Chapter Seven
ALL THROUGH THE afternoon, Xander tried to decide if he should meet Skylar at the coffeehouse, let him come to his apartment, or cancel the whole thing entirely.
He’d had the best time at lunch he could remember having since his aunt had taken him to every museum in New York City, which should have been a point in the guy’s favor, but there was just something about him Xander couldn’t trust. It was more than his being overly polished, that Silver Stone bullshit, though that didn’t help anything. He hadn’t tinged as much at lunch, but even so, Skylar wasn’t…real, somehow. Every now and again Xander thought he saw glimpses of a guy he’d buy as legitimate, but most of the time as soon as Skylar’s radiant beams had left the building, Xander felt uneasy in the afterglow. Like now.
As the time for their meeting drew closer, Xander felt more and more drained. He’d thought the best plan would be to go to the coffee shop again, but the idea of going out made him want to go to bed. Which took him back to canceling, which meant they’d just have to meet again later.
God, Xander wanted to chuck all of it and run.
As he batted Hokusai away from his dinner, he texted Skylar. I’m feeling pretty beat. Not sure how much focus I have left.
The text took forever to beat out with his thumbs and the numeric keypad, and he was admitting he’d need to invest in a phone with a keyboard if Skylar kept texting him, when Skylar replied.
I promise I won’t take much of your time, but I’d really love to meet with you tonight. Our lunch inspired me like I can’t tell you. I’m dying to show you my new proposal. You’ve made me throw out all my worksheets and reinvent the whole concept of your pitch.
Great, so he’d filled out those forms for nothing. He should have drawn, like he wanted to in the first place.
Skylar texted again. Give me your address, and I’ll be over in half an hour. I’ll be out of your hair by eight, I swear.
Xander texted Skylar his address, wolfed down the rest of his food, and dove into the shower.
He lingered under the hot spray, shutting his eyes and tilting his head down so the water ran in steamy streams over his face, cursing himself for feeling flustered now that he knew Skylar was on his way. This was not a fucking shōjo manga. He was not a goddamned romantic heroine—hero, whatever—preparing for a big scene with his crush. He’d admit he found the guy attractive, but that was it. There would be no love confessions, for Christ’s sake. Why was he getting so worked up because the guy was coming over? He was here to discuss social media, not the starry pools of Xander’s eyes.
Emerging from the shower, he toweled himself off, put on clean jeans and a T-shirt and socks, because bare feet around Skylar seemed weird somehow. Odds were good the guy would show up in a suit or something casual but highly fashion show. He did a pass through of the main area of the apartment and the bathroom, making sure he didn’t have underwear somewhere random (he did), consolidating the dirty dishes to the counter and the sink. He fluffed the pillows and paced the living room, trying to think of what else he should be doing in preparation.
This wasn’t cleaning up for his crush. It was polite to be tidy for guests, was all.
The cats watched him in mild fascination, Hiromu from the arm of the couch, Hokusai from his favorite stalking spot beneath the kitchen chair, pleased to discover Xander so distracted he kept walking close enough to be caught in a paw swipe.
In the last five minutes before Skylar was due to arrive, Xander swept the piles of junk from the small table in the kitchen where he usually kept just enough room to eat a bowl of cereal or reheated dinner. Jars of ink, old nibs, pencils markers, and of course any loose junk mail and letters from school were shifted to the burgeoning kitchen counter, an Amazon box by the door, and his dresser in the bedroom. He was putting the last of his markers into their case when the knock came.
Despite his half hour of scolding himself for being ridiculous, his heart still skipped a beat when he opened the door and found Skylar there.
Traitor, he whispered to the organ.
Skylar smiled at him, but there was an extra sparkle to him this time, like he had something up his sleeve. It intensified as Xander awkwardly invited him in. “Thanks for letting me come over. I’m really excited to show you my new idea.”
Xander hugged his belly, not sure what the etiquette here was. Old gears turned, clunking and grinding. “Um, do you want something to drink?”
“No, thank you.” Skylar glanced around. “Would you rather sit somewhere comfortable, or at the table?”
Xander’s only comfortable seating option was the couch, which was full of cat hair, and it sagged in the middle, meaning it would tip them constantly closer to one another. “The table is fine.”
Thank God he’d cleaned it off.
The cats had scattered at the door knock, but Hokusai emerged to inspect Skylar as he took his seat. Skylar spied him and beamed. “Oh, the cats. Which one is this? Not a longhair, so it must be…Hokusai? Did I say that right?”
“Yeah.” Xander watched Skylar lean down to navigate the intricate art of petting Hokusai. Skylar laughed when Hokusai batted at his hand, scritching under the cat’s chin before creeping incrementally around his face to his head, at which point Hokusai submitted to the affection with mild surprise and eventual contentment.
Skylar glanced around the room as he continued to pet Hokusai. “Where’s the other one?”
“Hiromu? Under my bed, probably. She doesn’t like new people.”
Skylar looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t. Instead, he gave Hokusai one last scritch and reached into his messenger bag. He withdrew a legal pad in a leather folio cover and took out the pen hiding in a slim pouch along the binding. He sat straight in his chair, but he leaned forward, his forearms on the table, framing the open notebook and setting his focus like a laser on Xander. “I want to pitch an idea to you, something more than simply laying out a social media presence. I want to help you create an entire social persona.”
Xander pulled back in his chair. “A what?”
“A social persona. Another you, or rather a version of you, crafted to help you showcase your work and share it with people who want to experience it. I want to help you carve that version of yourself, hone it and practice it, and present it.”
“Right, isn’t that what we’re doing? With the profile stuff, I mean.”
Skylar shook his head, his blue-green eyes dancing with eagerness. “I want you to take it deeper. More than just online. You can live it, Xander. It doesn’t have to stay in your profile. You can use the same principles we were talking about for your digital look to change your whole life.”
Oh fuck, here they went again. The idea sounded like hell on Earth, but Xander could feel the Skylar Stone tractor beam pulling him in. “You want to be my social media Pygmalion?”
Skylar frowned. “Pygmalion? I swear I’ve heard that before, but I can’t remember where.”
“There are several versions. The original is the Greek myth of the sculptor, Pygmalion, who falls in love with his creation, a perfectly carved statue of a woman. Aphrodite brings her to life and she becomes Galatea. The modern version is the play by George Bernard Shaw, and the musical and movie adaptation with Audrey Hepburn, My Fair Lady. Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, makes a bet he can get Eliza, a Cockney flower seller, to pass as a duchess at a party. He teaches her how to speak, how to hold her posture, etcetera.”
Skylar brightened in understanding. “Right. I think I saw the movie once. They end up together in the end, and she humbles him a little, undoing some of his uppity and arrogant ways?”
“Well—it’s unclear if they end up together or not. In the original play, Shaw resented how producers always put the two of them together. He didn’t feel Eliza was emancipated if she stayed with Higgins. The musical and the movie made it ambiguous. If people want to imagine them together, they can, but Higgins doesn’t exactly come all the way around to humility.” Xander blushed hotly, worried he’d accidentally revealed his secret affection for Skylar. “What I meant was the idea of transformation. Which, I have to tell you, won’t ever work, not with me. It’s not as simple as changing my speech and getting me clothes without paint stains.”
“I think transformation would absolutely work. Because I don’t want to turn you into a mini-me or some rigid statue, some preset concept. I want to help you find a way to speak to other people the way you spoke to me today.”
Xander combed over their lunchtime conversation, trying to sort out how exactly he’d spoken to Skylar. “I don’t understand. I didn’t talk any differently than usual.”
“You absolutely did. You weren’t shy or hesitant. You were articulate, confident, and engaging. You changed the way I think about not only visual art but the creative process in general. You made me realize the key to your success at selling yourself is being yourself.” When Xander recoiled, Skylar smiled, a gentling gesture that made Xander tingle, despite his terror. “I want you to share that part of yourself with as many people as possible.”
Mayday, mayday, mayday. “I don’t think you understand how bad I am at dealing with other people. The only reason I keep talking to you is because I have to.” He acknowledged how awful that sounded and blushed hotter than he had the first time. “I don’t mean it like that.”
“It’s fine. And I do appreciate how little you like dealing with people. But that’s exactly why I want to help you do this. I want you to be able to protect that part of yourself while you deal with people.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It will. I promise.” Skylar turned his palms up on the table. “Will you let me try to show you?”
If the devil came to tempt Xander Fairchild, he would come as Skylar Stone. “I don’t know. What does showing me entail?”
“Let’s start slow. And small. Give me a goal you have, something unrelated to the show. What’s something you’d like to do but haven’t been able to? Something simple but important to you.”
Xander’s panicked thoughts flopped around his brain like beached fish. “I don’t know.”
Skylar winked. “You don’t need to decide right now. We’ve got time.” He rose, gathering his folio, phone, and bag. “It’s almost eight, and I promised I wouldn’t take more than a half hour from your evening. I want to meet with you again soon, though. What openings do you have in the next week?”
Skylar wheedled not one, not two, but three meeting times out of Xander. When he left, Xander stood at the door, hugging himself, feeling as if someone had peeled him raw.
How did the guy keep doing this to him? And what the fuck, what fresh hell was this Pygmalion bullshit?
A furry brush of his legs and a nip at his ankle made him bend automatically, scooping Hiromu into his arms. He hugged his fluffy cat, shutting his eyes as he let his pet lick his face and snuggle into her favorite place at Xander’s neck.
As the silver glow of Skylar dissipated, Xander’s unease deepened, and the sense that something was not quite right about Skylar did as well. Xander tried to focus on that instead of his impending role as Eliza Dolittle/Galatea, but as usual he didn’t really get anywhere beyond something is slightly plastic in the State of Denmark.
With nothing else to do with himself, Xander drew—and he ended up drawing Skylar. Again.
He tried to draw a proper sketch, but it felt even more fake than the man’s smile, so Xander switched to manga style, and on impulse he drew Skylar as Henry Higgins and himself as a reluctant Eliza. As a drawing, it wasn’t bad. Skylar was as hot in manga as he was in real life, and Xander was just as dour. But the image bothered Xander even more than their conversation the longer he stared at it.
He wasn’t sure why, but all he could think when he looked at it was, this isn’t right.
He tried again, casting Skylar as Pygmalion and himself as Galatea—the drawing was better this time, in part because he’d improved the design of Manga Skylar, but as far as actual subject composition, Xander disliked this even more. Skylar honestly didn’t work as Pygmalion, and Xander sure as hell was no Galatea.
Hiromu jumped onto his desk and mewed at him, and Xander gathered her into his arms, frowning at the sketches as he stroked her fur. “Hush, it’s fine,” he murmured, crooning to himself as much as her. “It’s probably going to be just fine.”
SKYLAR DECIDED TO give Xander the weekend to acclimate to the idea they were about to get serious working on this social persona. Their next meeting wasn’t until Monday, another lunchtime on the hospital hill. In the meantime, he put together a detailed plan of action with smaller goals and benchmarks, including a list of resources at his disposal. He had a vinyl portfolio ready to house each step in a sheet protector, but before he committed to assembly, he spread it across his desk and ran through the plan several times, both to refine his presentation of it and to triple-check for any speed bumps or wrong turns.
He worked on Xander’s file until noon, but after a quick lunch, he reluctantly put his notes away and dragged out the LSAT books instead, submersing himself in the fantastically dull study guides until his eyes crossed and his neck cramped. God, but there wasn’t anything worse in the world than studying for the tests, and he’d been doing it for six months.
He was due to take the practice test again soon, but he worried he wasn’t anywhere near the target score he needed.
Skylar was about to start another case file when his phone rang. He almost didn’t answer, but he glanced at the caller ID as a matter of course, and when he saw the readout, his heart skipped a beat. Dropping the notebook and pen, he picked up the phone.
“Hello, sir.”
“Ellen told me you’d left a message for me.”
Skylar had left approximately twenty messages and forty texts for his father since the last time Leighton Stone had deigned to contact him, not that Skylar was counting. “Yes, sir. I wanted to let you know how my LSAT preparations were coming.”
“Your tutor gives me a regular report. Is something not going well with the tutor? She came highly recommended.”
“No—she’s fine.” Skylar’s cheeks heated, and he cursed himself for feeling so flustered every time he spoke to his father. “I just wanted to let you know I was studying hard. I’m going to do well on this test. I’m looking forward to applying for Yale.”
Why did he say that? He wasn’t, in fact, studying hard. He had his doubts about how he was going to do, and he was terrified of Yale most of the time, unsure if he could handle it.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
The thin thread of praise yanked hard at Skylar’s belly, making him yearn for more, inspiring him to clamor for more things to say, to keep that soft, interested tone in his father’s voice. “Also, I wanted to give you some information I overheard at an event hosted by Carolyn Hawthorne’s family. The new Republican candidate for the Senate was there.”
“Oh?”
Skylar’s heartbeat fluttered again, and he rode the high of Leighton Stone’s attention as far as he could. He rattled off every detail he’d gleaned from the evening—and he’d made it his business to overhear as many interesting details as possible. Anything to keep hearing that tone in his father’s voice. That flicker of intrigue, that delicious whisper of focus directed at Skylar.
“That’s all very interesting. Thank you for passing it along.”
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything else. Whenever I’m at fundraisers with the Tau Kapp girls, I hear things.” He regretted now how many phone calls from Carolyn and the others at the sorority he’d brushed aside.
“Oh, and speaking of fundraisers. Don’t forget your mother’s event at the beach house on the Fourth of July.”
“Yes, sir. I have it on my calendar.”
“Make sure you bring someone suitable. One of your usual Tau Alpha Kappa ladies would be fine.”
“Yes, sir.”
His father cleared his throat. “Ah—I have a client coming in shortly. It was lovely to talk to you, son. Keep up the good work. We’ll talk again soon.”
Skylar stared at the phone in his hand for several minutes after his father hung up, the final exchange ringing in his ears.
It was lovely to talk to you, son.
Keep up the good work.
He shut his eyes, burning the praise onto his heart. Telling himself it was enough, that he could live on it until the next time they talked, whenever that was. Even if it was a month from now.
He glanced up at Xander’s painting, but he didn’t look at it long. Somehow the figure seemed to judge him, to tell him he shouldn’t be satisfied, that he shouldn’t just want but demand more from his father—and Skylar couldn’t handle those kinds of thoughts. Turning his back to the art, he opened his notes and tried to get back to work.
When his house mother, Ms. Mary, stuck her head into his room at five, he felt as if he were a zombie climbing out of a pile of sludge, and she had to repeat herself twice before he understood what she was trying to tell him.
“—Amber Adelson from Tau Alpha Kappa called and asked you call her back. I told her you were studying, but she insists I pass on the message.” Ms. Mary pursed her lips. “You didn’t tell me you were dating anyone, young man.”
Skylar tried to give her a reassuring, slightly debonair smile, but mostly he was tired and not particularly caring about anything Amber had to offer. Except his father’s phone call and admonishment for him to pass on more information was fresh in his mind. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll give her a call.”
“If you go out, let me know, and use the alarm code to get back in. I’m heading to bed early tonight, I think.”
Skylar wished he were too, but one way or another, he knew he wouldn’t be. “I’ll bear that in mind. Get some good rest.”
He shut his door and locked it before digging out his phone and returning one of Amber’s multiple missed calls.
“Skylar.” Her sugared voice set his teeth on edge through the phone. “Thanks so much for calling me back. Oh my God, you’re a lifesaver.”
Shutting his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “What can I do for you, Amber?”
“My parents are in town, and I need a date. They know I have a boyfriend, but…well, they’d never approve of my actual boyfriend. Carolyn said you’d be willing to stand in as my date for the evening.” She paused, clearly for dramatic effect. “You do know my father is a lobbyist for the coal industry?”
Skylar suppressed a sigh. He didn’t bother to force a smile into his tone. This game didn’t have a need for them. “Text me the information I need to know about our fake relationship. I’ll be by to pick you up at six.”
He hung up in the middle of her teary thank you, not wanting to hear it.
Though he didn’t really have time, he took a shower anyway, lingering under the steam, letting the hot water beat on the top of his head. He avoided his own gaze as he shaved, then again in the room as he adjusted his tie. He dusted himself in cologne, gave his nails a quick buff.
He didn’t look anywhere near Xander’s painting.
The evening went fairly smoothly, except for the part where Amber tried to kiss him her thank you when he dropped her off at Tau Alpha Kappa, and when Skylar let himself remember the way he’d had to sit there and look uncomfortable rather than argue when Amber’s father had tried to engage him in first some racist, then homophobic, then classist views before rolling his eyes and muttering about Leighton Stone’s son being a disappointment after all. That this story would get back to his father didn’t upset him—this was nothing new. His dad wouldn’t care about that, especially when he heard what information Skylar had picked up.
But that he’d sat there and listened to that garbage upset Skylar a great deal. He was ashamed of what he’d done, and he felt sick. Worst of all, he couldn’t articulate why, since it wasn’t different than anything he’d done a million times before.
He took another shower when he got home, and then, because he still felt dirty, a long, hot bath. He wanted to sleep, but it eluded him.
He lay in bed for half an hour, staring at Xander’s painting, wishing it would tell him the answer.
He thought, for an insane moment, about texting Xander.
In the end, he propped his tablet on his lap, put his headphones in, pulled up Crunchyroll, and ate an anime.
His sophomore year a roommate had helped him develop his addiction to Japanese anime and coined that term. Eat an anime. Most people would say binge, but the roommate had laughed and said no, Skylar ate them whole, as if he were a starving man taking in nourishment. Especially when it was like this, late at night, with his brain chasing itself like a squirrel. He’d indulged in their then-shared Crunchyroll account as an end-of-day treat, and at first Skylar had simply joined him on occasion, amused by the ongoing sagas of the martial arts anime his roommate favored.
But then they’d tried Blue Exorcist on a wild hair, and though his roommate quickly lost interest, Skylar couldn’t look away. He’d inhaled every episode available that same night, and he stayed caught up with new seasons to this day. Skylar had seen 07-Ghost in the sidebar as a recommended show once he’d finished Blue Exorcist…and his addiction was born.
Unc was always trying to get him to read manga, arguing if he liked Lucky 7 and watched that much anime, he’d like reading more, but Skylar kept declining the tour of his friend’s collection. It wasn’t just about the content. There was something about the cocoon of sitting in his bed with a tablet or laptop or even his phone, hooked up to headphones and shutting out the world. He refused to watch dubs, because he wanted to hear the beautiful sound of Japanese, a language he couldn’t understand but loved all the same. Sometimes he was frustrated by his lack of comprehension. Sometimes he appreciated the disconnect and the isolation after a day of people demanding things from him. All he had to do while he streamed his anime was read the text at the bottom of the screen.
He’d learned, after several lost weekends, that he had to pace himself and be deliberate about when he let himself indulge. Sometimes, as a treat, he’d allow himself to keep up with certain series while they were airing, but mostly he restricted himself to times like this, when, if he were someone else, he’d go binge-drinking or would have tried to seduce Amber. Skylar didn’t like to get drunk, and he had no interest in taking a Tau-Kapp to bed.
But he dreamed of a beachside hut with great Wi-Fi, grocery delivery, a month’s worth of vacation, and a sudden influx of new anime.
The anime he’d chosen tonight was one he’d been saving for some time, a high-school set story where a young man had transferred to an elite private school from France (but spoke perfect Japanese) and had special abilities that were revealed as he teamed up with his new best friends, who were misfits like him. The antagonists were the stylish, popular group—yes, he thought, you need to watch out for them, they’re sly devils—though in a manner that he’d come to learn was quite Japanese, the villains weren’t simply villains, they were sometimes secret allies, and there was another group of villains, the teachers, who weren’t teachers at all. And yet even though they’d been exposed, the students couldn’t defy the teachers but had to work around them and offer them at least public respect.
Skylar was fascinated. In an American cartoon, the teachers would have been skewered on a pike and roasted by now, but he was fully prepared for these villains to be converted before the show was over, or redeemed in some way. He also loved the way everyone encouraged each other, always, to do their best, even as they often promised to defeat each other, sometimes in the same breath. “Do your best so I can defeat your best self” was the basic message whenever people were squaring off. And when people were down on their luck, they never used it as an excuse. They compensated and overcame their obstacles and encouraged each other in a way that was…well, Japanese. It was refreshing. It was addictive.
The cultural differences between Japan and America grabbed Skylar’s attention as well. As was often the case, there were no parents whatsoever, and in fact several of the high school students lived on their own in apartments while their parents were “out of town” essentially for their entire high school lives. Skylar wished there were someone he could ask about this. Was this actually a thing? Did Japanese high schoolers have this much independence, or did they only wish they did? He thought of the many, many ways Americans were represented in Hollywood and how inaccurate that was compared to his experience, and yet he couldn’t help wishing Japanese high schoolers lived exactly this way because it was so amazing. He hoped, at least, they had as many confrontations on the roof as they did in anime. He couldn’t think of a roof he’d been on in his life. Why he was so invested in the roof aspect, he didn’t know. But he was.
All he knew was that he could give up a lot of things in his life before he could give up his Crunchyroll and Funimation subscriptions. A lot of things.
The anime, tragically, didn’t come to any kind of conclusion at the end of the season, and since season one had aired in 2012, it clearly never was getting a second. Groaning, Skylar cursed himself for not looking this up beforehand, then dragged his laptop closer to hunt down information on a potential manga, only to swear again. Yes, there was a manga—translated into French, German, Spanish, Thai, and not English. Goddamn it, he’d have to hunt around for scans, which he hated to do. He somehow always managed to end up with a virus.
He thought about starting a second anime, but it was four in the morning now, so he lay in bed, feeling irritated and sorry for himself, staring at Xander’s painting once more.
He should have told Amber no. He knew that now. He felt foolish and dirty after listening to Amber’s father.
What am I doing? Why am I doing any of this? He shut his eyes, his head swirling with images of LSAT study guides and his score, a red 165 blinking overhead while Amber’s father sneered at him and Amber slid her hand into his pants and licked his ear, making him want to vomit. Skylar did his best to ignore them, kept trying to get Crunchyroll to load, but it wouldn’t. All his laptop would do was show Xander’s painting, Xander standing above it, arms folded as he glared at Skylar in disapproval.
Skylar woke in a cold sweat, his head throbbing, his bed vibrating as his phone buzzed insistently against the mattress. He started to ignore it, then on impulse flipped it over. His heart skipped a beat as he saw the caller ID, and he nearly dropped it in his haste to answer.
“Xander?”
There was a pause, a long one. “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry. It’s just…I can’t do this.”
Skylar sat up, rubbing his eyes. “It’s fine. You can’t do what?”
“This Pygmalion thing. It’s been freaking me out all night. I get that I need to do the social media part for my project, and I appreciate you wanting to help me with the…other and all, but I’m good, really. I want to stick to the original arrangement and that’s it. Please.”
It was clear from the haggard tone of Xander’s voice he hadn’t slept much, if at all, and that this truly was upsetting him. And the truth was, it shouldn’t matter to Skylar one way or another. He had plenty to deal with. He’d taken on more than he should have as it was. He should agree to this and let the man move on.
Whether it was Amber, her father, the anime, or his nightmare, he couldn’t say. All Skylar knew was that the last thing in the world he was going to do was let Xander go.
“I’ll be right over,” he said, and hung up the phone while Xander continued to sputter his objections.