Abstract Love Read online

  After college, when friends started getting married, nobody sent Sam an invite with a plus one. All his friends knew better. In fact, Sam’s only long-term relationship fixture was Zen, and they had most definitely never made the mistake of sleeping together.

  He did like Jamie. Despite being too gentle, he was good in bed. He was Sam’s usual type: older and bigger than him. Plus, Jamie was just so nice. Sam suspected it was the sales persona. Jamie charmed people in business, and his relationships were no different. He constantly told Sam how beautiful he was and sucked his cock with zero expectation of reciprocation—although Sam always did. Jamie opened doors for him and gave excellent hugs, but Sam joining him for a “work thing?” Not happening.

  Sam washed his hands and returned to the bedroom where he found Jamie staring at the ceiling. To diffuse the disappointment in the room, Sam jumped on the bed and straddled Jamie’s hips. So protective, Jamie grabbed at Sam’s thighs to make sure he didn’t fall. Then, Sam kissed him, openmouthed and rough, the way he liked it even if Jamie didn’t.

  “Let me ride you?” Sam asked.

  Jamie shook his head but smiled and cupped Sam’s cheek. “God, you’re a bad idea.”

  After Sam put on a lengthy show of fingering his ass and slowly, torturously fucking himself on Jamie’s cock, Jamie fell straight into a deep sleep. Sam had always found sex was an excellent distraction tactic, especially if he could leave a chatty lover comatose after.

  He snuck out of bed and pulled on discarded boxers, which, in the dark, turned out to be Jamie’s and were comically large on Sam’s slim hips. He gave them an upward tug and crept to the living room where he’d left his computer hours earlier.

  Papers covered his small coffee table: sketches, notes, and office memos. There was a days-old coffee cup, too, stained brown in the bottom by grounds. When he slumped onto his sofa, a fork went flying.

  “Shit.” Sam giggled. He realized he was a slob and owned his messiness the way he owned everything else: with a wink and a smile.

  He folded his legs beneath him and reached for his computer, opening it across his lap. The screen glowed too bright in the heavy black of his midnight apartment. He dimmed it and stared at the mock image he’d put together for a meeting the following day—a meeting with Donovan Cooper.

  Sam was pretty sure he was being avoided, although he wasn’t sure why. Donovan had barely spoken to him at the office since his first day. When they passed in the hall, it was like Sam was the invisible man. Had he gone too far in that initial meeting? If he hadn’t, he certainly had earlier that night when he’d run into Donovan in his own freaking apartment building. It was a shocking coincidence that they lived in the same place, and Donovan had seemed anything but pleased. And he’d been rude. Fuck, the guy was always rude, and yet, Sam still found him attractive. He’d sketched him a couple times since that first drawing, so he knew his stodgy director’s grumpy face as well as he knew the New York subway system. But Sam wanted to impress Donovan, even if the man hated his guts.

  He would impress him in the meeting tomorrow because Sam Shelby was a gifted graphic designer with an eye for the unique. His ads caught people’s attention, and he would catch Donovan Cooper’s attention, damn it, even if it took running around the office nude.

  Chapter 5

  Donovan

  Still angry with Anna and Robert—and himself—Donovan decided Sam was an excellent target for his annoyance, and what better time than during a midmorning meeting? Although new to Stoker & Steele, Sam’s reputation in New York had earned him the position of lead pitch designer on not only Progressive Insurance—with his infuriatingly brilliant abstract art idea—but also Great Lakes Brewing Company, which sold beer at Progressive Field.

  As usual, Donovan walked into the meeting last with Monica on his heels. As usual, the room quieted when he arrived. Except Sam kept talking. He was always talking. From what Donovan had seen of the guy, he’d already befriended the entire office. From janitors to men and women at Donovan’s level, everyone liked talking to Sam, with his cheery demeanor and ugly sweaters and… and socks.

  Donovan grumbled when he sat but did notice Sam had put a bit of effort into his appearance. He wore the usual black skinny jeans with shiny dress shoes, plus a black sweater with a white collared shirt underneath. Sam looked passably adultlike as he started the meeting.

  Again, Donovan noticed Sam’s voice didn’t fit the rest of him. Raspy and rough, he had the timbre of a villain in an old Western. Also unexpected: the guy was eloquent, a good public speaker, even though his day-to-day speech was littered with sentence fragments, stutters, and profanity.

  However, when he started talking about sinking bottles of beer to the bottom of a metaphorical Lake Erie, he went too far.

  “Wait,” Donovan said.

  The other occupants of the room looked down at their hands, used to Donovan rejecting, well, everything. Sam stood tall, black clicker in his hand and PowerPoint presentation at his back.

  “You’re telling me you want to photograph Great Lakes Brewing bottles underwater? The representation is ‘sunk.’ That they are ‘sunk.’”

  “No, Don, they’re part of Cleveland’s landscape.”

  The room collectively gasped.

  “Don’t call me Don,” Donovan (thank you) hissed.

  His expression must have been homicidal, because Monica’s foot nudged against his ankle—a silent entreaty to “Calm down, good buddy.” Except he didn’t want to calm down. Everything about Sam ate at him—from his clothes to his demeanor to his stupidly perfect looks. Donovan’s life was falling apart, and he wanted a fight.

  Sam didn’t take the bait. “Sorry,” he said, even though he didn’t sound sorry. “But listen, Great Lakes Brewing Company— It’s an institution now. Locally and nationally known. It sits on a lake. I think it would be really cool if we could do some underwater photography for this, especially…” He clicked the clicker, and the PowerPoint jumped. “For the Lake Erie Monster Imperial IPA. We could even have a—”

  “It’s stupid,” Donovan said. “We’re not doing it.”

  “You didn’t let me finish.”

  “I know you’re trying to be all cute and creative, but Cleveland Indians baseball fans don’t care about fine art. This is an ad pitch for Progressive Field—”

  “Yeah, no shit.” Sam stood still. His calmness was galling. “The vision I have for this would look amazing on the outfield wall. It’s not gonna be murky and ominous but bright and beautiful. Make people thirsty. Make people think, ‘Gee, I want a beer.’”

  “Don’t cut me off.”

  “Back at you.”

  They glared at each other down the length of the long conference table, although there was more than a glimmer of mischief in Sam’s blue eyes. Donovan suspected he was having fun.

  Monica, older and wiser than both of them, said, “Sam, would you please finish your presentation? We can all sleep on it and discuss it tomorrow. Right, Donovan?”

  Without waiting for Donovan’s response, Sam said, “Thanks, Monica,” and smiled.

  An hour after the meeting (an hour spent being harassed by Monica: “You will apologize to him immediately”), Donovan sought Sam, but no one answered when Donovan knocked on his office door. Donovan let himself in to wait. It was a disaster inside. Despite having been at Stoker & Steele for only a few weeks, Sam had made himself comfortable.

  “Artist brain,” Donovan muttered, as if he wasn’t an artist himself. It’d been so long since he’d acknowledged his own artist persona, though, that he’d damn near killed it. He’d embraced the organization of Type A and put the painter behind closed doors, trapped in the shackles Donovan had built—shackles of fear and doubt and health insurance and financial stability.

  In Sam’s office, half-finished sketches overran the desk and walls. From the look of it, Sam’s brain was a loud, colorful, wonderful place. As Donovan plucked a stunning sketch of the Cleveland skyline from the wall, he thought he might like to visit the world Sam saw.

  He sifted through a few hand-drawn logos on the desk and froze when he found a crudely drawn sketch of himself. Sam must have done it during a meeting at some point, capturing Donovan’s faux hawk, wide jaw, and severe expression.

  Jesus, was this what other people saw when they looked at him? Did he really look so miserable?

  “Make yourself at home?”

  Donovan dropped the picture and stood straight at the sound of Sam’s voice.

  He leaned against the doorframe, with one ankle crossed over the other.

  “It’s really bullshit when people say that, you know?” Sam said. “Make yourself at home. No one actually wants their friends to take off their pants, drink all their beer, and binge The Great British Bake Off.” He paused. “What are you doing in my office?”

  “I didn’t mean to snoop.”

  The office door closed as he stepped inside. “Sure you did, or you wouldn’t be in here, so what’s up?”

  Sam circled the desk, so Donovan circled the other way, although he noticed it was true what coworkers said: Sam did smell good—like clean laundry and cedar. “I think we started off on the wrong foot.”

  Sam snort laughed and flipped through some files on his desk. “More like wrong continent, man.” When he found what he was looking for, he tapped the file’s corner against his palm. “I can handle guys like you, you know.”

  Donovan shifted back on his heels. “Guys like me?”

  “Hmm. Corporate assholes. All you see are dollar signs. You take no pleasure in your work. Advertising is money to you, not art, but without the artists, there wouldn’t be advertising, so…” He sucked his cheeks into his mouth, a momentary fish face.

  Donovan wanted to tell him it wasn’t true. Donovan loved art.

  He used to love art.

  Sam continued, “I know I look like a six-foot-two Disney princess, but you’re not gonna rattle me.” To prove his point, Sam got right up in Donovan’s personal space until Donovan took a step back. Again, he was not used to dealing with someone his own height. “And I’m right about the Great Lakes ad campaign. If you’d pull your head out of your ass, maybe you’d notice.” He turned away abruptly.

  “Sam.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry.” Ouch, that hurt coming out.

  Sam’s rebuttal: “Prove it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He rested a hand on the desk and cocked his hip out—the very picture of young attitude. “Listen to me in meetings.”

  “I was listening.”

  “Nope.” He shook his head and ran a hand through his unkempt, unprofessional hair. “No, you were hearing. I need you to listen. There’s a difference. And I know I’m just some fucking kid to you, but I ruled the New York City advertising scene. I know what I’m doing, Donovan, so let me do it.”

  “Fine.” He’d had enough. He’d apologized, okay, so he’d done his Monica-enforced duty. He didn’t owe Sam anything else.

  He didn’t run for the door, but he definitely moved with speed.

  Chapter 6

  Sam

  As a child, Sam had never gone to the Cleveland Museum of Art. He’d heard about it. He knew what it was. It just wasn’t an activity his parents could get down on. Then, in high school, he’d gone there on a school field trip. The experience had changed his life. He’d been a gifted art student prior to that moment, but he’d only seen most masterpieces within the bounds of books. To see them in real life, huge and hanging from a wall, had knocked Sam back on his heels. Then, he’d gone to school in New York and seen more museums, bigger museums. He’d done a bit of traveling, too, and every city he visited: museum first.

  It was funny. Sam didn’t fancy himself an “artist,” not really—not in the way Kahlo or Magritte were artists (two of his favorites). He could draw and draw well, but he’d found his passion, his home, in graphic design. The things he could do with digital art might as well have been alien, otherworldly, not yet defined in mere human vernacular. He was a magician of vision and design, but he still often found himself in museums, sketching the things he saw.

  That Saturday, he perched cross-legged on a bench in the midst of the current abstract art exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art. He squinted at a Picasso—a brightly colored portrait of a woman in profile with two eyes and, of course, two noses—and did his best to emulate the crooked angle of her pointed fingers. He’d never been good at hands. He grumbled to himself and erased what he’d just done.

  Sam knew he was stalling. He should have called Joe that morning. It was finally the weekend, and Sam had some extra time. The workweek had been intense. With Donovan’s grumpy assent, they would indeed be photographing bottles from Great Lakes Brewing underwater. Since it had been Sam’s idea, he was in charge of finding the perfect photographer, setting, coloring, tone… The list went on. Sam didn’t mind. He liked the pressure. He liked being kept on his toes, ready for action at a moment’s notice.

  So why couldn’t he freaking call Joe?

  Now, the woman’s fingers looked like noodles in his sketch. “Gah,” he muttered.

  He would call Joe tomorrow. He would call Joe tomorrow. He would—

  A pair of fancy dress shoes stopped in front of his perch on the bench. Sam looked up, prepared to tell the stranger to kindly move the fuck out of his way, but the breath caught in his chest. “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Hey.”

  Donovan loomed over him wearing, as usual, a suit. Did the guy even own jeans? “Hello.” His gaze darted to Sam’s sketchbook, but he didn’t say anything else, didn’t even move.

  “Uh.” Sam chuckled. “Come here often?”

  Donovan sat right next to him, now studying Sam’s sketch of Picasso’s two-nosed woman. Up close, he smelled earthy but sweet like expensive bourbon. Actually, Donovan looked out of sorts, his tie a touch crooked. Sam wondered if his boss had been drinking.

  “The fingers are wrong,” Donovan said.

  “I know,” Sam replied. “I’m working on it.”

  Donovan grabbed the sketchbook right out of Sam’s hand—pencil too—and started erasing. The whole thing was so surreal, so out of character, that Sam let it happen and watched Donovan’s face change from surly to wrinkled in concentration. He chewed the inside of his bottom lip as he drew, sketched, and rubbed the paper with his fingertip. Donovan looked up at the Picasso and down at the page, up and down, while Sam watched it all with bewildered curiosity.

  Ultimately, Donovan said, “There,” and handed the sketchbook back.

  Sam looked down at the work he’d done. “It’s perfect. You draw?”

  Donovan sniffed and tugged at his tie. “I haven’t seen the rest of the exhibit.”

  “I’ve been here a couple times,” Sam said. “I could show you.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered what he was doing. He came to the museum for peace, not to hang with a guy who hated him.

  However, the ruffled dude in front of him did not resemble Donovan Cooper of Stoker & Steele but instead some faded remnant, a shadow man who looked like he needed help.

  Donovan turned his head to look at Sam. He studied Sam’s face and looked down at his shirt. He winced. “God, what are you wearing?”

  Sam plucked the front of his sweater, sewn to resemble a sunny Italian village at midday. He shrugged. “Gucci.”

  Donovan’s lip curled. “It’s terrible.”

  Sam’s laugh shot out of him like water from a hose. “What the fuck, Donovan?”

  Shocker of shockers, Donovan laughed back—just one quick burst of amusement before his eyes returned to their glazed, possibly drunken, resting pose. He stood without preamble, and Sam had to rush to pack his drawing supplies into his bag to catch up. No way was he missing out on whatever the hell the boss man might do next.

  He walked through a brightly lit gallery, all white floors, walls, and ceiling to find Donovan staring at a Rothko—a mess of colorful lines and squares. He didn’t seem to notice Sam was still there.

  “They’re bringing a surrealist exhibit next, I guess,” Sam said, hanging his messenger bag over one shoulder.

  Donovan didn’t respond.

  “I’ve always loved the surrealists. I mean”—he gestured to the painting—“a toddler could paint this shit.”

  He was surprised when Donovan addressed him. “You have terrible taste.”

  “Yeah, okay.” He tongued the inside of his cheek and studied the strange man at his side.

  Donovan really was hot as hell. He had the confident bearing of a military man but the face of a movie star. If put to full use, Sam imagined those warm, brown eyes would melt panties.

  “And what about Pollock?” Sam kept poking. “Splash some paint on a canvas, and you’re a genius? Bullshit.”

  For a second, he thought Donovan hadn’t heard, but then, Donovan flinched and looked at Sam. “What did you just say?”

  “Jackson Pollock. He sucked.”

  Donovan’s mouth opened and closed. Then, his whole demeanor shifted from beat down zombie to man of angry action. His hand latched onto Sam’s upper arm and pulled. Sam uttered a half-assed “ow” as Donovan dragged him away from the Rothko and around a corner until they stood directly in front of a Pollock piece with a blue background and splatters of paint forming inconceivable patterns.

  Donovan’s hand let go of Sam’s upper arm and moved instead to cup the back of his neck, holding him firmly in place.

  Sam tried to think of terrible things—50s pop music, pizza with mushrooms, Jackson Pollock—but nothing worked. With Donovan’s hand gripping the back of his neck, the man’s body heat practically pressing against his ass, Sam’s cock stood up and begged, apparently a huge fan of Jackson fucking Pollock. At least Sam had the presence of mind to swing his messenger bag in front of him, regardless of the fact that all the blood in his body rushed south.