His eyes light up, and he wraps his arm around mine. “We are going to be great friends, Ant. I can just tell. Here. Anthony, move down one. Ant is sitting next to me.” He pauses, cracking up. “Hey! Ant and Anthony!”
“His name is Antonio, which is Anthony in Spanish, so it’s like they have the same name,” Hopper says, so close he startles me.
“Fuck, dude. You’re like a cat burglar.”
He grins, and I turn to Mads. “Please don’t call me Antonio.”
“Yeah, he and I don’t like our given names,” Hopper says, hugging me from the side. “For the same reason.”
Liam raises his brows. “Hop, not your story to tell.”
Hopper sends me an apologetic grimace. “Sorry.”
“You’re good, Hop.”
Just then, Luca walks into the library bearing fancy cocktails for the group and introduces us to everyone else around the room. It’s clear these people are family in the same way my friends back home are, and despite the bank accounts represented at this table, I feel at home.
Soon the game begins, and I lean in, knowing this is going to be a fun night.
* * *
After several roundsof poker and whatever amazing cocktail Luca made for us, Erik and I finally have to beg off. Thankfully, we don’t have very far to go. Hopper and Liam live a few blocks over, but Hop’s got an apartment in this building. It’s where he paints, and he’s generously letting us stay there while we’re in New York.
“Hop massively undersells his painting ability,” Erik observes as we walk in.
The paintings have a familiar feel, like maybe I’ve seen this style before, but they’re all him.
Erik taps his chin. “I think I know where Hopper got his nickname from.”
“Yeah?” I ask, falling face-first into the mattress on his floor. “Holy shit, this is a ridiculously comfortable bed. Like, his sheets are so soft and thick. Silky, but not slippery.”
Erik walks to the bedding, grinning down at me from his giant’s perspective as I start taking off my clothes. Once I’m down to my underwear, I fall back into the plush bedding, loving that this place is a space where art is made.
Rolling onto my belly, I tug on Erik’s jeans. “Sorry. I got side-tracked by this bed. Where did Hopper get his nickname from?”
As much as Hopper, Anders, and I talk freely about our lives, past and present, I wonder if we spend too much time talking about murder and not enough time learning the important details.
Like where one of my closest friends got his name from.
“Looks like Hop takes his painting cues from Edward Hopper,” Erik says, his eyes falling to my turquois briefs—with white piping—before stepping back and taking another look at the paintings on the wall.
I pull my phone from my pocket and Google the name.
“I recognize this picture,” I say, showing the familiar painting of the diner to Erik.
Chewing on my thumbnail, I follow the progression of the paintings around the room. “Yeah…similar. But maybe a little like one of those classical paintings too.”
Erik nods, his eyes flicking to my underwear—my crotch, really—before refocusing on the gorgeous paintings. “Vermeer meets Hopper. But make it autobiographical,” he says, stripping off his shirt, followed by his shoes and pants.
I make space for him as he removes his socks, and we get under the covers, both of us down to our underwear. Somehow, this feels even more intimate than letting him rinse me off after this morning’s activities.
I’d be nervous about sharing a bed with Erik fully clothed—there’s a real possibility I’ll glom onto him in the middle of the night or something else equally embarrassing—but being in our underwear makes me want to do more than hug him.
A lot more.
But this day has been approximately thirty years long, and as soon as I flip on my belly, I’m out.
* * *
