The Muse's Undoing

Maggie

Just wondering if you had fun. Innocent question.

Somehow the disclaimer makes it feel less than.

Yep. We’re all caught up.

Maggie

Cool.

Without anything to say to that, I like the message and go back to looking at the pictures, thinking about how I want to post them. A Reel maybe? I should hit up Fischer’s assistant. He’s supposedly good at social media.

Provided Fischer and I make it through the day.

Why am I doubting this? It’s not like he’s shutting down. Maybe I’m afraid all the time he’s taking in the shower will wake him up from the fever dream?

That’s when the bathroom door opens and the fresh smelling steam wafts out.

Fischer’s dressed in what he wore over last night, but his hair is wet, and that somehow makes him infinitely hotter.

“Find everything you need?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He wanders toward the tree again, barely sparing me a glance.

My gaze is drawn once again to his ass.

I’m completely obsessed with it, and I should check myself, but I can’t bring myself to. I’m only contemplating how to get myself back inside it. I appreciate my solitude, but I am a twin, and I do require the frequent presence of another person. Namely in my bed.

After weeks of nameless hookups at the Plaza and then another week of total deprivation, last night had been—good. I hesitate to call it special because we both clearly had things we needed to get out of our system. He may feel thoroughly cleansed of this need that’s been intruding in our relationship with increasing frequency, while I feel like I took a hit off a crack pipe, desperate for another.

He stops walking suddenly, making a noise of surprise and nearly stumbling over his cane.

I shoot up from the couch and rush over. Fuck. He’s barefoot. In an area I work with glass and metal. I swept, but even I know to tread lightly in the workshop. With shoes on. I curse my own carelessness and distraction for failing to warn him.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” I tell him, grabbing a dish rag from the counter and hurrying back to him. I glance at his foot, and it’s fucking bleeding. Great. Like he doesn’t have enough scars already. I go to his side and steer him in the opposite direction, but he halts us both.

“I don’t want to get blood all over your floor.”

Like I care. But if he cares… “Let me grab a chair. I’ll fix it.”

As a sculptor, I’m good at first aid on flesh wounds. I’ve got a nice kit, too, courtesy of my overbearing mother. I drag a chair from the kitchen table over to him and tell him to sit. I grab the first aid kit from one of my shelves and bring it over to him where I sit at his feet.

“Matty, I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding. Just let me put a bandage on it.”

As he lifts his bleeding foot up, out of the corner of my eye, I see the used condom on the floor and cringe at myself. Have I always been this big of a clusterfuck?

“Sorry,” he says, as I set his foot on my lap.

“You are?”

“This is embarrassing.”

I glance up at him, and he doesn’t look merely embarrassed. He looks…pained.

“Does it hurt?”