“I think it’s probably better for you in the long run not to build a life around Aiden. Speaking from experience,” Flynn responded, the bitterness in his voice impossible to miss.
He struck Zach as a cheerful optimist, so that spoke volumes.
“But I don’t think it’s better that he ran off the night before you were supposed to get married without a word. I think that’s probably the worst thing he’s ever done.”
“He stole your car and totaled it,” Callie said. “He owes you ten thousand dollars. Not to mention all the shit he put you through in his last year of high school. Or you supporting him through college that he never even bothered to show up to half the time.”
“Yeah, but… those are things he did tome. I’m his brother, he’s my responsibility. He was supposed to be Zach’s boyfriend, and I've never had one, but I get the impression you're supposed to treat them a little better. You get to pick your boyfriends.”
“It's really not okay that he treatedyoulike that, either,” Zach said, horrified to learn that Aiden wasn't just a little careless and a little self-centered, but actively awful to his poor older brother who was turning out to be one of the sweetest, kindest men he’d ever met.
“I mean, we lost both our parents by the time he was seventeen. I figure he deserves a break on some of that. But not on this. Whether or notyouforgive him, it's gonna take me a while.”
“I don't wanna be mad at him,” Zach said, shifting to snuggle a little closer to Flynn. Maybe he shouldn't have, especially with Flynn’s partner right there, and especially since he’d just broken up with his brother, but…
Flynn was warm. And reassuring.
“Would it be wrong to mostly be sad that I'm not gonna get to go back to school now? I guess I never really thought I would, but I had hope for the last few weeks. I’d been making plans, imagining what it’d be like. Maybe that's stupid.”
“It's not stupid,” Flynn said, taking the last of Zach’s rejected olives and dotting them over another slice of pizza.
That seemed to be the one thing he had in common with Aiden, other than the general family resemblance.
“Actually,” Flynn continued. “I wanted to talk to you about that. What did your grandma want, exactly?”
Zach sighed. “I really think she thinks she’s doing the right thing. She doesn't think art is a good way to make a living, and maybe it's not, but I get by okay. She just wants to see me settled with someone who’ll theoretically look after me even if I'm a starving artist forever. Then she’s happy for me to be an artist.Wantsme to be, even. Like my grandpa.”
Flynn nodded, apparently taking that in. “I should've asked this before, but what kind of art?”
“I mostly work in ceramics,” Zach said. “Which is a good medium because you can produce practical things when the bills need to get paid. I'm not walking into this blind. I know it'll be a struggle. But it's worth it to me.”
“Can I see?” Flynn asked.
“Uh.” Zach blinked at him. He really hadn't expected Flynn tocare, but he seemed genuinely interested. “Yeah, sure,” he said.
He reached around Flynn to grab his phone on the nightstand and didn't think until he’d unlocked it and passed it over about how weird it was that he was so physically comfortable with the guy.
Not because he was like Aiden. The resemblance between them had nothing to do with it. He was comfortable becauseFlynnwas comfortable, and if things would have been likethisbetween them, then Zach had another reason to be disappointed now.
Flynn would have made an incredible brother-in-law.
Although… Zach knew himself well enough to know that Flynn was the kind of man he could have fallen in love with just because he smiled at him occasionally, so maybe it was better that hehadn'tmarried Aiden. Falling in love with his brother after they were married would have been awkward.
Flynn cleaned his fingers on a napkin before accepting the phone, which was pointless, since Zach had picked it up with his fingers covered in grease. His phone wasalwayscovered in fingerprints, and sometimes splotches of clay where he’d handled it before he’d scrubbed his hands clean.
Still, it was nice that he cared about not gettinghisgreasy fingerprints all over it. That said something about the kind of man he was.
“Oh, these arecool,” Flynn said, scrolling through the photos. “I mean, I don’t know shit about art, but I like this. I like this one,” he said, pointing to a dip-glazed bowl that left the stoneware exposed at the bottom.
Zach was fond of them, too. He could make them by the dozen, and people always bought them. The particular blue-white swirl of the glaze had been an experiment at first, and now he was really glad that he’d taken notes.
“Thank you,” he said softly as Flynn got to some old sculptural pieces. Zach was shocked as he tapped on the photos and zoomed in to see the details, exploring them carefully like he would have with his hands.
Zach always made his work to be touchable, toinvitetouch, and Flynn seemed to be getting that even with photos of it. He would have loved to show him his shelves in the studio he shared with a few other artists, watch him run his hands over his work.
The thought made the tiniest blossom of heat open up in the pit of his stomach, which was… unexpected.
He just liked it when people appreciated his art. It definitely wasn’t because his mind had run straight from Flynn touching his art to touchinghim, and he was already into that idea.
