Love Wins

  Love Wins

  Edited by Anne Regan

  With time comes healing, but Orlando and the LGBT community are still recovering from last June’s tragedy. To show our ongoing support for those affected by the Orlando shooting, our authors, editors, artists, and staff have volunteered their talents to create this second benefit anthology. All proceeds will be donated to LGBT organizations in central Florida. Join us as we reaffirm that no matter the obstacle, love always wins.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Abstract Heart

  Cats and Christmas Trees: Trouble Waiting to Happen

  A Chance for Hope

  Changing Things

  Especially in Orlando

  Free to Love

  Happily Ever After, After All

  The Importance of Pride

  The Insomniac Sommelier

  Looking for George

  Love Over Lotto

  More Than His Scars

  Overcoming Fear

  Prevailing Zzz’s

  Pushing Back Oblivion

  Reluctant Valentine

  Taking a Chance

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  Copyright

  Abstract Heart

  By Lucie Archer

  Nick spends nearly every lunch break at the modern art museum, hoping to catch a glimpse of docent Kris. Kris has noticed the cute guy hanging around the exhibits too but never manages to approach him. It will take a matchmaking security guard to bring these two introverts together.

  NICK WALTERS had a thing for abstract art. He’d taken one random art class in college as part of his core curriculum, and a few of the finer points stuck with him. Of course that wasn’t the reason he spent nearly every lunch break sitting on the same bench outside the Pleasant View Museum of Modern Art before popping in for fifteen minutes to admire some of the pieces. No, that had a lot more to do with a very different kind of art appreciation.

  “His name’s Kris, and technically I’ve never talked to him,” Nick admitted. He’d done his best to throw Courtney off his scent, but his sister never turned down the opportunity to treat him like one of the suspects she interrogated on a regular basis. Sometimes he resented how well she did her job.

  “Then how do you know his name?”

  “Name tag.”

  She smirked over the rim of her mug, mouth concealed, but he saw the amusement sparkling in her eyes. “And why haven’t you talked to him yet?” she pressed, taking a moment to blow on her coffee while he digested the question.

  Nick sighed, tightening his fingers around the warm ceramic in his hands. She knew damn well how hard a time he had when it came to talking to men. He had anxiety issues and problems with low self-esteem, but he did his best, practicing the techniques his mother’s therapist friend suggested that “normal” people took for granted.

  It frustrated him when his own family couldn’t grasp how hard it was for him to initiate a conversation with a stranger on a train about the weather or comment on a random guy’s jacket without the heavy feeling in his chest trying to boil him in his own skin. And that’s exactly how it felt: pulse racing, palms sweating, and his shirt so soaked with perspiration afterward that he had no choice but to change.

  Yeah, real sexy stuff.

  “Seriously, Court? Do you know me at all?” He chanced a sip of his coffee as an excuse not to elaborate and accepted the burn his tongue received as a consequence.

  “How are you going to meet someone if you can’t talk to people?”

  He shrugged and took another sip.

  “Really, what’s the worst that could happen if you just said hello?”

  “Um, the earth could open up and swallow me.”

  “She said worst,” their mother interjected. She’d slipped in the back door and now stood in front of the sink, her hands caked in dirt from working in her garden. “I think that would be a dream come true for you,” she snickered, Courtney joining in, much to his chagrin.

  “I honestly don’t know why I come over here,” he mumbled to himself, shaking his head in annoyance.

  “Because I feed you,” his mother replied.

  She had a point, but he didn’t know whether food could make up for regular Saturday morning interrogations. Russell, his stepfather, saved him from further harassment when he joined them in the kitchen, but Courtney made him promise to at least say hi to Kris the next time he saw him.

  He reluctantly agreed.

  THE MUSEUM of Modern Art was closed on Mondays, which worked out just fine for Kris. He took classes on Mondays and Wednesdays for his masters in art history, and despite his full-time course load, he made time to volunteer as a docent four times a week. He hadn’t picked leading tours when he filled out his application, much preferring the restoration side of things, but after six months, he’d gotten used to it.

  He spent the first month a nervous wreck before the start of every tour. Introverts like him tended to shun the spotlight, but the knots in his stomach dissipated with time, as did his fear of public speaking. Now he didn’t mind so much, though lately a different kind of flutter erupted in his belly as he began each tour with a funny little anecdote about Vincent van Gogh.

  Twenty minutes later, he’d herd the guests into the exhibit on abstract art, his eyes scanning the patrons in hopes of getting a glimpse of him—the cute guy with glasses who parked himself in front of a different piece every day. Once he spotted him, Kris would do his best to steer the group in that general direction. He couldn’t claim to know everything about modern art, but he knew enough to impress if given the chance.

  Unfortunately he never had the opportunity to greet Cute Guy properly. He’d have to move on with the tour before the guests grew antsy and tried to touch things. A few times he went back to look for him, but Henry, the security guard he’d befriended, informed him that his mystery man never stayed longer than twenty minutes.

  It was a shame, really, but what could he do about his stupid little crush? The guy had never looked his way. Not even when he gave his group a brilliant tidbit about their Matisse painting as Cute Guy stood right in front of it. Maybe Cute Guy didn’t like Matisse. He couldn’t blame him, really. His four-year-old nephew had drawn him pretty much the same exact picture for his birthday last year.

  “Hey, Kris?” Marta, his boss, called, rushing toward him down the hall. “I need you to run outside and help David remove the spray paint from the sculpture out front.”

  Kris nodded in reply. He couldn’t believe someone would deface art like that, but it happened more times than he cared to remember. The hoodlums’ energy might serve society better if they spent the time making their own art, but he reminded himself graffiti had its merits as an art medium… so one of his teachers said.

  “Oh, but I have a tour in five minutes,” he said. And he really didn’t want to miss it because it was his Cute Guy tour.

  “It should only take a few minutes, and if you aren’t back, I’ll go ahead and start for you. He needs help with the very top. Those idiots must’ve had a ladder or something.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Thanks!”

  He smiled at her and then made his way toward the exit. Maybe if he hurried, he’d make it back inside in time to hit the abstract art exhibit.

  NICK KNEW the lady at the sub shop had overdressed his sandwich. The soggy bread all but turned his stomach as he forced down another bite. On a normal day, he wouldn’t have let something so innocuous get to him, but he promised Courtney he’d try to talk to Kris today, so understandably, his nerves got the better of him.

  On top of that, he got a smudge of mustard on his favorite tie. He’d blame that on Courtney too. She got into his head
like she always did, and now he felt less prepared and more inadequate than he had before. Why did he even try? He should just give up now and go back to the office. He had a stack of paperwork he could bury himself under for a while. Keeping busy always helped him get over stupid crushes on people who didn’t notice him.

  He grabbed the only napkin from his bag and started to scrub at the stain, even though he knew he couldn’t save the tie. Courtney would have to buy him a new one. He sighed in defeat, looking up just in time to catch eyes with Kris. His palms moistened, and he had a brief thought of a chasm forming beneath him.

  “Afternoon,” Kris said, smiling down at him as he jogged past.

  “A-afternoon,” Nick stuttered back. Oh God, how hard would he need to pray for a meteor or a piece of space junk to end his pathetic suffering already?

  His face warmed like he’d stuck his head in a furnace—another good way to go—while he watched Kris head toward the sculpture in the middle of the plush green lawn. He’d noticed the graffiti on it when he walked by, but his brain could only concentrate on one thing right now. He devoted the focus to remembering how his lungs worked.

  But he’d done it. He’d spoken to Kris, or rather Kris spoke to him, but hooray for small victories. Except now what was he supposed to do? The mustard stain on his tie felt like a big sign advertising his inability to eat properly. Ironic considering he worked in an advertising office—well, in the basement crunching numbers.

  Nick managed to tear his eyes away from how unfairly hot Kris’s ass looked in his slacks and compose himself while he gathered his things. He opted to forego his visit inside and return to the office to replay his incredible social graces on a loop in his head until he died of residual embarrassment.

  At least now he could get Courtney off his back.

  KRIS THREW his keys on the table by the door when he entered his apartment, not caring when they skidded off the other side. He’d fallen into a strange mood on the train home as he dissected his first verbal encounter with Cute Guy—he really needed to learn his name.

  Something had felt off about the whole thing, especially when Kris didn’t see him on his usual tour route. He’d smiled and greeted him like any other patron of the museum, like he’d done to thousands of people before, but maybe he had come off as creepy. More serial killer, less flirty college guy, perhaps?

  But when they locked eyes, he couldn’t help it. His smile blossomed like a nuclear bomb—which yeah, okay, that was creepy—but the tiny drop of mustard clinging to the corner of Cute Guy’s mouth almost made his own water. He wanted to lick it off even though he hated mustard, and he could think of quite a few ways to repurpose that ruined tie of his.

  “Why so glum, chum?” Tony asked from the couch.

  Kris joined him, flopping next to his roommate and slinking down into the plush cushions. “I finally talked to him.”

  “Cute Guy? About time,” Tony replied, flipping to another channel on the television.

  “If one word counts as talking.”

  Tony shrugged. “You gotta start somewhere, man. At least you broke the ice.”

  He had a point. “But I didn’t see him during the tour. What if I scared him off?”

  “With one word? I doubt it, but you do tend to go full Joker when you smile at someone you like.”

  Kris groaned and covered his face with his forearm. “I can’t help it! That’s just how I smile.”

  Tony chuckled and changed the channel again. “I’m sure you’re overreacting, like always. You said you thought he worked around there, so maybe he got called back to work.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure that was it,” Kris agreed.

  “You’ll get another chance.”

  He did his best to remain optimistic, but when the rest of the week went by without any sign of Cute Guy, he started to doubt that. The rational part of his brain told him Cute Guy’s absence had nothing to do with him. Unfortunately the rest of his brain shut that part out. He didn’t think he was so repulsive that one word could send guys running for the hills, but apparently he’d thought wrong.

  “Haven’t seen him,” Henry said as they stood in the abstract hall.

  “Seen who?” Kris replied, turning away from the Friday crowd to regard him.

  Henry gave him a kind smile, and he didn’t know why he felt surprised. It was Henry’s job to observe people.

  Kris turned back to the crowd, his eye catching a mother swatting her son’s hand away from a sculpture. “Think I scared him off.”

  “He’s probably just swamped with work.”

  “Maybe….”

  “Or maybe he got hit by a car and has amnesia, and only a kiss from his one true love can heal him.”

  Kris swallowed down a gasp at the thought of Cute Guy getting into an accident as his head snapped back to Henry. He watched Henry’s shoulders convulse as he held in his laughter. “Oh, ha-ha. What if that actually happened?”

  Henry didn’t have an answer for that. Instead he clasped Kris’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Hang in there, Kris.”

  Like he had any other choice.

  IT TOOK a week before Nick gained the courage to return to the museum for lunch. He’d spent most of the time in between down the block at the children’s museum, but the noise grated on his nerves after a while. He tried a small park in the area on Friday, but the high school kids took it over during his lunch hour, which left the art museum as the only reasonable place for an adult to eat, other than his stuffy cubicle.

  Monday he gathered up his courage, grabbed a burger from the hole-in-the-wall across the street, and made his way to his usual bench. Of course he knew Kris didn’t work on Mondays, so part of his cowardice remained intact, but baby steps.

  “Afternoon,” said a gruff voice beside him as he finished off his french fries, far from the saintly choir of angels serenading him the last time he’d heard the word on that bench.

  “Uh, afternoon,” he replied. Better than a stutter, but then again, elderly security guards didn’t do much for him.

  “Nice day, isn’t it?” the man—Henry, his name tag supplied—asked.

  “It is.” He thought about adding how much he loved fall with its changing leaves and the arrival of sweater season, but he resisted. The worst thing about small talk for him was that he never knew how much information to divulge. It felt like navigating a minefield.

  “I’ve seen you a lot around here. You like art?”

  “Took a class in college,” Nick said. He tossed the last fry in his mouth and dropped the empty container into the bag. “Guess some of it stuck.”

  Henry sat down on the bench beside him, and they watched a kit of pigeons swoop down and begin to peck around the lawn. “I didn’t care much about it at first, but I’ve learned a lot working here, learned to appreciate it. It helps that some of the tour guides make it fun. I’m Henry, by the way.”

  “Nick… and, uh, yeah, I’ve heard a few talk. Very informative.”

  They enjoyed a comfortable silence before Henry hummed to himself and stood, both his knees popping as he did so. “Let me know if you ever want to take a tour. I can point you to a great guide.” With a wink, he shuffled down the sidewalk.

  Nick refused to read into that. His mind had a way of overthinking things and causing him unwanted grief, but he didn’t need any more help adding to his misery. Courtney had already moved on to phase two of Operation Get Nick a Boyfriend. Once again she overestimated his social ability. Asking Kris out on a date seemed like a pipe dream, but he knew she meant well.

  Regardless, his crush would run its course eventually, and in the meantime, if his appreciation for fine art overlapped with that of gorgeous men, so be it.

  “HIS NAME is Nick,” Kris said, tossing his book bag on the closest chair.

  Tony paused his video game and looked up in confusion.

  “Cute Guy. His name is Nick. Henry said he talked to him.”

  “Thank God, because ‘cute guy’ was real
ly starting to annoy me.” Tony resumed his game and then let out a few curses when he died almost immediately. He tossed his Xbox controller on the coffee table in disgust. “So what’s your next move?”

  “Next implies I had a first.” He shrugged as he waltzed into the kitchen. He hadn’t thought about it yet. “Want a beer?”

  “No, I’m good,” Tony replied, joining him in the kitchen. “How about the next time you see him, you point out something about the art he’s looking at.”

  “I tried that with the Matisse piece, remember? He didn’t even acknowledge my presence.”

  Tony crossed his arms and leaned his back against the counter. “Maybe ask him what he thinks of something?”

  “It’s hard to hold a conversation while I’m leading a tour, but I could try.”

  “Or you could make a big show of it and stop your tour to get down on one knee,” Tony said with a straight face, but he soon dissolved into a fit of giggles. Actual giggles, like a schoolgirl. Kris should’ve recorded him; it would’ve made great blackmail material.

  Despite his roommate’s complete lack of faith in him, Kris decided to put his terrible plan in motion the next time he saw him, but fate had other plans. He spotted Nick in the abstract exhibit hall, his heart picking up at the sight of him, but as soon as he caught Nick’s eye and smiled, the guy ran for the exit like the fire alarms had sounded.

  Maybe he really should stop smiling.

  He honestly didn’t expect to see him the following day, after having convinced himself Nick pictured him as some ax-wielding psychopath, but Henry called him an idiot, which he couldn’t exactly argue against. At least his surprise kept him from smiling when he saw the familiar silhouette standing in front of a painting that looked like intestines spilling across the canvas.

  “What’s this one supposed to be?” asked a man as he squinted at the painting, Kris’s whole group following him over.