Guy With a Tattooed Neck

I ate my dinner with Bob in a separate room to the rest of the family and after we had both finished I helped him to clean up the kitchen. I was completely exhausted by the time I was told I was allowed to turn in for the night.

I had not seen Gerard again since the ‘Hallway Incident’, which is what I had labeled it as in my mind.
However, I did know that he was up in his art studio, as usual, but this time not alone. I had heard two sets of heavy footfalls moving up the stairs. When I heard the footfalls descending, I tried to surreptitiously find out who he was with.

The site that met me as I peered towards the front door was of a tallish guy with a massive-assed afro smiling and laughing with Gerard.
My attention was pulled away from the guy, however, when I noticed Gerard’s smile. It wasn’t small and shy like the times I had previously seen it. This time it was big and unguarded.
I wondered if I could ever make him smile like that.

Probably not.

I was forced to stop staring at those gorgeous lips and small, white teeth when the afro guy enveloped Gerard in a hug.

I immediately made myself look away and head towards my bed for the night. I tried to tell myself that I had felt so uneasy because I didn’t want to intrude upon my boss’ private life, or be caught spying. But, to be honest, it wasn’t for any of those reasons.
It was because seeing Afro-guy hug Gerard made me want to burst into tears from the pure pain of how much I wished I was the one being held in Gerard’s strong arms.

My room didn’t leave much to the imagination.
It was obviously once a cellar and had had its previous contents removed to fit a bed, small wardrobe and a side table in it.

The only thing that was worth looking at in the small shit hole someone was trying to convince me was my room, was a picture on the wall of a woman.
She had really long, shiny black hair that fell over her like water. It served to cover her chest as she was obviously not wearing clothes.

Her eyes were amber-gold, peering out into the dank room with a trapped longing look. I could definitely relate to her.

Her lips were a blood red colour, but didn’t manage to pull my gaze from her eyes for long.

I turned off the light and fell into bed, trying to find sleep within my exhausted, sorry excuse for a body, but, I just couldn’t get the picture of those eyes out of my head.
It wasn’t only the look of trapped-longing and sorrow that was bugging me. It was also that look of disappointment.

I really should be used to it by now, I suppose. But I couldn’t stop relating those eyes to Gerard, picturing his soft greeny-brown eyes morphing into gold and staring down at me.
If he ever looked at me like that, I’d be dead within the hour.

When I woke the next morning, I changed into a pair of blue jeans and a plain black t-shirt. The jeans were ripped at the knees but were less stained than my other pairs, and the black t-shirt was to try and hide the amount of dirt that would undoubtedly fall onto it throughout the day.

I was just about to step outside when his voice stopped me.

“Frank?” My heart stopped as his voice washed over me. I turned to him slowly and gave him, what I hoped, was a questioning look. I didn’t dare speak incase I made myself sound like a total idiot.

“Come with me to my studio. I want to talk to you about the garden.” He said smoothly and motioned with his head for me to follow him up the stairs.
I smiled slightly at him and gave a small nod before following.

All the while I was climbing the two flights of stairs; I could not take me eyes off of him.
He was wearing black jeans once more, this time more baggy than the previous pair I had seen, and a black t-shirt, plain like my own.
Instead of just hanging off his shoulders, like mine did, his clung to him like a second skin. With every step he took, I saw the muscles in his back ripple. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets to prevent myself from reaching out to him.

He opened the door for me at the top of the stairs and motioned for me to enter before him. I entered the room just enough to allow him to enter as well and couldn’t stop myself from looking around.

There were massive amounts of paint supplies littered everywhere along with random bits of furniture, clothing and other odd objects. His easel was sitting in one corner of the room, back facing me.
The thing that really caught my attention, however, were the massive glass windows that I had seen Gerard peering at me through.

Without thinking, I walked over to the window and looked down. The view was amazing. Even though the garden was a complete disaster, the way the sun rays fell on the bushes and the movement of the wind through the tree branches made it look absolutely stunning.

“Cool, isn’t it?” I jumped at the sound of his voice, both because it was so close and because I had taken it upon myself to look around without his permission.
“Y-yeah.” I stuttered out, mentally kicking myself for sounding like a dweeb.

I inhaled sharply and tensed up when I felt his body surround me.

He was holding a sketchpad with a design I guessed was for the garden in his left hand and had brought it around so that I could easily see it in front of me. I couldn’t pay too much attention to it, though, because he had brought his right arm around me as well, coming from under my right arm and resting his hand on my shoulder.
I could feel his soft black hair brush against my face as he brought his head to almost sit on my right shoulder, so that he could see the sketchpad too.
I also felt the broad expanse of his chest on my back where he was leaning down to my level.

As he spoke, the warmth of his breath glided along my cheek, making me swallow hard at the intense feelings it was invoking in me.

“Now here,” He pointed with his right hand to a spot on the picture and I forced myself to move my eyes and take in what he was referring to. “I would like some trees in the left corner, not like the ones that we already have. Smaller ones. And the flower bed to be lined with white rocks, and these coloured flowers in these patterns.”

I didn’t know why he was telling me this, I could tell what he wanted just by looking at the drawing. I closed my eyes, listening purely to his voice instead of the words he was saying. I could feel my heart pounding hard because of his close proximity and my nose was practically burning from the sweet, paint-like smell that was radiating from his body.

I was so caught up in feeling my other senses that I did not realize he had stopped speaking. I opened my eyes and felt my stomach flop as I saw him looking at me, that usual blank expression upon his face.
I gazed into his beautiful eyes and prayed that he hadn’t stopped talking for long and said the first thing that came to mind.

“Um, I, I’m going to need some supplies, i-including, you know, the flowers and stuff.” I silently praised myself for maintaining the ability to speak.

“It’s okay. We can go shopping after lunch if you like.” He smiled at me.
“O-o-okay.” I stuttered, this time because I was distracted by the feel of his right hand being placed over my stomach. Even though it felt so good there, I wished he would remove it so he couldn’t feel how fat I was, especially in comparison to his amazing body.

I got my wish and shivered from the loss of warmth when he moved away from me.

“You can go now.” He announced, holding out a sheet of paper with the same drawing on it from the sketchpad.

I took the picture from him and managed a thank you before almost running from the room. I quickly made my way outside and pressed my body against the wall, partly because I didn’t want Gerard to see me and partly because I needed something substantial behind me as I gulped air in with shaky breaths in case I passed out.