Shiny! (8 page)

“Yeah?” Will asked curiously, and Kenny snuck a look at him before moving his first sketch aside and starting on one of the two main characters. He hadn’t said a word about the little bag Kenny had left on Saturday, not one little word. Kenny figured that maybe it hadn’t been up his alley, and he would have felt a little disappointed, but he was having too much fun.

Will had texted him at work that afternoon with an offer of takeout and some character bibles, and, well, hell.

Kenny loved his house—he loved the colors he’d painted the walls (terra-cotta and sky blue), and he loved the wood panel flooring he’d put down without Gif’s help, and he loved the new drapes he’d picked out on his way home from work Saturday (green and blue paisley), and he loved his psychotic longhair cat.

What he did
not
love was the prospect of sitting in that house and thinking of all the things that Gif and he would
not
be doing if they hadn’t broken up. They wouldn’t be watching television, because Gif didn’t like sci-fi or crime fic or humor or basically anything with a plot. They wouldn’t be listening to music because Gif
only
liked club music, and Kenny liked it
only
when they were going to a club. They wouldn’t be going to a club because Gif never had any money to pay for the cover or the drinks, and Kenny was too worried about making the mortgage, even though his job was panning out.

And they wouldn’t be taking a walk in the park because Gif thought that was stupid.

So sitting here with this plain, pleasant man, drawing pictures of his dreams—that was a definite improvement.

“What was the sigh for?” Will said, breaking into his thoughts, and Kenny grimaced.

“Sorry. Just… you know….”

Will’s look was infinitely compassionate. “You’re missing the guy you kicked out three days ago, and I’m not him.”

“Well, you’re probably better,” Kenny said practically. “You’re more interesting and you brought food, so I don’t think you’re a freeloader, but, well, yeah. I keep wondering where I went wrong with Gif.”

Will patted his shoulder awkwardly. “Did you see what I brought with the Thai food?” he asked kindly. “I put it in the refrigerator!”

Kenny smiled. “Beer?” Will had reasoned out the trick to good beer—obscure labels. This one had a kangaroo on a bicycle—Kenny figured it could be a one-of-a-kind six-pack in his fridge.

Will nodded and got heavily to his feet. “Glass or bottle? I’ll get it if you like—keep working! I like your stuff!”

Kenny grinned and allowed himself to preen. Praise a skill he was proud of—so sue him! It didn’t matter that Will was a little plain—square face, square shoulders, meaty thighs—he just sort of radiated this goodwill, like warm peach cobbler. You never got tired of eating warm peach cobbler and ice cream, and so far this evening, Kenny wasn’t getting tired of Will.

“I’ve got chilled glasses in the freezer,” he said. “Go ahead and pour us each a glass!”

Kenny lost himself in another sketch, this one of a tiny pet-like alien that rolled on retractable spikes like a sea urchin. This one was
supposed
to be cute, and a little bit deadly, so that, too, was a challenge. By the time Will came back, Kenny had drawn the large, expressive eyes, choosing stylistics over anatomical function and making them hover somewhere around the body amorphously.

Will set the chilled beer mug down with the bottle next to it and then sat down himself with a glass of ice water.

“You’re not having beer?” Kenny asked plaintively, and Will shook his head.

“I’m a lightweight,” he apologized. “You’ve seen that. And I brought clothes for the morning, but I may still drive home tonight—the beer was for you. You’ve been really nice to put up with me when I’m sure it’s the last thing you want to do.”

Kenny kicked back a long draft of beer, set the mug down, and filled it from the rest of the bottle. “Good shit!” he praised before taking another sip. And then he addressed the implicit question.

“I’m doing okay,” he said carefully. “I mean, I know you saw me at a really, uhm, delicate time, but honestly—I was sitting here, drawing your guys, and thinking of all the reasons I was glad Gif was
not
here.” Oh God. For one thing, even if Kenny had known Will
before
the breakup, Gif would not have been kind. Gif was
great
at making snarky, bitchy comments about people who didn’t measure up to his standard of beauty or intelligence, and Kenny could hear the litany now.
Jesus, Kenny—this guy’s built like a refrigerator. Are you really gonna feed him takeout? Oh my God! Look at his nose—he’s like a Roman general without an army! I don’t care what he
writes
about, he moves like he’s on Thorazine—I bet he’s that much fun to hang out with too.
Ruthlessly, Kenny shut down his inner Gif, because seriously? This guy had just brought him fine beer and a fun distraction. If Kenny couldn’t defend himself from Gif’s infidelity, the least he could do was defend
Will
from Gif’s nasty lingering aftertaste.

“Not much company?” Will asked, and he sounded overcasual. Kenny looked up and saw nothing but guileless goodwill.

“Yeah—actually, it was just hitting me what a nozzle the guy was. I mean, it was probably heading for a breakup anyway, right?” Was it? What did it take for Kenny to break up with a guy?

“Well, besides the cheating, what was he like?” Will asked, settling back with his laptop. He tapped desultorily, and Kenny wondered if he was creating a new character or a new arc or adding to what he already had. He was almost afraid to ask—he liked the plot arc for the first two novels so very much, he didn’t even want to
see
what else Will could do.

“Well, he’s a nurse,” Kenny said, because wasn’t that the first thing you thought of when you thought of someone?

“Well, that’s a nice profession,” Will said encouragingly, but Kenny wrinkled his nose.

“There are a lot of serial killers out there who posed as nurses,” he told Will, trying to be practical. “I mean, he became a nurse because of the money, and then, in his club days, because of access to poppers, and after twenty-eight days in rehab—paid for by yours truly—I guess he stayed for the cock. I mean… I just don’t know when this relationship went from sex all the time to ‘he’s a giant barnacle on my ass.’”

Will spit his ice water out at the word “cock.” Kenny looked at him sputtering and wiping his mouth and trying to regain his composure, and then looked at his beer.

His glass was empty.

“Oh God,” he muttered. “I’m sorry—you probably didn’t even want to know anything about my—”

“No!” Will stood up and grabbed Kenny’s glass, waiting on him in his own home. “No, it’s okay. You complain all you want. That’s what you do with a breakup, right?” While he was speaking, Kenny heard him in the kitchen, dropping the bottle in the recycle bin, rinsing out his beer glass, drying it off, and then, surprisingly, filling it up again.

“Yeah? I don’t hear you complaining about whatserface.” Kenny knew what her face was, but given that Will couldn’t even hear the word
cock
without choking, he still had sort of a forlorn hope that maybe this plain straight boy wasn’t so damned straight.

“Yeah, well, whatserface was never in the picture,” Will said, coming back with the beer. He set it down in front of Kenny and kept his refreshed ice water on its own little denim coaster. (Kenny had cut them out of an old pair of Gif’s jeans when he’d been in rehab, and for a moment he contemplated throwing them away. But he’d never
told
Gif where the jeans had gone, and had taken a deep, bitter, perverse pleasure in hearing Gif wander the house once a month going, “Kenny, have you seen my favorite jeans?” Yeah. That right there should have been a sign.)

“Why not?” Kenny asked, taking another obscenely large swallow of this
excellent
beer. Apparently kangaroos on bicycles could really hop! Get it? Hop? Cause beer was “hoppy”… oh God. He was giggling to himself.
C’mon, Will, talk, and urge me out of drunken euphoria.

“I wasn’t really attracted to her,” Will said baldly, looking at Kenny with sort of a challenge in his eyes, but Kenny… whoo! Kenny was giggling into the dregs of his second beer.

“What’s the alcohol content in this shit again?” Kenny asked, looking around for another bottle.

Will’s eyes got really big and he checked the bottle.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Will muttered, and Kenny was just aware enough to pay a little bit of attention.

“What?”

“This is like, 17 percent alcohol. Jesus, it might as well be vodka by the twelve-ounce bottle!”

Kenny started giggling again. “I’m
drunk
? Off of two beers?”

Will stood up again and started gathering stuff. “Would you like a third? I’ll bring you some crackers and a glass of ice water too.”

Kenny remembered to hit Save on his tablet and put it away with his computer, but he didn’t get up to put it in the corner with his briefcase when he was done. He was afraid he wasn’t going to make it to the door.

“Jesus,” he said, confused. “I’m plastered. That was
not
my plan tonight!”

Will was back, like the world’s best waiter, with another beer, sans glass, a big glass of ice water and some crackers.

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry. Last time I buy a microbrew to show off.”

Aw. That was sweet. Kenny grabbed the ice water and shoved himself to the back of the couch. “You were showing off for me?” he asked. Wow, after two beers, Will’s overly square face sort of softened in the corners, and Kenny really noticed his eyes. You know, considering all the times Kenny had been drunk and banged strangers who’d looked
worse
than Will, maybe he wasn’t bad-looking after all. Maybe he was
great-
looking; Kenny just had to talk to him sober to see it.

“Yeah,” Will said, and Kenny was just drunk enough not to trust that smile. Was it shy? Was it condescending? Was it just friendly? Will seemed to be the sort of up-front guy who would just smile like that, friendly-like.

Which was too bad, because Kenny was sort of hoping it was shy. Shy meant… well…. “Why weren’t you attracted to whatserface?” Kenny asked, hoping he sounded sincere.

“She wasn’t my type,” Will said, pushing himself to the other corner of the couch to mirror Kenny.

“What
is
your type?” Kenny asked, happy, mellow, settling down for a long talk.

“I’m just figuring that out. What’s yours?”

Kenny sighed. Well, that was, uhm, vague. “So far, it’s slutty and unfaithful.”

“That’s too bad.”

Kenny looked up to see those plain brown eyes looking at him sincerely, and he had a thought to find out some more about this guy. “How come you’re not out with your own friends?” he asked.

Will managed a shrug when he couldn’t move his shoulders. “How come you’re not out with yours?”

Kenny thought about his office, and the people there who sort of moved independently of one another. And about his school friends who were still partying when Kenny had apparently really wanted to settle down.

“I’m between peer groups,” he said with dignity. “What about you?”

Will sighed and pulled up his knees. He still dominated the couch, but it was precious of him to think he could crouch there like a little kid. “Well, obviously I didn’t have any peers in my old job,” he said, and Kenny laughed.

“Obviously.” He’d watched the people from that church come and go—the women never wore pants and never cut their hair, and he and Gif had spent the first six months living there expecting the neighborhood association or whatever to politely ask them to leave. That had never happened, and he realized that fundamental didn’t necessarily mean unkind—but it certainly didn’t mesh well with the sort of educated geekiness Will exuded either.

“And the people in the teaching credential program all had… I don’t know. Lives. Grown-up stuff. Families and stuff. It was like, we all graduated and scattered. Which, by the way, is sort of what happens after work too. Even in the bigger schools. We all fought the battle with the kids and then… went home. It was sort of anticlimactic.”

Kenny nodded, suddenly feeling the gravitas. “Yeah. That’s hard. You want to celebrate with your fellow warriors.”

Will nodded. “Right? And we didn’t. So there I was, big geeky Will going home to my shitty little apartment, and then I got laid off, and then I subbed, which makes you
no
friends at all, and then I got another job, and… well, you saw how that ended.” He sighed.

“Well, what about the website business? How’s that going?”

Will shrugged. “You’ve seen what I do for promotion—”

“Yeah. Jack and shit. C’mon, open your laptop back up. Show me what you can do!”

Well, what he could do was pretty damned impressive. Eye-catching, user-friendly—and he didn’t use any of the ready-made templates, so the businesses all looked original.

Kenny hunched over the laptop on the coffee table and very carefully pushed all beverages back from it. “What the…? Pest control?”

Will beamed. “Yeah—do you like the little mice and cockroaches running away?”

Kenny looked at the animated GIFs and had to admit, “Yeah, they do add visual interest. And—organic gardening?”

“Yeah—that’s my aunt Cara’s business. I mean, she’s not really my aunt, but she’s my mom’s friend—”

“Yeah, yeah—I know how that goes. I had a ‘cousin’ who used to beat the crap out of me through school. He’s like my favorite relative now.” Kenny balanced his ice water and made the little air quotes, and Will smiled in understanding.

“Yeah—anyway, she like, mortgaged her entire life to build this little farm and start a business, so I did her website for free.”

Kenny looked at it—the pictures were clear and the prose was crisp and unmistakably Will’s. “Yeah, this one was designed with love,” he said gently, and the waves of joy emanating from Will’s big body almost stopped his breath. Wow. A little bit of praise, a little bit of good feeling—this guy was a force to be reckoned with.