“You didn’t write any of that down, though.”
I shrug. Stay cool, Raffy. I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed he’s dressed again, but then he asks something that totally disorients me.
“Can we bedazzle it?”
I slow blink, astonished. Maybe not as straight as I thought, then?
“Nothing crazy,” he adds. “Just, like, a few jewels. Someplace my parents won’t see, though. Like when an artist signs their work.”
Dazed, I drift over to the gems, pluck out a few Sea Foam Dreams and some E6000. I return to Luca, and he’s standing so rigid that I pause.
“Just do it,” he says through clenched teeth, like I’m about to tattoo him.
I look him over in his new tank top. It’s perfectly fitted, and the dark green works with the garish trim to make a sort of military combination. Gems will look weird wherever I put them, so I elect to put them on the inside of the collar, where only Luca will see them. He consents to this, and we’re quiet as I carefully dot on glue and press the stones on with my fingertips.
“Sooooo,” he says while we wait for the glue to dry. “Your mom just lets you do whatever in here?”
“It’s a multipurpose space. If we have an artist living with us, they use it as a workshop, but we haven’t had anyone here since May. So I use it.”
The studio is a converted garage, insulated so that it stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We order in brand-new supplies for whoever is here, and the space is set up for a bunch of different media. The last person here was a wood-carver, so right now the sunny brightness of the studio is laced with the smell of sawdust and scorched aspen.
I watch Luca’s eyes land on each object as I describe the loft, the couch, the TV, and the bed. I watch his eyebrows carefully, but they betray no intent. I tell him about how May and Inaya and I have game nights in here, and the occasional party. Evie either doesn’t care about those, or doesn’t notice.
“I recognize this,” Luca says, picking up a mannequin head. It’s a wig form, but right now it’s bald. “I thought this place would be smaller. I guess you just use that corner, though.”
I remember belatedly that Luca has seen my videos. I still find it hard to understand.
“Do you watch a lot of cosplayer streams?”
“Just yours,” he says. He glances back at me, and I find myself drifting after him. Before I make it too far, I force myself to stop, one hand gripping the table. Then, because I’m sure I’ll forget myself again, I sit on the table and crush my hands under my thighs.
“You’re so fast,” Luca says. “I’m always amazed at how quickly you make stuff.”
“I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
“I wish I could do what you do. I have all these ideas I would make if I knew how to do it.”
Luca’s voice contains an entire reality that only he can see. One full of characters and costumes that live in his head, not at his fingertips, like in the reality I’ve shown him.
“You’re good at other stuff,” I say, rocking on my hands. Luca crosses behind me, but I keep my eyes ahead on the glass of the cabinets, watching his reflection.
“Like what?” he asks.
“Soccer, I assume.”
He stops moving, turning to smile at my back. Then, catching my eye in the reflection, he leans against the table.
“You like soccer?” he asks.
“No.”
“But you like soccer players.”
The question catches us both off guard. I decide I have no reason to lie, having just taken in, washed, and clothed this boy after he interrupted me painting. Finally, I turn to face him.
He’s closer than I thought. And blushing. He gives me a sort of slick expression, like he knows he’s charming, like he knows he’s guilty of maneuvering the conversation into territory where neither of us has control.
“Fine, yeah,” I say. “Maybe I do.”
He leans toward me. I watch him splay his hands out and see the shadows carve into dimples on his shoulders as he leans over the table.
“I make you laugh,” he says.
“I make you clothes,” I say.
We will kiss.
I know, because like everything else, a kiss is a sum of parts. It began a long time ago, at Craft Club, with Luca’s shouldering his gear as I handed him a bag of jewels. Then at school, the particles of gold soaking into Luca’s clothes, drawing from him the dramatic performance he gave me as the faucet poured water over his lips. And here, the kiss waited patiently between us as I sewed an entire shirt out of nothing, out of the hope that it would keep this boy captivated by me a little while longer, his eyes memorizing the shapes of my fingers as I fed fabric beneath the hopscotch of a needle and into his waiting palms.
And now, as he crawls up onto the table with me, turning me around to wrap my waist in his arm and my mouth in his breath, the lead-up to the kiss ends. It ends with our lips fitting together, my laughter pushed back down my throat to wait inside as I let myself enjoy what I’ve created. The kiss ends like all my projects: amazing and whole, the fragments of many moments joined together to create something entirely alive and real. Something incredible, out of nothing.
Minutes later, we need to breathe. The pause is long enough that we both consider what’s happening, what we’ve created.
“Have you ever—” I begin to ask.
“Not with a guy,” Luca says. “You?”
“Yeah. Only guys. But only, like, twice. Do you want—” I breathe deep, not sure when my next chance will be. “I mean, we can do that again if—”
“Okay, but…” Luca trails off.
“But what?”
“But I want to keep the shirt on.”
“Of course.” I smile, lean in. We’re kissing again when Luca stops us.
“Not because I’m, like, not into you,” he assures me. “I just like the shirt. I’m very much into you. And into this.”
“Okay, Luca.”
He evades my lips one more time.
“Not just physically. I think you’re cool. I think what you can do is amazing. And I’m sorry if buying you those gemstones was weird. My plan was to get more and give them to you in school, but then we met in Craft Club. That was dumb luck, I swear. This wasn’t, like, a plot to get into your pants, I promise.”
I stifle a laugh. He looks down, mumbling now.
“I just really like watching you work.”