Page 68 of Meeting Mr. Adorkable
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
“Hey, Arlo. And Peanut, too! Come in. Glad you could make it. How’s fame treating you?” Francine laughed, and Arlo groaned.
Since the showing at the gallery, so many more people had come up to say hi, or had waved to him from across the street. His payment for coffee in CC’s had been refused, as instead the barista had asked him to autograph a napkin. It was excruciating.
“I’m not famous,” he said, defensiveness in every word.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
He would, but Jonas was already talking about a major showing at his Boston gallery, much to Lucian’s excitement.
“Everybody’s talking about you and when I was in the library earlier today, they had a copy of that magazine you gave an interview to, on a stand, right there on the desk where you check out your books. I was very proud when I told the librarian I was one of your oldest friends.”
Arlo followed her through to the kitchen. Lucian had squealed in delight when he’d read the piece in Contemporary Art. Sure, it’d talked about him being an artist to watch out for, and with a bright future. It had been insightful about his work. But it hadn’t been the words that had got to him, but the photographs of him and Lucian together. Lucian had looked incredible, gorgeous and unbelievably sexy as he’d gazed into the lens. He’d also looked so young, the difference in their ages as emphatic as though somebody had run a neon yellow hi-lighter across them both.
“Take a seat and make yourself comfortable.” Francine put her hands on his shoulders, almost pushing him down at the table. “It’s been so long since we all sat down to lunch together, but as Lucian’s with Bibi at a flower fair, Hank and I thought it’d be good to grab the opportunity. We didn’t want you sitting down on your lonesome with nothing but a sandwich.”
Lucian, not Luci-Ann. At least she now pronounced his name correctly. But…
“How do you know he’s at a flower fair?” Bibi must have told her, because he sure hadn’t, and he doubted Lucian had.
“Oh, Bibi mentioned it. Lunch is cooked, but it just needs heating.” She bustled over to the stove and concentrated on stirring the contents of a large pan.
Hank was already in the kitchen, telling their dog Gomer he was the most handsome boy. Arlo grinned. The dog was even quirkier looking than Peanut and had about half as many teeth. Gomer abandoned Hank and limped across to a tail wagging Peanut; Hank ushered them into the yard.
“It’s getting colder.” Hank shivered as he shut the door. “There’ll be snow on the mountain tops soon.”
The temperature had dropped over the last couple of days, and high winds had stripped the trees of much of their red and gold. Summer had receded to little more than a memory, and fall would soon be claimed by winter, already waiting in the wings. Arlo’s thoughts were turning to the winterscapes he was already painting in his head.
Scratching at the door was followed by some half-hearted barking.
“Go on, let them in.” Peanut hated being cold, and even though he was wearing his coat, Arlo didn’t like the idea of his little mutt shivering in the yard. Hank opened the door, and the dogs slunk inside and retreated to the corner, and Gomer’s basket.
“Just a simple lunch.” Francine ladled out a rich meat stew before placing a plate piled with homemade bread in the middle of the table. Not a vegetable in sight… Maybe it was just as well Lucian wasn’t with them.
They talked about the showing, but also about the neighbors, and Hank and Francine’s kids, who were no longer kids, but young men and women in their late teens and early twenties.
“Lucian should get to know Kyle and Jed,” Francine said. “The twins are only a couple of years younger than him, but that’s still the same age group. Right?”
“Er, yeah, I guess so.” The twins were good enough kids, but other than being close in age, Arlo couldn’t think what Lucian could have in common with them. He glanced across at Hank, who was inspecting something at the bottom of his bowl of stew.
They carried on eating, the sounds of spoons on bowls accompanied by little yelps and snuffles from the dog basket in the corner.
“We used to do this a couple times a week, at least,” Francine said, breaking the silence that had descended over the table. “When you first came back to town and were finding your feet. In fact, we used to see a lot of you. Not so much, now.”
Lunches. Dinners. Coffee. Invites to family parties and BBQs. To movie nights, where the food and drinks usually came with a gay friend, a gay cousin, or a gay cousin of a friend, every one of them guaranteed to make Arlo want to run for the hills and never look back. At least she’d stopped doing that since he’d got together with Lucian. He peered around the kitchen, half expecting a random guy to jump out of a cupboard.
“Life’s been busy in the past few weeks. The show, and… other things.” Lucian, Lucian, and more Lucian. But a worm of guilt wriggled in his stomach that his best and truest friends might think he no longer had time for them. “Why don’t you come on over to our place? The weekend, maybe? I’ll cook.”
“Our place?” Francine’s eyes widened, the spoon she held frozen part way between her bowl and her mouth. “Has he moved in with you?”
Arlo stilled, his shoulders tensing.He…There was something he couldn’t name, in her tone, in the way she’d avoided using Lucian’s name, in the way she was looking at him. Whatever it was, it felt accusatory. Our place… It had been a slip of the tongue, but that was how he thought of his house now, as being theirs, his and Lucian’s. He put down his spoon, his taste for the meal fading.
“No, but he spends most of the time there with me. He’s still got his apartment at Mr. DuPont’s because it’s convenient for work…” Even though he’s hardly there and I’m going to ask him to move in… The words should have been easy to say, but they withered on his tongue.
“Francie.” Hank glared at Francine, who pressed her lips together in a straight line.
Arlo looked between the two of them, all their attention on each other. They’d forgotten him. Something was going on, and whatever it was, he wasn’t going to like it.
