To Ruin a Rich Boy

The gallery smells like expensive varnish and desperation. A hundred champagne flutes clink against the dull hum of old money trying to look interesting under high white lights. My boots squeak against the polished concrete, my reflection twitching in sculptures that look like they cost more than my entire collection. I hate the way they stare through me and pretend it’s curiosity, like I’m the garnish on a plate they will never eat.

My suit is cut sharp enough to hurt someone. Black silk with a blood-red lining I only flash when I’m bored. Chest bare under the blazer, tattoos cutting up the center like a roadmap I dare them to follow with their eyes. A chain hangs low across my waist. My hair is shaved on one side, the other side long and slicked back. A man in a dove-gray jacket blinks at my septum ring like it’s offensive. I grin and take his champagne.

“Networking,” my assistant had said, pushing this invite into my palm like a dare. Network with who? These people buy ugly art and call it an investment. They buy designers, too. I sip, and the bubbles bite my tongue. I let them.

A laugh cracks across the room like a car alarm. My head turns before I decide to look. He’s a lighthouse of the worst kind—blonde, blue-eyed, blazer the color of trust fund, teeth too white to be real. The brother. At his side, like a shadow someone forgot to turn off, is the only person in here who feels alive.

I clock him in three seconds. Head-to-toe black that isn’t trying to impress anyone. Black denim jacket, black band tee, black jeans ripped at the knees. Combat boots with scuffs that are earned. Eyeliner winged so sharp it could cut my throat if he glanced too fast. Hair black like fresh ink, falling into his eyes, which are darker than the room deserves. He’s not posing; he’s enduring. His mouth is set like a locked door. He looks bored enough to burn the place down.

The blonde brother keeps performing loudly for a small circle that feeds off him. He throws his head back, that empty laugh, says something about the “vibe” being “so raw” in a way that makes my skin crawl. The shadow beside him—Athan, I’ll learn later—doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t participate. He exists. He stares at a painting like it has personally wronged him. He picks at the corner of a sketchbook tucked under his arm with rings that match the metal in his ears. I follow the line of his throat, the pale slash of skin under the collar. Someone should paint that neck. Someone should put teeth on it.

A curator I’ve met twice flits by with a hand on my forearm. She says my name like it’s a commodity, says their donors love what I’m doing, asks about the fall line. I give her the line I always do—leaner silhouettes, harsher fabric, the color of a bruise. She nods enthusiastically like I’ve mentioned God. My eyes slide past her shoulder, back to the black figure trying to shrink himself next to the blonde noise machine.

If I had to be here—and apparently I do—I’m grateful for a target. He notices me. I know he does because he tenses almost imperceptibly when my gaze lands on him. He doesn’t look over. He looks down, jaw clenching. A ringed thumb rubs over the spine of that sketchbook like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered. I walk closer without meaning to.

The blonde one is telling a woman in pearls that he told the gallerist to “lean in” on curation, that the city needs “edgy” work. He says “edgy” like it’s a word he learned this morning. Athan’s eyes lift and skate across the room like a flat stone hitting water. When they meet mine, it’s a blink, a hit, a refusal. He looks away first. The refusal turns into heat in my mouth.

I circle the space like a wolf in a tux. The art is a sea of white and muted bruises—perfect for people who like to pretend they feel. I’m supposed to shake hands, compliment brushstrokes, flirt carefully with money. Instead, I track that black silhouette like a song I can’t place. Every time his brother’s voice spikes, Athan’s shoulders flinch, and then go still. He’s practiced at being invisible. It makes me itch.

A small cluster forms around me when my name moves across the room like perfume. Younger creatives, two men with soft hands, a woman from a glossy magazine who tries to slot a pronoun into small talk like it’s a party trick. I give them what they want: the sharp tongue, the easy insult delivered like a gift. They laugh. I’m good at giving people what they think they want. But my eyes go back to the boy in black, pulled like tide.

He finally breaks away from the circle around his brother, stepping half a foot to the side. The air around him changes. It’s ridiculous how I can smell clove smoke in a place where no one is allowed to breathe wrong. He slips the sketchbook fully under his arm like a secret. The brother glances at him and puts a hand on his shoulder without looking. Possessive. Dismissive. It lands too hard for casual. Athan doesn’t shrug it off. He goes still under it like he’s learned stillness is safer.

My hand tightens around the stem of my stolen champagne. I let my gaze crawl deliberately up his boots, the frayed laces, the scuffed leather, the pale slice of ankle when he shifts, the tight line of denim over his thigh. He shifts again, and the hem of his tee rides up just enough to show a sliver of skin at his waist, a bruise or ink peeking. The heat in my mouth drops to my stomach.

I angle closer, just enough to catch the ending of the brother’s sentence: “—you know how these people are. It’s all optics. Chill.” He grins, squeezes Athan’s shoulder, returns to preening. The muscle at Athan’s jaw jumps. He drags a thumbnail over the paper inside the sketchbook without opening it. The sound is nothing. It feels loud.

A collector stops me to talk about a gown he saw last winter, the one with the hand-laced bodice that made a woman look like a dangerous confession. He wants to buy the story behind it. I let him think I have one to sell. Over his shoulder, a black shape exhales like he’s drowning in white noise.

I am out of place here. I’m supposed to be. But I’ve never been more clear about why I came. Not for the checks or the champagne. For the boy who looks like a bruise in a room of bleached bone. For the way my body knows a kindred darkness on sight. I let my eyes find his again, only this time I don’t look away. I let him feel it. I watch his pupils flex, the tiny swallow he tries to hide, the way his fingers go still on the edge of his secret.

He looks away. His brother laughs. A server glides past with a fresh tray. I set my empty flute down and step forward.

The server’s tray is a parade of bubbles and tiny salted shells. Bryce plucks one without looking, the same hand still heavy on Athan’s shoulder. His voice swells, designed to be overheard. “I swear, if I have to shake hands with one more diversity initiative in designer shoes tonight—” He bites into the oyster and laughs, eyes flicking toward a Black artist across the room in a striped suit, then back to his circle. “It’s like…do they come with the grants? Is there a bundle deal?”

The air splits. The pearls woman tenses, lips pinched. One of the soft-handed men does a soft, nervous chuckle. Athan’s fingers freeze on the sketchbook, then curl, white at the knuckles.

I set my glass on the server’s passing tray without breaking stride. “You paid extra for the bundle,” I say, stepping into Bryce’s light like I belong there and watching his gaze snap to mine with that bland, entitled surprise. “Did they charge by the slur or the square footage of your ignorance?”

His smile stalls, then restarts, tight. “Excuse me?”

“No, I heard you the first time,” I say, tilting my head toward the artist he targeted, who is very clearly pretending not to hear, jaw working. “We all did. It was very…raw of you.” I give his word back to him, polished sharp. “But hearing you speak like that in here is like watching a man take a dump in the middle of the white cube and call it performance.”

There’s a small, delighted gasp from someone behind me. Bryce’s grip on Athan’s shoulder increases—Athan doesn’t move, but his body goes rigid, breath stuck high in his chest.

Bryce tries another tack. “You must be…Heiylo, right? The trans—”

“Designer,” I cut in, smiling. “Who taught you to say my name? The PR intern you scare when you loom over her desk?” I plant a heel on the conversation and grind it. “If you want to talk about optics, we can. But say your racism with your chest next time, not like a coward hiding behind canapés.”

The pearls woman suddenly discovers her phone. Soft Hands 1 starts nodding too fast. Across the room, the gallerist has noticed, her polite alarm dialed in but not deployed yet.

Bryce laughs again, pitched defensively. “Wow. Okay. Relax. It was a joke.”

“The kind that curdles in your mouth,” I say. “And drips on your shoes.” My eyes flick down to his loafers. Glossy, brown, safe. “Here’s a new joke: every time you open your mouth like that, a donor closes a checkbook. It’s adorable you think you run the room.”

Athan’s throat moves. He’s watching me through the fringe of his hair, face unreadable, an electric crack hiding under ice. The rings on his fingers dig into the sketchbook’s spine.

Bryce leans in, the smell of expensive cologne and stale money. “You don’t know who you’re talking to,” he says, too low for the circle but not for me. He pats Athan’s shoulder like a reminder: his property, his audience. “We’ve been supporting this space since you were DIY-ing holes in shirts.”

I keep my voice bright and public. “And you still haven’t learned how to be a decent human. Imagine spending that much money and buying no taste.”

A snort comes from somewhere on the edge of the group. The Black artist across the room finally looks directly at me, then at Athan, then back, something hard easing by a degree.

Bryce shifts, affronted. “Wow. The moral police in a harness. Cute.”

“Thank you,” I say. “And here I thought your blazer said ‘probation officer for the bland.’ Look.” I gesture to the art around us, the too-clean, too-cold mise-en-scène. “This room is already hostile enough without you turning the vibe into a country club toilet. Keep your jokes in your group chat where you all pretend it’s 1952.”

The gallerist finally inserts herself, a soft, practiced hand on Bryce’s elbow. “Everything all right here?”

“Totally,” I say, eyes still on him. “We were just talking about how some people confuse nepotism with personality.”

Bryce’s jaw flares. He glances around to see who’s watching. Enough people. He pulls his hand off Athan’s shoulder with a brittle briskness, as if he’s the one deciding to deescalate. His grin is too bright. “We’ll take our checkbooks elsewhere, then,” he says, performative, but he doesn’t move. He needs the room to love him.

I step closer by a fraction, voice softened to cut cleaner. “Don’t threaten us with a good time.”

Athan’s eyes flick to mine. The flicker is quick, a shutter opening and slamming shut—something like relief, like hunger, like warning. His mouth doesn’t move. His shoulders are still iron. The tendon in his neck stands out like a seam.

Bryce tries one last grasp at control. He angles his body to block me and pitches his tone to Athan without looking at him. “Let’s go, yeah? This place is a circus.”

Athan’s fingers twitch over the notebook, then lock. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. He is a statue of defiance disguised as compliance. I let the silent acknowledgement between us be nothing more than a spark buried in coal.

I turn away from Bryce as if bored, and address the room, the gallerist, the pearls woman, anyone who needs the cue. “Apologies,” I say lightly. “I get allergic rashes around hate.” I smooth my lapel, letting my chain glint. “They tend to clear up once the source leaves.”

A laugh breaks, softer and more honest. Bryce’s ears go red. He steps back, straightens his blazer, and levels a smile that doesn’t fit his face. “Enjoy your evening,” he tosses, brittle, and cuts through the group, dragging the air with him. He doesn’t touch Athan this time. He doesn’t even look.

Athan’s gaze trails after him for half a breath, then snaps back to the floor. He inhales, small and sharp, like he’s bracing for a blow that didn’t land. When his eyes lift to mine again, it’s through the cracking shell of something I can’t read. Maybe thanks. Maybe hate. Maybe both. He tenses like a wire pulled tight, then turns his body toward the balcony door as if the glass might save him.

I let him go. I watch the black shape cut through white light, a shadow escaping a spotlight. The room exhales around me, chatter filling the vacuum. My heart thuds steady. The taste of him sits under my tongue like iron. The artist in stripes nods once as he passes me, a private pact made with a glance.

I pick up a fresh flute, let the bubbles bite again, and pretend I didn’t just rearrange the room. But my eyes are already tracking the thin line of Athan’s spine as he slips outside, the set of his shoulders pulling the night tight around him.

The balcony door sighs shut behind me, muffling the room’s fake-laugh soundtrack. The night tastes like rain that never arrived, city heat pressed low. He’s there at the edge, hunched into himself, the skyline carving a jagged crown behind his head. The cherry of his clove glows, burns, dies, returns. The scratch of pencil on rough paper rides the back of his breath.

I don’t announce myself. I take the spare spot along the rail, not close enough to spook, not far enough to be mistaken for passing. The wind lifts the fringe from his eyes for a heartbeat. He doesn’t look at me.

“Strong choice,” I say, nodding to the cigarette. “Cloves. Like pretending to cough perfume.”

He exhales through his nose, smoke curving away. “Helps the room smell less like money and hairspray.”

“So we do agree on something.” My mouth wants to be sharp; I sand it down. “You okay?”

His pencil moves like he’s carving a wound into the paper. “Do you ever get tired of being a savior in leather?”

It’s a good hit. Short, clean. I let it land. “I get tired of idiots with microphones. Your brother’s voice is a public health hazard.”

He smirks at the city. “You don’t know him.”

“I know that type. He thinks volume is a personality. And he thinks standing next to him means co-signing.”

Silence clinks between us. His boot taps once, a staccato on concrete, then stops like he punished himself for it. He thumbs dust off the page. I catch a flash of lines: a hard jaw, a soft mouth, an eye like a smudge. It could be anyone. It could be him.

“You draw,” I say.

“Observant,” he mutters. He brings the cigarette to his lips, the tip painting his mouth a deeper red. “What do you want?”

“Air. Another human who hates this as much as I do.” I tilt my head toward the room. “They’re going to spend forty minutes saying ‘interesting’ like it’s orgasmic.”

He finally looks at me, sideways, through lashes that cast bars across his gaze. Up close, the eyeliner is imperfect, thumb-smudged where he rubbed his eye. The small bruise at his hip flashes when he shifts again. My focus slips and claws back.

“You like being looked at,” he says flatly. “Seems like your natural habitat.”

“I like choosing who looks,” I say. “And why.”

He snorts. “Congratulations on your brand.”

“And you,” I say, nodding toward the black on black on black, the nails bitten down, the rings that look like weapons. “Congratulations on your armor.”

He turns, the move small but edged. “You think that was me needing help back there?”

“I think you didn’t need him talking about people like that. I think you hate it and you let it happen.” I don’t flinch from his scowl. “I think I couldn’t not say something.”

He stares at me like he’s cataloging, cross-referencing me with every noise he’s heard about me. He sucks clove-sugar between his teeth and chews at it like punishment. “You really believe you’re some kind of corrective?”

“No,” I say. “I’m a bad habit with good timing.”

For a second, something that looks like a laugh almost breaches. Then he shakes it off, shuts the notebook with a soft slap, the elastic band snapping around it with practiced violence.

“Look,” he says, low, the words picked clean. “I get that you have a thing where you roll into rooms and make them bow. And I’m sure it works on donors and interns and people who think your chains are rebellious.” He lets his gaze rake me, not admiring, assessing. “On me? Not so much.”

“Not trying to make you bow,” I say. “Trying to see if you’re a person under all that.”

He flicks ash into the dark. The wind takes it. “I am exactly as much of a person as my brother says I am. Which is to say: his.” He leans on the rail, the bones of his wrist sharp where his sleeve slides back. “So take your lecture about optics and your savior complex and go sell it to people who pay you for your mouth.”

His tone is arctic, precise. The insult lands clean and hard, and he holds my eyes while it does. There’s a tiny tremor in his left eyelid that betrays tension, or caffeine, or both. He wants me to see indifference. He is daring me to flinch.

I don’t. “You can mouth off all you want,” I say, even. “But if you parrot his lines, I’m going to assume you mean them.”

He smiles, not kind. “Parrot this, then: you look like a costume for a personality. The harness, the metal, the curated outrage. It reads try-hard.” His gaze flicks to my boots, my chain, back up. “Next time you want to make a point, do it without using me as a prop. We don’t know each other. And I don’t need you.”

The cigarette burns down to the filter. He drops it, crushes it under his boot with a twist that is too deliberate to be careless. He tucks the notebook under his arm, every move economical, careful, like motion is a language he doesn’t share freely.

“Message received,” I say. My throat tastes like clove and bite. I consider offering my name like a peace; I decide he would spit on it. “Enjoy the circus.”

He gives me a long, up-and-down look, as if to freeze me in memory for later disdain. His mouth slices into something that might be disgust, might be defense. “Try not to trip on your own ego on the way back in,” he says, deadpan, and turns toward the door.

He reaches for the handle, pauses with his palm pressed to the glass like he needs its cold. Without looking back, he adds, almost as an afterthought, “And next time someone comes for my family, don’t expect me to play audience.”

The door opens. The sound spills. He slips into it, swallowing himself back into white light and fake laughs, a black line erased in an instant.

I stay with the night, the imprint of him vibrating on the air. The smoke stings my eyes. I blink and it clears, leaving the taste of refusal and clove. I let the city drill into me, then push the door open to follow the sound of money and performative smiles, his words tucked under my tongue like a cut I can’t stop worrying.

I make one slow lap through the gallery, perform the requisite nods, feel my patience thin into a wire. I’ve done my work here; the donors are warmed, the curator knows my name, the pearl women whisper and pretend not to. I aim for the door, already anticipating the relief of air without perfume.

Bryce peels off a conversation like a salesman spotting a mark. He steps into my path, shoulder squaring into mine with that frat-boy choreography meant to claim space. He is all teeth and aftershave and entitlement heat.

“You,” he says, low enough to pretend civility. “We’re not done.”

Behind him, Athan is a long shadow, black on black, arms crossed, eyes flat. He’s close enough to feel, not close enough to touch. His jaw is set; his mouth is a line. He’s there and not there, a sentinel that refuses to be named.

I let my gaze travel from Bryce’s too-bright eyes to the vein that twitches in his temple. “Actually,” I say, soft, “I am.”

Bryce’s laugh is clipped. “You think you can talk to me like that in front of my contacts? In front of my brother?” He jerks his head in Athan’s direction without looking. “You embarrassed us.”

I tip my head. “No. I embarrassed you. He was a bystander.”

Athan’s lashes flicker once, the only movement. He doesn’t step in. He doesn’t step back. He is a black hole that light skates around.

Bryce leans in, breath heavy with scotch. “People like you,” he says, pressing his smile into an insult, “don’t get invited to rooms like this to run your mouth. You’re here to dress the pictures. You want to be the main event? Get your own gallery.”

“I did,” I say. “It had better art.”

His mouth tightens. He glances around, checks who’s watching, recalibrates to a version of polite that’s all poison and gloss. “Here’s what’s going to happen.” He lifts his hand, counts on fingers like he’s instructing an intern. “You’re going to apologize for earlier. To me and to my brother. You’re going to keep whatever activist performance you think you’re staging to spaces where it plays. And you’re going to remember whose city this actually is.”

“My calendar must have eaten the meeting invitation,” I say, light. “I don’t do briefs from men whose favorite word is ‘optics.’”

“My favorite word is consequence,” he says, with a smile that flashes decorous. “You work here. You sell here. The people who cut checks—talk to me.” He finally angles his head, acknowledges Athan with a flick of his chin like checking that his prop is still in place. “Don’t you, little brother?”

Athan’s jaw works once. He keeps his eyes on the floor between us, hands dug into his elbows like if he lets them go they’ll do something unforgivable. “You done?” he asks Bryce, voice quiet, sanded to dullness. It’s the only line he offers, and it’s placed like a barrier no one plans to honor.

Bryce pretends not to hear him. He keeps his smile pinned to me. “You think a chain and a sharp tongue make you untouchable,” he murmurs. “But I’ve watched people like you burn out. Fast. Loud. Forgettable.”

I let the silence sit. I meet his eyes until he has to look away and then back. “You really want me to apologize?” I angle my shoulder just enough that the onlookers’ line of sight shifts, seeing him crowding me and his silent shadow behind. “For telling you to keep your racism quieter? Your mistake wasn’t the volume. It was thinking the room agreed.”

His facade cracks a millimeter. He inhales like he’s about to spit. Athan shifts, a flinch he kills midway. The sight of him flinching for someone else’s temper strikes something cold in me.

Bryce takes a step closer, trying to force me to give ground. I don’t. We’re close enough now that Athan could touch both of us if he wanted, and he doesn’t move. He is purgatory with eyeliner.

“Be smart,” Bryce says. “Walk this back. Say you misread a joke. It’s nothing.” He bares his teeth. “Or make it something. And see how fast doors shut.”

I smile without warmth. “I build doors,” I say. “And I like them with locks I choose.”

Athan inhales, small, a noise that sounds like a swallowed word. Bryce doesn’t turn to him. He doesn’t need to. He counts on the dynamic doing his work: Athan’s silence as validation, his presence as proof of the hierarchy. It’s so practiced it makes my teeth ache.

“I get it,” I say to Bryce, sliding the blade in without lifting my tone. “You need to win. Here’s your win: you get to keep your contacts. You get to walk out with your brother behind you like furniture.” I let my eyes flick over Athan, slow. His cheek hollows as he grinds his teeth. “I won’t ruin your night. I’m going home.”

Bryce reels like he expected another round. He schools it quick. “That’s wise,” he says.

“It’s bored,” I correct. I step to the side, forcing him either to block me again or let me pass. He freezes for a fraction, realizing that repeating the move will make him look like a child. He angles his body to allow a narrow gap. His hand twitches like he wants to touch my arm and thinks better.

As I slip through, I stop just long enough to tilt my head toward Athan without looking away from Bryce. “Take care,” I say softly, to the shadow. It lands between us, ambiguous. Bryce’s lips flatten.

Athan’s lashes flick down and up. Something like a tremor passes his mouth. He says nothing. He stands taller by a hair, as if bracing.

“Don’t talk to him,” Bryce snaps, finally turning on his axis to face the one who’s been behind him all night. It’s a reflex, ugly and automatic.

I look at Athan then, full. His eyes meet mine for a heartbeat. They are large, dark, ringed in black, and full of a hundred unsent messages. There’s anger in them, yes, but also a cornered animal caution, and something else, a flare of want or curiosity he looks like he wants to amputate.

I give him the smallest nod, my chain catching the light. His throat works. He stares at the floor again, like he can erase the moment by looking away.

I turn toward the door. The gallerist calls my name; I wave without stopping. Heads swivel. I feel Bryce’s stare running knives into my back. I feel Athan’s presence trailing behind my ribcage like a ghost finger. It irritates me, the way he will not move, the way he still chose that side in front of everyone. It intrigues me more. His hostility is stagecraft; I’ve seen enough performers to know when a script is being recited.

At the threshold, the city breathes at me again. I inhale clean air that smells like taxis and wet concrete. Behind me, Bryce’s voice rises, then is tamped down; someone shushes, someone laughs. I don’t look back. I don’t need the image to know what it is: a brother smiling too hard at donors, a shadow keeping pace precisely half a step behind.

On the sidewalk, I let my jaw unclench. My phone buzzes with three messages from a model about fittings. I pocket it. I picture the tendon in Athan’s neck, the way his fingers dug into his elbows when Bryce spoke for him. I picture that tremor in his mouth when I said take care. The irritation hums under my skin like a low-grade fever. The intrigue settles deeper, like a hook I’m pretending not to feel.

A car splashes through a gutter. A couple stumbles by, laughing too loud. I start walking, chain heavy and sure on my chest, the taste of clove still caught between my teeth, his silence tucked into my mouth like a secret I didn’t consent to keep—and already know I will.