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By Saturday, Tyler still hadn’t called. Dylan had David drive him to the Java Pub for his date. He hadn’t spoken to Jack, even though he had stolen a few glances at him in their shared class on Friday. Jack had caught him staring and grinned at him, sending that shooting flare through him again. His cheeks had turned bright red. He had averted his gaze back to his desk.
Now, he was early to the café. They were a little busier than he expected, but he had no trouble finding a booth near the windows after ordering a drink. Worse than being early, he was nervous. He had no idea how to hide it. He’d never been on a real date before. He’d slept with guys. He had made Walks of Shame. But, unless you counted hanging out with Tyler all summer, which he didn’t, he had never been in a single date.
Jack arrived a little before one o’clock. He seemed surprised that Dylan was already there.
“I feel like I’m late,” Jack admitted, shifting into the booth across from him. Dylan looked up from the comic he was inking and smiled.
“This is a usual hangout for me,” Dylan admitted. “I haven’t been here long.”
“What are you working on?” Jack asked, glancing up with a thanks to the waiter that brought over the tea he had ordered before sitting.
“Pixie is trying to convince me to do a web comic. I’m just playing around with the format at the moment,” Dylan told him.
“Ah,” Jack nodded, “Pixie is always pushing people around.”
“You know her?”
“She likes to latch onto the new kids,” Jack told him with a smile. “I started at CSG last year. I had just moved to New York. My mom was kind of at a loss at where to send my sisters and I to school since the public system is terrifying.”
Dylan nodded. “Are your sisters are gifted too?”
“They’re twins,” Jack explained. “Natalie and Nicole. They’re only twelve, so they’re at Windgate. Mom’s hoping to get them into CSG in music and English, respectively, but I don’t think they’re serious enough about their interests for it. The councilors there are good at helping find good fits for their students though; even if it’s not at Carnegie.”
“I bounced around a few private schools that didn’t work out. I like Carnegie, though. I wish I had found it sooner. I probably wouldn’t have fucked around so much.”
“Literally or figuratively?”
“A little of both,” Dylan admitted with a smile.
Jack took a sip of his drink. An easy silence fell between them.
“So,” Dylan broke it a moment later, “tell me more about you. I know you already know all about me and my exploits.”
“Not much to say,” Jack told him. “Military brat, before my dad passed. We’ve bounced around the country and the world. My Mom owns a new-and-used bookshop in the Village. We live above it. I write; mostly fiction, but I dabble in journalism. I’ll probably go to college for a double major in that and Creative Writing, but I find journalism to be the absolute lowest form of communication. I also hate poetry.”
“Good to know. I’ll try not to quote any sonnets around you then.” Dylan promised. “What about other hobbies?”
“Some light gaming, reading, of course. I couldn’t live without books. The big libraries here intimidate me though, so I don’t go to them. I like music; instrumental mostly. And the occasional movie. So long as it has nothing to do with a book.”
“Good rule of thumb,” Dylan noted. “Hollywood just fucks everything up.”
Jack nodded enthusiastically. They went off together on a rant on all the terrible movies-based-on-books that they had seen recently. Before they knew it, an hour had passed. They’d both gotten refills on their drinks, eaten a piece of pie each, and were completely enamored of each other.
“Shit,” Jack looked down at his cell phone, checking the time. “I told my Mom I would look over the store tonight so she could have a girl’s night with my sisters.”
“I didn’t mean to keep you.”
“You didn’t. This was a lot of fun.” Jack pulled on his jacket and tightened his scarf around his neck to keep out the October chill. “I hope we can do it again.”
“Me too,” Dylan agreed.
“Here, give me your phone.” Jack held out his hand. Dylan, a bit leery handed over his phone. Jack tapped at the touch screen, and then a little “bing” sounded from his pocket.
“There, you have my number and I have yours. Don’t forget to add me to your contacts though,” Jack handed the phone back. “Text me any time.”
Dylan nodded. “I’ll, ah, see you on Monday at school.”
“See you Monday.”
Dylan watched Jack scoot from the booth, pulling a thin knit hat down over his ears as he stepped out of the café. He disappeared around the corner of the building toward the nearest Subway entrance. Dylan drank the last dregs of his drink and packed up his notebook and pens. The date had gone better than expected but he hadn’t told Jack about the looming competition. And, since a sly look at his phone told him Tyler still hadn’t texted him, he wasn’t sure that there was any competition to be had.
***
[DYLAN:] My date went well. Thought u’d want to no.
Tyler stared at the message. His gut wrenched. He’d been so foolish to think that Dylan would wait for him. He should have been up front with their plans. Instead, he had taken it for granted that Dylan would be pining for him. Dylan wasn’t like other guys he’d fooled around with. He moved fast, easily, and without looking back. Obviously. And now this stupid text message. What was he supposed to do with that?
“Stop looking at your phone,” Heath threw one of his drum sticks at him. He’d been beating out a rhythm on his thigh while they watched a football game on TV. Neither of them cared about football. It was background noise while they were both off in their own worlds. Heath was working on a drum solo for one of the songs they were recording the next day, and Tyler trying to decide if he should take the bait and text Dylan back.
“Dylan had that date today,” Tyler reminded him.
“Good for him.” Heath made a note on his drum sheet, not looking up at him.
“He texted me to tell me it went well. What does that mean?”
“That you’re an idiot for not calling him for a month and expecting him to welcome you back with open sheets.”
Tyler glowered at him.
“Hey, you asked.” Heath gave him a shrug. “If you expected him to be excited to see you, you should have called him. Three weeks ago, when we found out about the move.” He looked up directly at Tyler. “I don’t want to know more about the Dylan situation but the most obvious thing to do is to just let it roll off. You like him, right?”
“I love him.”
“You spent a summer with him. Summer romance never lasts. And the guy obviously doesn’t want a relationship or he wouldn’t have let you go so easily.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tyler admonished. “He loves me too. I know it.”
“Then why did he totally shoot you down? You should have warned him. And he went on that date today. It went well. I’m sorry to break it to you, but he just wants to be friends. Maybe a dude you fool around with once in a while.”
“He wants to be you?” Tyler bit.
Heath’s face became masked and Tyler knew he’d crossed a line.
“Yeah, Ty. Just like me.” Heath closed the folder with his drum sheets in it and got up from his chair. “Fuck you, man.”
“Heath–c’mon, it came out wrong. You know I didn’t mean that.”
“The fuck you didn’t,” Heath tossed his other drumstick on the couch. “You’re too friggin’ blind to everything.”
“And you’re overly emotional. Did you get into your Mom’s estrogen cream again?”
“Fuck you, dude.” Heath shook his head. “Just... Fuck you.”
Tyler followed Heath with his eyes until his disappeared down the hallway. He heard the bedroom door slam closed. A stereo turned on, making the walls vibrate. He sighed, pulling out his phone again and staring at the text message again.
[DYLAN:] My date went well. Thought u’d want to no.
Well, he didn’t want to know. But, he couldn’t let that hang between them. So, he was going to have to push through. Be the good guy.
[YOU:] Glad you had a good time.
Now, it was Dylan’s turn to fret over meaning and substance. In the meantime, he was going to figure out a way to prove that he was the guy Dylan wanted to be with. Not some high school jerk.
***
Dylan chose to let the text message sit. He wasn’t sure how much to read into it. Instead, he spent Sunday on the homework he had neglected. Then, he had a meeting with Stuart to go over the curriculum that he was using, but also to critique his work. While Stuart seemed to enjoy his art, he was blunt about what needed work. At first, Dylan had been unsettled by it. He quickly realized that Stuart simply wanted him to be the best artist he could be. He was beginning to see a difference in his artwork improving.
“If you want to continue with the hyper realistic, you should check out some Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, Denis Peterson. Take a trip to some art museums. MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney, the Guggenheim.” Stuart pulled a notepad out from the desk drawer and started to write down names of museums and which artists work he should look for in each of them.
“Do know every museum’s collection by heart?” Dylan watched him flip the page to continue scribbling again.
“Hmm? No, just the ones I like,” Stuart admitted. “You should also look at Pop Art. While it’s not the same as photorealism, it shares elements and they stem from the same things.”
“That’s Andy Warhol, right?”
“And Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Blake, Allen Jones. There is a Harold Stevenson piece at the Guggenheim I think you’ll enjoy quite a bit.”
Dylan raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything else. He folded his hands over the closed sketch book and watched Stuart scribble some more.
“Have you given any thought to working on a larger scale?” Stuart asked. “You don’t have to be confined to an eight-and-a-half by eleven sketch book.”
“I’ve been working on a few bigger things in class,” Dylan told him. “But the sketchbook is portable.”
“True,” Stuart noted. He stapled the pages together after ripping them out of the notepad. “I also want you to check out a couple of the art supply stores in town. Buy some bigger sketch pads, canvas, some good pencils, good pens. You can afford that shit. Lucky little bastard.”
“You say that like you can’t,” Dylan grinned.
“I couldn’t when I got started. I used a box of generic store brand number twos and permanent markers for the first five years of my life as an artist before I made enough money to upgrade,” Stuart was geared to start what could have been a thrilling sob story, but cut himself off. “You’ve got a lot of advantages that your students don’t have. Never forget that.”
“People generally won’t let me.” He took the second list, skimming over it. “I’ll have David stop on the way home.”
“Good,” Stuart nodded. “Try to hit one or two of those museums this week. We’ll discuss them next time.”
“Okay,” Dylan agreed. He tucked the sketchpad and the notes into his shoulder bag. “See you next week then.”
Stuart gave him a little wave as Dylan stepped out of the loft where Stuart worked. David was already parked with the engine running. Dylan slid into the back seat.
“David, I need to stop at Art Supply on the way home. Stuart wants me to branch out,” Dylan dug around in his bag for the list again, and his wallet.
“I think they’re closed on Sunday, sir,” David replied.
“Oh damn” Dylan frowned.
“DaVinci’s on twenty-third is open until six. Is that okay?” David tapped through some screens on his cell phone.
“Sure. I don’t think I’ve ever been in there,” Dylan admitted. “But, whatever gets this list out of my way.
“If you prefer Art Supply, we can go tomorrow after your class,” David offered.
David mulled it over, “No, I don’t think I want to go home quite yet. DaVinci’s is fine.”
“All right, sir.” David turned on the blinker and merged back into the light Sunday traffic toward 23rd.
DaVinci’s greeted them with a bright neon sign in the window. Inside was the smell of paints, oils, and charcoal. Dylan felt the clean scent of fresh canvas and he almost sighed out loud. The store was carefully organized and while the aisles seemed a bit narrow, he quickly found everything he had been looking for from Stuart’s list. He was nearly overwhelmed by the amount of choice. He rarely went into stores himself; sending either David or one of the other staff. Or ordering online when he wanted something specific. He could have spent hours in there, but he knew that David was waiting. He made a mental note though to come back to look further at the store.
“Find everything?” David was waiting next to the car to put his bags into the trunk.
“And then some,” Dylan confirmed.
“Home, sir?”
“Yes,” Dylan agreed, somewhat begrudgingly. Going home meant he had time to sit and consider what the stupid text from Tyler meant. And that he could stare at Jack’s phone number, trying to come up with some reason to text him. The date had gone seriously well and for the first time, he was interested in more than sex with a guy his own age who wasn’t drunk, drugged, or anything else bizarre.
He knew David was watching him in the rearview mirror. He didn’t take the bait for a conversation. He didn’t even ask for music, so the drive home was a quiet one he spent staring out the window. At the castle, David dropped him off at the front and he took his time climbing the front steps and going into the foyer.
He stared at the split staircase, reminded of Tyler’s visit.
What was the worst thing that would happen if you went up the left side?