Page 119 of None Of Your Business

He ignores me and starts reading.

“‘Distance Studies is not a polite exhibition,’” Hudson reads, leaning his elbows on the island. “‘It does not ask to be liked. It demands to be felt. Callahan has managed something rare for an artist of her generation: she has stripped away the comfort of faces and given us the architecture of human disconnect instead.’”

I stop pacing, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“‘Callahan has given us a collection that aches, but more importantly, one that refuses to let us look away.’”

Hudson looks up over the edge of the paper. “The critic gave it five stars. Called you one of the most vital new voices in contemporary art.”

“Five stars?”

“Five.”

I choke on a breathless laugh, burying my face in my hands. “I didn’t fail.”

“Not even close.”

I throw myself into his arms, and he catches me with a startled laugh, one arm going securely around my waist as the other braces my back before I can do anything structurally irresponsible.

“Easy.”

The adrenaline in my body slowly settles into a restless buzz I know too well.

“Ro, you’re going to shake out of your skin. I need you to relax.”

“I’ve been so locked into the work for the last few months that I don’t know how to come down from it gently. Usually, after something big, I just paint through it.”

He sets me back on my feet but keeps his hands on my waist. “You want to paint?”

I look around his kitchen. “You happen to have a blank canvas hidden behind the refrigerator?”

Without a word, he takes my hand.

He leads me upstairs and down the hallway, past the rooms he showed me earlier, all the way to the door at the far end.

The room is almost completely empty.

White walls. Bare hardwood. A huge window overlooking the leafy street below, morning light pouring through.

Against one wall sits a neat stack of unopened cans of interior paint, a package of brushes and two rollers that look like leftovers from a decorating project somebody organized and then never actually started.

“You want me to paint in here?”

“If you’d like.”

He leans one shoulder against the doorframe.

“It’s an empty room. Do whatever you want with it.”

I look back at the largest wall. “You understand what you’re saying to me?”

He nods toward the wall. “You’re a big deal now. If I ever sell this house, I expect you to add several zeros to the asking price.”

I nudge him with my elbow. “Anything I want?”

“Anything.”

I turn slowly in the middle of the room, already seeing shapes where there aren’t any yet.