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There’s a group moving through the gallery with somebody in it whose nasal voice and inane commentary needle straight into Derek’s forebrain. He’s been running from them for a good twenty minutes, and now he’s in the furthest corner of the mezzanine, hidden behind a forest of wireframe, wishing he’d brought his econ homework and skimming a placard that honestly reads like someone fed a contemporary art textbook into a random generator.
“Jesus Christ,” Derek mutters to himself.
The guy slouched against the wall turns his head and snickers. “I hear that.”
Startled, Derek looks at him. He’s wearing grey corduroy pants and a soft-looking shirt, sleeves pushed up over his forearms, and his warm eyes are tired. Derek realizes he’s been staring long enough to be weird and blurts, “Hi.”
“Hey,” the guy says back, still smiling. “You look like a guy who could use an escape.”
“I guess,” Derek says.
“No pressure, but if you want to sit tight for a minute, I’m about to take a break. You’re free to join me in the secret hideaway.”
“Sure,” Derek says, and the guy flashes him a slightly manic smile, then jogs down the glass-and-steel staircase and disappears into the shifting amoeba of people on the ground floor.
There was no indication whatsoever that the guy was anything more threatening than a twenty-something slacker with rumpled hair, but Derek’s a little shaky anyway, palms damp. He’s just starting to genuinely consider ducking out and taking a train home, letting Laura yell at him later, when the guy reappears carrying a worn flight jacket and swerves close in passing, muttering out the side of his mouth, “Hold onto yourself, Bartlett, you’re twenty feet short.”
Derek wipes his hands on his jeans and follows.
The secret hideaway turns out to be a fire escape, shielded from the fall rain by the overhanging roof. Chilly droplets spatter his arm when the wind changes direction. Derek stuffs his hands in his pockets, takes a deep breath of wet Manhattan. Not a good smell, but good in its familiarity. Far off, he can see a sliver of the High Line between two buildings, lush and green.
Beside him, the guy shrugs on the jacket, then pulls a cigarette and a lighter out of one of the pockets and says, “You mind?”
The tobacco stinks, and it’s more than a little illegal to smoke it right here, but after being rescued like that, Derek kind of feels like it would be a jerk move making him go anywhere else, so he says, “No.”
It takes three tries to even spark a flame, and the wind blows it out before the guy can get a light. He shakes the lighter, cursing. Derek steps closer to help, and, four hands together, they create enough of a windbreak to get a cherry going. Coughing a little after the first puff, the guy says, “Thanks, man. I’d share, but I don’t have any more.”
“I don’t smoke,” Derek says, dropping his hands and stepping back. The cigarette stinks even more when it’s lit.
“Good, that’s good. I don’t either,” the guy says, before taking a deep drag. Derek just looks at him, and he blows out a lungful of smoke, smiles sheepishly. “Bummed this off of somebody. There’s no coffee here and my meds wore off, so I’m kinda losing it.”
“Oh,” Derek says. “Um.”
“Nothing fun, don’t worry,” the guy says, tucking the lighter into the front pocket of his corduroys. “Just ADHD.”
“Oh,” Derek says again. All he ever hears about ADHD is how overdiagnosed it is these days, but that seems like a rude conversational topic, so he stays silent. He can still feel the places where the guy’s long fingers pressed against his, and can’t quite decide whether he wants to rub the sensation away.
The guy takes another drag, leans forward to exhale into the rain beyond the overhang. “Started to want to run screaming about an hour ago, and it’s another three before I can bug out, if I’m lucky.” He doesn't look old enough to be in charge of anything serious. Internship at the gallery space, maybe.
“My sister made me come,” Derek offers. “She’s an architecture student. She says sculpture is inspiring.”
One corner of the guy’s mouth slants up. “That’s new. If she takes any architectural inspiration from this, I’ll be freaking fascinated to see it.” He takes another drag. “Not into the art scene, huh?”
Derek shrugs. “I like art. I don’t like crowds.” Or people in general, but that also seems like a rude thing to say to a stranger.
The guy gestures with his cigarette toward the wall at Derek’s back. “What do you think of this stuff?”
“The artist’s statements are really pretentious,” Derek says.
The guy folds over at the waist with the sheer force of his honking laughter. After a minute, he straightens up and manages, “Yeah, no, I agree. What else?”
“I really like some of the suspended stuff. The big ones, with the --” Derek stops, self-conscious, and backtracks. “I mean, it’s all kind of a cliche. Everybody does anatomical stuff.”
“Yeah,” the guy says, the corners of his eyes tilted up by his smile.
“But I like them,” Derek says.
“Cool,” the guy says, eyes flicking from Derek’s face down to his chest. “Hey, do you--”
From the sidewalk below, a woman yells, “Busted!”
“Oh, fuck,” the guy mutters, then yells, “Ten minutes, Lydia, I swear.”
“Make it five. I have a buyer waiting on the kinetic.” The sound of sharp heels clicks away toward the front of the building.
Derek leans over the railing just long enough to catch a glimpse of red hair and tailored aubergine wool, then ducks back, shaking water droplets out of his hair. “Your boss?”
“My agent, yeah.”
Derek blinks, then says, “Are you --” he's honestly not sure how to pronounce it.
The guy grimaces and takes another drag on the cigarette, nearly gone. “Just call me Stiles.”
“But you’re -- this is your stuff.” Derek read the artist’s name and pictured some middle-aged angular European in wire-frame glasses, not a lanky American kid. His cheeks are hot now, remembering the things he just said right to this guy’s face. Stiffly, he says, “I wasn’t -- sorry if I --”
“Aw, no, we were doing so much better before,” Stiles says, eyebrows lifting in a puppy-dog appeal. “Quick, new subject. What’s your name? What do you do? Please say lifeguard.”
“Derek,” Derek says automatically, then gets hung up for a good thirty seconds on the second part. He knows he looks older than he is, especially when he doesn’t shave, but -- “I’m -- I don’t have, uh, I’m still in school.”
“Cool, cool. Major? Wait, hold on,” Stiles says, as his pocket buzzes. He pulls the phone out a little way and grimaces. “Crap. I’m gonna get spanked if I don’t go right now.” Pushing the phone back down, he inhales until the cherry touches the filter, then drops the cigarette on the iron and stamps it out with a clang, tipping his head back to exhale. Then, taking a step closer, eyes intent, he says, “Listen, can I --?”
“Sure,” Derek says, heart rabbiting, not certain of what he’s saying yes to until Stiles’s warm mouth presses against his. Derek’s groin throbs, a red pulse of shock and arousal, and he inhales around the softness of Stiles’s lips. Something hot and wet touches Derek’s lower lip -- Stiles’s tongue -- and then Stiles steps back again, leaving Derek stupidly open-mouthed, full of the flavor of ash.
“It was really nice to meet you, Derek,” Stiles says.
“Yeah,” Derek manages, “You too,” and Stiles smiles at him, and then he’s gone, and Derek thinks, High school, I mean I’m a senior in high school, I’m seventeen, and then he thinks, a guy kissed me, and then he realizes his own phone is vibrating and of course it’s Laura, asking where the fuck he is and does he want to go get something at the Indian place on 10th Avenue.