“I wouldn’t mind the latter, but I thought you could use a bite.” Donny held up the sandwich.
“I don’t need your pity fuck or your pity sandwich.” Roland threw the paintbrush down, his eyes darting between the canvas and Donny.
“Yeah, and I don’t need to be called up when you just want a cock inside you, but here we fucking are, Roland,” Donny bit out caustically. He took a step into the room, and Roland advanced on him. “Why did you even text me? I told you not to do it, and you did it anyway. I’m not inclined to waste my time fucking a drunk who doesn’t even want to look at me.”
“I’m not a fucking drunk.” Roland stepped closer.
“Okay, Roland,” Donny patronized, crossing his arms over his chest, “maybe you’re not, but you sure drink like one.”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”
“That’s the fucking truth, isn’t it?” Donny was getting angry again. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, taking a deep breath. All he saw behind his eyelids was Roland. Troubled, andbeautifulfucking Roland, with a paintbrush in his hand and desolation in his eyes.
“I’m trying!” Roland exclaimed. He reached into his pocket and fumbled around, finally pulling out a slip of blue paper. “I’m fucking trying. I went to the doctor today before I called you, okay? I got tested for you. I got a prescription f—” Roland bit back the last part of his sentence and threw the paper toward Donny. It did a swirl in the air before falling to the ground between them.
Donny swallowed thickly and stared at the paper, which had unfolded, and was clearly a prescription for some kind of medication.
Okay.
Donny squatted down and picked up the prescription, folding it back closed before he was tempted to look at whatever the doctor had written. It wasn’t his business. Though maybe, now, he wanted it to be, but it wasn’t yet. He held it out to Roland.
Roland begrudgingly accepted the paper, his fingers grazing across Donny’s skin in a delicate way Donny hadn’t felt before. He shivered, then the feeling passed and Roland was shoving the prescription back into his pocket.
Donny held out the sandwich.
“You need to eat.”
Roland narrowed his eyes at Donny before the lines in his face softened in the most minuscule way, and he held his hand out for the sandwich. Donny handed it over, and Roland tore the plastic back and ingested half the sandwich quicker than Donny would have thought possible.
“Can I see what you’re painting?” Donny asked softly.
Roland’s whole demeanor changed. He tensed and cocked his head to the side defensively. “It’s not anything.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Roland sighed loudly and angled his head in the direction of the canvas he’d been working on as he pulled the other half of the sandwich out of the package and started on it. Donny walked around him and came face-to-face with a likeness of himself that was both similar, and at the same time, not. It looked as if Roland had painted him without ever reallyseeinghim, which was a fair statement, since Roland seemed to prefer to have his eyes closed when Donny was inside of him.
Donny reached a finger out and ghosted it across a sharp line of black paint, pulling back before he touched the canvas. He shifted his eyes up, and found Roland staring at him, trepidation and hope warring behind his eyes.
“Is this,” Donny started, “is this how you see me?”
Roland licked his lips and looked down. “It’s how I feel you.”
Donny physically reacted, his body jerking at the shoulders and then settling while his heart beat a furious tempo inside his chest. It was the truest thing Roland had said to him since they’d met and the weight of it settled around Donny in a comforting way. This was okay. This was progress.
Donny held his hand out for the empty sandwich package, and Roland handed it over. “Come on, Roland,” Donny said, taking one last look at the canvas and walking past him, leaving the room.
Roland followed him to the kitchen. Donny put the packaging in the trash, picked up the half of his sandwich he’d left behind and took a bite.
“Can I have some milk?” Donny asked.
“I don’t have milk.”
“You do,” Donny countered as he swallowed the last bite of his own sandwich.
Roland rolled his eyes and opened the fridge, his face registering surprise when he saw the container of milk on the bottom shelf. He steeled himself and stepped around Donny, taking a glass out of the cabinet near the sink and filling it up. He set it down and slid it toward Donny.
“You should have one, too,” Donny suggested.
