Page 30 of Collin: Episodes 4-6
Collin rubbed his forehead. “Well, I hear you have money. You don’t have to wear stuff you find in the alley if you don’t want to.”
Ash bit his lip. “Yeah, but I’m going to need it.”
“For what?”
“When they get rid of me.”
Collin sniffed. “Why would they do that?”
“Because I fucking don’t fit in. Why am I even telling you this?”
“I’m a bartender. Well, I was before Mr. Reevesworth decided to pick me. People tell me everything. It’s something about my DNA. Don’t feel bad. I know secrets from here to the next three states. Anyway, I also brought food.”
“It’s not lunchtime.”
“You’re a guy, and you’re under thirty. If you’re not hungry, I’ll eat. It’s pizza.”
“Gimme.” Ash jumped up on a chair. It spun around once, and he caught himself on the edge of the closet desk, turning back to face Collin.
Collin’s stomach rolled. He had to catch himself on the table and cover his eyes. “Can you change first?”
“Fine.” Ash stood up and started stripping.
“You know you could use the bathroom, right?”
“Do you know that urine sprays? I hate bathrooms. Especially public ones.”
“Fair.”
Ash dumped his clothes on the floor, wearing only boxer briefs in a dismal brown. Collin handed him the the jeans and the shirt. “Do you want the sweater?”
Ash snatched the sweater from the tips of Collin’s fingers. “I always want sweaters. Oh, it’s soft.”
“I thought you’d like that.”
“Where’d you get this stuff?”
“I called a friend. They sent it over. I’m guessing some store nearby.”
“Maybe I can get another set.” Ash ran his hands down the sweater.
“Here, you need a belt.” Collin fished around the bottom of the bag and handed over a brown leather piece. “You look great. These are definitely your colors.”
“Girls were always saying stuff like that in school. What’s that mean?”
Collin made a face. “Um…well…there’s this thing with undertones in people’s skin. And that means that colors in their clothes sometimes looks better or worse, depending. Like, there’s different reds, and some people can wear that red and look like really healthy, but if they wear this other red, they look kinda sick because the color spectrum plays off each other. I studied it in one of my science classes.”
“You studied fashion? You don’t look gay.”
“One, I’m very gay, very into guys— that’s rude — and two, no I didn’t study fashion. I’m studying engineering. I had a class where we covered how the color of the building affects the cost of heating and cooling it for cost analysis.”
“People study that?” Ash held out both his hands and curled his fingers in the give-me motion, looking at the pizza.
Collin passed Ash the pizza with napkins. “Yep. You can literally change how much something costs by changing what color you make it. Like red paint acts differently than, say, blue paint. You need different base coats and everything.”
“Sick.”
Collin sat down with his own slice. Breakfast had been nice, but he didn’t know when lunch was coming, and he wasn’t going to torture himself watching Ash eat while he didn’t. “So, what do you do here? I’m told you’re the guy who’s going to set up my phone and everything.”
