Chapter Eighteen

“Wow,” Erik said when they got out of the car. “I thought you looked good when you picked me up, but standing and all.” Erik gestured at River’s outfit. “Yeah. Wow.”

River’s cheeks heated. He’d taken way too much time figuring out what he would wear, eventually settling on a deep-green button-down that was cut to fit his body perfectly and his darkest skinny jeans. River wasn’t generally a skinny jean kind of guy. He’d bought them impulsively one day when Val dragged him shopping and rarely found the opportunity to wear them. But the way Erik’s eyes lingered on his lower half made the indignity of squeezing into them worth it.

“Thanks,” River said. He reached for Erik’s hand with an upward glance to check in. Erik squeezed his fingers and allowed River to tug him toward the museum. “Thank you,” he blurted. “For coming with me. I know it’s maybe not your thing—”

“No, I wanted to. I might not get it, but I’m still excited.”

River loved the Henry. It was all glass and brick, a juxtaposition that captured the spirit of the museum. He loved the exterior architecture, the pyramids of glass and steel within the grounds, the night colors of Light Reign, the shape and space it created during the day. Even though he’d been there before, it never failed to thrill him.

“I won’t lie, I have a favorite exhibit here. But do you wanna look at other stuff first?”

He watched Erik take in the clean, bright lines of the gallery, the way the room suffused with light. He was impossible to read, but in this space that was okay. Erik was his own art, sharp-featured and perfectly sculpted.

“Lead the way,” Erik said.

“There are two exhibits I’ve been wanting to see. There’s one that features letters between two artists. Poems, drawings, that kind of thing. It’s called Her Story.”

“So, this is art, huh?” Erik followed River.

“C’mon, I’ll show you,” River said. He swallowed a laugh, worried it would be taken the wrong way. He wasn’t laughing at Erik—more, it was excitement. He loved modern art, puzzling out the rhetorical choices, the stories, the movement of pieces.

Erik was reserved. He appeared attentive, absorbing River’s quiet chatter with smiles and fleeting glances. By the time they moved on to a collection of mixed-media sculptures—gray interspersed with blown glass pieces in the shape of fingers—River was darting quick looks at him to make sure he wasn’t bored.

“Not to be rude,” Erik said. He lifted a brow, smile going soft on the edges. “But these are gray blobs.”

“I know, right?” River bounced on his toes, threaded his arm through Erik’s, and led him slowly around the pieces. They read the informative placard together. “I love how these exhibits capture embodied narratives in such disparate ways. Like, how they both capture ideas about idealized narratives of femininity and masculinity. I don’t think I would’ve gotten this just by looking at them, but now I can kind of see it.”

“You don’t feel—” Erik looked away.

“What?” River took in the movement of Erik’s lips, the tightness of his jaw. “I’m sorry, this is probably boring.”

“No,” Erik said lowly. “I just don’t really get it.”

“Erik,” River said, the hush of their conversation intimate, a little world of their own making in the cavernous space. “That’s fine. Half the time I don’t get it, either. That’s kind of the fun of it. You can look at something like this and make your own story.”

“Well, I’m definitely known for my imagination,” Erik teased. His palm settled on the small of River’s back. Despite his masked confidence, River caught the nervousness burrowed deep under Erik’s skin, hidden by attentive smiles, and a discomfort he offset with tight shoulders.

River swallowed, tried not to give in to a visceral need to touch him. To ghost his lips over the memory of bruises and cuts River carried in his mind, all the changes to Erik’s face.

“Want to see what I love most here?” he said instead.

“You’ll probably have to explain it to me in great detail.” Erik’s brows lifted, lips parting into a grin. “But yeah, of course I do.”

“That’s the beauty of it,” River said. “It’s whatever you make of it.”

“Yeah, but I want to hear you talk about it.” Erik’s palm swept from River’s lower back to his hip, arm curled around him as they walked.

He tried to temper the blush crawling from his cheeks to his throat, but knowing that Erik’s attention was pinned to him instead of the artwork made heat pool beneath his skin.

Light Reign was a permanent exhibit, its own architectural piece outside the main building, raised on pillars from the courtyard. A glass walkway led into it. At night, the large glass panels were lit by LED lights that changed from one brilliant color to another. Inside was a large, circular space with wooden walls and a wooden bench circling the room.

“It’s a skyspace,” River said. “Come, sit.”

“What do we do?”

“Look up,” River said quietly, guiding Erik to sit next to him. The room was empty, a rarity. River kissed Erik’s cheek, and then his lips, a barely-there whisper of intention and thanks and affection.

Erik smiled against his mouth and leaned back, tilting his head to take in the ceiling. The curved white roof framed an aperture where they could see the sky.

“See how there’s nothing to interrupt the view? This is all about perception, in a way. An uninterrupted view of something that is constantly changing and yet constant in our lives.”

Erik glanced at him but settled more comfortably. They relented to the silence. The sky was a gorgeous translucent blue, with only wisps of clouds skirting the edges. Erik reached for River’s hand, threading their fingers together in his lap.

“This feels a bit like meditation,” Erik said after minutes had passed.

“Yeah, I guess. Is that a good or bad thing?”

Erik turned toward him. The warmth of the wood walls and the white from above brought out the olive tones of his eyes. “With you, right now? It’s amazing.”

The nakedness, the vulnerable honesty, fragile and heady and frightening, trembled between them. River let down the last of his guard, answering Erik’s admission with his own trust. He laid his head on Erik’s shoulder, content to close his eyes and let Erik have a moment of his own, watching the sky, experiencing the light.

…

River led Erik through the courtyard below Light Reign so he could have the full architectural experience, to see how many ways it worked as an art installation.

“Hungry?” River said after Erik had taken in his fill. He answered with a gentle smile and a gesture, beckoning River closer. River didn’t shy from affection—he reveled in it, really. But sometimes he felt too seen, too vulnerable, yet even here, even now, despite the people around them, River let himself be kissed.

“Starving,” Erik said. And it was a moment, an opening to take Erik home, and let them both speak with their bodies. River wanted more, though. He decided to leave it up to Erik.

“Takeout or a restaurant?”

“Restaurant,” Erik said, surprising them both.

River did a quick search of places nearby. “Henry’s Tavern? It’s happy hour.”

“Whatever you like,” Erik said.

They settled into the easy atmosphere. River ordered a cider on tap, and together they opted to split a large Bavarian pretzel as an appetizer. Erik moved with deliberate care in a small pocket of silence, a quiet that was startling in the comfortable buzz of a mostly full pub.

“I’m sorry if you hated it,” River said before he could bite it back.

“I didn’t.” Defensive tension tightened Erik’s shoulders. He took a breath. River knocked his booted foot against Erik’s shin. “It was new. I don’t know much about art, but—” Erik looked down—“how much you love it, listening to you talk about it… You were my favorite part.”

River chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Me?”

“Oh, and the gray blobs,” Erik said with a wink and a grin. River scoffed and rolled his eyes, but Erik snorted a laugh and continued. “You surprised me, I think. I got to see what you’re passionate about, what you love. There’s a lot I don’t know about you, a lot I want to know. Today was about River, the artist.”

“That’s always me, though.” River’s hackles rose, an old insecurity exposed. “Tattooing is—”

“Easy, babe, I didn’t mean it like that.” Erik leaned forward. “Tattooing is art, of course it is, but today was about something different.”

River exhaled slowly. Their server came to collect their orders, and River took that time to rein himself in.

“Maybe sometime I could see more of your stuff. If you’ll show me?”

“It’s not—it’s nothing gallery worthy,” River warned.

“I don’t know about that,” Erik said, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Hearing you talk about those sculptures, I think I really understood something. You paint beautiful things, but they mean a lot more than what’s just on the canvas, right?”

River nodded, hoping Erik wouldn’t ask for more. Some of his pieces eviscerated him. They whispered and shouted and demanded a telling of stories River didn’t have words for. Secrets he wasn’t ready to lay bare.

“Do you want that?”

“What?” River tilted his head.

“To be in a gallery. To show your work?”

That particular question circled his body and squeezed his heart—a question that was the root of so many things. That prodded where his desires and fears spoke but refused to be heard by anyone but him.

“Sometimes,” River forced out. Erik eyed him, waited in the silence for more. “You know, I almost took you somewhere else.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s this gallery called Soil. It’s run by Seattle artists. It’s more of a collective. In another life, maybe a place I’d have wanted to show at. Or aspire to.” He rolled his eyes.

“What do you mean, another life?”

“When I went to Cornish, I thought I was someone totally different from who I really am. That’s one of the reasons I left. I love art. I want to make it. But it has to be on my terms, and it has to be honest; I think all good art does. Honesty can mean any number of things, but trying to be someone I wasn’t killed my desire to create.”

“That why you dropped out?”

“Yeah. It was the right choice for me. This is my best life—right now. I don’t know who I’ll be in the future, but I like who I am in this moment. I like the different kinds of art I make. My style isn’t… I mean, it’ll never be cutting edge or experimental or unique, not the kind that makes it into that kind of gallery. But I have enough ego that sometimes I wish it were.”

“You? Ego?” Erik laughed. Crumbs lingered at the corner of his lips. River wanted to brush them away, wished they were home and he could kiss them off, lick slowly into Erik’s mouth.

“Not that kind.” River couldn’t explain what he meant, for the articulation of that drive underneath creation, the self that trusted the attempt, even when the product might not live up to expectation.

“Well.” Erik brushed his fingers off and took a long pull from his beer. “I don’t know much about art, but I do know that when you were talking about the weird gray blob sculptures, it was sexy as hell.” River laughed, because Erik made it easy to. Because even if he didn’t understand all the things River was passionate about, he was trying to understand River—the pieces he’d seen, the man he’d been shown. “And your art. I haven’t seen a lot, and I want to see more, but River…” Erik’s gaze was steady, intent on River’s eyes. “There’s a reason why I trust you with my dragons. Your art blows me away.”

“Speaking of dragons, when’s your next fight?” River asked, a way to steer the conversation to something less intense.

Erik tilted his head. He touched the top of River’s hand and stroked the length of his middle finger. “Tomorrow,” he said. Hesitation betrayed him. A reluctance. Fear, maybe. “It’s a rematch.”

“You’ll be okay, right?” That wasn’t what River had meant to say, but he let the question linger.

“Yeah.” It was a lie. River saw it in his tense brow and forced smile. He knew it in the set of his mouth and the way his touch paused for a breath, another, until he laid his hand over River’s and gripped. “Yeah, of course.”

River wanted to believe him. He wished he could.