A Boy Called Cin (3 page)

"I'm hurt."

"Fuck you." Cin throws a stuffed bear at her, deliberately missing and hitting the wall a good foot away from her. "You're my best friend, Rach. I would do you if I thought for a second you actually wanted that."

"I love you, Cin, and I hear great things about you in bed, but I'd rather not."

"Now I'm hurt." Cin ducks the bear as it flies back at his head. "Do you think I'd do well with a nice Sugar Daddy? I feel like the pressure to look good on his arm might get to me after a while."

"Not if it's what you spend your whole life doing?" Rachel shrugs. "I dunno. I'm happy to take him if you don't want him."

"Don't worry, I'll get him to move you in with us. I couldn't leave my best friend behind."

"You're so ridiculous. Go to sleep." Rachel flicks her light off again, and Cin obeys by curling up under the blankets. He considers getting himself off quickly, but Rachel would probably throw things at him for it. That can wait until she's in class tomorrow.

*~*~*

When the canvas for his mid-year piece arrives, Cin props it up on his bed, kicks his shoes off, and goes to stand on Rachel's to get an idea of how he's going to approach it. He flicks through the book of sketches he has of Tom's face and other design elements he wanted to include.

He's not sure how long he stares at it, but it's long enough for Rachel to come back from her afternoon class. She flops down on the bed beside him and hugs his legs, leaning her head against his knee.

"Shouldn't this be in the art department?"

"Can't find anyone with keys. It's Monday; they're art people. They're probably still hungover from Thursday." Cin waves in the direction of the art department, across the quad outside the window. "I can tuck it down beside the bed for a day or two. I've gotta coat it in gesso anyway, so it's not like it matters if it gets marked in the meantime or anything. It's only an assignment."

"Could've fooled me." Rachel smirked.

"Huh?"

"Only an assignment that you stay up until two a.m. making sketches for and save approximately seven billion reference photos of a certain sexy billionaire who took you to dinner once."

"Do you know how to draw? No. All of that is completely normal."

"Uh-huh." Rachel nods. "Anything you say." She picks up the sketchbook at Cin's feet and flicks through it, pausing deliberately on every page that features Tom's face. There are a lot of them, when you look at it like that. Cin has a lot of reference pictures cut from old magazines and newspapers, too, and it's a pity so many of them tend to airbrush the hell out of Tom. He has nice features in person and it's a shame to see him reproduced as a porcelain doll. That's not the person he is, and aside from the moral and social implications of photo altering, it's a crime against art.

"It's worth forty percent of my grade. Even you might put a little extra work in on it."

"I think we both know me better than that, but I'll concede your point. Not that there'd be anything wrong with just liking his face. It's a nice face."

"It is a nice face," Cin agrees. "My professor has a weird love-hate relationship with him, it turns out. She loved the idea when I pitched it to her. All I need to do now is not fuck it up."

"You've never fucked up serious art in your life. You're disgustingly talented."

Cin climbs off the bed, only to sit back down on it next to Rachel. "So everyone keeps telling me. One day I might even start believing it."

"You should send some of these to Mr. Billionaire." Rachel drops the sketchbook in Cin's lap. "I bet he'd appreciate them."

"Maybe. Who says I want him to appreciate anything?" Cin flicks through the book himself, trying not to think about how many times he's drawn Tom's face. It's for an art project. It is. It just looks really obsessive if you don't understand how art works.

That's his story, and he's sticking to it. The fact that he's gone to text Tom a few times a day since they had dinner together doesn't have to mean anything other than that he's still really horny and feels kind of cheated that he didn't get fucked by a man who is, by all accounts, a genius.

People don't talk so much about the genius side as they do the billionaire side, obviously, because money is the most important thing in the world and plenty of smart people die poor. The more Cin looks into Tom's history, though, the more obvious it becomes that texting probably wouldn't even be an
option
without him. When he was Cin's age, he was revolutionizing the tech industry.

That's the sexy part for Cin, anyway. Aside from Tom being physically stunning and just old enough to be unobtainable. It's a whole package, really, and he's going to have to stop pretending he's not interested sooner or later. At least, to himself. It'd be very within the artistic temperament to take an inadvisable lover for a while, so maybe he should think about doing that.

"I'm going to invite him to the exhibition," Cin informs himself, mostly, but Rachel as well. "He probably won't come, but that would make it his move."

"I would
hate
to be on your bad side. You can be devious when you want to be."

"I'm not sure if that's serious or you're making fun of me, but you could never be on my bad side." Cin gets up from the bed and stretches. "I'll go see if anyone with studio keys has surfaced."

*~*~*

Tom causes a stir by turning up at Cin's mid-term exhibition, which Cin secretly loves. Rachel loves it less secretly and continues to hold onto Cin's arm firmly when Tom approaches them, leaning on him like she's his date. Which she sort of is, since he asked her here and there's no way she'd come for any other reason.

"I see you've already got a date." Tom nods to Rachel, who gives him a wave like she's got no idea who he is. Cin appreciates this as a gesture of solidarity and the unspoken promise that if he needs a way out, she'll provide it.

Cin offers Tom his free arm. "I have two arms, though. Assuming you're here for me."

"I'm here for that portrait you threatened to paint." Tom takes Cin's other arm like it's the most natural thing in the world and extends his hand to Rachel. "Tom Walford."

"Rachel. I'm the person who threatens Cin's romantic partners with leg-breaking if they hurt him."

"Understood." Tom nods solemnly, but there's a smile playing around the laugh lines at his eyes. Cin inspects them for a moment before realizing that he's let a silence form.

"Painting's over here." Cin jerks his head toward the far wall, where there's a painting hanging that’s taller than he is. It ended up more Randian than he'd originally meant, but it had given him a chance to go with a subtler approach, using a 40s, sci-fi aesthetic and bare hints at stuff he'd borrowed more from
Bioshock
than
The Fountainhead
. If you don't consider the implications, it's actually a nice portrait.

Tom looks at it for thirty seconds straight and then chuckles. "I read, too, you know."

"I'm shocked," Cin teases. Tom is so ridiculously easy to needle that it's impossible to resist. Rachel disengages from his other arm at that moment, and Cin only just keeps track of her going to talk to the cute goth girl who lives a couple of rooms down the hall.

"I thought about you a lot," Tom says all of a sudden. "Kept writing texts and never sending them. I was thrilled when you told me about this."

"I didn't think you'd actually show up," Cin answers honestly. "I'm surprisingly glad you have, though."

Tom chuckles again. "I'm flattered. Seriously. And the painting is amazing. Insulting, but amazing. I hope you got an A."

"I haven't gotten any marks yet, but I assume getting my subject to turn up will net me a few extra points."

"Without sounding like exactly the capitalist pig you think I am, is it for sale?" Tom takes Cin's hand and links their fingers together. Normally, Cin would shake his hand off, but it's such a gentle gesture and so strangely comforting that he squeezes back.

"If you want it, it's yours. I don't have anywhere to keep it. There's enough art crap in my dorm room as it is." It's a shame, but he's already resigned to the painting being broken down and thrown in a dumpster once it's marked. That's how art is.

"Then I'm taking it with me. Putting it in Accounts at HQ, because I know they'll get a kick out of it. I'm not letting it go to waste."

"It's a little vain to own a picture of yourself quite this big. Just saying."

"Well, I'm a lot vain, so that works for me." Tom grins at him. He
is
vain, from his ridiculously well-tailored—and almost certainly handmade—suit to his neatly-manicured nails and eyebrows that have obviously been shaped, because nobody's eyebrows are that perfect naturally.

While Cin was painting him, he couldn't get away from the fact that Tom was stunningly beautiful. He has deep crow's feet that report a lifetime of smiling, a tiny birthmark just below the corner of his left eye, freckles dotted over his nose and cheeks, and one eye brown while the other was green. They were all things that got Photoshopped out of magazine covers and GQ spreads, photos taken and cropped carefully to hide the softness of his tummy.

Cin realizes he's staring a moment too late and comes back to himself to see Tom averting his eyes, an embarrassed blush high on his cheeks. His phone beeps before he has the chance to say anything.

Dorm room yours.

It's a text from Rachel, who's disappeared along with the girl she was talking to before. Cin tucks his phone back into his pocket and squeezes Tom's hand again. "Come up and see my etchings?"

Tom raises an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

*~*~*

"These are the women's dorms," Tom points out uselessly, as though Cin would somehow have missed that.

"Yes, they are. Extra reason for you to be quiet." He puts a finger to Tom's lips, checks the coast is clear of anyone who might care, and leads him down the hall to his and Rachel's room. He unlocks the door silently and drags Tom inside, closing it before they get caught.

It'd be exciting if it wasn't a reasonably regular occurrence. Though not usually with famous billionaires.

Tom still looks confused that he's in a women's dorm with a guy. "I live in the women's dorms because my school is full of transphobic asshats who think that having a vagina automatically makes you a girl."

Tom blinks. "Oh." He pauses. "
Oh
. That is so not fair on you."

Cin had been expecting something more along the lines of 'oh, you're a girl?', but Tom was obviously just full of surprises.

"Yeah, well, that's life." Because he feels like it and because Tom is right there and didn't freak out, Cin pulls him forward and kisses him, standing on tip-toes to reach his mouth. It takes Tom a second to catch up, but then he's kissing back, warm and eager, hands going under Cin's jacket to rest on his hips.

When Cin pulls back, Tom's blushing like a nervous virgin, which Cin assumes he's not.

"I know I have a reputation to uphold here, but I don't wanna take advantage."

Cin snorts, and then strips his coat, sweater, and T-shirt off without another word, leaving just his binder on. "Binder stays. You're not taking advantage. If you're genuinely not interested, then that's fine, but
I
am. I haven't gotten laid in months and that's at least partially your fault."

"My fault?" Tom's already shrugging out of his jacket. It's cautious, but it's happening, and Cin reaches out to pull his tie loose.

"You've been on my mind a lot, too," he explains, throwing the tie aside and going straight for Tom's belt.

"Whoa, hold on!" Tom puts one hand over his to stop him, and Cin stops dead. His stomach turns over, terrified he's done something completely wrong.

"Hey, hey, don't worry." Tom smiles warmly, and the world solidifies under Cin's feet again. "I am one hundred percent signed up to get you off. I'm just… not really in the mood?"

Cin swallows. He knows that's code and it's got nothing to do with himself, but now he's worried that he's pushing Tom into something he doesn't want. "We can talk about this," he offers.

Tom sits down heavily on the bed. "This is gonna sound really stupid, but some days I am really uncomfortable with having a dick and today is one of those days."

Cin raises an eyebrow. "This would sound stupid to me because…?"

Tom pauses, goes silent for a moment, and then looks up at Cin. "You don't feel like I'm… I dunno. Bullshitting?"

After accepting that he's probably not about to get laid tonight, Cin sits down next to Tom and takes his hand, folding it into his own lap. "You just told me that you're having a bad dysphoria day." Cin links their fingers together, because yeah, somewhere along the line, he started caring about Tom, and right now he needs looking after.

"I don't want… I'm
not
a girl. Or anything. I just. Sometimes I don't really feel like I want to be a guy. Either. Does that make sense?"

Cin nods. "There's a word for it, even."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, but you're probably not going to like it." Cin hesitates a moment. This could easily be a mistake, but if Tom's being honest—and there's no reason to think he's not—Cin feels like he should support him. "Genderqueer."

Tom's silent again for a moment. "Actually, I kinda like that. I like that there's a word. I like that it implies I'm not just making it up."

"There's a whole community. You might wanna look it up sometime." Cin leans his head against Tom's shoulder. "I'm listening, if you need to talk."

Tom relaxes against Cin. "My sister… I used to think she was my brother. You've probably never really heard of her, but she does a lot of legal work for transgender rights. She's out, so I'm not sharing a huge secret with you or anything here."

Cin nods. "I get it. I haven't heard of her, but I'll look her up. She sounds wonderful."

Tom swallows and looks down at his knees. "So I kinda feel like an asshole saying I sort of get it? Because I don't get it. I can't imagine what it's like to feel that uncomfortable in your own skin. Occasional weirdness doesn't even begin to measure up, so I keep it quiet. To myself. You're the first person I've told and I feel incredibly selfish right now."