Page 60 of In Frame
“Adorable of you,” Sam said. “LikeLady and the Tramp. The spaghetti scene.” He actually did think it was adorable. John Kill, with that action-hero franchise at his back, bought sweetly flavored coffee to share with his partner.
“Thanks. You okay holding cupcakes? We’ll be home in just a couple of minutes.”
“I’m good. A whole couple of minutes? Not like thirty seconds?”
Jason grinned. The Ferrari picked up speed. “I see why Leo likes you.”
“Because I don’t mind you showing off?”
“Because you don’t get scared easily,” Jason said, “and because he needs that, I think. Someone who takes him seriously, who’ll stick around. Hey, this is a fun corner—”
It was. So was the whole last winding curving drive, heading up the low hill. There was a gate, and then more of a drive, under tall waving palm trees; the approach was green and brown and blue, lush in California colors under a wide sunny sky, and neatly landscaped and maintained.
The house saw them coming, and waved along with the palm trees. Beautiful graceful architecture beckoned in curved roof tiles and wrought iron, a graceful splash of imagined castle somehow transported to Southern California; front steps formed a waterfall of pale stone, and the driveway pooled into a curve of homecoming off to the side. Sam’s first impression was of stylish but understated fantasy: character woven into tall strong bones and decorative detail, but not huge nor glitteringly ostentatious nor even particularly imposing.
It looked like a house, he thought, not a proclamation of mansion. A home.
Jason’s words rattled around in his head, in his heart. Leo needing someone. Leo needing him. Jason saying so, looking at him.
He hoped he was the person Leo needed, the person Leo could believe in.
Jason let the car race its shadow right up to the garage, and came to a flawless halt a breath away from collision with the closed door. “Sorry again in advance about the lack of furniture. Did I mention we literally just bought this place? The kitchenwas more of a priority.”
“Hey, I’m good with helping build bookshelves if you need a hand.”
Jason laughed. “Careful, or I’ll say yes to that one. Here, I can take the cupcakes. Come meet Colby.”
They went in through a side gate—more swirling fanciful wrought iron twirled up in greeting—and a side door, not the dramatic front; Jason fished out keys while juggling gifts. Sam’s stomach performed a sudden lurch as reality sank in all over again.
He’d managed to get used to Jason, mostly, during the drive. Colby Kent, though—that name, that presence—
“Love you,” Jason shouted in the direction of the kitchen, balancing packages on their way through a box-laden floor and a single tall dark bookshelf and a floor-lamp with a forest of willow-branch lights, “and I brought coffee! And Sam!”
“Ah, my triumphant hero!” Colby popped out of what looked like either a very big pantry or a small second kitchen, ran across the open room and the box-strewn expanse, and flung himself at Jason and coffee.
And Sam realized that if Jason’d been happy earlier, that was nothing at all compared to now. Pure joy lit up deep brown eyes and smile-crinkles and every melting of giant muscles. Completely home, here and now, at the sight of the man he loved.
Jason, still holding presents, folded both arms around Colby. Leaned down, and they both got lost in a kiss: tender and adoring and entirely honest, unselfconscious about emotion and passion and pleasure in each other. Colby’s hand slid up to the back of Jason’s neck, intimate and natural, holding him there.
Sam shifted weight. Wanted to preserve that moment, that kiss, in art: simple clear devotion, the mundane—packages in hands, coffee delivered—combined with the wondrous.
He also wanted to talk to Leo. He wanted to kiss Leo, to come home to Leo. The want stabbed through his entire body, and left him breathless.
He glanced around the house, giving the reunion some privacy. The ceilings were high, and the walls were pale and mostly undecorated as yet, though a tantalizing wild knot of abstract steampunk brass and copper shimmered in coiling decoration over in the kitchen. A large canvas leaned against the single bookshelf in the living room; Sam couldn’t quite see the art, only the edge of colors: grey, gold, sapphire. The back of the house opened up in gleaming glass windows and doors: the view stretched out, drenched in California light, gazing down the hill. The yard wasn’t finished: some bare landscaping lingered in shades of dirt, and he could also see the corner of a swimming pool peeking over, blue and inviting.
He glanced back at Colby and Jason. Jason still had both arms around Colby, and was murmuring something inaudible that made Colby laugh and blush and retort, “Of course you are, love, always. With cinnamon. Or even ginger.”
“Hmm,” Jason said, “later, maybe—”
“Oh!” Colby, no longer being thoroughly kissed, had remembered Sam’s presence. “Oh, no, my apologies, Jason did introduce you, I’m so sorry, hello, I’m Colby, and you must be Sam! Did you like the car? She’s such fun, especially when Jason’s driving, though of course we’ll give her back next week, when we see Jason’s parents for brunch. Oh, sorry, come in and have food!”
Colby Kent. Sam was meeting Colby Kent. Award-winning actor, producer, and writer Colby Kent. In a half-furnished newly-bought house. While Colby paused to consume a significant amount of iced coffee and share a smile with Jason.
While Sam tried to process the whirlwind of words and the moment and his whole damn life, Colby went on, “I’m verysorry about the lack of furniture, but we have got the bar stools, and we’re getting the sofa and chairs tomorrow, and can I get you anything else to drink, or a coffee refill? And how’s Leo? Not that we’re not seeing him soon, but of course you’ll have heard from him more recently, I’d think? Is the hotel all right?”
Sam fought the urge to stop and breathe out of sympathy on Colby’s behalf. Or maybe his own. This was him, talking to—being talked at—by Colby Kent. How?
Colby in person was also taller than Sam, because both movie stars were, but an inch or two shorter than Jason, and thinner, built like a swimmer or dancer instead of a mountainside. He had both sleeves of his violet cardigan shoved up, baring graceful forearms; he also had what looked like ink on the side of one hand, a swoop of incongruous messy indigo. His eyes were and weren’t the famous film-poster shade: even more vivid in person, and more complicated, with darker and lighter blue mingling together.
