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On the top floor, much like the second through fourth, long hallways connected several large rooms. Some had had their walls knocked down to open up the space even more. A few had no doors. It was an eclectic building, made more so by our modifications. The room at the very end of the hall was exclusively Alex’s. At one point in time, when I hadn’t spent most of my painting time holed up in Walker’s huge house, Alex and I had shared that room together.
The door, as usual, was wide open; my best friend always said he had nothing to hide. He was inside, with no shirt on and a pair of white pants.
He certainly was brave.
Alex specialized in erotic art. But it wasn’t porn. Alex first and foremost was an artist, not a flesh peddler. It could be seen in the elegant male bodies that populated his canvases, twined in embraces so intimate they’d make even the most sexual person blush, but so loving, the expressions so real and tender, that it would pull at your heart until it burst.
I had always admired Alex for going with real subjects. I loved my fantasy too much to try to go cold turkey and just draw regular people. Give me a pair of pointy ears and a set of wings any day.
“Hey, Alex,” I called. He looked over his shoulder, a paintbrush in one hand and his phone in the other; his reference was a selfie seemingly sent by one of his ‘boyfriends.’ He grinned at us, setting his brush into a cloudy glass jar of water.
“Well, well, well, do I finally get to meet the man behind all the sordid stories?” he asked, eyeing Walker before he sauntered up to me, pulling me into a tight hug. “It’s good to see you back in the studio,” he whispered. When he pulled away, he looked up to Walker once more, almost sizing him up.
Walker smiled, holding out his hand. “I’m Walker Pri—”
“Oh, I know who you are.” He waved his hand, and pulled Walker into a hug, too. “You’re not too good to hug an artist, I assume? You sure are fine though.”
I laughed at the expression on Walker’s face—bemused, somewhat confused, but certainly not offended. Good. Maybe the two most important men in my life could be friends—
Wait. Two most important men?
I wasn’t given enough time to get lost in that thought before Alex poked my nose.
“So what brings you around? Good news? Bad news? No news?”
“Walker wanted to see the studio,” I explained.
“And more of her art,” the man in question added. “I finally got to see a peek of what she’s been working on at the house and wanted more.”
Alex laughed. “Curious, huh? I’m surprised that she didn’t point out some of her pieces that are still up in the gallery as you came in.”
Walker looked down at me, his brow raised. I looked away with a blush.
“You know, she didn’t always used to be this shy,” Alex said, wiggling his brows Walker’s way. “I think it says a lot that she’s coming out here with you.”
14
Walker
The studio Macks brought me too was, in a word, interesting. Five levels of pure, eclectic, creative fire. I’d been to art galleries and showings before. I’d known eccentric artists, reclusive artists, hack artists. I had never, in all my years, experienced artists as purely authentic as the ones I was introduced to at her art collective.
First there was the pair of twins—Ash and Aven. Judging by their pieces Mackenzie pointed out to me, they worked almost exclusively in neon, but none of it was garish. There was a character and a heart in them. Then there was a graffiti artist named Mave, who liked to color her hair with her medium of choice and also somehow managed to create stunningly realistic portraits. Many of her pieces were up on the third floor gallery as high-resolution photographs.
And then there was Alex. Alex, who was easily one of the brightest characters I had ever met—in personality and in wit. It would be easy to write him off as a flamboyant guy with all flash and no substance, but everything from the way he maneuvered conversation to his art told me there was so much more to him than first met the eye.
I could see why Mackenzie was friends with him. I could see how a guy like him would bring out the best in her and her art.
He sized me up as we met and were introduced. Like he was trying to discern the kind of man I was. I guessed whatever he found was something he liked, because he hugged me like an old friend and talked to me like we’d known each other for years. I felt surprisingly at ease in a world that, aside from an appreciative perspective, I really wasn’t a part of. I was reminded why Mackenzie loved art so much, and it pained me to think that she was being held back by her shyness and lack of self-confidence when it came to her own work.
I think it says a lot that she’s coming out here with you.
A smile tugged at my lips in response to Alex’s words. “I hope so.”
I pulled away from Mackenzie, going up to one of her friend’s paintings. It was the least erotic of the ones that were on display, but there was something sensual even in the display. The two subjects, male, sat looking at each other. One was seated on the floor and the other in a chair, his arm reached out, tilting the other’s head up to look at him. There was something intense yet tender about the whole thing.
Something clicked in my mind as I gazed at the painting.
In all the art I’d seen here, and Mackenzie’s pieces too, what made it all so amazing was the deft, intricate hand that had been used to create it all. Nothing I’d seen felt like it was trying to shoehorn in meaning—something that usually came with a double dose of pretentiousness in the high-class art world. I thought about the sculptures and the art pieces that I had in my own house, pieces I’d only bought because it was the thing that rich people did. We populated our homes with pretty possessions that imitated depth… but they were really just scraps of paper or lumps of hardened, painted clay or carved stone.
