The Geek and His Artist (37 page)

Mom insisted The Bastard may have just taken off, cut his losses, and left. But she’d never seen the guy, and something in the man’s voice had felt off. Jimmy didn’t think for one minute it was truly over, and that kept him worried.

He hadn’t said any of this to Simon, though. Simon had enough to deal with, enough to work through with the counselor as it was. He didn’t need Jimmy’s fears piled on top of it.

Jimmy finished his Mountain Dew and frowned. Late at night, when Simon was sleeping wrapped in his arms, he let his other big fear surface. Despite his worry over The Bastard, Simon
was
safe now. He was happy. Jimmy had watched him open up more. He cringed less and less over things.

And Jimmy found himself afraid that now that Simon was safe, he wouldn’t want Jimmy anymore. He worried Simon really just wanted help getting out of the shitty situation.

If he forced himself to think rationally, he knew better. Simon’s face when he said “I love you” showed he really meant it. When they made love, Jimmy felt it. Simon still touched; they still held hands.

It was fear, irrational by definition. But Jimmy couldn’t seem to let go completely. He just didn’t know what to do about it.

“Boys! Pizza!” Mom called from the top of the basement stairs.

Jimmy took a deep breath and shoved his fears back into a box, which seemed a little easier when Simon turned and smiled at him, holding out a hand. He took it, pushing the worry away for later and focusing on celebration instead.

J
IMMY
HIT
the button to make his tablet sleep, then closed the case and stuck it in the pocket of the car seat in front of him. He glanced over at Simon and smiled. Simon hadn’t been sleeping all that well lately, so Jimmy didn’t want to wake him.

He frowned. Some of that was because of him. He’d awakened on the far side of the bed, more than a few nights, to Simon’s nightmares. Every time he did, he cursed himself as he did his best to calm Simon down. Sometimes it didn’t take much, just waking Simon up, then making sure his boyfriend was tucked in his arms. Simon would usually fall back to sleep quickly.

Other times, Simon fought waking, the dream battle with The Bastard unwilling to let go. Those nights he usually had to do something to distract Simon before things settled. Not that he minded the aftereffects, but he hated the nightmares Simon went through to get them there.

Something was wrong. Jimmy felt it, knew it, but he had no idea what to do about it. Simon had been going to the counselor for six weeks now, and though some of his more knee-jerk reactions to things had started to calm down, it seemed the nightmares were getting worse.

It worried and scared him. He was already worried that Simon was second-guessing coming to live with them. He’d been withdrawing quite a bit over the month since the birthday party. Granted, schoolwork had been a bitch the last few weeks, both of them with a ridiculous number of projects to try to do before the end of the school year.

It irritated Jimmy to no end, with how easily a missed grade could screw up their GPA, that the teachers would put that much on them. He knew why they did it—or, their explanation for it—which was to get them ready for college loads. But Jimmy knew all too well that if he fucked up a class in college, he could retake it. And while he might be able to do summer school if he fucked up senior English, he certainly didn’t want to miss graduation, which he very well might.

So, they’d had plenty of schoolwork bogging them down. Simon’s trigonometry had been frustrating him, and he’d been fighting the idea of just giving up. He didn’t seem to have a problem with any of his other classes—aside from the workload—but between trig and the load, he was going a little crazy.

But it wasn’t just that. Jimmy felt it. Deep down somewhere he knew there was more going on. He’d asked Simon if it was about The Bastard, but Simon had assured him it was fine. He’d asked if he did something wrong, but Simon, again, swore that wasn’t it.

So Jimmy was at a loss.

In the meantime, his own fears about The Bastard had only grown. He still hadn’t turned up anywhere, and Jimmy couldn’t shake the feeling that the man hadn’t given up. So every time they went out, sometimes even for school, he worried they’d see The Bastard.

On top of that, with Simon’s new withdrawal, his earlier fears that Simon didn’t want him anymore had come back with a vengeance. He’d tried to shush them, tell himself it was just school, but it rang false.

So when Amy called to ask if he and Simon wanted to go with them to Niagara Falls, he’d jumped at the chance. He’d been a bit surprised that Simon had agreed so readily, as well. He’d assumed being exposed that much would freak Simon out, and when he’d asked, Simon had hesitated. But when Jimmy asked Simon if The Bastard had a passport, Simon assured them he had never seen one and had been pretty sure one didn’t exist. They decided then there was no way The Bastard could
get
one with an open warrant for his arrest over the abuse.

They’d both breathed a little easier and agreed.

Jimmy wondered if maybe Simon had more fear over The Bastard than he was letting on. But Jimmy didn’t want to risk making it worse by asking, not sure what to do about it. So he’d let it go and focused on getting ready for the trip.

He’d been surprised they’d managed Simon’s passport, but it turned out his parents had already started the process. Once they’d booked the cruise, they hadn’t wasted time, wanting to make sure nothing held up the trip, and once they’d confirmed with CYF that they could get one, they went ahead and sent all the paperwork in. To everyone’s relief, it had shown up more than a week before.

Now they were approaching Peace Bridge in their parents’ new Nissan Pathfinder. Mom never did anything halfway. She’d scoured the lists for this and that, read review after review, and finally decided on the Nissan. Jimmy thought she’d gone a little overboard with the research. But when he got in the backseat for the first time and didn’t have to sit with his knees next to his ears even
with
a third row seat behind him,
and
had room above his head, he stopped jabbing her about it.

They didn’t have the deep green Jimmy had hoped for, so Mom had picked out the rich mocha brown instead, grinning at Simon the whole time. Simon had nearly died when he realized why they’d picked that color. But Jimmy had caught the very happy smile too, so Jimmy had immediately asked—again—if he could take it to prom. After glancing at Simon’s happy expression, Mom had quoted the Magic 8 ball: Outlook good.

Jimmy leaned over and touched Simon’s arm. “Baby?”

Simon inhaled deeply and yawned, looking up. “Are we there?”

“Almost. We’re at the bridge into Canada.”

Simon sat up, huge grin on his face. “I still can’t believe I’m going to another country!”

“You’ll be going to three more this summer,” Jimmy reminded him, and the smile widened even more. Jimmy soaked it up. Simon hadn’t been this happy since before The Bastard broke his leg. He wished he could be the one to put that smile on Simon’s face, but then shoved the thought aside and tried to just be happy it was there.

“Yes! I can’t wait.” He looked around, yawning again. “I’m sorry I fell asleep.”

Jimmy shrugged. “You’ll see it on the way back.”

Simon nodded, peering out his window at the river under them. Jimmy couldn’t see from his vantage point, so he watched Simon instead. “It doesn’t look much different from here,” he murmured.

“Canada?”

“Yeah.” Simon looked back.

“It’s cleaner,” Amy said from the front seat. “Other than that, there isn’t much difference.”

Simon chuckled. “I guess that makes sense. Kind of silly, huh?”

Amy shook her head. “No. I’ve been in Mexico, near the border to the US. And you cross over the bridge from the US to Mexico, and it is
so
different, just those few steps.”

“Huh.”

“Mexico is a whole different world.” Dirk glanced over his shoulder, then went back to driving. “I’ve been down there a few times. It’s dusty and, at least for the border towns, sad.”

“It’s not so bad in the ports,” Amy put in. “But definitely different than here.”

“We’re supposed to go to Mexico,” Jimmy told her. “Our cruise in July.”

“Oh, that’s right! Which one are you going on?” Amy started dancing in her seat.

Jimmy laughed. “Are you going or us?”

She stuck her tongue out.

Simon laughed. “Uh, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Mexico.”

“Oh, that ought to be
cool
.”

“Passports!” Dirk called as he slowed down toward the booths ahead. Jimmy grabbed his out of the back of the seat as Simon dug into the backpack at his feet. They handed them up to Amy.

“Good afternoon,” the guard greeted them, taking the passports Dirk held out.

Jimmy couldn’t get a gauge on the guy’s height, but he had a roundish face, slightly cleft chin and deep brown eyes. His hat hid his hair, but Jimmy thought it might have been a lighter shade of brown. He did notice how the guard filled out his dark blue uniform. Jimmy didn’t see a bulletproof vest, or if it was there, it was under the shirt. He glanced over at Simon to see his boyfriend watching him with eyebrows raised.

“Should I be jealous?”

Jimmy laughed. “They’re too polite. I prefer someone a little more….”

Simon flipped him off.

Jimmy grinned. “Exactly.”

With a laugh Simon leaned forward and kissed him, and Jimmy thrilled in it, since that kind of spontaneous touch had been rare lately.

Dirk answered the basic questions: how long are they visiting and so on. The guard handed their passports back and stepped back to wave them through.

“How much longer to the hotel?” Jimmy asked.

Amy leaned forward and poked something on the GPS screen as they passed under the sign that said they were heading to Niagara Falls, Hamilton, and Toronto with a symbol of a crown and the letters QEW on it. “And what is QEW?”

Amy chuckled. “That’s Queen Elizabeth Way, and it looks like about half an hour yet.”

Jimmy made a face. Now that they were there, he wanted
out
of the car. They’d made it to Erie for food, then pulled off I-90 in Dunkirk for more coffee. But even with those stops and the legroom, Jimmy was tired of sitting.

He entertained himself watching Simon look at everything, taking in some of the countryside himself. But Simon was much more entertaining, plastered as he was to the window. Once outside of the little town of Fort Erie on the Canadian side of the river, the countryside looked much like Jimmy had seen it before: lots of green, trees, farms, and a smattering of houses.

However, when Dirk turned off the highway, even Jimmy started getting excited. Amy flatly refused to tell him what hotel they were going to or what all they were going to do while they were there, and Jimmy was anxious. He was almost as excited as Simon as they made the next few turns before coming up to Niagara from the south. He caught the tiniest view of the falls as they went along, but there were too many trees to see much. He got another glimpse at a second break in the trees, but Dirk turned away too fast. He twisted around, but the “Niagara Parks Railway to the Falls” sign was in the way. He gave up for the moment and sat back.

“Ohhh, there’s an Applebee’s right across the street.” Amy pointed.

Dirk snickered. “We came all the way to Canada to go to Applebee’s?”

Amy stuck her tongue out again but didn’t respond otherwise.

Jimmy glanced over at the restaurant, then at the Comfort Inn as they passed. Then, as Dirk paused, his turn signal on as he waited to pull up to a door, Jimmy stared up and then
up
at the Embassy Suites Hotel. “Sis, is this… is this where we’re
staying
?”

Amy giggled. “Yup. Mom and Dad had a shitload of points on their Hilton Honors thing. So they cashed them in. We’re only paying for, like, half the week.”

“Seriously? Cool!” Jimmy grinned over at Simon, who was looking wide-eyed at everything.

“Wow,” he whispered, but Jimmy sobered a little, noticing Simon looked more overwhelmed than happy.

“Baby?” Jimmy reached out and took Simon’s hand. “You okay?”

Simon looked over and nodded. “Yeah, just a little… stunned. I mean, this isn’t nearly as big as the ’Burgh, you know? But….”

“Well, it’s new.” Jimmy squeezed his hand. “Listen, if you just want to hang in the room and eat something simple, I’m sure they’ll be cool with it.”

Simon considered him, then shook his head. “No, I’m not going to do that.”

“But—”

“No,” Simon said firmly. “It’s all right.”

Jimmy frowned but gave up and turned back to the hotel.

Chaos reigned for a while as they climbed out and removed suitcases and backpacks and other things. They snagged a bellhop, then followed Amy into the lobby. While Amy went to check in, Simon and Jimmy took a seat at the round half-bench set under an interesting hanging glass sculpture of flowers. Finally Amy had keys in hand and found the elevators.

“Thirty-sixth floor?” Jimmy’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. He couldn’t remember what the highest buildings in Pittsburgh were, but he’d never been to the top of any of them. He was pretty sure, aside from the Mount Washington lookouts, he’d never been that high at all, much less stayed in the hotel with that many floors.

But when they stepped into the suite and Jimmy saw the window that made up the outer wall, he ignored the rest of the room to walk up to the glass.

“Holy shit,” Simon whispered beside him.

Jimmy glanced over and nodded, then looked back. They were on the side of the hotel that overlooked the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. Jimmy might have forgotten to breathe, the view was so incredible.

“I’m
so
glad I brought my sketchbook.”

“You should have brought your paints,” Jimmy replied, glancing at Simon again. “I hope Amy will let us sit in here.”