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“Fuck no. One month is bad enough. I’ll have something lined up by then. I’m thinking about getting my bartender’s license,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. Noon would make us both sick worrying about me.
He sighed, standing to snag a business card off the counter.
“What’s this?” I asked when he dropped it in front of me.
“It’s some ritzy art gallery downtown. Stacey knows one of the girls who works there. She got her to agree to take one of your paintings. It’s on a consignment basis, though. It’s the best the girl could do. Said the owner’s a prick.”
“No, thank you,” I said, sliding the card away. “My work isn’t good enough to hang in any gallery. Definitely not a ritzy one.”
“Figured you’d say that too, which is why I took the liberty of handing over one of your pieces. They’ll let you know if it sells. If it does, they may even commission more work from you.”
“Noon,” I grated out between my teeth. I knew exactly which gallery he was talking about. I’d walked past it several times, wondering if I’d ever be good enough to grace its walls. I wasn’t, and they’d probably stuck my painting in a supply closet the moment Stacey left.
“It’s not charity, Leland. If you won’t believe in your talent, I will. It costs you nothing. Just let it hang there and see what happens. I’m leaving my best friend to fend for himself, and it’s fucking killing me,” he said, his eyes growing misty. “I had to do something to help you.”
Noon’s leaving me started way before today. We’d been growing apart for some time now because he had big life plans, and I kept my plans to a bare minimum. He was outgrowing me, and his moving felt like the final nail in the building of our friendship’s coffin. It wasn’t that he acted like he was too good for me, or that he’d never not be there if I needed him, but it felt almost cruel on my part to keep him at ground level with me just because I refused to grow with him.
But I knew he still loved me, and as threatening as he could appear, Noon was actually a big teddy bear, and I could never quite master being immune to his tears. I hauled my plate of food back in front of me. “Fine,” I said, and Noon’s huge paws were cupping my cheeks before I could get a proper eye roll in. He leaned over to plant a noisy kiss on my lips, causing me to drop eggs onto my lap.
“Thank you,” he said, fake tears gone and walking away with an extra pep in his step and a smile in his voice.
I glared daggers at his back as I grumbled, “At least I won’t have to put up with your saggy, naked ass anymore.”
Noon tossed his head back laughing, flexing his muscular ass cheeks as he headed for the bathroom. “I love you too,” he shouted back, his laughter resuming, the sound of it warming my heart until it vanished beneath the sound of running water.
***
Two weeks of off-the-books grunt work at a construction site left me with enough cash to get the rent paid up for the rest of the summer, especially since Noon had covered June, leaving me with the money I’d scraped together for my half.
I never paid rent early. Shit, I could rarely swing paying it on time, but I didn’t trust myself not to do something stupid like spend it on food or whatever else a human needed to survive, so I made my landlord’s day by handing over the money order earlier that afternoon.
Back in the apartment, I propped myself against my headboard and recounted the measly pile of cash I had left, hoping I’d discover that I had, in fact, miscounted by at least a few hundred dollars in my favor the first ten times I’d counted.
“Nope,” I said, blowing out a breath. It was just enough to pay for my bartending course. With any luck, I could complete the class in a few weeks and get work as a barback before September rolled around.
The tiny apartment felt empty without Noon. A different type of empty than the nights he didn’t come home. This was permanent, and the emptiness in my heart reminded me that outside of him, I had no one. A reality I’d worked hard to maintain.
My gaze shifted to the rain pummeling my window. The gloominess of the day reminded me of Franky. Why had I shared so much with him?
“Are you always this candid with strangers?”he’d asked on that rooftop.
“Never,”I’d said.
Yet I’d shared something with him so private and traumatizing that I often refused to allow myself to think about it. And now I racked my brain for a concrete answer to the questionwhy.Had to be more than him handing over his name, no matter how big that felt at the time. I could’ve given him a number of less intimate secrets in exchange, but I’d given him the one that mattered most. The one that shaped me.
Franky wasn’t lacking in the darkness and stoicism department. Dark and stoic men had always been my weakness, running a close second to men who didn’t give a shit about me—because if they didn’t care, I didn’t need to worry about them wanting to stay. No one got to stay.
But what I’d felt toward him hadn’t been attraction, not the physical kind, anyway. And even if it were, the wedding band on his finger would’ve put an immediate stop to that.
He was living a life he didn’t want—to some degree—but seemed helpless in finding a way out of it. Or maybe he did see a way out but was too afraid to seize it. Too afraid to fail, or maybe, I was projecting my own shit onto him. What did it matter anyway? We were from two different worlds, and the chances were slim that those worlds would ever collide again.
My phone rang, bringing me back to the present, and I followed the sound to the kitchen table. It continued to ring as I stared at the unknown number populating the screen, contemplating if I should answer. Did I owe anyone money? The utilities were paid up to the end of the month, so it shouldn’t be a bill collector. I tapped the speaker phone function, listening before tentatively saying, “Hello?”
“Hello, am I speaking with Mr. Meadows?” The voice was haughty but masculine.
“Depends,” I answered, hesitant to confirm my identity.Couldit be a creditor? “Who’s this?”
“This is Neil Sanders. I’m calling aboutA Winter Meadow,” he said.
