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“Hi.” He rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “I’m sorry. I know you probably don’t like to be disturbed when you’re working.”
“It’s fine,” I whisper, so happy to see him again that I forget all about how embarrassed I should be.
I’ve missed seeing him in the T-shirt and basketball shorts he always changes into at the end of the day. I’ve missed sitting on the floor with him on either side of the coffee table, putting together Legos while he tests out his ridiculous, punny math jokes on me before he shares them with his students. And I’ve missed listening to the scanner with him, finding out what Harold and Sal are arguing about. I’ve missed everything about him, and it feels like I haven’t seen him in a month instead of just four days.
Clearing my throat, I will my heart to stop racing, but it doesn’t happen.
“Why aren’t you at practice?”
“I cancelled it.” Ryan shrugs. “My head just wasn’t in it, and I don’t like to have practice when I can’t give my everything to those kids.”
Guilt is like a vise around my chest, and I curse myself for making him lose focus because I’ve been acting like a baby.
“Do you want to come in?” I ask, holding the door open wider and taking a step back, feeling a little ridiculous that I’m inviting him into his own garage.
His eyes light up, and his smile gets even wider, like he can’t believe I’m asking him. I immediately feel bad that I haven’t brought him in here yet and shown him my work. I meant to do it before now, but something kept stopping me. I was nervous as hell to show Ryan my art. It freaked me out more than showing my parents or starting a website and showing the world. This isRyan.I like him.A lot.And I want him to like what I do, a lot. And I was nervous that he wouldn’t, and scared that he’d think I don’t have any talent and that it’s silly and a waste of time, just like my family thinks. And I know it would hurt more ifhefelt that way, than them.
“Are you sure?” Ryan asks, not moving from the doorway.
No.
“Yes.” I smile at him with a nod instead of saying what’s in my head.
Pushing his glasses up his nose with one of his fingers, he tentatively steps into the garage and slowly walks by me. He must have showered when he got home, and I close my eyes for a few seconds, breathing in the smell of his body wash as he goes.
“The stuff I’ve finished is over in the corner.” My voice comes out a little squeaky and nervous, and I quickly clear my throat. Reaching into the pocket of my overalls, I grab one of the pieces of Bit-O-Honey, take it out of the wrapper, and pop it into my mouth as Ryan looks back over his shoulder at me, pausing in the middle of the garage.
“You want a piece?” I ask, holding up the empty wrapper.
“More than anything…,” Ryan trails off and then quickly shakes his head. “I mean, no. No, I’m good, thank you.”
I shove the wrapper in my pocket, fiddle with the knot of the bandana on top of my head, brush some of the pieces of hair that have fallen down from my bun out of my eyes, put my hands in the pockets of my overalls, take them out again, rub my sweaty hands together, and then shove them back into my pockets.
“If you don’t want me to, I can—”
“No!” I quickly cut him off, taking a few steps closer to him. “I want you to. It’s just…” I pause, jerking my hands out of my pockets to crack my knuckles while the thoughts in my head are going a mile a minute.
You make me nervous, I feel like I’m going to throw up, it’s way too hot in here, and I want to put my hands over my eyes right now like you did when I took my shirt off in front of you.
“It’s fine. Please, go head,” I tell him instead, and he turns back around and continues walking over to the table, while I finish chewing the candy in my mouth.
It feels like time stands still when he gets to the table and looks down at the top canvas on the stack. It makes me laugh every time I look at it, even though it turned out pretty awesome. It’s a realism painting of a hand done in black and gray, with the fingers curled down into the fist and the middle finger standing straight up. I added color by painting graffiti all over the hand and some random, offensive stickers that the client requested. With some of the best shading and shadow outlines I’ve done in a while, it looks like the graffiti is actually sprayed onto someone’s real hand, with real stickers stuck to it as well. It’s a great middle finger painting.
“I was thinking of making a duplicate and sending it to Tristan for his birthday.”
Ryan chuckles softly when I finally fill the silence, but he doesn’t look back at me.
I stand here watching him stare down at it silently, while my heart thunders in my chest and butterflies flap in my stomach. After a minute, he slowly and carefully pulls that top painting to the side and sets it down on the table, then studies the one that was beneath it. It’s a giant pair of colorful lips, with bright-white teeth biting down on the bottom one, drips of color falling from the mouth, all the way down to the bottom of the canvas. It took me an entire day to get the shading and colors just right so the lips looked freshly glossed and like a real mouth bleeding color. He takes his time, looking at the entire stack, until he’s got them spread out in a line on the long fold-out table against the wall, and I don’t think I’ve taken a breath the entire time he’s looked through them.
“Danica,” Ryan finally says in a low, hoarse voice, not making it any easier while trying to breathe, when I realize it’s the first time he’s said my name out loud since I’ve met him. And he doesn’t call me Danny in a friendly way like everyone else. My full name rasping out of him makes my skin heat and my body tingle.
I suddenly don’t care what he’s going to say next; I just want to hear him say my name again.
Ryan looks back over his shoulder at me, and there’s nothing but shock on his face while my heart continues to pound.
“You are amazingly talented. These areincredible,” he tells me quietly, almost reverently as he looks at me, down at the paintings on the table, and then back at me again. “It’s like looking at a piece of your soul on the canvas. Thank you for sharing them with me.”
It feels like my heart is going to explode right out of my chest that hegetsit. He sees the beauty in the pop art I like to paint and the colorful, unrestrained chaos I pull out of myself and add to each piece.
