Page 46 of Paint Eater
“It wasn’tthatsloppy,” Jay grumbled, but he didn’t seem too upset about Logan’s reception.
Logan warily accepted the invitation to the back rooms where everybody, including Jay, was cleaning up. It felt strange, to be so openly invited into the easy banter and ribbing between them.
By the time they left, Logan felt a little dizzy with it, an ache in the pit of his stomach that he resolutely ignored.
“Okay,” Logan said. “So what’s this mysterious place you wanted to show me?” He expected Jay to grin and pull him onward, but instead, he paused, looking unsure for a moment.
“Yeah. Okay, come on.”
The train ride to their destination was unusually quiet, Jay chewing on his lip. The tension was contagious—by the time they exited their last station in bumfuck Queens, Logan felt on edge.
He said nothing, however, as Jay led him through increasingly quiet and dilapidated streets until he stopped in front of a run-down building.
“Here,” Jay said, looking at Logan for a moment before leading the way.
Logan had no idea what to expect, what could possibly make Jay so nervous. All thought fled from his mind as soon as Jay pushed the broken door open and they stepped into a giant, crumbling room.
The debris had been cleared, the walls obviously washed. Instead of the peeling white that would have been revealed under the gunk, however, was a scene that took up the entire four walls.
It was a moment captured in time. A 1920s speakeasy, people of colour sitting at small, round tables, talking and laughing as women in short dresses and men in suits danced to the rhythm of a silent band.
Logan drifted forward, entranced. The sheer detail was breathtaking. Logan felt like he could reach out and touch the curl of someone’s hair, brush the bunched-up material of a jacket as a man leaned back in a chair. Feel the warmth of the room, smell the smoke in the air.
Everybody in that room was alive. Their expressions had no stiffness to them. They were a moment from changing, from slipping into another smile or word. People looked at each other with lust, with suspicion, with affection. Two men kissed on one of the tables, enraptured with each other, hands fisted in cloth, pulling closer.
Light and shadow played across the scene as if it were that which Jay was using to paint. All Logan could do was stare. He didn’t know much about art, but he knew that to infuse something with so much life and joy was a skill not many had, especially considering the sheerscaleof this.
It wasn’t that Logan thought tattooing or street art was a joke, but he was bowled over by the magnitude of this. The heart in it, the skill and work and patience. It was overwhelming, how Jay gave everything of himself to things.
What had Logan ever given himself to? What had he ever done with such passion? Was all his life to be devoid of this?
When he finally managed to walk around dumbly, taking in the glint in the buckles of shoes, the ash that had just missed the ashtray on a table, the two women looking at each other across the room, wanting. Once he managed to stop staring at the shine of sweat on foreheads, the crow’s feet beside eyes, and the wisps of hairs out of buns, he turned to look at Jay.
Jay, absurdly, looked unsure, afraid, as if Logan were going to say anything other than, “This is fucking amazing.”
Jay’s face filled with relief, a shy smile appearing. “Really?”
“Are you serious? Yes, really. Jay, Jesus Christ.” Logan turned towards a man and a woman dancing, the woman in mid-spin. Logan could almost smell the sweat and perfume, feel the heat from their bodies. “How long have you been working on this?”
“Like a year. I come out here when I can.”
“Have you shown this to anyone? This could—Jay this could be a fucking gallery show.”
Jay shook his head. “First of all, it’s totally illegal to have painted this. Secondly, nah, I don’t need that. This was just. I don’t know. For me. Mom and Sunja have seen, but…” He scratched the back of his head.
Logan couldn’t talk for a moment from the blow of knowing that Jay trusted him that much. It was incomprehensible to Logan, what had prompted Jay to show him this when the privilege was so wholly undeserved. “I…thanks.”
Jay shrugged. “It’s cool.”
For once, it was Logan walking towards him, pulling Jay into a kiss that hopefully expressed what Logan couldn’t put into words, or even thoughts.
Logan was used to wanting things he couldn’t have. This, though—Jay and everything he brought with him—was something he hadn’t been able to prepare for.
**********
Jay had insisted that Logan didn’t owe him anything for having been taken to Jay’s speakeasy, but it’d been hard to deny him when Jay hesitantly wondered if he could go over to Logan’s and see his photographs.
The smart answer was an absolute no. There was no reason Jay had to go to Logan’s apartment for that. Logan could just take his laptop to Jay’s like he always did.
