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the sculptures on their pedestals or boxes
    without feeling cowed and unworthy.
    This was Tate Walker‟s boyfriend here? Brian looked good—
    handsome and assured. Talker had made him cut his hair the week
    before, so it was only a little long, because that much long, wheat
    colored hair just shouldn’t be cut short, and they had both hit the
    thrift stores hard until they‟d come up with sports jackets to wear
    over jeans. They‟d sprung for new shirts and Brian had a tie, and
    they both were freshly shaved (even Talker‟s tattoo side of his
    head), and Talker had bought a new nose stud for Brian with a tiny
    Celtic cross etched on the top, to match his own.
    But Brian looked—professional. Self-contained. He‟d nodded
    and smiled and stood quietly, listened intently when people spoke,
    and never made the mental missteps that might frighten people into
    thinking he was a temperamental artist who couldn‟t be relied upon.
    Talker had twitched so badly in the course of the night that
    he‟d managed to scatter hors d‟oeuvres all over the carpet once
    and spill wine on his blazer another time. Brian had stopped what
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    he was doing both times and tended to him—helped him pick up
    the food, wiped gently at his coat with a napkin.
    “It‟s okay,” Brian had murmured the second time. “No one here
    is paying any attention to us. It‟s all about the art, all right?”
    Talker nodded and covered Brian‟s hands with his own. “I
    haven‟t even seen all your pieces,” he mourned. “I just want so
    badly for them to think you‟re awesome.” And to not embarrass
    you.
    Brian colored. “You haven‟t seen them all?” he asked, a little
    strained. “Have you seen the main one? The one Mark put in the
    center of the library? He said it‟s the cornerstone of the show. You
    haven‟t seen that one?”
    Talker shook his head. He knew instinctively that this was the
    piece that Brian had shown Orenskeezer to make the guy back off.
    Talker had never told Brian he‟d been there that night—and he‟d
    never doubted, ever again, that Brian would simply forget that he
    loved his boyfriend.
    Brian looked strained and upset for the first time that evening.
    “You have to see it, Talker. You have to.”
    A lovely woman in her fifties came up and touched Brian‟s
    arm, looking for attention, and Brian turned to her with a smile that
    Tate was beginning to recognize as his “This is a patron” smile.
    “Thanks, Mrs. Rose—can I answer that in just a sec?” He turned
    back to Talker and then spotted someone over Tate‟s shoulder.
    “Look, baby. Aunt Lyndie and Doc Sutherland showed up just for
    us. I haven‟t had a chance to say hi—how about you go say hi for
    me and take them to see it.” Brian blinked, and for a minute, it
    looked like he might cry. Tate was appalled, instantly, and
    determined to do anything to keep that from happening. “I really
    want you to see it,” Brian whispered, and Talker took his hands and
    shook them a little, then kissed the knuckles.
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    “Okay,” he murmured. “I will. I‟ll go see it. And I‟ll love it, I
    know I will, okay?”
    Brian smiled a little, and forced some of the brightness from
    his eyes. “You gotta promise you‟ll tell me, okay? You‟re the only
    one who can tell me if that piece is good.”
    Tate didn‟t know how to tell Brian that Tate himself was the
    last person to be able to pass that judgment. Everything Brian
    made was beautiful, perfect, amazing, just because Brian had
    made it. He had no objectivity—but then, Brian didn‟t seem to
    require any from him. But Brian needed this from him, and Talker‟s
    job was to give his dream boy anything he needed, right?
    Aunt Lyndie greeted him with a hug that almost took his breath
    away, which was funny, because he and Brian had just been up to
    her house a few weeks before at the end of September. They went
    every year because