Kevin & JPB | Early Monday Afternoon

[x-quebecois.livejournal.com]

Kevin and Jean-Paul meet for lunch and some general catching up before JP tells his ex that he's sort of seeing someone else, too.


Jean-Paul knew, after the last weekend, that he really needed to talk to Kevin about Will. It was just a matter, really, of figuring out how. So he’d suggested they meet for lunch after Kevin finished with his work at Elpis and here he sat, contemplating the many ways in which he might tell his former boyfriend that he’d begun... something with another man because he and his former boyfriend had an array of benefits.

Having an open relationship, which is essentially what he and Kevin had, was very, very complicated.

Kevin had been running just a little bit behind schedule, but he managed to find Jean-Paul at his table in the steakhouse anyway. Late lunch time on a weekday was awesome for avoiding crowds and the restaurant was only about half full anyway. He was grinning when he sat down, dropping his messenger bag to the floor and handing over a sketchbook. “Ah finally remembered to bring it for you to pick one.”

Smiling in return, Jean-Paul took the sketchbook and thumbed the corners of the pages for a moment before opening it. “Merci,” he said, fingertips moving over the image on the first page without actually touching it. He was always so blown away by how talented Kevin was, how well he could capture images on paper, on canvas. The Southerner’s sculpture’s were harder to interpret, but they were no less beautiful. “You have had a good day?”

“Ah filed and typed and was pretty much bored stupid, actually. But Ah got to listen to Nathan tellin’ off someone on the phone. Probably a foreign dignitary because that’s what he does, y’know?” He shook his head, amusement clear on his face. “Angelo won’t be happy with the damage control he’s gonna have to do. Someone should take phone privileges away from him, even if he’s in charge. What’d you get up to? Danger? Adventure? Boring cheating wives?”

Jean-Paul laughed a little, looking up from the sketchbook for a moment so he could shake his head at Kevin. “A man who ran from a court meeting and tried very hard to disappear. But he is not so good at it and so we caught him. And also, a man who paid us to find his cat. Which was a stupid thing to do, because she was not so far away, only he was too lazy to look everywhere. Or the cat, maybe she was better at hiding from him than Laura’s nose.”

Trying not to laugh, Kevin wound up wearing a smirking smile. “Y’all work for a PI and you hunt down missing kitties? Good to know. If Leah ever disappears Ah’ll call y’all to sniff her out for me.” Laura and Leah were great friends so really Kevin could just point the girl in the right direction and she could probably sniff out the kitten in no time flat anyway.

“Oui, because it is a paying job,” Jean-Paul said, still smiling. “And finding cats is better than some of the other things we have been asked to do, I think. The murder cases, they are bad. The one that led to the dinosaur man... I felt sorry for the client.”

“Shouldn’t you feel sorry for most of your clients? Y’know, the ones who have murdered people and the ones with missing people and the ones with cheating people? Seems like most of ‘em are pretty worthy of sympathy.” Or was it empathy? He lived with at least one empath, Kevin should be able to remember the difference. Sympathy sounded better. He’d go with that.

“I feel sorry for them, yes, but this man...” Jean-Paul shrugged. How did you describe the way it made you feel, watching someone who’d lost the person they loved trying to find justice for that person? It had struck an odd nerve with him. “It was particularly sad. But we solved the case for him. And we found the other man’s cat, so it all ended well.” The Quebecois flipped the page in the sketchbook, smiling a little. “If this were colored, I think I would believe I was seeing a picture and not a drawing.”

“Pictures come without color, too.” Kevin leaned across the table to see which one it was but he was interrupted by their waiter showing up. They both ordered and Kevin was back to leaning across the table again. “Ooh, that was out on St Lawrence Island in Gambell. Ah was almost to Russia.” For seemingly no real reason at all, that made Kevin grin proudly.

“Russia...” Jean-Paul grinned. “I remember parts of Russia. Not well. It was a long time ago that I flew over it. Even before I knew I could fly without a plane. But... I was on my way to the Olympics. It was very important, then. Or so it seemed. You captured the ice and snow beautifully, mon aime. How would you make something like this bigger?”

“Same way Ah made it the small way.” Kevin smiled, knowing just how unhelpful that was. “Ah’ve got photos of everything Ah drew on my phone, too. Sort of back up for details and stuff. But, Ah mean, you just redo it only bigger. Ah don’t have like any better way of explainin’ it than that. Drawin’ a big circle’s just like drawin’ a little one. Only Ah’d be painting it.”

Jean-Paul shook his head. “I cannot draw anything and you make it sound as though it is so simple.” He marked that page with a small piece of napkin and then turned to the next. Of course, he could only let himself be distracted for so long by the drawings. Their bread arrived, and then their salads, before he looked at the last picture and turned back to the one he’d marked. “Oui, this one. If the offer still stands, I think I would like this one.”

“That one?” Kevin reached out for the sketch book, setting down the pen he’d been drawing on a napkin with. What was it about napkins that made them so much better to draw on? They took the ink better than normal paper somehow. Maybe it was an absorbency thing. After noting the picture and making sure the little napkin bookmark was in place, Kevin nodded and slipped it back into his bag. “And it is simple. Just shapes and lines. Ain’t nothin’ complicated by that. It’s just whether or not you know how to put ‘em together.”

“It takes a talent for seeing the shapes and lines that not so many people have,” Jean-Paul pointed out, picking up his fork so he could eat the salad he’d so thoroughly neglected. “How are things at the mansion? I have been back some, but not so much to stay and see things or talk to people.” Not that he’d done a great deal of that when he’d actually lived there, of course.

Kevin shrugged. “There’s a new guy. The superhero wannabes got beat up again. Business as usual pretty much. Boathouse is almost done bein’ converted, too. Ah’ll have a sort of blacksmith shop soon to work metal in which is pretty darn awesome.”

“Oui? And it will be better for your sculptures and things?” Jean-Paul knew he was sort of grasping at straws, but he was working his way around to bringing up Will.

“Yeah. It gives me better work space. If Ah wanna use the machines for cutting or the sort of shaping they do then Ah’ll still need to work outta the metal shop but for construction it’ll all happen out at the boathouse now. Ah’ve got a welding station in the blacksmithing shop and all. Ah can construct stuff outside so Ah can do bigger stuff like Ah was when Ah was out in California. Used to do mostly huge, eight to twelve foot by six to ten foot sculptures. It’s easier to do that when you can work outside.” Even though he had fewer months a year up here when outside would be warm enough to work there, it was certainly an improvement.

“I can see why it would be easier,” Jean-Paul said, nodding. He stuffed his mouth full of salad again, chewing and swallowing the last bite before sitting back in his seat and looking across the table at the younger man. Kevin seemed so happy with the way things were. So content - he was having fun with people his own age and they hadn’t actually lost any of what they’d had when they were officially together. The Southerner was even working on a thing of sorts with Laura - and Jean-Paul liked Laura.

Finally, as though he was ripping a band-aid off, Jean-Paul decided to just go ahead and bring up the man he’d spent the majority of the weekend with. “So... I think I have met someone. And I think it is possible it may become serious, though I am not so sure now that it is, necessarily.”

Kevin quirked an eyebrow but otherwise seemed unfazed as he continued chewing on his mouthful of salad. Jean-Paul seemed sort of worried in a way. Maybe reluctant. Kevin was possessive, he wouldn’t deny that, but he didn’t think of himself as being possessive in the way most people understood it. He wasn’t bothered by Jean-Paul meeting someone, honestly. If the guy made him happy then Kevin was happy. He had to look at this thing with mystery guy taking away many of the so-called benefits between them in their friendship, but Laura posed the same threat to their relationship. “Who is he? What’s he like?”

“His name is William Bower,” Jean-Paul said, reaching across the table to steal one of Kevin’s tomatoes from his salad. “I met him at Zeitgeist in District-X with Vanessa. He is... nice.” The Quebecois shook his head, a rueful smile on his lips. Then he shrugged. “Black skin that sparkles green and very green eyes.” And one of the most amazing tongues Jean-Paul had ever encountered, but he wasn’t going to mention that part. It seemed like too much information. “He works in... IT, I believe. Information technology.”

“Ah don’t even know what IT guys do. Somethin’ with computers and they wear headsets. That’s what Ah learned on TV.” He grinned. maybe he should ask Doug what IT guys did. He was basically the Snow Valley IT guy, right? “Does he cook? ‘Cause you need someone who’ll feed you some of the time. Does he like reading? Literature? French stuff? Is he cool in the cool to hang out with sense?”

“Oui, I like hanging out with him, as you say. And he seemed to like reading, though we have not spoken so much about literature and things.” Then Jean-Paul quirked another smile. “And he seems to like me, so I would think he likes French-Canadian things, at least. For the moment, anyway. As I said, I do not know how things will go, but... he seems shy.”

“Shy, huh? Like possibly gonna snap and go on a killing spree shy or like makes you wanna see how much you can make him blush shy?” Kevin totally could understand the blushing thing. Laura wasn’t shy at all and he practically lived to be able to make her blush. “Does he know about us?”

“I told him,” Jean-Paul said, nodding. “Of course... well. He believed I was married to Vanessa at first.” The Quebecois shook his head, smiling a little at that situation. “When he blushes... it is like constellations appearing in the sky.” He shrugged a little. “I do not think he would snap, as you say.”

“Constellations?” Kevin’s head tilted to the side as he tried to picture that. Black skin with green sparkles. “Does the green show up when he blushes or is it always there? Is it like little starbursts or somethin’?”

“It is always there,” Jean-Paul said. “Changing. It shifts. But oui, when he blushes, the green... it becomes... brighter, I think. Or more concentrated, maybe?”

“Cool. You think he’d let me draw him? He sounds...” Kevin searched for the right word, but he could only come up with one. “Beautiful. Or striking. Maybe striking is the word.”

“I can ask him,” Jean-Paul said, shrugging. “I do not know what he would say. As I said, he seems shy. But it could be a... fear of rejection? This is what Vanessa said, I think. That he is used to being rejected? And so he does not quite know what to do when he is not.” He smiled a little, wondering how many people could legitimately say that their ex-with-benefits was genuinely interested in drawing the person they might or might not be getting serious with at some point in the future? This thing that they were doing - it was complicated, yes. But it seemed to work.

“You should ask him. You could be there if it’d make him more comfortable. Ah promise not to ask him to take off his clothes unless you want me to.” Kevin grinned and stabbed a slice of cucumber. “Ah’m real good at seein’ physique through clothin’ anyway.” He actually winked at Jean-Paul before biting into his cucumber. “So, you actually like him or you’re just sort of liking him but think you might actually like him later?”

Snorting, Jean-Paul shook his head. “There are too many degrees of liking someone.” He pressed back against the cushions in his seat and continued, “I think... he is very nice, as I said. And I think... that things could go somewhere more serious. But I am not so sure. And so we are only seeing where they go, oui?”

“Fair ‘nuff.” The waiter came by with their actual meals and whisked away their salad plates. “Whatever makes you happy. Just lemme know if-slash-when it gets serious, alright? We’ll figure stuff out then.” Kevin was utterly unbothered by the situation. He felt like he should be bothered by it. He was pretty sure he should be really bothered by Jean-Paul being with another guy, possibly sexually. He just...wasn’t. Because in the end Jean-Paul was still his, even if he was with Will and they both knew it.

“Oui,” Jean-Paul said, nodding. “I will let you know if they become serious.” He eyed his steak for a moment, then set about cutting it up into manageable pieces. He felt... very relieved that things had gone as well as they had, like a weight he hadn’t realized was resting on his shoulders was finally gone. That was good.

Kevin thought Jean-Paul looked more relaxed now, but he was probably just imagining it. Sure, it was sort of awkward to tell your ex you were still involved with that you were also involved with this other person over there, but they’d had that conversation once already with the roles reversed so worry shouldn’t really be a factor, right? Kevin shrugged to himself and bit into his bread. “So the painting, it’ll probably be done in like six to eight weeks. Just for reference.”

Grinning, Jean-Paul ate a piece of his steak and, after swallowing, said, “Thank you - I am looking forward to seeing it.” He didn’t know how big Kevin intended to make it, but he figured that could be something of a surprise.