Just a Sketch

By A.J. Marcus

Leo Caldwell’s life can be summed up in two words: ho hum. His job at a tech-support call center offers little in the way of excitement and outside of spending time with his two best friends, Felix and Julie, his social life is nonexistent. When Felix decides it’s time for the three of them to try something new to spice things up, they go all out… and take a drawing class at the local library.

But that’s when everything changes. Leo meets Aud Sorenson, owner of Bright Thoughts Gallery and resident art teacher at the library. When Aud gets to know Leo and his friends, he feels an instant connection with the cute and geeky Leo and asks him to pose for a sketch.

As sparks fly between them, Aud discovers he has a stalker who’s willing to do anything he can to make sure Aud is his and his alone. Aud and Leo hope their blossoming feelings will be enough to see them through the chaos that erupts around them.

To Deb Ross. Thanks for the very interesting drawing class that inspired this book while at the same time reminded me that I need to leave drawing to artistic people and keep my creative endeavors to writing and photography. At least I made nice refrigerator art.

LEO CALDWELL
glanced at the clock on his phone.
Four fifty. Too early to log out and get ready to go home.
He crossed his fingers as he hit the button to accept his next call hoping it wouldn’t be a long one. One hour and thirty-three minutes later, the call finished and he was able to hang up and log out.

Someone cleared her throat right behind him. “Leo,” said his boss, Chenquiqua Williams, “Sugar, we’ve talked about these long calls you always manage to get on right before it’s time for you to go. You’ve got to stop this. I know the customers like you. You get things done and solve their problem. But if you keep this up, HR is going to be breathing down my neck about budget, and that won’t be pretty.”

“Sorry, Chenquiqua.” Leo put his headset in his desk and locked the drawer. “I was really hoping this one would be a short call.”

“Sugar, your calls are never short. Your call handle time is the longest in the center. We need to find a way to balance that with your customer satisfaction scores. We’ll talk about this more tomorrow. You’ve also just cost me an extra two hours in child care. Go.” She turned and stomped off.

Leo’s shoulders dropped as he picked up his backpack and headed for the breakroom. His best friend and carpool buddy, Felix Sanders, was waiting for him. The credits on the evening news rolled as Leo walked into the small room that perpetually smelled of burned popcorn and Hot Pockets.

“You better hope we’re not late for class tonight,” Felix said, slipping his Kindle into his backpack.

“Class.” Leo smacked himself in the forehead. “I completely forgot about that art class you signed us up for. Doesn’t it start at seven?”

Felix walked past him and out the door. “It does, which means we don’t have much time to get there.”

“We can skip it if you want.” Leo fell into step beside Felix.

Felix stopped and glared at Leo through his dark bangs. “No, we’re not skipping this class. It might not be much, but you and I both need to get out more. We’ve become nothing more than cubicle rats who go to work, go home, drink beer, and repeat. We’re going. If either one of us ever wants to have a social life, we’ve got to take a few steps on that path.”

Leo kept strolling toward the door. “Okay. I guess we have to wait until after the class for dinner.”

“Yeah, thanks to your being so damn helpful. But I had a Snickers bar out of the machine a few minutes ago.” He handed Leo a candy bar. “I figured you could use one too.”

With a broad smile, Leo took the snack. “Thanks. I really don’t deserve a good friend like you.”

“And don’t forget that. So what was the problem tonight?”

“Same ol’ thing.” Cool wind hit him as Leo held the door into the parking lot open for Felix. “She couldn’t get her computer to boot properly. The call came in ten minutes before five.”

“You know you could’ve just transferred her to someone else.”

“There are too many people who take the easy route out and do stuff like that. I hate it when people do it to me, and I don’t like doing it to other people.”

“Leo, you’re too nice, even to people you don’t know.” Felix pulled out his keys and pushed the button to unlock his yellow Honda Accord. “Some people would see that as a character flaw.”

“I know. People like bad boys.” Leo settled into the passenger seat after swinging his backpack into the backseat. “I’m sorry, I just don’t have much bad boy in me.”

“And that’s why you don’t have a boyfriend.” Felix clicked his seat belt closed before starting the car. “The last one was what, three years ago? He left with most of your possessions, and I couldn’t even get you to file a police report on him.”

“Hey, some of that stuff he paid for.” Leo slumped into his seat and chewed his candy bar. Felix could really dive into him about old boyfriends, even though Felix’s record wasn’t much better.

“But not all.”

Leo’s phone vibrated in his pants pocket. He struggled to get it out while the seat belt fought him to prevent him from reaching it in time. He glanced at the caller ID before answering it. “It’s Julie. Didn’t you call her and tell her we’d be late?”

“Shit, I knew I forgot something. And we’re not going to be late.” Felix sped through a yellow light. “We’ll be right on time. Tell her to save us a couple of seats.”

“Hey, Julie, we’re on our way.” Leo tried to sound more cheerful than he felt but could tell he came across as tired.

“You guys better be. This was Felix’s idea,” she replied without a “Hey, how are you?”

“I got caught on a call. But we’re on the way and not that far now.” Leo grabbed hold of the door as Felix turned a corner a little too fast, and the tires screeched.

“Tell Felix not to kill both of you with his driving. I heard those tires of his screeching.”

“Okay. Save us a couple of seats.”

“Fine.” She hung up.

“She sounds pissed.” Leo slipped his phone back into his pocket, amazed at how easily it went in after the major fight to get it out.

“I bet she’s PMSing or something.” Felix swung the Honda into the parking lot at the library.

Leo swallowed the last bite of his candy bar. “That’s your excuse for everything she does. You know women aren’t always PMSing.”

Felix hit the brakes just in time to land them in a parking place not far from the main door. “Are you sure about that? When can she start menopause? Maybe that’s her problem all the time.”

“Or maybe she’s like you—just a bit bitchy?” Leo waited until the car was turned off before he unfastened his seat belt.

“I think you’d be bitchy too if the two of you were the only people you hung out with.” Felix got out of the car.

Leo shut his door and heard the click of the locks engaging as he and Felix hurried toward the library. “You know, that doesn’t even sound right. If Julie and I were the only people I was hanging out with, then I’d just be hanging out with Julie.”

“Don’t start.” Felix opened the first door and held it for Leo. “We’re here to begin our adventures at doing something to get all of us out of the house.”

Leo caught his reflection in the glass and realized he still had a pressed-down groove across the back of his auburn hair where his headset had sat for the past nine hours. He combed his hands through it, hoping to erase the mark. “I had headset hair. Is it gone?”

Felix barely looked at him. “Sure. You look fine. It’s not like you’ll actually meet a man in here. Most of these people are going to be just like us, trying to find some reason to get off the couch.”

“But you never know.” Leo gave his hair a final comb as they passed the first row of bookshelves and hurried toward the meeting room where the class was being held. “We could meet people like us who wouldn’t be opposed to finding something more to spice up their lives.” Even as he spoke, Leo realized how pathetic he sounded. He didn’t like sounding sad and boring, but that was who he was. He lived alone with his cat, Sofi. Neither he nor Felix nor Julie Barnaird really fit into the bar scene. They spent lots of time together, and inevitably their conversations always turned to how none of them had any kind of love life. He wouldn’t complain if he could find a man who was interested in him. Unfortunately, he normally managed to attract every loser who was more desperate than he was. Most of them didn’t have his high moral sense and tended to show their stripes within six months of meeting him.

As they walked into the meeting room, there were only three other people seated at the tables, which were arranged in a U-shape around one of the most stunning men he’d ever seen. It was all Leo could do to tear his eyes away from the large blond, stay in Felix’s wake, and make it over to the seats next to Julie.

“You two are right on time.” The big man flashed a perfect smile, and Leo thought his heart was going to burst free of his body and fly across the small room to sit in the man’s large hands.

With his hand on his chair and his eyes on the instructor, Leo managed to fumble sitting and crashed to the floor. As Julie and Felix rushed to his aid, a wave of acute embarrassment washed over him, and he wanted to crawl under the table and hide until he could make a break for it.
God, I’m such a klutz, and he saw the whole thing.

AUD SORENSON
stepped into the shower and began to wash off the sweat from his workout. It had been a long day at the art gallery he owned. One of the artists arrived earlier and spent three hours rearranging her paintings, claiming her sales had dropped over the past six months, and it was all because of the way the lights were hitting her work, and she wanted to make sure everything was perfect. Aud didn’t have it in him to explain to her that even though her paintings of flowers had been all the rage two years earlier, most of the regular customers with the money to afford her overinflated work had bought what they were going to buy and considered her “last year.” He decided to simply give her a few more months of low sales and hoped she’d pull her work and move on to a different gallery. A couple of new ones had gone in a few blocks down from his on Colorado Avenue.

The warm water cascaded over the hard planes of Aud’s body, helping to sweep the stress of the day down the drain. Unlike in his small house, at the gym he could stand for as long as he wanted and let the water work its magic on him.
Unfortunately, tonight I need to get moving.
Aud turned off the water and grabbed his towel. He managed to get back to his locker before anyone came into the room.

“Hey, Aud,” Randal Hudspeth said, coming toward him.

Inwardly Aud groaned. He’d seen Randal across the gym from him earlier and hoped he’d manage to miss yet another encounter with the man.

“Randal.” Aud pulled his jeans up. He had to adjust himself to get tucked into the tight fabric.

Randal pulled off his sweaty tank top, revealing the chest so many of the guys at the gym, including Aud, had straddled at one time or another. He was a hot guy, with a nearly perfect physique, but his personality fell short of dull. “I was hoping I’d catch you while you were in the steam room or the shower.” Randal yanked off his shorts. His half-hard cock swung out, bouncing off his large, well-groomed balls.

“Sorry Randal. I’ve got plans tonight.” Aud grabbed his blue polo shirt and pulled it on.

“Didn’t we have fun a few months back?” Randal pouted as he rubbed his exposed crotch. “I thought you’d be interested in doing it again.”

Aud shook his head. Their encounter had been hot—and not because it had been in the steam room. Randal was good with his mouth and body. It was when that sexy mouth didn’t have a cock in it that he was irritating as all hell. “Not tonight. Enjoy yourself in the steam room.” Since then Aud had gone out of his way to avoid Randal, even not stopping at the gym if his shiny BMW was out front. Tonight he hadn’t been lucky enough to miss him, and the satisfaction he’d felt from his workout and the hot shower afterward drained away. He slammed his locker shut a little harder than he meant to.

“Give me your card. I’ll call you,” Randal shouted after him as Aud hurried from the locker room.

The sun hung just above Pikes Peak as Aud cleared the door. He slowed to a stroll on the way across the crowded parking lot to his blue Jeep Wrangler. There was a bit of a cool breeze, but in September in Colorado Springs, it was to be expected. It wouldn’t be too long before the weather swung from fall to winter. The aspens would paint rivers of gold down the mountain for a week or so before the snow started to fly.

He got into the Jeep and started it.
It’s just shy of five. I’ve got time to run by the gallery and see what the closing numbers were, or I could stop for some dinner before class. Heather can handle things just fine. I could definitely use more than a protein bar right now.
Traffic was light enough he managed a leisurely dinner before arriving at the library in time to get set up.