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I forgot about the paint.I stared down at it and my stomach flipped. I threw my head back and groaned. I pressed my hands to my eyelids, breathing deeply before glancing back down at my feet. Why am I so scared of paint?Fucking paint.
“It’s paint.”
“Oh, okay. Do you want to go clean them off? Before it stains?”
“It looks like blood,” was all I could respond with. I closed my eyes. “It’s fine. I’ll throw them out when I get home.”
“Throw them out? Why don’t you just–” He stopped, then he sighed. “You’re still afraid of blood.”
I cleared my throat, still staring down at my feet. “I guess.”
“Come with me.” He spun on his heel and began walking the opposite direction, not checking if I was following. My feet stayed firmly planted as I stared after him. “Come on, Pep,” he repeated. I looked down at my feet, and then back to him, and down at my feet once again. With an exasperated sigh, I followed him. We returned back to the art room and he began to open cabinets and drawers searching for something. After a few moments, he managed to pry open a locked closet and hummed, indicating he’d located whatever it was he’d been looking for.
He backed out of the closet with a jug of bleach in his hand and walked over to the back of the studio where a deep sink stood. He motioned for me to join him and patted the counter next to the sink. “Hop up,” he ordered. I obliged, taking off my shoes and handing them to him, trying not to look at them too closely. He set my shoes in the sink and flipped on the water, scrubbing away the paint with bleach and an old rag.
“Thank you,” I said timidly after a moment of silence.
He laughed. “Anytime, Pep. You know that.”
“I think it’s really cool you’re a photographer,” I said, attempting to sound genuine. It wasn’t that I didn’t really feel that way. I did think it was cool, and I thought it fit him perfectly. I forced the sincerity in my voice because I was disgustingly jealous. Jealous he had found histhing. Jealous that he was good at it. Jealous that he found success in it. Jealous that he seemedhappy.He never even tried. He was so… carefree. All the time. About everything. I used to get frustrated by it. The way he would shrug off failed tests in school. How he never stressed about his future. Or how he never cared what people thought about him. I swore to myself that someday it would all blow up in his face. Meanwhile, I cared too much about everything. My grades, college, the future. All things that had come crashing down on top of me, no matter how hard I tried to control them.
After a few more silent minutes, he shut the faucet off and patted off the last of the moisture on my shoe before moving to stand in front of me. I took notice of how tall he’s gotten. His shoulders are so much broader too. His button up was rolled up to his elbows, and it looked as if his arms could shred the fabric if he only flexed hard enough, and the way his torso tapered down to his hips…my breathing became a bit labored as I leaned back, away from my own thoughts.
If I leaned forward right now, my head would fall right against his chest, and if I tilted it up, my lips could graze his neck. A chill shot through me at the thought of my lips anywhere on his body. He looked down at me, as if he had felt my response, and a small smile formed on his mouth. His familiar scent washed over me. He smelled like rain and saltwater breeze. I’ve never been much of a fan of rain, but I do enjoy the way it smells on wet pavement, or within the leaves of the evergreen trees.
He spread my legs slightly with his knee, and my entire body tensed. He slowly bent down and squatted to the floor before grabbing my shoes and placing them back onto my feet. When he stood back up, his hands stayed wrapped around my ankles, slowly sliding up my legs as he stood. His hands never made it above the knee before they left my body and landed back onto my hips. He lifted me slightly before my feet hit the ground and I was standing again. I leaned back against the counter as our chests pressed together– reminiscent of a moment in another dark room. In another life. His hands lingered on my hips briefly before he let go and stepped back.
We both found ourselves breathless. Stunned at the intensity of the moment.
No, no, no, no, no.
Emotional vomit built in the back of my throat. It had been about twelve seconds since he’d been back in my life and I was already feeling…things.Things I had absolutely prohibited myself from ever feeling again. From ever thinking about again.
I allowed my eyes to roam across him. To take in every dimple, every freckle, every inch of his golden skin. I allowed myself to momentarily get lost inside his brindled eyes. I watched him lick his lips, the slow roll of his throat as he swallowed. For one brief moment, I’d give myself the allowance to drink him in. To imagine his mouth, his hands, and his body.
I, forcibly and painfully, pulled myself from that moment after it turned from just one into several. As I pulled back, I examined his face and realized that he might have been looking at me exactly the way I was looking at him. I fought the urge to ask him if he’d tell me every single thought running through his mind.
He cleared his throat. “They’re not brand new but should be wearable.” I glanced down at my feet and could now only see a faint outline of faded pink across the top of the sneaker. “It doesn’t look like blood anymore.”
“Thank you,” I said again as we made our way back down the hall to my classroom. I knew he was supposed to be staying with me for the rest of the day, but something felt strange. Like this was the last moment I’d be able to say anything for a while. The last time I could. Once we stepped through the threshold of that door, whatever feelings I’d felt in the art room would be shoved deep, deep down—locked away—as they’d been for the previous five years. As they’d need to be forever.
I shut the metaphorical door on Carter the moment I stepped on that plane to England all those years ago. I padlocked it. Built a cement wall around it. Painted it red and let it fade into the dullness of my heart. I’d come to terms with the fact that he, among other things from my past, were meant to be suppressed until they were forgotten, no matter how long that’d take.
My trembling hand reached for the door handle.
“Penelope?” he breathed from behind me. He wasn’t inappropriately close, but I could feel his breath blow across the nape of my neck, sending a shiver up my spine.
“Yeah?” I whispered.
“It’s really good to see you again.”
Chapter Two
Carter
ICAN’TBELIEVESHE’SSTANDING THERE.
Right there.
