I’d been seeing this guy for six weeks and I had no idea he’d had that. What else was I missing? God, we needed more time together.
Not tonight though. Tonight was the celebration that should have happened almost three weeks before. Everything got in the way, and I finally just said that we were having the party on Friday night, and called in my understudy. I had it catered, and everything was at my house. It was easier that way—I had a huge table and plenty of room for everyone.
I pushed a glass of champagne at him and held mine up. “To Uriah! Salud!”
Someone else yelledmazel tov, I was pretty sure someone yelledna zdrovye, and there was aprost. Typical for the group, really.
Uriah moved the portfolio to the counter while everyone was eating, but as soon as I was done and going for a second beer, I wandered over to it and flipped it open.
His drawings were insane. They were art by themselves and I didn’t see any errors in his lines. Noah was suddenly next to me and we paged through the samples together.
“He uses ink on the first time. There are no pencil roughs. He might change these, but they’ll be just as perfect as these are. I’ve always been jealous of his art abilities. The way he uses lines and colors… Have you ever seen his aural paintings?”
I shook my head.
He pulled out his phone tapped a few buttons. He handed it to me a moment later. “He hasn’t had a show in a while, but that’s how we met Parker. He used to have them all the time. Once he graduated FIT, he went full bore into the costuming gig.”
Glancing at Noah, I saw him brimming with pride for his brother. It was slightly disturbing to see Uriah’s face on someone else, but I still maintained they weren’t completely identical.
The pictures on the phone were shocking. They were beautiful abstracts that did have a musical quality to them…and each had the name of the song, or lyric as the name.
I stopped on one of them. It was a bright, vivid yellow and a soft baby blue that danced around each other and I was drawn to it. I zoomed in, turned the image, then found myself staring at it.
Noah looked over my shoulder and snorted. He tapped the image and the title showed up.
The Man in the Half Wolf Moon.
My eyes shot to Noah, and then over to where Uriah was laughing, and then back to the image.
“You’re kidding.”
“A synesthesia painting of your song, yes,” Noah said. He leaned in close. “He never sold that one. It’s hanging in our hallway.”
“Couldn’t?”
“Didn’t want to,” he answered quietly.
I stared at it for another moment and then handed it back to him. He clapped me on the shoulder softly.
“I don’t know if you’re destined for each other,” Noah said. “But I do know that you belong in orbits. Two amazing stars whirling around each other, and gravity is going to pull you together.”
I glanced down at the book of his drawings again. I had been angry he left the show, but seeing these, I understood. He needed to move on to get to his next level. Just the way we had done with the band. I couldn’t hold him back.
My horrible insincerity at his getting the new job had fouled us up. But I was going to make that up to him, and show him that I was proud of him. That what he had done was amazing.
“Be careful, though, in his orbit,” Noah said. “If you don’t find your balance, you’ll crash together and destroy yourselves.” He winked. “Physics are a bitch.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Go away. You look too much like him.”
“Remind me to tell you about the school yard pranks we used to play being identical.” He added an evil laugh for good measure and walked away.
It was closer to midnight by the time Uriah moved to claim his portfolio, and most everyone was getting ready to go.
I watched him zip up the leather, and I ran my hand over the top of it, just barely touching his as he fastened the clasp.
“Stay,” I whispered.
He found my gaze and held it. I tried to put as many filthy ideas in that look as I possibly could. I knew he saw them.
