Avery indeed was bushed when he dragged home after work on Friday, February 14th. He'd been right that he'd have been in no mood to drive to Virginia Beach and then back to south of Norfolk to party all night. Would he have been as reluctant to do that twenty years ago? He didn't want to think about that.
He almost tripped over the package leaning against his front door. It was wrapped in brown paper, but he could tell that it was a canvas. Dominick having remorse about taking his painting and returning it, remembering that Avery had actually paid for it? It was the right size. But when he got into the house and, after two scotches, pulled the wrapping paper off of it, he saw that it was an entirely different painting. It looked vaguely familiar, but only vaguely. He couldn't place it as anything he'd seen before, but it was familiar, so he must have. Maybe a photo of it in Dominick's portfolio?
A peace offering from Dominick? It certainly was a better painting than the one Dominick had taken away. And it suited Avery's house décor a lot better. It was an abstract, all cheerful swirls. The colors were vibrant, red dominating. It would go great in Avery's library, right where the hook had been nailed in the wall to hang the other painting. Dominick was being thoughtful.
Suspiciously thoughtful.
Avery looked closer into the painting, and as he scrutinized it, patterns started filtering out of the swirling background. When his eyes picked out the shapes outlined in red, he saw that they were hearts. Not perfectly formed hearts, which is why they didn't pop out immediately, but hearts nonetheless. And, to his amusement, he saw that they had tails on them—male sex symbol tails—and that these tails were entwining with each other in a most provocative and sensual manner. The painting was clever and sexual—male sexual. Gay male sexual. But you had to examine it closely to see that. Once you had seen it, it's what popped out at you every time you looked at it. Avery laughed out loud. He loved the painting. It was, by far, the most clever piece of art he'd ever seen from Dominick. Avery was practically the only one who ever went into his library. He would be the only one who knew of its message.
And Dominick had arranged for him to receive it on Valentine's Day. That was both thoughtful and clever. And it made Avery feel randy. He almost regretted that Dominick wasn't here. Almost. Thinking of that made him think of Dominick's ways. Maybe this painting gift—although, if it could be seen as a replacement for the one Dominick took, it wasn't really a gift—could just be a ploy by Dominick to keep his options open.
Avery wasn't tired any more. He needed to be on the move, to get out into the world. Maybe find some guy to lay, even though he'd never chanced doing that on a one-night-stand basis in Richmond. He put his coat back on and left the house, walking at random, he thought. But not at random, really. His feet were leading him back to Carytown.
This time when he looked in the window of the art gallery, he knew why he was doing so. And when Kelsey turned and looked back at him, he held there for a pregnant moment before turning and walking up the block. And this time when he reached the corner, he entered the café rather than keeping on walking.
"You knew I'd come?"
Avery looked up at Kelsey as the younger man approached the table next to the fireplace. He gestured at the two cups of coffee Avery had ordered and that had been delivered as Kelsey entered the café.
"I had hopes you'd come," Avery answered.
"I came here, expecting to find you here, earlier in the week when I saw you outside the gallery window."
"Sorry, I wasn't ready then. Sorry, again, I didn't mean that to sound like—"
"Did you like the Valentine? Was that what brought you here today?"
"The Valentine?" Avery asked, confused, but only momentarily. Of course, the painting was too good and too clever for Dominick to have painted. He should have known that from the beginning. And now he remembered where he'd seen it before. Kelsey had been taking it down from the wall of the gallery the last time Avery had walked by there. "Oh, that was you . . ."
And then when Kelsey just smiled—that shy, yet radiant smile that took Avery's breath away—Avery said, "Yes, I received it. I love it."
"And that's why you came here today?"
"Yes, that's why I came here today." Avery hadn't known that was why he had come, but, of course, it was exactly why he was here. "I want to fuck you," he blurted out.
