Page 26 of Refraction

“Yessir.” Tucker drew Calvin into the long hallway, the whole place whispering class and money. He rolled his eyes and grinned. Back home he would go to the Driskill or the Menger, something old and wonderful and deliciously haunted, but this worked like a charm.

Calvin whistled low. “Look at this. Jesus, talk about looking out of place. I feel like people are watching me to see if I’m going to steal the silverware.”

“I know, right? I don’t think they’d be surprised if I rode a buffalo through the lobby.” He’d been teasing the maids by folding the towels into obscene origami. Best class he’d ever taken.

“They’re going to go home tonight to their lovers and tell them all about the crazy Texan who brought a little goth boy in a kilt to his room.” Calvin laughed. It rang against the marble and echoed in the cavernous lobby, and he looked around like he could see the sound bounce off the walls. He did it again, this time on purpose. “Oops.”

Tucker grabbed Calvin, two-stepping them easily on the slick floor, trusting that Calvin could follow, hear the music in the base of his skull.

Calvin laughed again, following easily and feeling light in his hands. The “little goth boy in a kilt” had his eyes on Tucker’s and didn’t seem to be giving the lobby a second thought. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“That’s okay. I’ve never met anyone like you, so we’re even.” He thought that was perfectly fair, in fact.

“Excellent. What is this dance called, cowboy?”

“Depends who you ask. My daddy would call it two-stepping; my momma would say we were polishing belt buckles.”

“Oh, I like your mother’s version much better.” He felt Calvin’s hand slip lower, diving into the pocket of his jeans and giving his ass a squeeze.

“Mm-hmm.” He did like that, and he danced with Calvin until he saw a fairly grumpy-looking dude in a suit coming their way; then he rolled his eyes. “They’re fixin’ to yell at us. You ready to go upstairs?”

“I’m ready to go anywhere you want.”

“Come on, then.” He pushed the Up button, keeping one arm draped around Calvin’s shoulders.

“Tell me… two lies and one truth. Ever play that one?” Calvin looped an arm around his waist, and they stepped onto the elevator together.

“Mmm… I have three horses, my babysitter when I was a little boy was a voodoo queen, and I’m scared of motorcycles.” He could do this.

“Hmm… well. If you have horses, then I hope someone else takes care of them because otherwise they’d starve.” Calvin laughed. “And you’re not ‘scairt’ of anything, you told me as much after coffee. So I’d say the voodoo queen is the truth. I’d totally believe that.”

“Mmm. Very nice. I don’t have any livestock. My barns are studio space, and I have three Harleys.” Tucker smiled, the guesses pleasing him to death. “Your turn.”

Calvin stopped him as they got off the elevator. “Wait. You ownthreeHarleys? Gawd. I am nowhere near cool enough to play this with you.” Calvin snorted. “Okay, so me. I love to ski, I once fell out of a helicopter, and I have been to Paris seventeen times.”

“Mmm.” Paris sounded totally reasonable, but so did the other two. “I’m gonna go with Paris as the truth, but hope for the helicopter, just in case there’s a story there.”

“Well, can you imagine me on skis? And I wouldn’t be caught dead in a helicopter. No way. I prefer the kind of risks that involve my feet on the ground. Paris is the truth. I go there on shoots a few times a year. Have you been?”

“I haven’t. I’ve been to London, and I spent almost a year living in Rome when I was a kid, but not Paris.” Rome had been fascinating, wandering around at seventeen with Marge, amazed by the light.

“You would like Paris. It’s beautiful when you want it to be, and it’s wicked when you don’t.” Calvin licked his lips and leaned against the wall while Tucker hunted his room key in his pockets.

“Both of those facts make me happy.” He got the room open and cracked up when he found a towel elephant in the doorway.

“What the hell is that? This is obviously a story.” Calvin scooted past him and crouched down next to the elephant.

“We have been having towel-folding wars. I’m currently up by one, although that elephant’s pretty fucking cool.”

“You are….” Calvin stood up again and tugged Tucker into the room. “I’m running out of adjectives. I need to know more. Two more lies and a truth. Go.”

“I know how to knit, my favorite hard liquor is Jäger, and my first blowjob was in a bathroom in a McDonald’s.” It was challenging to invent lies. Fun, though.

“Oh my God, those are impossible.” Calvin dumped his coat on a chair and sat on the long couch in front of the windows. “Um. I really can’t believe you have the stomach for Jäger. Even as closeted as you must have been, I can’t see you desperate enough for a McDonald’s bathroom, but I can totally see you sitting with your grandma learning how to knit.” Calvin raised an eyebrow. “Close?”

“Dead-on. I’m impressed. Can I sit with you? Are you thirsty?”

“Please sit with me, and I’d love some water.”

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