Chiaroscuro (11 page)

"Yeah," Jamie said. "I loved him."

Micah traced figure eights on Jamie's chest. "More than me?"

Jamie chuckled. "Differently than you, love."

"But you love me most, right?"

"Okay," Jamie said indulgently. "I love you most."

Micah bounced with glee and kissed him, and then curled up in Jamie's arms again. "I love you most, too."

Jamie smiled, holding him tight. "Hey. We've been invited to a party."

"We have?"

"Uh-huh. The building has a party on the roof every Fourth of July, and we've been invited."

"Cool," Micah murmured. "I can cut out of the family barbecue early and come over."

"Brilliant." He combed Micah's hair back from his face with his fingers. "You need a haircut."

Micah shook out his head. "That's what my mom says."

"Wow, we agree on something. Perhaps if I convince you to get a haircut she'll let you move in with me."

"Maybe." Micah bounced up again. "I'm hungry--what do you want for dinner? I can make spaghetti or pancakes or scrambled eggs..." He pulled on his briefs and jeans again as he headed into the kitchen.

"Scrambled eggs sounds good," Jamie called after him but made no move to get up. "Scrambled eggs and toast in bed."

Micah popped his head back in enough to grin at him. "All right, lazy."

"That's right, cater to my whims." He stretched luxuriously and pulled up the blankets against the evening chill. What is it about him, really? Ben had asked him, and Jamie thought if Ben could see him now, he'd understand.

Chapter Six

The party was in full swing when Ben realized he hadn't seen Jamie yet. He'd been slicing cake and serving cookies most of the night, but people had stopped eating and were dancing and talking now as they waited for the fireworks from the Wharf to begin. Ben walked around the roof, saying hello, but couldn't see Jamie anywhere.

"I'll be back," he said to Leo, grabbed a pair of beers out of the cooler and went down to Jamie's apartment. He rapped on the door. "Jamie? You in? You getting laid? Because if you're getting laid I'll go away, but if you're not--"

The door opened and Jamie stood in the doorway, giving him a dark, impatient look. "What do you want?"

Ben held up the beer bottles. After a moment Jamie sighed and stepped back to let him into the dark apartment. He gave one bottle to Jamie. "Why are the lights off?"

"Because I didn't turn them on." He opened the bottle and took a swig.

"Yeah," Ben muttered. He decided a direct approach was best.: "Missed you at the party."

"I didn't feel like a party."

"You felt like sitting in the dark." He eyed the empty bottles on the table. "And drinking alone."

"Yeah." The look he gave Ben was a challenge: I dare you to scold me.

Ben was more than up to it. "You know what they say about people who drink alone."

"No, Ben," he said tiredly, "what do they say?"

Ben blinked at him. "I actually don't know--I was hoping you did."

Jamie made an impatient noise and turned away, but put the beer bottle down on the counter. "So what did you want?"

"To see why you're not at the party. To drag you up myself if I have to." He eyed the bottles again. "It's more fun than getting drunk alone."

"Right."

Ben sighed. "No Micah tonight, huh?"

Jamie didn't respond for a moment or two. "He said he'd try to cut out of his family party early."

"It's going on nine."

"I know."

"It's too late to be early."

"I know," Jamie snapped.

"So quit waiting and come to the party. There's cake with blueberries and strawberries on top. And whipped cream." He stepped closer to Jamie, put his hands on his shoulders. "Cake. Delicious, berry-covered cake."

"You think you can give me some cake and some fireworks and make it all better."

He started rubbing Jamie's shoulders. "No. I know it won't. But again, it's better than drinking alone in the dark." He could feel Jamie's tension loosen under his touch, and he raised one hand to run it slow through Jamie's streaky blond hair. Jamie tilted back his head and exhaled, and then moved out from under Ben's hands and faced him, arms crossed over his chest.

"I almost think you'd rather we stayed here."

Ben smiled. "Almost." He leaned back against the counter. "But then we'll miss the fireworks. It's not the Fourth without fireworks."

"Something tells me that, with you, missing the fireworks isn't really an issue." He looked away. "Sorry. Perhaps I've had too much to drink."

"Then you definitely need some cake in you." He held out his hand. "And a burger. Watermelon. Roasted corn on the cob, Jamie."

"Oh, well, if there's roasted corn on the cob..." He smiled and put his hand in Ben's, and followed him up to the roof.

Ben and Jamie got plates of food and made themselves comfortable, leaning against the low wall that rimmed the roof. Music was still playing and people were dancing, but it felt quiet to Ben--quiet and peaceful. The moon was out, just a sliver of white in the deep dark blue sky, and there were few clouds. It was a beautiful night for fireworks.

"Bet you don't have anything like this in England," Ben said with a twinge of national pride.

Jamie smiled and swallowed his mouthful of hamburger. "We've got Bonfire Night."

"What's that?"

"'Remember, remember the fifth of November'?" Ben shook his head and Jamie said, "During the reign of James the First some Catholic men decided to blow up Parliament in hopes of ending Catholic persecution. It didn't work--they were discovered beforehand, tortured and put to death.

"So every year on the fifth of November we have bonfires and burn the ringleader in effigy and have fireworks and bands and stuff. It's fun. It's a big nationwide party."

Ben blinked a few times. "You celebrate a guy being executed?"

"Well... or that he tried to end the monarchy. It's hard to say."

Ben chuckled and shook his head. "I've heard England is a strange country."

"All this," Jamie waved a hand, "is to celebrate a paper being signed."

"There was a war, too."

"And something about tea, too, as I recall." He grinned, and Ben grinned back.

"A tea tax, yeah. But I don't remember the whole thing--I didn't pay much attention in history class."

"Pity, that," Jamie said. "Then you can't explain it to confused foreigners."

"You'll manage," said Ben, laying his hand on the back of Jamie's neck. Jamie leaned his head against Ben's shoulder.

When the first of the fireworks boomed into the sky there was a chorus of "Oooos!" from the observers. Ben looked around again, watching people watch the show, and it pleased him for reasons he couldn't fathom to see how rapt Jamie's face was.

They couldn't speak as fireworks exploded overhead, and Jamie tipped back his head to watch the showers of light, food forgotten. "I read once," he said in a dreamy tone when it was quiet again, "that fireworks affect our pleasure centers. The--cerebellum? Maybe? I don't remember now. But that watching them makes us feel good."

"I don't know anybody who doesn't like them."

Jamie nodded, watching the sky. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"Looking after me." He looked at Ben. "Even though I've not been very nice to you."

Ben didn't know what to say for a moment, then chuckled. "We all look after each other here. A lot of these folks lived in, like, communes and stuff thirty, forty years ago."

"I don't know if I'll ever get used to west coast friendliness. I'm trying, though."

"I've never lived anywhere but here. Is it a lot different from England?"

"No, not really. I mean, the weather is pretty similar to Manchester--where I'm from--but it gets a lot colder there in the winter. And we don't get as much fog. But all the rain, that's like home."

"But, like you said, the people, the--the friendliness."

"Well, that, yeah," he admitted with a nod. "Like, you grow up hearing jokes and stereotypes and whatnot, and then you move to a different place and realize how true they are in comparison. This sort of thing," he waved at the party, "would never happen where I grew up. Or if it did, my parents didn't approve and so never let me know about it."

"Strict, huh?"

"Well, not strict, exactly--more like set in their ways. Definite ideas of proper behavior, particularly for their only son."

"But it must be hard on them, now, you living so far away."

Jamie shook his head. "I don't think they mind."

Ben looked at him, puzzled--and then it clicked. "Christ," he said. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I've had plenty of time to deal with it. And it's easier for them to lie to their friends about what I'm doing when I'm five thousand miles away."

"I can't even imagine it, man," Ben said. "I'd go nuts without my family. Of course, I often go nuts with them..."

"Hm," Jamie said.

"But I'm one of the luckier ones. Not everybody's like my mom--I mean, she cried when I first came out, but I think it was mostly because she was afraid of all the troubles we have to face, just living in the world."

"Yeah. That is lucky. And your dad?"

"Well... he had the worst time of it, I think. He couldn't quite look me in the eye for a few weeks after I told them, and since we work together that made things pretty awkward. But--well, I'm his son, you know? That'll never change."

Jamie nodded and looked down at his plate a moment--looking up again abruptly when another barrage of fireworks exploded overhead. "It's so pretty here."

"Yeah. We're really fortunate here." He watched Jamie for a moment longer, and then turned his eyes back to the sky. "Do you like it better than Mansion Land?"

Jamie chuckled. "I miss my house a little, but I like the flat. It's starting to feel like home."

"I imagine so, with all the little touches you've put in. Though I have to ask, what's with all those book covers?"

"I'm going to put them up in the living room as wallpaper."

"Oh... huh. I would never have thought of that. Hey, um, I mentioned to Leo about your ceiling and I think Dune has too--Leo's thinking of asking you to do something for their place. Should I poke him about it?"

Jamie didn't respond until the next barrage of fireworks was over. "I'd love to paint a ceiling for Leo." He paused a moment. "Your bakery wouldn't happen to have a web site, would it?"

"No, and I have no idea what we'd use a web site for. I don't think you can sell bread over the internet."

"You can sell nearly anything over the internet. But a web site can be a useful advertising tool, even if you don't want to make sales using it. You can tell your customers about your family's history and your specialties and your fantastic blueberry-topped muffins."

"Well...huh. I never even thought about it. Show me sometime? What you do, maybe? What other places have done? I can bring it up with my folks better if I have something to show them. We don't even have a computerized cash register: we use this old clunker from the Fifties. And forget about computerized bookkeeping: my mom keeps the accounts by hand."

"Technology's not that scary," Jamie said. "And it's not that hard to learn. Hell, I could have a website for you in a couple hours--not that much longer if you wanted to set up an ordering system, too."

"I'll think about that. Bring it up with my dad. Hey--is there a way to do, like, a photo album of the wedding cakes?"

"Absolutely. The internet's primarily visual: a gallery or something like that is a snap." He sipped his drink, the conversation pausing for more fireworks. Jamie applauded when they were done and asked Ben, "So why wedding cakes?"

"There's good money in weddings." He shrugged. "And it's fun. Sometimes I get to be really creative--like I did this one a few months ago where the bride and groom wanted to commemorate that they met in Greece, so their cake was a Greek theater with the bride and groom in togas on the stage. I decorated the sides with laurel wreaths and comedy and tragedy masks."

"Wow," Jamie said. "That sounds really cool. You took pictures, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. I have a book full of them. How do you get pictures into--well, whatever it is that you get them onto the internet?"

"Just a scanner to translate them into digital format, which I've got."

"Huh," Ben said. It sounded like a great idea to him but he had no idea what his father would say. Well, he did, actually: Matthew would start with how much it would cost and how profitable Ben expected it to be, and at some point he'd want to know exactly how it was supposed to help the business. "I'd like to be able to show I can do more than the usual three tiers with white frosting thing."

"As long as you've got pictures, you can."

"This is sounding more and more tempting."

"Let me know if it tempts you enough to try it." He grinned at Ben. "Imagine selling your muffins around the country, not just the neighborhood."

"My muffins do deserve to be known nation-wide."

They both turned their faces up to another round of fireworks, this one so long and full of color that it had to be the finale. Other observers in the streets below whooped and hollered, and the people on the roof laughed and applauded.

"Must be ending," Jamie said.

"Yeah. Big finish. I'd hate to be the folks on the Wharf. Traffic's going to be a nightmare for the next few hours."

"It's probably worth it, to see this out over the water."

"Maybe," Ben said, though he'd never thought about it.

Jamie looked around the rooftop thoughtfully. "Can we come up here anytime?"

"Yeah. I think the door's always open from the stairs."

"It'd be a great place for painting."

"You'd have to talk to the super about that."

Jamie laughed. "No, painting a picture, I mean. Art."

"Oh. Oh! Color me dumb. Sorry."

"No problem, mate. I just bet it gets good light."

"Yeah, I think it does." He supposed. He'd never thought about the relative qualities of light.

Jamie smiled again, watching the sky. He didn't look much older than twenty-five, Ben thought, and there was something childlike about his smile that made Ben feel warm inside, like a cup of cocoa on a winter's day.