Naked (9 page)

After a couple moments scrambling, I found a box of tools, but not of the hammer and screwdriver variety. I unsnapped the locks and lifted the hinged, plastic lid. From the other room I heard the sound of Sarah’s phone and low-pitched laughter.

Inside the box lay a huge, flesh-colored cock, complete with balls and a handy-dandy suction cup to keep it secured to a table or wall. Beneath it in other compartments were all sorts of sex gadgets—a butt plug still in its original package, boxes of novelty condoms in flavors and shapes, sample
packets of lube with names like Slippery Nipplez and Cherry Popper.

This box had been a bridal shower gift to me from a group of college friends. It had gone with me from my dad’s house to my first apartment, the one I’d meant to share with Patrick but had ended up living in alone. And now, somehow, it had found its way with a bunch of my other crap to the storage room in my studio.

I looked at it for a while. It had been a joke when I got it, and had become more of a joke later, though I’ll admit it had taken me a long time to see it as funny. I’d put it away when I couldn’t bear to see it, not because of the contents but because of what the gift had been meant to celebrate.

I ran a finger along the monstrous dong and shook my head, laughing. Something like this was too funny to be kept locked away. And after all this time, if I couldn’t break out the huge rubber penis my friends had bought me in anticipation of an unexpectedly canceled wedding to my gay boyfriend, I really needed a better sense of humor.

“Sarah!” I cried, clasping the dong to my crotch and striking a pose in the doorway. “I have something for you! Woo-hoo!”

Yeah. I twirled it like a lasso. Then I jerked my hips back and forth, fucking the air like a porn star on ecstasy. “Come and get it!”

Of course I hadn’t looked before leaping through the doorway. Of course I’d assumed the pizza man had come and gone, and that Sarah was alone in the office. Of course I was wrong.

Of course it was Alex standing next to Sarah, their mouths agape and eyes wide. Sarah looked back and forth from him
to me and shot me a look I knew meant she thought I’d been holding out on her. She recovered first.

“Thanks, Liv, but I’ve already got one like that.”

“Me, too,” Alex said after half a moment. “Mine’s not as big, though.”

Sarah guffawed and jerked a thumb at him. “I like this guy.”

I stood in front of him with a gigantic rubber penis in my fist, and I couldn’t find anything witty or smart to say. “Hi, Alex.”

Sarah gave him a long up and down perusal. “Hello, Alex, owner of a huge cock.”

I clapped the hand not full of pseudocock to my forehead. “Thank you, subtle Sarah.”

Alex didn’t seem perturbed by the implication we’d been discussing him. He gave Sarah his hand. “Alex Kennedy.”

“Sarah Roth.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him, and he laughed.

“Nice to meet you, Sarah.” He looked at me. “I brought you a rent check.”

Sarah’s brows disappeared into her hairline. “Rent?”

“Remember I told you, I got a tenant?”

She snorted laughter. “Uh-huh. You sort of left out a few details on that one.”

I realized I had the dildo in a death grip, as if I were strangling an anaconda. I had no place to put it so I set it on the table, where it nestled among the piles of fabric. The three of us stared at it.

“That’s a shame,” Sarah said after a minute. She plucked up the dong and swept the fabric out of the way, then suction-cupped it to the table surface. “There you go.
Much
better.”

We all stared at it again.

Alex cleared his throat. “That’s, um, impressive?”

Sarah gave the dildo a flick with her finger that set it bobbing like a metronome. “Well, listen, I’m out of here. Have fun, kids. Liv, I’ll make a run to the hardware store.”

“You don’t have to go,” Alex said. “Not because of me.”

She snapped her fingers at him. “Hell, no. I need a trip to the hardware store. I have a serious jones for a new nail gun. Besides, I have plans.”

“What plans?” I asked suspiciously. “You didn’t mention any plans before.”

Sarah held up her phone. “I didn’t have them before, but I do now. And you’ve got company now, anyway. Alex.” Smirking, she gave him another obvious assessment. “Maybe he can help you pound something. Ta, kids. Liv, I’ll call you later. Alex, nice meeting you. Hope to see you again.”

“You, too,” he said, and watched her go before turning back to me with a slightly incredulous look. “I feel a little like I’ve been run over by a steamroller.”

I laughed. “That’s Sarah for you.”

“Here.” He handed me an envelope, which I put into my pocket. He looked around the room. “Great space.”

I’d forgotten he’d never been up to the studio. “Thanks. It’s the reason I bought the place to begin with.”

“I don’t blame you.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You see the potential in things a lot, Olivia.”

The compliment moved me, set me back a little. “Thanks.”

He smiled. “So, I got a call from Patrick.”

“Yeah?”

Alex’s smile twisted a little. “Yeah. Apparently I’m supposed to avoid you?”

“Apparently.” Something in his voice and expression tipped me off that something was a little strange. “What did he say?”

“Umm…” Alex looked discomfited. “A lot of shit.”

“And…what did you say?”

“I told him he was a prick and to fuck off.”

I raised a brow but believed he was telling the truth. “Wow.”

Alex frowned. “Look, Patrick doesn’t own me. Fuck, he doesn’t own you, right?”

“No.”

He shrugged. “I’m not really into being told what to do. For my own fucking good or not.”

“He told you it as for your own good?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Wow.”

Alex shrugged again, but gave me a look softer than his last words had been. “Don’t worry about it. I think he got the picture.”

I cupped my elbows in my hands. “He was a little pissy that we’ve been spending so much time together. Thinks we’re becoming BFF or something.”

It didn’t seem right talking about Patrick with a giant pink penis between us. I yanked it free from the tabletop and put it in a chest of drawers along the wall. Alex didn’t say anything while I did so, and I kept my back to him as I pretended to look for something in one of the drawers.

“What’s the story with you two, anyway?” he asked, mildly enough. I could imagine his dark eyes. Gray, not brown as I’d thought.

“I don’t think I have a story.”

“Olivia,” Alex said seriously, “everyone has a story.”

“Patrick and I used to be a couple.” It was the short version.

“I know that part already.”

I chewed the inside of my lip. “It was years ago. Obviously. Before he was gay.”

Alex tilted his head, gave me an assessing look. “You don’t think he was always queer?”

“No, I…” Alex had stumped me for a second. “Right. I meant before he came out. Before he admitted it, I guess. We were a couple when Patrick tried to be straight. How’s that—is that better?”

He didn’t seem to mind that I sounded harsh. “And now? What are you now?”

I sighed. “Now…I don’t know what we are. Friends, I guess.”

Alex made a skeptical noise, then gave an exaggerated look around. “And, moving right along…nice studio.”

“You said that already.”

“I know.”

I laughed. It was easy to laugh with Alex. Easy to put aside the discussion of Patrick I didn’t want to have, anyway. “It’s a mess. Sarah was here to help me spiff it up.”

“And I chased her away. I’m sorry.” He put a hand on his heart and looked pained.

“Oh, don’t you feel bad. Now that you’re here I can use you. I’ve got a ton of junk that needs to be hauled around,” I said with a grin. “There’s no way I’m tackling anything fancy without Sarah here, but I can paint the walls with stain blocker mildew stuff and clean out the back room.”

“Manual labor?” Alex looked skeptical. Then he cracked his knuckles and rolled his head, cracking his neck. He hopped from foot to foot. “Manly stuff, huh?”

I snorted. “Oh, yes, manly stuff. Because clearly I’m so entrenched with gender stereotypes.”

I couldn’t interpret his long, studying look, or the half smile that followed it. I’d amused him again, but I couldn’t tell why. I gave him a look of my own.

“You’re not too pretty to work, are you? Afraid of getting your hands dirty?”

“No, ma’am. I can even use power tools on occasion.”

I snorted lightly. “I bet you can.”

Alex gave a pointed glance at the drawer where I stashed the dildo. “I bet you can, too.”

We both burst into laughter, utterly companionable and uncomplicated. My giggle fluttered into a sigh. He watched me, his dark gray eyes alight.

“What?” I said, wondering at the scrutiny.

“Patrick’s an asshole.”

I frowned a little, not wanting to head back toward that dark mood. “He can be. But so can anyone.”

Alex grunted. “Hell, yeah, that’s the truth.”

Alex had never been anything but nice to me—supernice, really, above-and-beyond nice, but I knew he had firsthand experience with being a bit of a prick. I’d seen it myself. But that wasn’t my business. I tried to judge people on what they did to and for me, not for anyone else.

“C’mon. I want to get this space painted by the end of the day so when Sarah comes back again we can hang the drapes. Because believe me, if it’s not finished, she will kick my ass.”

“She’s a little tyrant, huh?” Alex followed me into the back room and let out a low whistle. “Cool.”

I looked at the wooden shelves constructed from thick barn beams and heavy planks of wood. They reached ten feet high, halfway to the raftered roof. Once they’d been used to store equipment and supplies for the firehouse, but now most
of them were bare or cluttered with the jumbled mess of everything I needed for the studio or couldn’t fit in my living space downstairs.

“This room is what sold me. When they put this place up for auction, the Realtor didn’t even want to show me this part. Apparently the former owner’d run out of funds before converting this floor to living space. There was water damage, broken glass. The first time I came up here, I found a dead bird.”

“No wonder she didn’t want to show you.”

It seemed I laughed with him more often than anything else. “Right. Well, I made her, anyway, because to spend that sort of money on two apartments, even with the rent potential, seemed like a very bad choice.”

“And you’re not into making bad choices.”

I flung him a look. “I think we can both agree I’ve made a few.”

“But not in buying this place.” Alex tipped his head back to stare up, up to the roof, where four-foot beams held the weight of the tiles. Then he rubbed his hands together again. “Great. What first?”

“First I want to seal the bricks and paint the studio walls. Give everything a nice, fresh start.”

“Groovy.”

“You don’t have to help me, you know.” I nudged past him to get at the buckets of sealant and paint, the brushes and drop cloths. “You must have better things to do.”

“Nope.”

I handed him a brush. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“Because I’m so damned pretty,” Alex said with a straight face. “And charming.”

I tapped his chest with my paintbrush. “That’s it.”

“Believe it or not, Olivia,” Alex said, as he exited the back room after me, each of us carrying a bucket and a brush, “that can actually be a disadvantage.”

“Oh, yeah? How so?” I paused to look around the room, seeking the best place to start. I had several buckets of clear brick sealant and a few cans of the dark gold paint I’d picked for the room’s other walls. The floor, of scratched and scarred wooden planks, wouldn’t be hurt much by splotches of paint, but as I didn’t have the money to refinish it for a while, I flung down a drop cloth in one corner.

“For one thing, everyone assumes you already have plans when you don’t, so hardly anybody ever invites you places.” Alex set his bucket of sealant down by the front wall, between the long, floor-to-ceiling windows. “It’s annoying.”

I spread out my drop cloth and opened my paint can. “Oh, yeah? Should I hold you while you cry?”

Alex guffawed. “Am I that pathetic?”

“Sort of, yeah.” My tone said the opposite. I straightened, watching as he bent to open his bucket. He’d shoved his sleeves up high on his elbows and I took a long, satisfying look at his forearms. I’m a sucker for a nice pair of wrists. The tendons underneath are very sexy to me.

I watched as he lifted the heavy bucket and bent to pour some of the sealant into the low pan, then soaked the roller in it. And yes, I was staring at his ass, because, please God, never let knowing it’s stupid get in the way of ogling a fine rear end.

I poured paint into my own pan and dipped my roller. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“It’s that damn reputation of being an international playboy.” Alex shot a grin over his shoulder. “Thought I’d give being a domestic playboy a try.”

“How’s that working for you?”

“Not so good,” he admitted, and began coating the bricks with sealant. “It’s not as exotic, that’s for sure.”

Again I submitted to laughter and reveled in it. “Everyone’s got their talents.”

We painted for a while in casual silence. The room got hotter. I turned to ask him if he wanted something cold to drink, and stopped short, slapped to silence by what I saw.

He’d lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe his face. His belly was tight, taut, with a single line of hair trailing from his navel into the waistband of his low-slung jeans. His belly button was perfection; I remember that, thinking how could a dip and hollow of flesh be so perfect?

“Don’t move,” I said.

The picture in my head had already appeared. All I needed was to make it happen. I wiped my hands on the seat of my jeans, not caring if I left streaks, and got my camera from its place on top of the dresser by the door. Alex, surprisingly obedient, had frozen, his shirt still lifted, his face turned toward me, one hip cocked.

I looked at him through the safety of my viewfinder, making him a picture and not a person. Light shafted in the windows on either side of him. I couldn’t forget how I’d seen him once before, cut in half by shadow.