Suddenly, the spray booth jolts. Never a good sign; usually it means something’s about to explode. I scream and flail backward, colliding with something right behind me—a person who catches me just before I fall over. Together we hit a table, and then it’s their turn to flail backward.
“Are you kidding me?”
I look at Luca, who has a fresh gold stripe sprayed up the armpit of his shirt, over his chin, and onto the corner of his mouth. He must have knocked on the spray booth to get my attention, and my hand tensed on the nozzle right before I fell. I throw the spray can down, my own hands coated from where it caught me, too.
I don’t know what you’re supposed to say when you accidentally spray paint a hot person gold, so I say, “I was working. You shouldn’t surprise someone when they’re working.”
Luca starts to speak, but paint drips into his mouth. His eyes go wide, and I spring into action, dragging him to the sink where we wash brushes. I expect him to wash out his mouth, or maybe just run the water over his lips. But like a puppy, he shoves his whole face into the stream, and he shouts, “BLEEEGHHHHH.”
I am about to react when he squints open an eye to make sure I am watching, then resumes his fake vomiting noises.
“Look, can you be quiet? I’m not even supposed to be working in here by myself.”
“BLEEEGHHH!”
“I know you’re not vomiting. I can see you.”
“BLAAAAGHHHH!”
“Luca, come on.”
He stands up abruptly, his head soaking. Water cascades off his nose as he smiles down at me.
“You remember my name?”
I thrust paper towels into his damp chest. “I knew you were faking.”
Luca takes the clump and dries his face. There is still a lot of gold smeared on his neck and chin. He gives me a very sad, very tortured look, and it’s a beat before I realize he wants me to help him wash off the rest.
“C’mon. I know you want to.” He grins, as though he is doing me an incredible favor by allowing me to bathe him.
“Why is it that all straight boys think they are undeniably attractive to gays? Do they think we’re all just waiting around, desperate for their attention? Do straight guys think they’re the only people with access to porn?”
Luca’s grin widens. I am, admittedly, baiting him with this line.
And then he says, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re the one who shot into my mouth just a second ago.”
I nearly black out.
Luca’s laugh fills the studio again, and I shut him up with a hand. His eyes continue to laugh at me, his breath hot on my palm. I snatch the towels and drag them roughly over his chin, the underlit hollow of his neck.
“So you’re Striker9?” I ask.
The curiosity I saw earlier vanishes, replaced by a well-practiced nonchalance. “Yeah.”
“You’ve been watching?”
“On and off.”
“Why?”
Luca rubs at his neck like he’s not sure I got all the paint off (I didn’t—this is spray paint—but I did my best).
“Wake is like one of my favorite games. Plasma Siren is a bad bitch.”
“Do you cosplay, too?”
Luca scoffs. “Nah.”
“You think it’s dumb, but you watch my streams?”
“I don’t think it’s dumb. I could just never do it. My parents already think I’m into freaky shit with the games I play. They’d kiiiiiiiiiillll meeeeeee if I came home with a wig.”
This doesn’t surprise me at all.
“Why do you do it?” he asks me. “Just because you love making stuff?”
I drift toward the spray booth, turning it off. I scoop up the can of spray paint and turn it over in my palm, the nozzle leaking pure gold onto my skin. His breath was so warm. I held his smile.
“I do it for attention,” I say. Luca scoffs again, then sees I’m being serious.
“I’ve always been good at making stuff, yeah, but if I just wanted to make stuff, I wouldn’t set up streams. I wouldn’t enter cosplay competitions. I want people to see my work and recognize it as work. I want…”
“Respect?”
“Yes! Yes. Exactly.”
We both go still, like my naked ambition deserves a moment of silence.
“Okay, you know Craft Club, right?”
Luca nods.
“So, they run competitions in the area, and if you do really well, sometimes they’ll offer to sponsor you. And recently, with cosplayers becoming such a big community, those sponsorships have really started to mean something. Art schools have started sending recruiters to the competitions, too. Last year, RISD gave a girl a full ride based on some textiles she did.”
“Tiles? Like in a bathroom?”
I grimace.
“Yeah, the Rhode Island School of Design has a world-renowned program in bathroom remodeling.”
Luca nods, accepting this. “Cool, cool.”
“I’m kidding.”
“Oh.”
Luca is looking at me with that slow curiosity again, like he’s on the verge of understanding the alphabet that makes me up. “Isn’t your mom, like, a famous artist, though?”
“Artist turned gallery director, yeah. She discovers other artists.”
“Why doesn’t she discover you?”
I look at the bangles in the spray booth. They are half painted, and they still look terrible. I look at the cheap spray paint on my palms and the school studio’s cheerful clutter. I don’t know how to answer Luca’s question.
“I’m sorry about your shirt,” I say.
Luca plucks at the shirt, dripping wet like when I first met him in Craft Club. The water has blurred the paint into swollen stains. The shirt is ruined.
“Shit,” he mutters.
“Is your family going to kiiiiiillll youuuuu if you come home covered in spray paint?”
A smile breaks through Luca’s contemplative expression, but his lips never part. It’s a performance of restraint. Boyish coyness. He knows what he’s doing.
“They might,” he says.
“Do you need another shirt? I feel bad.”
“I might,” he says, and now he is smiling with those teeth. “Why, do you know how to make shirts, too?”