handed, and he nodded, swallowed, and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "My sister and her family are visiting and I thought the kids would like this place. The older kids love it--it's a bit much for him, though." He nodded to the boy.

"Oh, is he your nephew? I thought he was your son."

Daniel smiled again--it was a wide, easy, smile--and shook his head. "No kids. No wife. You know how it goes."

"Yup," said Ben and glanced at Jamie. Jamie only had eyes for Daniel, it seemed, and Ben couldn't blame him for that: you couldn't get much farther from Micah's physical type, and Daniel had none of Micah's twitchy nerves and tension. Daniel was tall and slender and solidly built, dark-haired and dark-eyed. He looked like his nose had been broken at some point and hadn't healed properly, but it only made his angular facial structure more intriguing.

He was a man, not a boy. And they were friends already. That would be good, right? Good for Jamie, which was the point of this whole day?

The others were catching up, talking about people he didn't know and reminiscing about events he hadn't witnessed, and now and again Daniel tried to get Henry to eat a little bit of potato salad. Casual, friendly, simple--but Daniel would go home with Jamie, in all likelihood. If not tonight, then sometime soon.

Ben sighed and swirled his coffee. Hadn't he just been hashing this out with Dune? How he and Jamie would never work because they wanted--expected--needed--different things?

I just want Jamie, he thought, and wondered what the hell he should do.

Chapter Nine

There was half an uneaten cake on Jamie's kitchen counter, bits of wrapping paper on the floor and wine glasses scattered here and there. Jamie wandered through the flat, turning off lights, and poured himself a glass from the last open bottle. He took it out onto the balcony and sat in the plastic chair, propping up his feet on the wrought iron balustrade.

Ben looked at him and grinned. "Happy birthday." He held out his glass.

Jamie clinked his own against it. "Thanks."

"I'd sing but my voice sucks."

"I've been sung to about five times already today. I think I'm all sung out."

Ben took a sip and then turned to look into the flat. "Did everybody leave? Even Dune?"

"Yup. He left, too."

"I thought he would have stayed, at least. Helped you clean up." He propped his feet up on the balustrade too, laying one ankle over Jamie's.

"He left with Daniel." He looked at Ben and shrugged.

"Oh...should I say sorry?"

"No. They'll have a good time. Daniel's a nice bloke, Dune's a nice bloke... they're probably having beautiful long-legged sex right about now."

Ben chuckled and sipped his wine. "Well, I stayed to keep you company."

"I am eternally grateful. But it can wait until morning."

"You ought to get the cake in the freezer. Cake freezes forever."

"All right. It was so beautiful I almost didn't want to eat it. Seemed like destroying a work of art." Ben had decorated his cake to look like the moon on Jamie's ceiling, blowing an enormous puff of air that read 'Happy Birthday, Jamie!' in big golden letters.

"Your art. I just copied it."

"You made a brilliant copy." Jamie drank. "You were up all night making that."

Ben didn't answer for a moment. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because Betty Crocker doesn't have my special touch of class." Jamie sighed and stared out at the city, and after a moment Ben said in a more serious tone, "I wanted to give you something no one else could. And...and if I hadn't made something, hadn't created something, I would have hunted down that little twink and pounded his face in." Jamie looked at him--Ben's face was somber. "Nobody hurts my Jamie."

Jamie whispered, "Since when am I your Jamie?"

"You've always been my Jamie." He looked away, shifted in the chair, and cleared his throat. "Okay, I think I'm a little buzzed."

"In vino veritas," Jamie murmured and sipped again.

"I don't speak Italian."

"It's Latin. It means 'in wine there is truth.'"

"Oh. So whenever somebody gets drunk and spouts off it's probably true."

"Probably."

"I'm in trouble," he said with a sigh.

Jamie chuckled and sipped more wine. "Your inhibitions are lowered. Your guard is down."

"And you're getting over a breakup." He raised an eyebrow at Jamie. "Or something will happen with that, right?"

"I suppose so. I should pack up his things and bring them to his dorm."

"Does he have a lot of stuff here?"

"Not much. T-shirts. CDs. Video game code books."

"So you take him his box of crap, have a couple of throwaway dates, and get back up on the old horse."

"It sounds like a great plan," said Jamie with a sigh. He poured the last of the bottle into his glass, took a drink, and made up his mind. "So tell me. For us to fuck do we have to stop being friends?"

Ben quickly drank down the last of his wine. "Um. What?"

"I'm just trying to figure out what it takes to get you into bed. There's another bottle of wine if I have to get you drunk."

"Jamie, you just broke up yesterday."

"I'm well aware."

Ben leaned over and pointed his finger at Jamie's chest. "I do not want to be your rebound guy."

Jamie caught his finger. "You have a lot of rules for somebody who claims to be footloose and fancy-free. You don't fuck your friends, you don't fuck on the rebound, you don't fuck people in relationships. So who do you fuck, Ben Gallagher? Hm?  Who do you have beautiful long-legged sex with?"

Ben's eyes darted over his face--he leaned forward and kissed Jamie hard, fingers curling around his hand. Jamie inhaled, squeezing his eyes shut, and pressed his tongue to Ben's lips. They parted and Ben sucked Jamie's tongue into his mouth. He leaned closer, the chair scraping against the concrete floor, and held Jamie's face in his other hand, spilling wine down his neck.

He backed off. "Shit--I'm sorry--" He tried to mop up Jamie's neck with his jacket sleeve.

"It's all right." Jamie patted the spilled wine with his shirt collar, looking at Ben from under his lashes. "I've had worse things spilled on me."