Cliff struggled to find an answer. He felt stupid for not getting it.
“It looks like just a bunch of different colors, right? Totally random?”
Cliff nodded. Brennan's soft lips quirked into a smile as he readied his punchline. That mouth was a work of art.
“But out of all the colors available, why did he choose these specific ones? Why did he put them in this order? How is it still appealing to the eye? Think of how many terrible color combinations there are, but this...works. Somehow.”
Cliff took another look, this time with Brennan’s commentary in his head. There was a method to the madness. Two colors next to each other would’ve been discordant, but surrounded by even more colors gave it a sense of cohesion and beauty.
Brennan read the breakthrough on his face and smiled back. “Still think it’s totally random?”
“Whoa.”
Cliff wanted to spend more time pouring over the painting, looking for more secrets in the magic. He made himself stop. Brennan was watching him, probably amused at Cliff’s newfound realization that art was deep.
Their eyes met for a moment that was too quiet for comfort, before both guys looked away.
“Art. Pretty cool,” Brennan said with a nervous laugh. “I’m going to take a quick shower. But let me set up an exercise for you.” He hustled over to the kitchen, which was more of a huddle of appliances by the wall. He reached up to a grocery bag above the fridge, his mesh shorts tightening as the shape of his round ass came into view.
Brennan plunked a big, red apple on the kitchen table.
“I’m not hungry,” Cliff said.
“Good. Because you’re not eating it.” Brennan waved Cliff over with two commanding fingers. It sent a jolt to his head.
Four mismatched chairs that should have nothing to do with each other surrounded the round table; like the painting, they somehow meshed together into a funky, fun style all their own. Cliff sat down at a high-backed wooden chair that would be at home in his grandparents’ condo.
Brennan dug out a sketchbook and pencil from his artist corner. He flopped them in front of Cliff and leaned over him. His sinewy arms, still spackled with sweat, steadied himself on the table.
“First, you’re going to practice shading.” Brennan flipped to a clean page in the book, giving Cliff another chance to breathe in his salty scent. “Draw a rectangle across the page and divide it into five bars. In the first bar, draw the darkest shade you can, then transition to lighter with each bar, like a scale. When you’re done, draw another rectangle and do it again. Practice makes perfect. You want to control the pressure of the pencil.”
“What’s the apple for?”
“That comes later,” Brennan said with a wink, his voice dropping low. Cliff honestly tried not to find it sexy. He did not succeed.
“You got it, teach.”
“Don’t call me teach. This is college. I’m a fucking professor.” Brennan clapped Cliff on the shoulder, tossed his shirt into his hamper, and sauntered into the bathroom.
Cliff got to work on the shading exercise, instructing every neuron in his brain to lock in on the sketchpad and not think about Brennan in the shower. His first rectangle was heavily weighted toward dark shading. It only got lighter on the last box. His next rectangle was a step in the right direction. But soon, he found his eyes drifting to the hamper.
He could feel a cosmic force push his head back to his assignment.Focus, he told himself.Donotlook over there.
An idea flicked into his mind. A bad, terrible, shameful idea, which made it all the more attractive. The unspoken urge flooding his body and his brain was like a river gushing against the dam. Cliff had become a pro at pushing these desires down over the years; Brennan was a Pandora’s Box he could not open. Yet with each second, he found a way to rationalize his bad, terrible, shameful idea more.
A second later, he was in front of the hamper, throwing open the lid and pulling out the sweat-drenched T-shirt. He put it to his face and inhaled the manly, strong, take-no-shit, one-of-a-kind scent that Cliff wanted to envelop him. He pictured Brennan on top of him, holding him in place. Cliff came back to reality -- and to his hand palming his hard cock.
He raced back to the kitchen table and shoved the shirt deep inside his bag, cramming it under his books. The sounds of water in the shower continued to emanate from the bathroom. But Cliff could not get his heart to stop beating wildly.
What the hell are you doing?This is wrong.
So wrong on so many levels.
Cliff’s secret desires belonged locked in his head, not manifested in the real world with real people’s clothes.
He returned to his assignment to calm himself down. He focused on each section of a new rectangle as if he were drawing on the roof of the Sistine Chapel.
Cliff clocked a faded picture of Brennan and Alex taped to the fridge. Alex would kill him if he discovered he stole Brennan’s shirt. His whole family would kill him. All of society would kill him.
