“I’m a head costumer.”
“And I’m a financial manager. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love going biking. It doesn’t mean that I do math for fun. You can be more than one thing, and you have an amazing gift.”
He stood to study the massive canvas I had finished, tipping his head this way and that way. He stepped back and studied it some more. “What are you calling it?”
“Broken Open Sky,” I answered.
“…El Sol Brilla para Ti,” he whispered, and glanced at me. I nodded. He studied the painting a few more times and then flopped next to me, offering me the banana this time. “You’re fucked, Bro.”
“Ugh!” I grunted, flopping my head back. “I know.”
“Taylor said you broke it off with him, not the other way.”
I picked my head up and looked at him. “Taylor?”
“Yes, Taylor—you didn’t think I was going to stop hanging out and inviting fucking UDLR out for drinks? Or to hang with the Gaggle, did you? I’d be an idiot to quash a friendship with a goddamn musical supergroup. And they get along with Maddox andRobot Servant. So it’s a goddamn party and don’t change the subject.”
“What was the subject?”
“You broke it off with him.”
Nodding, I sipped the water. “I did.”
“You were happy though. Why?”
“He kept putting off that he was going to come out.”
Noah raised an eyebrow. “…And?”
“And nothing. He kept putting it off.”
“So, you broke it off?”
“I can’t out him, Noah. And if I had stayed around him, I might have. If we stayed around each other. You signed the NDA, just like everyone else. He kissed me, because what we feel for each other is…was so intense. It’s better if we stay away from each other until he can be himself.”
“That may never happen,” Noah offered after a moment of silence.
“I’m not going back into the closet, I’m not hiding that I’m gay,” I snapped. “Fuck he was the first person I wanted to tell when I got this job. I wanted to walk up to him and kiss him and tell him all about what I was going to be doing now. And I couldn’t.”
“Do you think there’s a chance he might come out some day?”
“Who knows…” I tried to sound nonchalant, but it came out sad and depressed instead. I took another bite of the banana. “God, I wanted to date him. I wanted to take him places. I wanted to teach him that being gay isn’t a death sentence, and how to be a man. I wanted to take him to the top of the Empire State Building and show him the city at night, take him to dinner at Per Se. Just hold his fucking hand and walk on the Highline.
“Now, I’m sitting here letting the synesthesia rule me again because I’d rather deal with that than my real feelings.”
Noah shook his head and laughed lightly. “I’m ready to lay the blame at Austin’s feet and then you say something stupid like that.”
“Stupid like what?”
“Stupid like ‘letting the synesthesia rule.’ You never did that, you still aren’t. Your emotionsarethe synesthesia. You’re painting your emotions with the music you’re listening to. If you were really not dealing with it, wouldn’t you be painting Lady Gaga or TayTay? Honestly? I meanYou Gotta Calm Downmust be fabulous in your brain.”
I chuckled. “It’s kind of like a circus laser show, actually. It’s too frenetic. I think it might kill me if I try to paint it.”
“You know he’s scared,” Noah said.
“Duh?”
“Don’t remember what it was like to be scared? To tell Mom and Dad that we were gay. Both of us? Don’t you remember the fears we both harbored that entire year before we just spat it out?”
