Page 50 of Bloom in Darkness

I start with something deliberately terrible. I exaggerate Bryn’s shoulders until they nearly run off the page, shrink his head, and give him a mouth that looks permanently offended by the existence of furniture. Caelan starts smiling before I’m even finished.

Bryn tries to lean far enough to see the page, so I angle the sketchbook away. “You’re moving too much.”

He looks offended by the accusation. “I moved my head.”

“You moved it toward my paper.” I point the charcoal at the counter until he settles back against it. “Thirty seconds. Stay there.” He actually does.

When I turn the book around, Bryn studies the caricature with complete seriousness. “My head isn’t that small.”

“It looked right on paper.” I keep the sketchbook angled toward him while Caelan laughs softly from the sofa.

Bryn reaches for the sketchbook, but I pull it against my chest. “Mine.”

His hand stops immediately and falls back to his side. “Okay.”

I look at him for a second, then turn the page. This time I stop trying to make him ridiculous. The second drawing starts with the fall of his hair and the heavy slope of his shoulders. He looks softer when he's not preparing to fight someone, and as I work I notice the small things I usually miss: the faint line between his brows even when he's relaxed, the way his jaw isn’t locked tight, the fact that his hands hang open at his sides instead of curling into fists.

The room grows quiet around the scratch of charcoal. Bryn eventually moves from the kitchen to the arm of the sofa near me, and I adjust to the new angle without thinking, following the line of his jaw until he looks down at the page.

Bryn looks from the charcoal to me. “What do you keep seeing that has you so focused?”

“You look different when you’re sitting still,” I tell him.

“Different how?” Bryn asks, looking down at the page.

I smudge the shadow beneath his cheek with my thumb. “Less like you’re waiting for something to go wrong. Less like you’re expecting somebody to need you to hurt them.”

He stays quiet long enough that I finally look up, finding the faint line between his brows deeper than it was a second ago. “Nobody here does.”

I drop my eyes back to the page before my face gives me away, charcoal moving again before either of us has to say anything else. A few minutes later Caelan crosses behind me on his way to the kitchen, bends to kiss my temple, and slides one hand over my shoulder, and I catch the back of his shirt before I even think about what I'm doing.

Caelan stops without pulling away, so I tug him the last inch and kiss the side of his jaw. His hand stays on my shoulder for another second before he continues toward the kitchen.

I glance after Caelan, then down at my hand before turning back to the sketchbook. Bryn settles behind me on the sofa and presses a slow kiss beneath my ear. His beard scrapes lightly along my skin, his hand comes to rest at the base of my neck, and I lean back into him while I keep drawing.

I keep drawing while the afternoon passes around us. I sketch Caelan’s hand curled around a glass, the line of Bryn’s profile while he checks his phone, the rumpled throw blanket on the couch, and the paper wrapper from the sandwiches we order for lunch, while the two of them move around me as if my open sketchbook belongs in the room as much as anything else.

By late afternoon, orange sunlight is throwing long shadows across the floor. I'm starting another page when Caelan rises from the sofa and takes one stiff step before his stride evens out, and because I'm already looking at him I catch the way his hand drops briefly toward his left knee.

The second time it happens, he pauses near the kitchen and rubs the outside of the joint with the heel of his hand. I close the sketchbook, wait until he looks over, and tell him, "Give me your leg."

Caelan’s eyebrows rise, but he doesn’t laugh. “It’s stiff. That’s all.”

Bryn comes back from the hallway with damp hair and looks once at the way Caelan’s standing. “It’s been bothering him.”

Caelan turns his head toward him. “I was handling it.”

Bryn doesn’t move from the doorway. “You were ignoring it.”

Caelan exhales through his nose and lowers himself onto the sofa. Bryn opens the small drawer beside the couch and hands me a tube of topical cream without being asked. Caelan doesn’t tell him where to look.

I step between Caelan's knees and carefully lift his left leg until his heel rests against the edge of the coffee table. Caelan inhales sharply through his nose when I lift his leg. “How old is this injury?”

“A few years.” Caelan settles back against the cushion.

I look at him until he exhales. “That’s vague.”

“Knife,” Bryn supplies from across the room, making Caelan close his eyes for a second.