The Girl in the Painting

“I’m not fucking around,” he retorts. “I’m literally standing here, in my office, looking at her through the glass.”

Now, he’s starting to piss me off. “I’m going to give you about ten more seconds, then I’m hanging up.”

“Honestly, Ans, I feel a little betrayed that you lied to me about your muse,” he says through a soft chuckle. “Here I thought she was just some fictitious angel inside your mind, but come to find out, she’s actually real.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to call him a half-dozen less-than-flattering names, but then I think about the strange text Lennon Quill sent me. It was clever to have her at the opening, but not admitting she’s the inspiration.

My heart makes itself known inside my chest, pounding against my ribs like it’s trying to make an escape from my body.

“The girl from my painting is at your gallery?” I ask, my voice a mere whisper.

“Yep,” Nigel answers like it’s not the most insane, unbelievable thing that’s ever left his lips. Because, in fact, it is.

The girl in my paintings, the angel inside my mind, she doesn’t exist.

At least, I didn’t think she did.

Does she?

“She said she wants to speak with you,” he adds.

Good God, what if she’s real?

“Tell her I’m on my way.” The words fall from my lips without a second thought. If she’s real, if Nigel isn’t fucking around with me, if Lennon Quill’s message actually held some truth to it, I need to see her with my own eyes.

“But…”

“Just tell her I’m leaving my studio now, and I’ll be there shortly, okay?”

“Okay.” Finally, all traces of amusement have left his tone. Probably because I foolishly haven’t done enough to hide how shaken I am.

I don’t waste any time after that, hanging up the phone, grabbing the essentials, and rushing out the door.

“If you’re leaving, I’m leaving!” Luce yells as I push it open. I’m too fucking consumed by what Nigel’s just told me to give a shit.

“Do whatever you want!” I yell back without a second thought.

Two stairs at a time, my feet move like they have a mind of their own, but I don’t protest.

They’re headed to the right place. To Aquavella.

Thirty minutes later, and my hands are close to shaking by the time I reach the front doors of the gallery.

Get it together, you fool, I tell myself.

Rationally, I know the odds of this woman being the woman from my paintings, the constant presence inside my mind, are impossible. I know this, yet my gut churns with this irrational elation. This undeniable surge of relief and excitement and palpable joy.

Usually, I’m the least excitable man I know. But today, right fucking now, I’m damn near high off the possibility of finding her. Of meeting her. Of seeing her in the flesh.

My mind has traced the lines of her face, her lips, her eyes, her hair, her soft skin a million times. I’ve seen her smile and her sadness and her melancholy. I’ve seen what her eyes look like when passion flashes within them.

I’ve never met her, but I already feel like I know her.

It’s insane, I know, but somehow, she’s become a part of me.

I inhale a deep, steadying breath and grab the large, distressed-wood handle of the gallery door. The wind whips through my leather jacket as I step inside, and when the door closes behind me with a quiet click, two sets of eyes turn to look at me.

One set of eyes are of a man who’s been a friend for most of my life.

The other are the sparkling blue of a woman I didn’t know could really exist. Even the gold flakes laced artfully within the blue are familiar, and it makes my heart ache and race at the same time.

Every nerve inside my body wakes up until I’m a walking live wire.

I rake my eyes down her cheeks and her lips and her hair and the slender lines of her neck. I think I’ve lost my mind because it’s her.

The girl in my paintings.

Her wide-open gaze turns guarded when her eyes lock with mine, and the urge to stride toward her and wrap her up in my arms overwhelms me.

I want to protect her from whatever it is that’s making her uncomfortable.

But I quell the nearly overpowering impulse because, in all likelihood, I am the thing that’s making her feel that way.

“Here he is,” Nye says as he stands up from one of the lobby chairs. “You made good time, buddy.”

“Hello,” I say to her. Nye has ceased to exist to me. There is only her and me, and…and I probably need to tone down the intensity a little, for fuck’s sake.

She looks like I’m scaring her.

Forcing the stiffness out of my jaw and the crazy out of my eyes, I put my hands in my pockets to seem less threatening and try again. “Hello.”