Storm's Thunder by Brandon Boyce

and waistcoats in the alluring colors of Earth and sky. Deep browns, lush greens, and the full spectrums of blue and gray. I know by the way he navigates the contents that what exists in that cabinet is a world entirely independent of his father’s.
    â€œSecret stash?”
    â€œSome projects I’m working on. Go ahead and shuck off that shirt, ’less you feel like trying out some coffins.” Pete turns back to the cabinet and I peel off the old shirt, standing there, bare-chested.
    â€œUnion suit didn’t make it,” though not sure why I feel the need to explain.
    Pete shrugs. “We may have one in the back. I can check, but honestly, you can get them cheaper at the Five and Dime.”
    â€œAin’t the first time I gone without.”
    â€œNo, I suspect not,” Pete nodding, turning his attention back to the cabinet. “You got a nice pair of boots there, once you get them shined up. I want to start from there and build up. So let’s try . . . this.” He rises, unfurling a pair of mahogany-colored trousers. Smoothing out the folds, he nods to the corner. “Screen’s behind you, you’re feeling modest. But no one can see in.” Being rid of the last of his father’s touches can’t come fast enough, and I let the scratchy wool leggings drop to the floor.
    Since boyhood, I have run beneath the sun and stars without stitch or hide hanging from my bones more times than I can count. But confined indoors, a true state of nature always strikes me strange, unless lying horizontal in the company of another. Yet here I am, naked as the day is long, in a foreign room, for the second time in as many hours. Such is the drunkening power of the city—with its money and sex and blood. Even sharp as I feel of eye and ear, two bare feet firm against a cold plank floor, my head swims like a butterfly in the wind.
    Pete offers me the trousers and I take them from his hand. Sliding in, one leg and then the other, the fabric passes easy against my skin. “Nice, isn’t it?” Pete allowing a grin. “Flannel-lined, but on the outside, best wool a man can buy.”
    Buttoning up, I turn to the mirror, taken at once by the color, the elongating cut of the trousers. Pete moves to catch me in the mirror, his brow furrowed in deep concentration, like a fiddle player working out a tune, circling the notes he hears in his head, and then, after much sawing about, landing in a place of unexpected possibilities.
    â€œI think we’re on to something,” Pete stepping in with a soft cotton shirt set in light tan.
    â€œThought shirts were supposed to be white.”
    â€œWho told you that?”
    â€œDon’t know exactly.”
    â€œMine’s not white,” pulling back his jacket. “It’s got a hint of blue, but I’ll bet you didn’t notice till I showed you.”
    â€œYou’re right. I didn’t.”
    â€œThat’s the idea. There’s white and then there’s, well, not as white.”
    â€œNavajo white.”
    â€œOh, golly. Don’t remind me,” Pete blushing for an instant. Then he blinks, fixing those blues straight at me. “This whole thing is about drawing the eye to what works, and steering it from what doesn’t. Take me, if my eyes were green, I might weave a little kelly in somewhere, maybe even slate gray. But they’re not, they’re blue, so . . .”
    â€œSo a bit of brown might do the same for me.”
    â€œPrecisely. That and letting your build shine through. You cut a good line, no sense in hiding it.” I slip into the shirt and do up the buttons, the only sound the cloth through my fingers. Pete takes off his jacket, drapes it over a stool. From the pocket of his waistcoat he finds a measuring tape and falls in behind me, all four eyes on the mirror ahead.
    â€œHow do you want this to fit?” Pete now the blue-ribbon champion of asking questions I never