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“You brought one painting back. Why’s that?”
It was the painting I’d never meant to take to begin with. My mother saw it, and now she knew I was intensely intimate with a man who didn’t have a face. She’d asked me about it, and I did my best to dance around it. I didn’t want to get her hopes up, that I’d found a man I wanted to introduce to the family. Bones was the last man I wanted anywhere near them. “I took it with me by mistake.”
“You don’t want to sell it?”
“No.”
His eyes homed in on my face, as if he was searching for something.
It would only take a few seconds for him to find it.
“The painting you wouldn’t let me see?”
I couldn’t get the words to come out of my throat, so I just nodded.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Can I see it now?” he asked.
My heart started to slam in my chest, and I hoped he couldn’t hear my heartbeat the way I could. “Why?”
“Why not? I’m your biggest fan, baby.”
“It’s just a painting…”
“If that’s the case, why won’t you let me see it?”
I held my mug with both hands, needing something to do with my fingertips. “It’s personal…”
“My name is personal, but I shared that with you.”
I dropped my gaze into my coffee, seeing the black color along with the bit of froth on top. His argument was sound, and there was nothing I could say to counter it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered him to share his name with me. But I wanted to know that name so badly…to say it in his ear when he pounded into me. “I’ll think about it…”
“No.” His quiet voice came out authoritative. “You will show it to me.”
“What happened to my rights?”
“You have your rights. But you owe me. I gave you something, and now you’ll give me something in return. I want to see that painting.”
“It’s just a painting…”
“Then it shouldn’t be difficult for you to show me.”
Fuck. I looked down into my coffee again. “Later…I don’t want to do it right now.”
Bones didn’t press the argument since he finally got what he wanted. “Fine.”
I set my coffee down because my hand couldn’t stop shaking. I listened to it clank against the counter before I crossed my arms over my chest.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” he whispered. “I promise you I’ll love it.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about…” I didn’t want him to jump to the same conclusion my mother did. I didn’t want him to see me bare my soul on that canvas. I didn’t want him to see the way I viewed him, the way I stared when he wasn’t looking. I didn’t want him to realize how well I memorized the small details of his body, from the length of his shoulders in comparison to his waist, and the lines of ink that covered his forearms and the back of his neck. I didn’t want him to see how well I captured his soul from just my memory, the way I remembered the night we met so vividly. Even if he was dense enough not to understand what my painting showed, he wouldn’t be too dense to understand that I thought he was important enough to paint…that he meant something to me.
That was the last thing I wanted him to realize.
I never asked Bones to leave, so of course, he stayed. He went to the store and picked up groceries before he returned and started to make dinner in the kitchen. I’d never asked him to do something so domesticated. He just left, didn’t tell me where he was going, and when he came back, dinner was cooking on the stove.
He showered, but he remained in his boxers all day, choosing to dress minimally despite the cold temperature of my apartment. The frost never bothered him, regardless of how cold it was. His internal mechanism kept him warm no matter what the conditions were.
I sat at the window and painted on my canvas, taking advantage of the last bits of sunlight before it disappeared altogether. I wore his t-shirt along with a sweater and my jeans, trying to stay warm even though the heater was working at full capacity.
I listened to the sound of the sizzling pan and smelled the meat as it cooked on the stove. Bones hadn’t said a word to me in several hours.
We coexisted—peacefully.
He walked into the living room and suddenly pulled out some firewood from the grocery bags. He set everything in the fireplace, lit it with a match, and then turned it into a billowing fire within minutes. He fanned it for a bit before the flames were steady. Then he dusted his hands and walked back into the kitchen.
I was so glad he couldn’t see my face. My hand shook as I held the paintbrush, the terror gripping my heart. Only people innately comfortable with each other could enjoy the silence and not feel pressured to fill it with meaningless words. Our interaction reminded me of my parents, who didn’t say a lot to each other when they were together throughout the day. I’d seen them eat dinner together on the terrace, not exchanging a single word. It wasn’t because they didn’t enjoy each other’s company—it was because they enjoyed it so much.
