Eve lifted her eyes to Danny, considering him for one long moment before she shrugged. “I suppose I could do it if you took some pictures of Paul and me.”
“No problem,” Danny said, the idea of taking pictures of Eve and Paul fucking having its own unique appeal. “You brought your camera, right? We’ll take them while we’re here.”
“Fine.” Eve continued to stare at Danny, a smile tugging at her lips. “How much are you going to pay me?”
“How much do you want?”
“Ten thousand,” Paul said firmly, suddenly sounding like the lawyer he was. “Nothing less than that.”
“What?” Eve tilted her head on Paul’s chest, looking up at him as if he were crazy. “For one painting?”
“Your art is worth at least that much and Danny knows it.”
“Fine,” Danny agreed, knowing Paul was right. He’d pay twice that, because not only was Eve’s art incredible, she was going to capture something for him he wanted preserved forever. He was too selfish to be satisfied with just memories that could fade with time. He wanted physical evidence of the magic Paul and Eve could make together. Not only would he get a painting out of the deal, but pictures as well. “I’ll pay that. No problem.”
“You’re both insane,” Eve said, her eyes wide and stunned. “But fine, if you want to pay that much who am I to stop you?”
Danny snorted, because he had been trying to give Eve money and buy her a new car for months. She was extremely proud when it came to finances. She would even leave envelopes on the kitchen table with RENT written on the front of it. Inside he’d always find a few hundred dollars he knew Eve couldn’t afford to part with, but she was unbending in her determination he keep it. To stop the fighting, Paul suggested to Danny in private setting up a mutual fund in which to invest the money. That had been enough to make Danny just take the damn rent money without complaint because he knew she had no savings. She just lived off what she could make selling her landscape and still-life paintings at craft shows.
“I’ll help you invest it,” Paul said softly, rubbing a hand up Eve’s arm, obviously seeing this as the opportunity to make her secret mutual fund known. “I could set up a portfolio for you.”
“Fuck that,” Eve said with a laugh. “I’m spending it.”
Paul rolled his eyes, giving Danny a look, silently conveying that Danny needed to make sure Eve was taken care of in the long term, because if they left her to it she would die broke.
“You got to let Paul invest half,” Danny said, giving Eve a stern look. “That’s part of the deal.”
Eve huffed in irritation, but then gave in and sighed, “I guess that works. Five grand is still much more than I would have charged. You’re way overestimating my talent.”
Danny shook his head, wondering how Eve could be so blind to the value of her artistic genius. “No, I’m not.”
The one horrible side effect that came from the decision to enjoy every moment they could was time started flying past them at an alarming speed.
New Orleans had been a colorful blur of dancing, parties and darkly decorated erotic clubs. When they had gotten back Eve’s muse had been in full throttle and she spent a lot of time in her room painting not just the picture Danny had commissioned but other erotic images that captured their relationship with majestic backdrops and romantic flair that was unique for fetish art.
It wasn’t until November gave way to December and the air went from crisp to chilly that depression seemed to seize Eve again. It started with a painting of the three of them, one she had managed by using a mirror to take photographs of them tangled together. She used those pictures to create her largest, most darkly sensual painting to date. The three of them were naked and sweaty with desire, with Eve between Danny and Paul at the base of the Tree of Life. She had painted it with a fervor that had kept her up to all hours of the night, but once it was done and resting in the corner with the rest of her art she had suddenly stopped painting.
Paul stared out the window, studying Eve in concern as she sat by herself on the porch. Her arms were wrapped around her, her breath bursting out of her in white puffs as she stoically watched the sun set over the lake. She was silent and unmoving, which was all wrong for Eve who was always bursting with life and energy.
“She’s not painting anymore.”
“I know,” Danny said from his seat on the couch. The remote was in his hands but he didn’t appear to be giving the television any interest. “She says her muse is dead.”
“Dead?” Paul repeated, turning to look at Danny in concern. “You mean sleeping.” “No, she clearly said dead,” Danny said, turning around to look up at Paul. “She
doesn’t want to paint anymore—or
can’t
paint anymore.”
“She told you that?”
“Yeah.” Danny ran a hand through his hair as pain flashed on his face. “I actually needed to talk to you about that. I just—haven’t been able to find the right way to say it.”
Paul turned away from the window as the icy feeling of dread washed over him with a sickening shiver and settled in his stomach. He stared at Danny, whose body had grown tense. “Just say it.”
Danny turned off the television and turned back to Paul, his dark eyes shining. “We’re moving.”
“Moving?” Paul repeated in shock, his jaw falling slack as he stared at Danny in disbelief. “Moving where?”
“New York,” Danny whispered softly, his arm resting on the back of the couch as he stared up at Paul unwaveringly despite the hesitation on his face. “She loves it there. Getting away is what she needs. Plus, it’ll give you the excuse you’ve been looking for about the wedding. We’re not coming because we’ll already be gone. We’re leaving before Christmas.”
Paul turned away from Danny, staring out the window at Eve once more. He had to physically force his lungs to take in air to fight the crushing feeling of horror and despair that had fallen over him from Danny’s words. “Moving is a pretty drastic excuse to miss the wedding.”
“It’s more than that,” Danny said, his voice cracking with anguish. “None of us are going to be able to pretend this didn’t happen. That’ll make it so much more painful. We need to go, Paul Guy.”
“Christmas is a few weeks away,” Paul growled as anger made its way past the heartache. “When were you going to tell me—or were you?”
“Don’t be like that,” Danny snapped at him, his voice becoming low and angry. “I will not let Eve sit in this house and mourn you while you’re off playing family man with Trisha. I can’t do that to her. She needs to get away and start over—I do too.”
“Typical,” Paul said, shaking his head as the anger continued to well up inside him. “You don’t get what you want, so you’re taking your ball and going home. We’re still friends. Getting married wasn’t supposed to change that.”
“But it will,” Danny said with a snort of incredulousness. “You think we can just start being platonic friends after all this? You will have to avoid us like the plague to stay faithful to Trisha and that will hurt Evie worse than anything. Being pushed aside, being avoided by you because you’d rather hurt her than betray Trisha. I’m not doing that to us. I’m ending it before I break her heart worse than I already have. I should have never brought her into the game.”
Paul wavered under the onslaught of pain when he realized Danny was right. He would just hurt them worse by asking them to stay here rather than run away to New York. How could he ever be around them and hide what he felt? It was impossible. Paul would have to avoid them to stay faithful. It would be the only way.
“What’re you going to do with the house?” he asked, falling into the old habit of hiding behind superficial issues when his emotions got too much to handle. “Market sucks right now. You shouldn’t sell it.”
“I’m not worried about the house,” Danny said dismissively. “It can rot to the ground for all I care.”
“Where are you going to live in New York? Do have a place?”
“Circe owns a loft in Soho. She’s renting it to us,” Danny said, giving Paul a guilty look when he turned to him in surprise. “I called her when we got back from New
Orleans. She says it’s real nice, big and open, perfect for an artist like Evie. She’s giving me a good deal.”
“Okay,” Paul said, turning away from Danny because the grief was washing over him in waves, sinking into his heart that felt as if it were freezing with rejection and pain as he stood there. “You know what’s best, I guess.”
“Paul Guy,” Danny whispered, his dark eyes glimmering with concern as he stood up and walked around the couch.
Paul shook his head, backing away from Danny. “I need space.”
Danny surprised him by letting him go. Paul grabbed his keys off the table, and walked out the door without a jacket, feeling the cold air hit him when he opened the door. This winter was colder than usual for Florida, the orange growers and strawberry farmers had been battling freezes for the past week and tonight wasn’t going to be any different. He’d have to cover the plants before he went to bed, but then he realized it was pointless. In a few weeks none of them would be living in this house. It didn’t matter if the plants died.
He didn’t say anything to Eve, just walked to his car, his teeth chattering and his body shivering, though if it was from the cold air or the coldness that had settled over his heart, he didn’t know. He peeled out of the driveway, knowing Danny was probably watching him take his anger out on his car. He drove down the long road, going far faster than what was legal and switched gears when he made the turn, completely heedless of the stop sign as he tried to drive away from the pain rather than face it.
It was pitch black by the time he had made it home but the porch light was on, welcoming him back despite his three-hour temper tantrum. He wasn’t surprised to see Danny hadn’t bothered to cover the plants and it was out of habit more than anything that Paul walked to the shed and got out the sheets he used to the cover them. His breath came out in puffs of icy white, hazed from the distant porch light. The temperature had already dropped below thirty and he was wearing only a thin t-shirt, but he used the discomfort to his advantage against a deeper pain than a little cold.
When he got the plants covered, he walked back to the house, feeling a strange urgency to see both Danny and Eve. The sands of the hourglass were nearing their end and with only a few weeks left he needed to be with them, so much so he wasn’t sure what possessed him to run away in the first place.
He locked the door when he walked in and tossed his keys on the table by the door. “Hey.”
“In here,” Danny called from the living room. “Did you eat while you were out?” “I’m not hungry,” Paul said as he walked into the living room, finding Eve
stretched out on the couch in Danny’s arms. She had a blanket pulled up around her as
if trying to hide from the world. Her eyes were dull and lifeless as she lifted them to him. He sighed, hating to see the life fading out of her like this. “I’m sorry for running away.”
Eve closed her eyes tiredly. “We can’t really give you shit about that, can we? We’re running away too.”
There wasn’t anything Paul could say to that, so he pulled his shirt off instead, draping it over the edge of the couch. He reached down and pulled back the blanket, falling over Eve because he couldn’t stand not being close to her for one more second. He groaned from the feeling of Eve’s warmth when he had been cold all night. She wrapped her arms around him, her fingers trailing down his back as Paul leaned past her and kissed Danny, pushing his tongue past his lips when they parted in surprise.
“No,” Danny said after a moment, turning his head away with a look of pain. “I can’t play tonight. I can’t be mean. I don’t feel like it.”
“I don’t want you to be mean to me.” Paul reached up and ran his fingers through Danny’s hair softly, making him turn back to him with a look of shock. He gave him a sad smile and whispered, “Love me instead.”
“What?” Danny choked, his dark eyes growing wide. “You want me to be a lover instead of a Master?”
“That’s exactly what I want,” Paul said, his smile growing broader when he saw the way Danny’s eyes shined with love in a way he usually had to hide. “Okay?”
Danny swallowed hard and looked away from him, his eyes darting up at the ceiling as he took several long breaths as if trying to get his emotions under control. “Okay,” he agreed, his voice cracking with emotion. “I can do that.”
“Oh, Paul Guy,” Eve said as she laced her fingers into his hair, tugging him down until his face was hovering over hers. Tears welled in her eyes, making them sparkle like brilliant emeralds from the dim light flickering off the television. She smiled at him, showing off deep dimples in both of her cheeks. “Thank you.”
He knew she was thanking him for Danny’s sake, but he shook his head rather than acknowledge it. “I need it for me,” he admitted softly. “Fuck the game, I just want to be with you—both of you.”
“I need it too,” Eve whispered as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I’m gonna miss you guys so much,” Paul rasped, his voice cracking with emotion. “You have no idea.”
“Yeah, we do.” Danny reached down and cupped Paul’s face with both hands, bringing his lips back to his. “Let’s try it again.”
Paul kissed Danny a second time, his tongue sliding past his lips that parted with a breathy sigh, doing it with every ounce of the reverence he would use to kiss Eve.
For the first time in nine years, Paul kissed Danny as a lover instead of a slave and it wasn’t nearly as terrible as he thought it was going to be. If he were being honest with himself, it was actually sort of wonderful and made him realize there was already too much time that had been wasted.
Two weeks wasn’t near long enough to make up for it.
“I put snow tires on the car when I took it in for you.”
“I’ll give you the money for them,” Danny said, giving Paul a grateful look because he hadn’t thought of that. “How much were they?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Paul said over the rim of his coffee cup as he sat at the kitchen table reading the Sunday newspaper. “Early Christmas present.”