What the hell was wrong with me?
“You bring it out in me.” I punched my code into the keypad, then shoved my shoulder against the door and dragged him inside. I peeked back outside to make sure no one was around before letting the door close gently. “To the right.” When he kept looking down the hall, I grabbed his arm. “This way.”
“Hey! Damaged man here, remember?”
I slapped my hand against his back to push him toward my studio. A tattoo peeked from behind his long hair. But it was the faint marks feathered across his shoulders and headed for his neck that caught my attention. What the hell had—oh. Nope, those weren’t from the fight. Figures. Those were nail marks. Lovely. “Just move along.”
“Hey.” He hunched his shoulders. “Try to be a good Samaritan and this is what I get?”
I nudged him aside to jam my key into the lock. I jiggled the knob and twisted left then right before the door popped open. I nodded to the door beyond my easel. “Shower’s through there.”
“Just like that? Not going to help me out?” When I gave him a bland stare, he sighed. “I think we’ll need to revisit that lesson in bedside manners.”
I fisted my hands until they shook. I swung my bag onto the counter of my galley-style kitchen, but I missed the edge and it flipped, spray cans scattering. “Dammit.” I crouched to pick them up, but my fingers were shaking so badly, I couldn’t keep them in my arms.
It was as if getting into my studio had broken a release valve. All the stuff I’d been shoring up with a mission in mind was threatening to gush everywhere. In a very ugly fashion.
“Hey.” His voice gentled as he crouched next to me. He groaned a little, but he took the cans from me.
“It’s fine. I got it.” My stupid eyes were burning and all the cans were getting glittery.
“I’m sure you’re very capable, lo—” He huffed out a breath. “Zoe.”
“Quit saying my name.” I realized how dumb that sounded, but it was all I could do to not sit in the middle of the floor and sob like a two-year-old.
“What would you like me to call you?”
His voice was far too gentle. I couldn’t handle this at all if he was going to be nice to me. I elbowed him away and grabbed the sticky cans. My studio was blissfully air conditioned, but everything in my bag was a mess from the unholy heat of the skate park. I just had to concentrate on putting the tops back on.
He stood up and seemed to know I needed to be left alone.
Again, astoundingly astute.
Most people would push the subject. Heck, my own cousin would pick at me until she got me to serve up whatever was going on in my head.
I stalked over to my mixed-media bins and dumped in the cans.
I was usually more careful with my materials, but right now, I didn’t want to look at them. Knowing I didn’t finish my little cartoon itched at the back of my brain. I was a binge painter. The kind of artist who didn’t sleep or eat for three days when I was mid-project.
And I kept finding small things to obsess over. Nothing as all-encompassing as what I needed for my final gallery pieces to finish out my residency. Or, more importantly, get a second term. Just the idea of that felt impossible when I couldn’t even decide on a topic for the first one.
Ian stroked long fingers over the distressed edges of one of my current paintings.
“Don’t.”
He curled his fingers into his palm and tucked it behind his back. With his other hand, he encircled his wrist to lock them away. As if he’d been told not to touch before with a far more restrictive edge.
There was something there on his arm. From today? It seemed older. And he kept brushing his thumb across it like a worry stone.
I shook my head. Nope. Do not get intrigued, Zoe.
Again, not my business, but he kept sliding out of the boxes I thought he belonged in. Annoying.
And hello, I wasn’t that girl. Art shouldn’t be held away behind velvet ropes. Not when I added sand and grit and even some tar to that painting for extra realism and texture. He peered up at the seven-foot canvas with a tilted head. Not the kind of confusion I got from some people, more like he was eager to figure it out.
I cleared my throat. “You can touch it. Just not the edges. It hasn’t been framed out yet. I had to wait for everything to dry.”
“It’s got so many layers. Feels lost.” Immediately, he reached for the darkness I’d tried to capture. Bits of trash and tar were embedded in the black gesso I’d used. A dank alleyway with bright sunlight and water at the far end. But the darkness was stifling, making the sun feel more like a distant painting instead of a destination.