Page 4 of Center of Gravity
“I think using a variety of materials is really where I’m at. I get too bored trying to stick to one thing, and I like interesting combinations of materials. It’s kind of modern alchemy, in a way.”
“Art always sounded like a tough business to me.” Too inconstant, too unpredictable. I didn’t know why anyone would try to make a career out of it.
“It’s a fickle one, yeah.” He shrugged. “It’s the only thing that ever felt like it fit me, though.” He slid a few more stacks of books on top of mine and then closed the box, sealing it with tape.
“What do you do?”
“CPA. The exact opposite of fickle,” I said.
His eyes lit up when he laughed. It was such a generic thing to say, but it was true. It wasn’t a blinding brightness, more a glossy, hazel-tinged twinkle, but it had the effect of making me want to make him laugh again. Which was unfortunate. Caustic I could do. Funny, not so much.
By noon, Tom had made three runs and the dining room was emptied of everything but cobwebs and layers of dust that had collected after my mom was no longer around to scare them off. She’d been militant about cleaning. Dad was her lifelong defector. In the months that it took him to follow her, the furniture, baseboards, and countertops had built up a thick reminder of her absence. I ran my finger across the windowsill and exhaled shakily.
I thought I was done missing her in that sharp, gut-check way that happened in the months surrounding death. But sadness was maddening in how it transformed through time, the way it could hide in plain sight, lying in wait in something as small and innocuous as a set of car keys, a pair of socks, a layer of dust—ready to sting with the vicious quickness of a paper cut.
* * *
Alexand I sat at the kitchen table with two glasses of water that neither of us were drinking while we waited for Tom to get back from the day’s last run.
Splay-legged and loose-limbed in his chair, Alex stared out of the kitchen window next to the table, turning the rim of his glass in his hand. He didn’t drum his fingers or bounce his knee, but the weight of the unsaid rippled in the air and made him seem impatient. Expectant. If I didn’t come up with something soon, it was going to out itself somehow. Alex gave me a pensive look. His lips parted. I wished I could think of something charming to say. I remembered charming. Had been accused of it at least a couple of times in my life, but my tongue felt clumsy in my mouth and I didn’t trust it to be anything other than literal and boring.
“When did you start with the moving company?”
“You forgot my name.”
We spoke at the same time, but my weak attempt at a detour faded into the background while his accusation hung bolded between us.
From the slight tilt at the corners of his lips, I got the impression he found all of this entertaining, whereas I just wanted it to go away.
He picked up his glass and took a sip, touching the back of his knuckles to his lips when he was finished. His eyes never left mine; they might as well have been pins in the wings of an insect for all the subtlety of demand in them.
“I did. But it was never supposed to matter.” I said, figuring blunt honesty was the best course.
“And you gave me a fake name.” He canted his head to one side.
“Same answer. It was never supposed to matter. Does it really, now? I didn’t get the idea you were looking for anything more than a hookup, and I thought I made it clear I was on the same page.” What with all the groping on the dance floor and lack of casual conversation. His tongue had been in my mouth within five minutes of exchanging names, fake or otherwise. “And to be honest, I was pretty drunk, so it’s all a bit fuzzy to me.” It was true, and I hadn’t bothered trying to dredge up memories of the night with any clarity afterwards, but it was seared against the back of my eyelids now, the way he’d held my hips, his fingers digging into my skin, the wet smear of his lips across my abdomen.
One shoulder hitched in a slow shrug, those long fingers going to work on his water glass again, twisting it and leaving damp circles behind on the table top. When I tacked on the last part about being drunk, he exhaled a light, sardonic chuckle that might as well have been an eye-roll.
“I wasn’t, so I guess you’re right. It doesn’t matter.” His gaze slid to the window, then flitted back, lighting on the glass in my hand. A flash of heat sizzled through me when his eyes lifted to mine.
“You left me hanging, though. Was pretty rude, if you ask me.”
I got up to carry my glass to the sink, dump the water, and replace it with a beer from the fridge—a more appropriate beverage for the conversation at hand since I didn’t have something harder like, oh, moonshine. I could feel him watching me and was irked at the self-consciousness with which I moved, too aware of what he was seeing. The damp ’V’ of sweat on my T-shirt, the muscles of my calves, the place where my hair curled over my collar at the nape of my neck, badly in need of a trim.
The can of beer hissed as my finger hooked through the tab and cracked the seal. I took a long swallow, then nodded. “It was, and I apologize for that.”
He waited a beat, then another, brows climbing higher on his forehead. “That’s it?”
“Sure.”
“God, you’re a fortress. Not even going to give me the benefit of an explanation? NoI turn into an ogre at midnight—except I’m pretty sure it was close to two a.m.? Or…” He plucked at his lip ring, eyes narrowing. “I suddenly remembered I was straight after I blew my load?”
“I’m not straight.”
His lips pursed again and he put one elbow on the table, leaning his chin against his hand as he sighed. “You were freaked out by my handsomeness and skill, afraid you wouldn’t measure up. It’s okay, that happens often.”
He clearly wasn’t being serious, but the cockiness of the smile that followed still wrenched a laugh from me in spite of myself. Christ, I had to give him something—and while I thought I’d decided on honesty, I fudged it a little, because the bald-faced truth was rather embarrassing for a man of my age.