Chapter 21
SARAH
Casual | Chappell Roan
Chinese had been a bad choice for lunch.
Not because it threatened to clash with the—surely heavenly, if the smell was to be believed—Thai green curry being reheated on the stove. But because the chicken chow mein she’d eaten hours before was now a glutinous, oily lump in her stomach. Because said curry had arrived at their flat courtesy of Alex. Alex, who had brought his dog with him, leading to raised eyebrows from Erik when she shuffled over to Sarah and plopped down next to her easel. Alex, who, while Sarah used a commission deadline to get out of helping, was currently sitting on her lumpy old sofa, methodically folding the pages of a book to make one of the twenty centrepieces her best friend required for her wedding. Said best friend sat on the floor, barely separating them in a room that was too small for Sarah to pretend she wasn’t aware of Alex’s body, his presence, his scent —which had been clinging to her dress that morning, she’d discovered.
They hadn’t all been in a room together since the morning she’d gone for breakfast. When Alex had still been an annoyance she’d fucked once rather than…
Whatever he was now.
He’d hugged her when he arrived, turning to her almost absently after greeting Abby, as if it was something they just did. And Sarah had tried not to mould her body to his the way she had been doing for over a month.
Now she was sneaking glances at him while he bickered with Abby, Erik affectionately interjecting from his station near the stove, trying to see the little boy who’d felt left out beneath the man who seemed to fit in everywhere. It took a while, but by the time Sarah set her paintbrush down to join them for dinner, some of the cracks had become visible to her. He’d started the afternoon open, warm, his smiles and laughter genuine. The changes were subtle as the day wore on—Alex was nothing if not a convincing performer—but it picked at her heart each time she noticed him laughing a little too loudly at an inside joke that didn’t light up his eyes, as if he didn’t quite get it. Or when he let a thought trail off, words giving way to a tight smile, because Erik brought a fresh glass of wine to Abby, and for a moment they were distracted enough to forget he’d been speaking.
But a handful of times, she caught him ignoring them too. Looked up from the lizard that was ruining her life and found piercing blue eyes instead of the hard lines of his profile. Maybe he was checking Celine wasn’t bothering her, although she’d been to his place so many times by now that Sarah was pretty accustomed to the sweet pup being under her feet on arrival or blocking her path to leave. Alex said she could be boisterous, but she’d always been calm around Sarah. Enough that Sarah—a cat person through and through, if you’d asked her only a few weeks before—had investigated their building’s pet clause, in case adopting her own dog was a possibility after Abby and Erik moved out.
That, or he was trying to figure out how she went from this (paint-splattered skin, a ratty t-shirt, day-old curls matting in a nest on her head) to the woman he’d had panting in his arms the night before.
Or maybe the deranged artist thing was actually working for him, because when Erik went to do the washing up, dragging his fiancée with him for company, Alex abandoned his craft project and put those wonderfully dexterous fingers to use sliding under the hem of her shirt and tucking them into the waistband of her leggings.
‘You look cute like this,’ he murmured, a moment before she wrenched herself away from him.
‘They’ll see,’ Sarah hissed.
‘They won’t,’ Alex chided. ‘Unless they’ve suddenly developed X-ray vision.’
Which, considering their kitchen sink was sequestered around a corner, was a valid critique of her paranoia.
Alex pressed back in close, but kept his hands to himself, making her regret saying anything at all. ‘Still working on this one, huh?’
She squinted her eyes, glaring at the offending scales in front of her. ‘Yesterday, I thought I was done with this stupid portrait, but when my patrons ’—the word ground like glass between her teeth—‘showed it to Maurice ’—a careless swipe of her hand brought her brush perilously close to the canvas, the muddy brown scales saved from the pink paint she had loaded there only by Alex’s fingers closing around her wrist and jerking it away—‘he didn’t care for it. I was sent a list of tweaks this morning, at which point I Deliverood a monster slice of chocolate cake and marathoned the new season of Love Island.’ And filled another two pages in her sketchbook. Which he did not need to know about. And she certainly didn’t need to mull over how much calmer she’d felt after.
‘Maybe they should send Maurice to get his eyes tested.’ Alex’s voice scraped drier than the tiny area of moulting scales she had tactfully corrected in the portrait. ‘It’s lovely.’
‘I thought you didn’t care much for my subjects.’
His fingers tightened where they still rested on her arm, strong and comforting. ‘You captured enough emotion in his face to make me care about a fucking bearded dragon.’ She loved when his voice dropped, deep and honeyed and warm. ‘You’re so talented it’s obscene.’
She’d thought it was good, too. Sarah was proud of using her passion to pay the bills, but it was difficult to be enthused about a reptile. But the interplay of light on his scales and the colours woven into his shadows from the flowers crowding around him had been equal parts fun and challenging. So after delivering what she’d thought was the perfect product, the contradictory feedback of the flowers are a little overwhelming—could you dial them back a bit? and Maurice is particularly enthused by the coral colour! —it was peach— perhaps you could emphasize that a bit more? had been hard to take.
‘If only they’d thought so,’ Sarah sighed.
‘Give me names, Princess.’ Alex’s head dropped to her neck, teeth grazing at her nape, and suddenly she was significantly less concerned with being caught. ‘Anyone rich enough to commission a portrait of a bearded dragon is probably a client of the firm—I’ll make sure their financial advisor gives them terrible advice.’
God, she hated that he’d learnt how to make her laugh.
‘Are you working on anything else?’ Alex asked. ‘Anything for you?’
After months of artist’s block, something was finally working. While waiting for the precise layers of Maurice’s portrait to dry, she’d been rapidly painting her way through a personal piece that felt akin to smearing her bruised soul on canvas. It was healing and cathartic and—she thought—some of the best work she’d done in years. There was also that other idea. The one she kept trying to ignore, even as composition thumbnails forced themselves onto the pages of her sketchbook.
‘I’m busy with something. I think I love it.’
‘Will you show me?’ His chin was still on her shoulder, a delicious weight keeping her grounded.
‘When it’s done.’ The promise came without thinking, drawn out of her at every place they were connected.
Alex’s hand pressed into her back again. ‘How difficult would it be to convince them to go to bed early? I want to fuck you on your couch too.’
She couldn’t pretend she didn’t want it. Not when his nose was pressed to her pulse point, where he could feel her heart rate kick up at his words.
‘Erik won’t let her go to bed until those centrepieces are finished.’
Alex hummed his agreement into her hair. ‘We probably still have a few minutes though. I could just’—his hand dipped back into her leggings, grazing at the elastic of her underwear—‘make you come right here.’
But right as Alex’s finger brushed a spot that was already embarrassingly wet from his proximity, a snuffle sounded from their feet.
Sarah whispered his name, a sharp warning and an admonishment to herself for getting carried away. Forgetting their company.
‘Right,’ he murmured, whipping his hand back. ‘Let’s not scar the dog.’
He typically took care to lock them in his bedroom so Celine wouldn’t stumble in once clothes had been discarded. But having her in a new location had apparently thrown them both enough that they’d forgotten themselves.
‘See you in a bit.’ His whisper had barely brushed her skin before Alex was grabbing a lead and ushering Celine out of the flat. But not before Sarah took note of the slight bulge in his trousers.
An hour later, their floor was littered with centrepieces. Alex—newly returned from his walk with Celine, calmer than he had been when he’d left—Abby, and Erik working on the final three. Which meant it was finally safe to put her paintbrush down.
But before Sarah could excuse herself to shower, Abby said, ‘By the way, neither of you have actually RSVPed for the wedding. Which is fine, like, I assume you’re both attending, but I’m confirming catering tomorrow, so I need the meal choices for your plus ones. Names would be good at some point too.’
Huh.
Finding a date for the wedding had caused fleeting panic after they’d done invites—which she had ultimately delivered to herself after stuffing the envelope—but with Alex occupying most of her free time since, she hadn’t given it much thought. Even if it wasn’t the deadline of their little arrangement, it wasn’t as if they could attend together , but regardless of her stance on post-wedding hook-ups, taking someone else after she’d spent weeks having her insides rearranged by a member of the wedding party felt disingenuous. Going solo while Alex spent the night with a leggy blonde—probably looking like the world’s most attractive instalment of siblings or dating?— all over him promised its own form of torture though.
‘I’m not bringing anyone.’ Alex interrupted her clamouring thoughts.
He wasn’t? Sarah thought, as Abby asked out loud the question that had rung through her head.
Alex shrugged and went back to folding. He could pull off that nonchalance. Sarah, however…
‘Me neither.’ Okay. That had been suitably relaxed.
‘Can’t find anyone up to your standards, Princess?’
Sarah hadn’t realised how loud the sound of nails smoothing over paper could be until it stopped abruptly.
‘ Princess? ’ Abby’s voice was shrill enough that Celine’s ears twitched. Next to her, Erik was frowning.
Alex recovered first, leaving Sarah to hope his cool detachment would sell it. ‘Were you two too busy mooning over each other to pay attention in Sunday school? It’s literally the meaning of her name.’
Was it? Was that why he’d been—
No. He’d called her that in Neon the night they met. She’d thought he’d stuck with it solely to annoy her, but it wouldn’t surprise her if it was because he liked the wordplay too.
Her friend’s eyes volleyed between them, finally resting on her. Shit. Abby knew her. Knew her. Had seen her through a few relationships and a million crushes, and if Sarah gave even the slightest on the painfully annoyed expression she’d affected in the wake of that no longer annoying at all nickname, Abby would connect the dots.
‘Maybe if you tell him to stop calling me that, he will.’ The strain in Sarah’s voice was only partially put on.
It did the trick. Abby snorted and turned back to the book in her lap, fingers deftly folding once more. ‘Please. He’s been calling me Squirt since I was six. If I had that kind of power, don’t you think I’d use it for me?’
Filled with the fear of what Alex might say or do if left alone, Sarah opted to stay, alternating between half-heartedly stabbing at her painting with a barely wet brush and scratching Celine’s stomach, until the crafts were cleared away and Alex had said goodnight.
And after a scalding shower burned away the residual anxiety lingering in her muscles, the desire Alex had left her with came flooding back. So when enough time had passed since his departure that she was sure he’d have made it home, she checked that Abby and Erik were safely in their room, low light flickering under their door, settled in her sheets, skin bare and wanting , and hit the video icon next to his contact.