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“Then it’s probably coming from a couple RVs down. I know James’ I fucked up but I’m gonna fix it look. It’s gonna be awhile. If you’re not up for a little adventure, you can always go back and see what in the world they’re creating on the RV roofs.”
“Oh hell no,” Tripp replied, catching Zakk’s hand and interlacing their fingers. As they walked, their hands swung between them, and Zakk realized how much he liked the simple intimacy of the moment.
There was just the slightest hint of a breeze, enough to move air around them to keep it from becoming too stifling. Zakk wandered without direction, keeping away from larger groups so he could have Tripp to himself longer.
When the looming graffiti wall came into view, Tripp’s hand tightened around his, and suddenly Zakk found himself being drawn directly into the group of musicians jostling to put their names on the wall. Spray paint in the widest variety of colors and styles Zakk had ever seen, sat in a rack beside the wall. It was the kind of display that would put a hardware store to shame.
“I missed out on the chance to add my name to last year’s mural,” Tripp explained as he all but dragged Zakk over to pick a color. “That’s not gonna happen again.”
Tripp studied the cans with all the intensity of a Picasso wanna be, until he spied a can on the top shelf that had him bouncing and shouldering his way past several others to snag it. He even held it up in triumph and paraded around with it, while Zakk snagged a can of aqua paint and a second, silver one, before returning to Tripp’s side.
“You wanna tell me what’s so exciting about….what color is that anyway?”
“I dunno, some cross between satin rose and plum,” Tripp said, turning it sideways to study the label. “Steel pink. It reminded me of the sunset we watched from the hot tub. I saw it and an image of you naked and squirming in my lap immediately came to mind.”
“And now you want to write your name in it?” Zakk remarked, glancing at the wall to look for a good spot.
“Actually, I was planning to write yours and I was hoping you’re write mine,” Tripp admitted. “I was thinking maybe we could intertwine them somehow.”
Zakk cocked his head to the side and stared up along the wall’s surface, looking at the rough concrete grain as an idea came to mind. “I do, but we’ll need to find a mirror.”
Tripp glanced around like he was searching for one. “O-kay, I don’t see one handy and I doubt you’ve got a way to fashion one out of sand, so I’d say we’re shit outta luck.”
“I got a mirror, bro,” someone to the left of them said. Tripp didn’t recognize the musician, but he accepted the small compact mirror from him gratefully and handed it over to Zakk.
Using a page from the notebook he always carried, Zakk carefully scrawled his name in the same style he intended to paint it in.
“While I work on this, you get started on your name,” Zakk said. “We need it up there first.”
Some names were in block print, others cursive, like a signature. A rare few did their’s graffiti style, so when Zakk looked up to see that Tripp had painted his name slanted and swirled like he was tagging the side of a building, Zakk raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“Someone’s been keeping secrets,” Zakk said as he admired the piece.
“Maybe.”
“Heh,” Zakk chuckled, before carefully recreating the mirror image sketch he’d made of his name. When he was through, the ks of his name rested over the ps of Tripps, and his Z rested upside down over Tripp’s T. His upside down a covered the ri, and his style was a little more flowy than Tripp’s, but old school graffiti as well.
Tripp had a bright, vivid purple, so Zakk grabbed a shocking electric blue, and between the two of them, they gave it depth, dimension, and a grittier feel. Next year, if they were lucky enough to play here, they’d be able to look back on their design, prominently on display on the back of a flatbed eighteen wheelers, just like last years was positioned now.
“That’s fuckin’ killer,” the guy who’d loaned them the compact said when they were done. You couldn’t see where one style ended and the other began. Somehow, they’d blended their names together the same way their souls had merged over the past two years.
“You’re got a little smudge of paint on your cheek,” Tripp said, rubbing his thumb over it. “Pretty sure I just made it worse.”
“That’s okay, it’ll come off eventually. You, on the other hand, are gonna be rockin’ that streak of silver for a little while. Personally, I like it. Gives me a nice glimpse of what you’ll look like in a couple decades, and let me tell you, I love it.”
“Couple decades, huh?” Tripp remarked, their hands joining once more. “You really wanna put up with me for that long?”
“I’d put up with you to eternity and back, if the world would let us have each other that long.”
The words had just tumbled from between his lips, and for a moment, Zakk feared he’d gone too sappy, but that was how he felt. The grin that split Tripp’s lips was worth it, as was the feel of being molded against Tripp’s body and kissed breathless.
“I don’t know about the world, but you have my permission, and that’s all you really need.”
“Then I’ll take it.”
Slowly, the sun began going down, and while James probably had the issues with dinner fixed by now, Zakk was in no hurry to head back. Instead, they followed the path of glowing, neon, walking around mushroom houses made of glow sticks, and a dragon with neon yellow wings.
“Is that a bat?” Tripp asked, moving closer to get a better look at the neon purple creation.
