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“Emerson,” she breathes.
In its former life, this was a living room of sorts. An oversized den with a wall of windows.
Now it’s an art studio. New hardwood floors. White walls. Windows upon windows. And shelves full of anything she could dream of. Canvases. Paints. Brushes.
A few more steps into the room.
A single canvas waits on an easel near the windows. A small table rests nearby for paints and brushes. A stool, too.
“This is huge.” Daphne’s astonished. “This is so lovely.” She cannot help herself. She goes into this space I made for her and paces around it. Circles the canvas. She goes to the shelves on the other side of the wall and skims her fingers over the paints, the brushes.
“There are more supplies in the drawers,” I tell her.
Daphne bends and opens one, then another, her face lighting up again and again. They are all arranged in neat rows. They are all pristine, untouched. Waiting for her. The studio can never surpass her loveliness. This moment is so poignant that I push the throb in my heart away gently.
My little painter gets to the last shelf and straightens up. “It’s like…”
She doesn’t finish the sentence. It fades from her lips at the same time her smile does. Daphne’s eyes go back to the easel. To the shelves on the opposite wall.
“It’s bright in here,” she mentions, a quaver in her voice.
I’m close enough to reach the panel of switches on the wall. Most of the lights fall, but one remains. It shines down directly on the easel.
This doesn’t make things better for Daphne. Her eyes get wider, and she backs up a step. It looks involuntary. She hooks a hand into her collar.
It’s right there, on her face. In those luminous dark eyes.
Worry. Verging on fear.
“We’re not together,” she says. “But you made this for me?”
“Yes.”
“It’s like a pedestal. Where you’d put a sculpture in a house. Where you—where you could look at me.”
Enough waiting. I cross the room to her and take her face in my hands, tilting it up so she meets my eyes. “When I look at you, what does it feel like?”
Daphne’s lips press together, then part again. Jesus Christ. “It’s intense. And I like it.”
“It makes you wet. Are you wet right now?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Are you afraid?”
“Why am I here, Emerson?”
I run a soothing hand over her hair and her shoulders relax. “You wanted to see me. You asked me to come get you, and I did.”
“No.” She straightens her spine. “Why am I here, in this room?”
“You already know that, little painter.”
Daphne looks into my eyes. I see the desperate search there. I want her to turn her face away, to stop looking, but I know this is a necessary step. She will need to see that I want her. She will need to remember, all on her own, the conversation we’ve already had.
“You want to watch me paint the ocean,” she murmurs. “You brought me here to paint?”
“While I watch.”
