Art House by Charley Descoteaux

Author:Charley Descoteaux [Descoteaux, Charley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-64080-566-8
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-08-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

CHASE HAD let himself relax sometime during dinner, even though it went against his better judgment. The day before, when they’d talked about the worst symptom of their most serious problem, he had let things go too soon, let the conversation fade away while they cleaned up the mess he’d made in the bedroom. He still felt like a coward, but Garrett had come home. Everything else paled in comparison. Chase had said something wrong—set Garrett off and made him leave—but he had returned in only a few hours.

Dinner at a real sit-down restaurant had been Garrett’s idea. Obviously he’d still felt guilty for leaving and the fallout—for my bad behavior—even after a day of working on the movie poster and a meeting with the St. Clouds at their studio space in the Hawthorne.

But instead of trying to talk Garrett out of his misplaced guilt, Chase had accepted the dinner invitation and made light conversation for over an hour, even flirting a little.

I’m getting better at this. Maybe.

They had talked about the meeting and the contract the St. Clouds had offered—based on the rough sketches and a few sentences of description, which had made Chase a little uncomfortable because they were Garrett’s sketches and sentences—but which they both planned to sign. Chase hoped they could work on the poster once they made it back to the condo but sensed that he wasn’t alone in holding a bit of sexual tension.

Maybe after we get that released.

Chase had been so close to taking Garrett’s hand as they crossed the last street before the condo and had just decided to do it as they mounted the front steps. Garrett would appreciate even that small gesture, see it for what it was—the best PDA Chase could manage. For now. Before he could, though, a familiar figure stood from the top step and came toward them.

“We need to talk.”

Chase’s feet stopped as his father strode toward him. For a second he had the same reaction he always had to seeing his father: abject terror. The feeling of being ripped away from his adult life and catapulted back to the dirty white mill house, the cramped rooms stinking of stale beer and failure, that he’d almost drowned himself to escape.

But after those few seconds, everything changed.

Instead of seeing an authority figure coming at him, ready to give him a well-deserved scolding—at best—Chase saw an aging man, hair more gray than blond, shoulders rounded in a worn-out bow, lined face tired and creased in an ever-present frown. He saw someone who was poison, someone who didn’t have or deserve any real power over him.

“No, we don’t. You need to leave.”

For a moment, the whole world seemed to stop and hold its breath to see what would happen next. Chase thought Garrett might have moved away a step or two, but he refused to break eye contact with his father to check.

He’ll see that as weakness, as some kind of submission.

“This is a public place. Let me come in with you, and we’ll talk.

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