“Fine, I’ll call you,” I say out loud with a sigh as I go back to the bed and find my phone. I sit back on the bed and before I stop myself, I call them.
It’s only after the ringing sound reaches my ears that I realise I’ve started a video call. Force of habit, I guess.
“Ah, well. If they don’t want to see my face, they can switch it off,” I say to myself but before I finish the sentence, Loncey has answered.
“Hey, Maeve,” they say. Seeing their face – all warm brown skin and dark eyes and a little stubble – catches me unexpectedly off guard. They are very pretty. And then I look down.
“Jesus Christ, could you not have put a shirt on for me? It’s like you want me to rip you a new one!” I declare.
They laugh. “Oh, yeah, I’m doing great, Maeve, thanks for asking. How about you?”
“Well, now I’m worried about my lunch repeating on me. And considering it was a sub-standard room service chicken club sandwich, I’d rather it didn’t.”
“Listen, I can put a shirt on if you insist, but I literally just got out of the shower.” They move a little and I see the stripes of wooden panels behind their head.
“Loncey, where are you? It looks like you’re in a sauna right now,” I say, squinting at the screen as I try to take in more of their surroundings.
“It’s my… cabin.”
“A cabin? Where is this cabin?”
“Vegas.”
“You’re in a cabin, in Vegas?” I sound as disbelieving as I feel.
“In my mom’s back yard. It’s a long story but it gives me some privacy and my own space and I’m still close enough to them to help my sister.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “But it has a shower?”
“Yeah, and a toilet and a little kitchen and look,” they move the camera again, “a couch and there’s my bed.”
As the camera switches back to Loncey’s face the angle is different and I can see their towel hanging low on their hips, a ladder of flat and defined abdominal muscles above it. I am aware that I’m reacting to the view but I don’t have words to describehowI react. All I know is that they notice because their smile falls and when they speak next, their voice is calmer, softer, quieter.
“Hey Maeve, I’m just going to put you down a second while I get dressed. But don’t worry, you’ll have a good view.”
“Okay,” I say, still lacking in words. A second later the view has changed again and I’m looking up at what looks a lot like the sky at night, a pattern of bright stars lighting up a thick black background.
“Wait,” I say, realising. “Is this one of your paintings?”
I hear some rustling, movement. “Yeah,” they say from somewhere off-camera. “I stuck some of my old paintings up there the other day. Gives me something to look at on sleepless nights.”
“You have a lot of them?” I ask, leaning closer and noticing how the stars are all different sizes and while they appear tobe arranged at random, I start to make out some recognisable shapes, some constellations that I should probably know, but don’t. I can also see that the canvas is not all one solid shade of black but there are shades of grey, blue and purple there too.
“Sleepless nights, or old paintings?”
“Both, I guess.”
“I’d say some of both,” Loncey says and they sound even further away.
“You really should start painting again. You’re really good,” I say. “Did you think about it after we texted about it?”
“A little. It’s just a time thing. I don’t have a ton of spare time right now.”
“Am I interrupting?”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I just mean, in general. My days are busy enough with work and Jessica and looking after my mom’s house and walking a dog…” they sound closer and a second later, the camera wobbles and pivots until it’s back on Loncey’s face.
They’re dressed in a burgundy T-shirt, their locs now tied up on top of their head. I can see more of their face like this, the hard lines of their jaw stunning me momentarily until I see how their ears stick out ever so slightly and that makes me want to smile so hard, it takes some effort to school my features.
