Chapter 30 #2
His laugh spluttered out of him, his body collapsing against the pane, tattoos catching in the warm light spilling from his window. “No, you dope. He just holds it outside his ex’s window to win her back.”
My head tilted and I mirrored him, sitting along my window frame. “I did not have you pegged as a rom-com boy.”
His head pulled back. “Something wrong with that?”
I shook my head, hand cupped under my chin. “No, it’s just… adorable.”
“You don’t think I’m capable of being adorable?”
I let my head flop to the side, my face flattening. “Marcus, you carry a gun everywhere you go. Does that sound adorable?”
“Depends on how you look at it. Protection is adorable to some.”
This man had an answer for everything, but not one part of me was sick of it. It was that back and forth that I’d never found with anyone before.
I shook my head. “You wanted me?”
He sat up, slipping out of his window a little. “You said you needed inspiration. And in the aim of not having that photo circulate the internet… I thought the real thing might be easier.”
I laughed. “I was kidding, you know. Weren’t you busy?”
“You needed me.” He nodded his chin at me. “So, you letting me in or what, Holland?”
I rolled my eyes, pretending like I really didn’t need him right now. “Fine.”
He then, rather coolly, climbed over the fire escape and made his way into my room.
I stumbled back as he emerged, his tall frame looking comically large against my tiny window as he squeezed through. Giggles racked me as I sat down on my stool, right as he shut my window with a tug and sighed as he turned around, making himself look at home on my window seat.
“How’s it going?” His eyes were on the canvas. The very, extremely blank canvas.
I deadpanned my face. “Fab. I think I might just submit this and call it a day.”
His sarcastic smile made my stomach drop as he wandered behind me and crouched, his head level with mine, hovering slightly over my right shoulder.
I don’t know why I stiffened, we’d been closer than this before. But his presence just had a way of making me numb, but in a way I craved more than feared. Like when you watch a thunderstorm getting closer.
“The palette is nice.” He offered, his voice softer. “You could take something else and spin it into your own.”
I stared back at the canvas. “That’s called copying.”
“It’s taking inspiration.”
“And that’s a fancy way of saying ‘copying’.
” I spun a little to face him, my eyes drifting down only an inch.
“I need something new. The committee won’t be impressed if they see someone else’s painting but in my style.
They’ll go, ‘Wow, she couldn’t even be bothered to try. Why did we invite her again?’”
I shifted back around and sunk my hands into my head, my fingers pulling lightly at my hair.
Marcus moved a little closer, pulling my other stool from behind him and sitting behind me, his legs open, my back almost flush against his chest. “They’ll be impressed with whatever you do, Cor.”
I shook my head. “I don’t even think it’s that.
” I turned to him. “But I don’t know what’s holding me back.
It’s like there’s a wall between me and the canvas and no matter how many times I knock it down, it’s always gonna find a way to rebuild itself.
” I turned back to the canvas. “And I’m tired of knocking it down. ”
He didn’t miss a beat. “You can do it again.” My eyes were back on him. “That morning after we… kissed.” I didn’t miss the way his pupils dilated. “Something made you paint again. Something helped.”
Something did help, but I couldn’t just tell Marcus that I’d thought about his hands on me, his mouth claiming mine, his breath warming my neck. I just couldn’t.
I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could, my eyes falling from him. “I guess.”
A beat passed before he said, “So? What was it?”
I shrugged.
God I’m so stupid.
“I dunno.”
His chest rushed against my back and that certainly wasn’t helping anything.
“Well, you better think if you wanna paint, angel.” He sighed. “Did something set you off? Make you sad? Did you see something that reminded you of something? Did you just pick up a brush, blindfold yourself and pray you were hitting the canvas—”
“You!” I snapped as I faced him. “I thought about you. About… us.”
I watched his eyes wander mine. He did this all the time, and I was sure I’d never get bored of it. But this one felt deeper. Like he was finally venturing further into woods he knew so well.
“Us?” he whispered.
I nodded. “I let myself feel whatever I was feeling when we kissed and…”
His eyes held me still. “No more wall?”
My head shook. "No wall."
We let that settle for a second, and if it had been a second longer I would have realised that I’d basically told the boy I fancied that daydreaming about our kiss saved me, but luckily I didn’t. Not quite, anyway.
But soon enough Marcus moved, reaching to the floor and grabbing something. I took a second to learn how to breathe as he did, before suddenly, in his hands, were a brush and my palette, freshly squeezed colour covering the dried splotches.
And as he handed it to me, my heart knocked against my ribs. “You said you let yourself feel.”
I swallowed.
“So feel.”
His hands didn’t touch me, but I felt the warmth of them, resting lightly on the edge of the stool, close but not claiming. And even that was enough for me to combust.
“Take the lead again.” A quick kiss tattooed my shoulder. “Take back control.”
He made it sound so easy. But I suppose if I stopped lying to myself that whatever was happening between us was helping me get over this fear, it was always going to be easy. He made me feel things I never had before, and that alone was enough inspiration for me to work with for life.
So, as I turned, my back still resting against his chest, I closed my eyes and let the memory of him—of us—flood in. The way his lips had tasted like rain that night in London, the way he’d let me choose. Let me want. Let me be.
“Paint what you feel,” he murmured, and finally, I did.