Chapter 3 Dani
three
Dani
Ididn’t expect him to come.
But he shows, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and signing in on the clipboard before tapping his payment for tonight’s paint-and-sip session. His smile is soft and his gaze warm when he walks over to me.
“We’ve got a full house tonight, now that you’re here,” I say, keeping my voice bright but neutral. There’s no need to let him know I might’ve had a bit of a meltdown in the kitchen after I served him his replacement coffee and sent him on his way.
Who needs to know that my college crush turned into a full-blown fangirl obsession once his first book got published and he skyrocketed to the top of the charts?
No one, that’s who. That’s information I should keep to my damn self. Especially now that I’m twenty-eight and he’s over thirty. It’s blatantly an obsession, which isn’t healthy, I know.
But here I am, grinning like a fool when his arm brushes against mine.
“Heard this was the place to be on a Thursday night.”
“Oh, yeah. We’re hoppin’ tonight.”
Then I want to die. Who says stuff like that?
He laughs a little, and his blue eyes crinkle up in the corners in the most appealing way. I find myself smiling back and leading him by the elbow to an empty seat. Even touching him casually strikes some chord inside me because pleasure radiates from my fingertips. I excuse it as nerves.
I’ve never had an artist I adore sit in my class. Let alone a famous one.
And for the next two hours, we paint. I lead everyone through how to mix and layer, building up from the background to the foreground.
I talk about light and shadow, dimension and depth.
The mood is relaxed, the chatter is low-key, and everyone settles to the sound of lo-fi beats streaming through the coffeeshop’s speakers.
Every now and again, I feel his gaze on me. It prickles the hair on the back of my neck and makes me reach for another drink of the fruity white wine I poured for myself tonight.
I don’t know what everyone else in the room is drinking, but I notice Colby isn’t.
Seems there’s a lot about him that’s changed over the years. He was a pretty big party boy during our college days. Never settled down with anyone for very long, and though I know he got married in California, I never stopped holding on to his words.
I saved every short story in the school newspaper, every scrap of poetry he got printed. And later, after he got famous, I collected his books.
My awareness of Colby Cutter has always skewed toward hyper-fixation.
Now that he’s here, I have to keep reminding myself that I don’t really know the man outside of his writing. I have to remind myself the draw I feel toward him is just a silly schoolgirl crush, not anything… real.
Giving myself a mental shake, I busy myself by going around the room and complimenting everyone’s progress. But when I get to him, I’m surprised to see how little he’s managed to put on the canvas.
“How’s it going here?” I ask, watching as he stares at a paper plate palette. There are a variety of colors, but it’s almost like he’s afraid to commit any of them to the canvas.
“You know, I’m… This isn’t my strong suit. Picking out colors, working out what looks attractive to the eye.” Then, he laughs. “It was… It was something I relied on my wife for.”
I roll my lips between my teeth, and my heart aches for him a little.
Everyone knows about Margot Cutter’s unfortunate end, but it doesn’t feel like my place to comment, so I give him an encouraging smile and gesture to the canvas.
“I understand. For now, why don’t we choose just one color to put on? See how it feels, what you think of it when you’ve got it down. While you’re at it, can I get you something else? Can’t help but notice you haven’t touched your wine.”
His eyes flick up to mine, and there’s a shimmer of pain there on the edges. “I, uh, don’t drink anymore.”
I nod once. “That’s fine. We’ve got soda, water, tea? I could probably whip up some hot chocolate if you want?”
“Tea’s fine, thanks. It’s what I normally drink when I set out to do something creative.”
So, I keep him supplied with hot herbal teas and watch from afar as he starts applying paint with a tentative hand.
His motions are stiff, like he’s not sure the image is coming out in a way he likes.
But he keeps building layer upon layer, concentrating so hard his brow furrows and his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth.
I don’t have the heart to tell him the class is over. So, I wait, working quietly on my own painting for the art walk while he puts the finishing touches on his painting.
The lo-fi playlist has finished, but still, we work on creating our own masterpieces in companionable silence. I’m not sure how much time goes by, but when he finally lifts his head and sees it’s just us in the coffeeshop, he startles.
“Oh. I’ve taken too long.” He blinks those big blue eyes slowly, a rueful smile pulling at his mouth.
“No, not at all.” I smile gently. “You were in the zone. I know what that’s like. Happens to me, too. And anyway, it let me work on my own piece.”
He stands, stretching his arms overhead and rolling his stiff shoulders. A wave of heat rises in me, and I turn back to my own canvas. But not before I register the way his sweater rides up his torso and the lines of defined muscle arrow down from his abs.
No artist I know has a body like that.
I reach for some water to quench the sudden thirst.
“Are you happy with what you’ve created?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I expected to get caught up in it like that. But once I got going, I started to feel more comfortable experimenting. It’s still not… that.” He nods at my work-in-progress, a reimagining of nearby forested areas as growth emerging from the swell of a woman’s pregnant belly.
She lies languidly on her back, the shape of her body making hills and valleys, lakes and rivers.
“That’s a masterpiece. There’s so much strength in her.”
I swivel my head to stare hard at him and fight the lump in my throat.
“Thank you. I don’t normally let anyone see my work before it’s finished, but I don’t hide it either. Kinda hard to when I’m creating in an open space with windows.”
I nod at the dark Main Street road outside to make my point.
His lips tip up. “My first drafts are always for my eyes only. No one saw them.”
“Not even Margot?”
I don’t know why I ask, but the moment her name tumbles from my lips, I can see its impact on him.
His eyebrows lift, and the cerulean blue of his eyes lands square on me.
“No, not even Margot.” He rocks back on his heels and stuffs his hands in his pockets.
I expect that will be the end of the conversation, and I should try to steer us back to safer waters, but his mouth drops open.
“She didn’t even want to read them until it was done, actually. Said they made her too emotional.”
Good job, Fan. Try not to depress the man.
“I can understand that,” I say, smearing another stripe of cerulean blue on the canvas and belatedly realizing they’re the color of Colby’s eyes. “I once sobbed through a painting while listening to Beyond the Blue.”
Then my hand flies to my mouth; the brush taps against my cheek.
“I mean, sorry. I—”
“You don’t have to be sorry for reading my books,” Colby says, a gentle smile on his face. “I’m glad it moved you. That’s what art is for, isn’t it? To move people. To make them feel.”
My hand lowers, and I meet his gaze. Nerves jump under my skin, and somehow, the air around us feels thick with tension.
“Yeah. Exactly. I just… feel all over my paintings. Emotion everywhere.”
He chuckles and waves a fan over his face. “You’ve got some paint on your face.”
“Do I?”
“Wait a sec.” He turns and snatches up the clean, wet rag I’d cast aside earlier. Tipping my face up to the light, he swipes at my cheek. Softly, gently, and so tenderly that all I do is stare at him while my insides tremble and the air between us thickens. “There you go. All clean.”
His gaze tracks up my face, and our gazes lock. For one insanely charged second, I wonder if he’ll kiss me.
But he draws back to clean up his station, and we pretend that whatever that was?
It wasn’t yearning.