THE PETROVA MANSION was as stunning inside as it had been out, and Wyatt, ambling through one of its empty corridors, could not bring himself to focus on any one thing, from the family portraits and paintings (yes, paintings) hung along a length of wall to the vaulted ceiling, which featured a higher central arch that drew his eyes up and along a stretch of wooden scaffolding.
The floor to ceiling windows showcased the lamp lit courtyard on this side of the yard, dotted at intervals with a profusion of potted flowers, an orange tree and a single stone bench that Wyatt would not have noticed if he hadn't been looking so hard.
Everything his eyes set on hinted at a largesse far beyond his wildest imaginings. The whole thing called to mind a study he'd read once on the one percent, and how too often they were out of touch with reality.
Wyatt stopped by the painting of an unsmiling woman, though the twinkle in her wideset dark eyes seemed to say that the world was a joke that only her was in on. She was dressed simply, in a bright yellow frock that seemed to set off the sun-kissed honey blonde curls which tumbled over her shoulders, and she sat barefoot, with legs curled up into her chest and her arms wrapped up around them.
He'd seen it before. Of course he had.
Entire Reddit threads had been dedicated to this particular painting of the ever so enigmatic Tatiana Petrova, whose story read like that of some tragic Shakespearean heroine that it would've been laughable if every word of it had not been true.
The attention to detail was stunning, so much so that Wyatt felt like he was being watched at that very moment, and he turned his head to find that the hallway was as empty as it'd been when he walked into itâa fact he found slightly unnerving.
Just how big was this place?
Wyatt groaned, resting his head on the empty span of wall beside the painting when he started to feel the buildup of what was making itself out to be a spectacular specimen of a headache, and he groaned lowly, shutting his eyes until it'd passed sufficiently.
When he next looked up, it felt like Tatiana was looking directly at him and Wyatt squinted.
"You know," he began conversationally. "I bet you had that designer pussy."
She said nothing, and so he continued.
"I mean, you've been dead for over ten yearsâRIP, by the wayâand your husband hasn't remarried. And that's on what? Your impact, Miss Tatiana."
At first nothing happened, and then the woman in the portrait blinked as her gaze turned to fix on him. Wyatt felt the blood rush out of his body and remained fixed to the spot, feet rooted in place so that even if he'd wanted to run he wouldn't have been able to.
"I've got two words for you," the painting of Tatiana Petrova said serenely, and when it became evident that she wouldn't be jumping out of the painting to eat off his head soon, Wyatt gave an unsure nod.
The moment felt sacred, almost like the morsel of information that she was about to dispense was the most important thing he would ever hear in his life.
"Blow jobs," she said, gazing beatifically at him.
Wyatt frowned. "Excuse me?"
"Blow jobs," Tatiana's painting intimated. "Get good at them, take a MasterClass if you have to."
A long moment passed in which the two of them studied each other, and Wyatt was readying himself to answer that he wasn't sure that MasterClass offered blow job courses when Tatiana settled back into her painting, features closing up.
"What the fuck?" he said. It came out more vehemently than he'd intended, but then she paid him no mind staring on impassively ahead.
"Tatty, I'm talking to you," Wyatt protested, banging at the wall against which the canvas lay. "You can't just leave me hanging like that. Hey, Miss Designer PussyâCoochie Vuitton, answer me."
"Wyatt?" a low familiar voice called, putting an end to the almost frantic beating rhythm his fists made as they came down and he stilled, turning slowly to find Harlan staring quizzically at him.
The other boy stood just a few feet away from him, barefoot in an unbuttoned silk shirt and pajama pants that hung low enough to showcase of the indentations of his V-line as they disappeared into the waistband.
He tilted his head to one side, a slightly bemused expression on his face as he said: "Did you just call my mother Miss Designer Pussy?"
A beat passed, and then Wyatt reacted, letting his eyes widen dramatically.
"Who, me?" he started, placing a hand on his chest. "I would never. Where did you get such an idea?"
Harlan considered him for a long stretch, and Wyatt tried not to struggle under his scrutiny. Finally, he chuckled, giving a slight shake of his head.
"You're gone," he surmised. "Stoned out of your mind."
Wyatt pursed his lips, raising an eyebrow as eyebrow as he slurred. "No. I'm not. But if I am, you are too. You did those drugs."
"Yes, I did." Harlan spoke, voice turning somewhat sharp as his earlier mood apparently dissipated, like he'd lost his patience. "But I know my limits, and you don't, evidently. Gomez bringing you here was a mistake."
The shock of his words, coupled with the reminder of Canyon and events that'd transpired between them barely ten minutes ago caused a lump in Wyatt's throat, and he struggled to swallow as he spoke.
"I know my limits," he slurred, leaning on the wall to support himself. His vision blurred, eyes watering slightly at first, until what had been a trickle turned into a torrent of soundless, choked sobs that refused to be held back.
"He said I was clingy," Wyatt supplied, pointing at the direction he'd come from. "And now you're saying I'm stupid, and that I don't know my limits. That I don't belong here. Your sister thinks I'm a gold digger, and right now I want to go home, but more importantly I need to pee, okay?"
His stomach let out a low grumble, and he added for good measure, throwing his hands up into the air in a helpless gesture.
"Also, I'm hungry."
Harlan's look of faint irritation faded, and in its place an expression of faint apprehension settled. He took a step forward, paused to gauge Wyatt's reaction to this, and then took several more until the distance between them was nothing but a memory.
"Hey, hey," he spoke in an intimate murmur, taking a stray lock of Wyatt's hair and tucking it behind an ear in one graceful movement, like he'd gotten a lot of practice. "I never said you were stupid. High, yes, not stupid."
He waited until Wyatt had sufficiently calmed down, before announcing: "Now let's get you to a bathroom. I've heard that these rugs are pretty expensive."
Wyatt, eyes shimmering, blinked up at him through wet lashes as his gaze turned sharp, a stab of outrage cut through the fog of despair, and Harlan catching all of this, grinned.
"Who called you clingy?" Harlan asked out of the blue, and Wyatt now on his third slice of buttered toast paused in his chewing to throw a quizzical glance at him.
"Earlier," he clarified, "you said he called you clingy. Who was it?"
Wyatt grimaced, swallowing the piece of toast he'd been chewing and reaching for the glass of orange juice (his third filling) that Harlan had poured him. He took his sweet time swallowing.
"If it's not something you're comfortable talking about thenâ"
"No, no," Wyatt interrupted, giving a dismissive wave as he set down the half-empty glass. "It is. I do. My ex-boyfriend, Rashad." He paused, inhaling deeply before continuing. "He called me clingy, and all sorts of other stuff."
An unspoken question entered Harlan's eyes, and Wyatt rushed to preempt it before the other boy could jump into any conclusions of his own.
"It wasn't like that, abusive or anything," he explained, offering a wan smile as he crammed another slice of toast into his mouth. "At least not with him. With Rashad it was like... like I could close my eyes and let my entire body fall towards him, because he would catch me. It was tender."
A long stretch of silence followed the end of his statement, and Wyatt ducked his head low, appetite suddenly all but vanished.
"That was stupid, I know," he murmured, a flush spreading over his skin.
Harlan blinked, expression carefully neutral as he gave an easy shrug.
"Personally I thought it was beautiful, but if you say so."
Wyatt resisted the urge to reach over and smack him across one toned bicep, and instead continued.
"Canyon too," he confided. "A couple of minutes before you saw me, we were dared to kiss. We did and at first he'd seemed pretty into it, but then he pushed me away and, well." Wyatt shrugged. "I guess I read the signs wrong."
Harlan gave a sympathetic shake of his head, saying, almost like he was talking to himself: "No, I don't think so. I catch him staring at me sometimes."
As soon as those words registered, a pit opened up in Wyatt's stomach, and this must have been visible from his expression because the other boy's expression turned apologetic.
"Look," he began as soon as he noticed Wyatt making no attempts to fill in the silence. "Gomez is a good guy, and I like him, but he has a lot to work through, and questions that are, well, they're rarely ever as sexy as stories make them out to be."
Wyatt forced down his final swallow of OJ, heart thudding as he felt the subtle shift in the mood between them. The sudden realization, or intuition more like, carried a heavy feeling that was equal parts self-awareness and anticipation that threatened to drag him down as he got up to deposit his plate and cup at the sink, and set about to washing them.
He turned the tap off, methodically wiping off the wet from his palms and turned to find Harlan standing close behind himânot close enough that it gave cause for worry, but close enough that his intentions were clear.
Harlan wanted him, pure and simple.
"Come with me," he breathed, a question, a plea that without missing a beat, Wyatt took, and in the next moment the taller boy took him by the hand, leading them out of the large kitchenette-style space.
Dazedly, Wyatt followed after him, and they retraced his steps, walking past the carved mahogany doors he'd exited out of about thirty minutes' priorâout of which emanated the sounds of too-drunk teenagers, though it barely registered as within moments they were out of earshot.
A full minute later, they stood in front of a polished hardwood door, and as Harlan turned the knob to step aside so that Wyatt crossed over the threshold first, the latter felt struck by a sudden bout of shyness that grew as he took in Harlan Petrova's room, the king-size bed with its tufted burlap headboard and an old leather chair which sat by an equally regal-looking table, strewn with old issues of British Vogue and textbooks with titles like Intermediate Microeconomics as he would later find out.
Rattan basket trays hung across the walls, alongside posters that ran from Sports Illustrated to a surprisingly preserved Hannah Montana: The Movie (this earned a snort of disbelief from Wyatt.)
Harlan let go of his hand, jogging forward to clear away the pile of clothes off his mattress, and Wyatt wandered, acquainting himself with the unfamiliar space.
He thought, quite belatedly, that no episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians or Gossip Girl, could've prepared him for the evening, and as if he were proving a point he caught sight of dozens and dozens of unopened boxes, gifts from luxury brands, Wyatt assumed. He sighed, throwing a longing glance at the boxes before moving onto perch at a corner of the bed, which had been sufficiently cleared.
A moment later, Harlan joined him, and they made small talkâthe kinds forgotten as soon as they moved onto other topics, and this continued for long enough that eventually, Wyatt decided enough time had passed that he could cut to the chase.
"What are we doing here, Harlan?"
The other boy's eyes pinned him in place. They gleamed wickedly as he offered succinctly: "I may have brought you here to debate on how gay culture isn't what it used to be."
Wyatt decided that he would play along, for now at least. He gave a mock gasp.
"How dare you besmirch gay culture when Lady Gaga walks the earth?"
The other boy let out a guffaw of laughter that eased into the comfortable silence that stretched between them, and them, almost casually he drew closer, placing a warm palm over Wyatt's thighs.
"Is this okay?" he asked innocently after some seconds had passed, but Wyatt did not trust himself to speak. The lazy, circular motions of Harlan's fingers as they travelled reassuringly across denim clad skin were turning his body into a revolution.
So he answered in the only way he could've, half-seating as he leaned forward to press his lips against Harlan's soft, full ones in a kiss that deepened almost as soon as it begun, all inhibitions falling away in the face of evident hunger as their tongues circled, explored, and teased each other.
They continued like this for almost one full minute, only stopping when the need to breathe became a necessity, but eventually Wyatt's calves started to cramp and he pulled away reluctantly. Harlan's eyes remained shut for a moment, and when he blinked them open dark eyes turned dazedly to Wyatt.
"I need you," he admitted in a whisper, and Wyatt trusted the desire his words echoed, and so he answered truthfully also.
"I need you too."
"Then, I'm going to kiss you again if you don't mind."
Harlan didn't wait to catch his answer, resuming their kiss with a kind of efficient brutality that the first one had lackedâteeth nibbling on lips, which would then reconnect before breaking apart again to pepper kisses down jaws and across the smooth expanse of necks.
At a point, Wyatt made to help Harlan out of his silk shirt, but somehow the other boy grabbed his hands and held them in place, looking him earnestly in the eye.
"We just met, and this, whatever this is cannot lead to a relationshipâ"
But Wyatt was already nodding even before he'd finished speaking.
"Are you sure?" Harlan pressed.
"I'm going to need you to hold out on being a gentleman so you can fuck me," Wyatt said, Harlan's breaths hot against his face. "Can you do that for me, please?"
In answer, Harlan placed his hand at the base of his throat and squeezed lightly, then lowered him back onto the bed so he loomed on top. Their remained fixed on each other, and for one moment it felt like they'd stopped time. Then their actions turned frantic once more as one wriggled out of his jeans while the other rummaged through his bedside drawer, the foil wrap of a condom visible in his hands.
"One last chance to get out of this," Harlan teased, and though his eyes burned molten with desire Wyatt knew that at the slightest indication of discomfort he would back away. But he didn't want that.
"I'll pass," he murmured instead, and the smile he flashed then was a knife that would've cut through even stronger things than a heart.
â â â â â â â â â â â â
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â â â â â â â â â â â â
n o t e
(kinda long, but it's worth it)
happy new year my little disasters! i know, i know that its february and this is coming a little late, so an apology: this new chapter, which i hope you think was worth the wait. it took a couple of hours to finish this rewrite, and i think i'm proud of how it turned out. i hope you like it.
also, what do you think about the new covers? because personally, i'm obsessed:
both pictures were gotten off pinterest, with jake wangner, a film photographer being the creator behind the image on still point, and nick fancher for the bottom club. their portforlios are stunning you guys! go check them out!
i've been quite busy, and while a HUGE part of me would like to fill you in on everything, that would require a chapter of its own, and so, to summarize: i'm okay. listening to podcasts while doing dishes, focusing on school work, curating a playlist for my best friend, and finally, finally writing. i'm doing it all afraid. it might work out.
i haven't forgotten about TBC. i promised i'd finish it on here, and this year i'm going to try to be more consistent with posts but since it's pretty low priority for me updates will have to be slowed to once or twice a month.