Chapter Seven Prue
Seven
Prue
My mother used to say my favorite word was why? According to my parents, I’d drag every answer they’d grant me further into my endless rabbit hole of thought until they reached the point of existential dread or snapped.
The sky is blue…. Why?
Because of the way blue light travels…. Why?
Blue light travels in smaller, shorter waves…. Why?
Well…I don’t know…. Why?
Because I never learned it in school…. Why?
I mean, maybe I did, but I don’t remember…. Why?
Because humans cannot remember everything…. Why?
Well, our heads would get so big they’d explode….
Sorry, that was just a joke, darling. Don’t cry…. Why?
Now, I have some more pressing questions. Like, for example:
Why does he have to look like that?
Why does he have to smell like that?
Why does he have to speak Russian with my father?
Why does he have to have a certain fondness for my mother?
Why can I not stop staring at him?
And Why, oh my god why, does he keep looking at me like that?
“Are you looking for something?” Milo says, tugging the sleeve of his button-down past his elbow.
It is a truly obscene sight, the way he pulls the fabric to reveal more of himself.
The only thing I can compare it to is a woman slipping stockings slowly down her thigh.
The sight is more graphic and erotic than any porn I’ve found in the late hours of the night, lonely and needy.
I can feel myself growing more and more dazed, hypnotized by the bulging veins and tattoos crossing paths along his forearm with the dusting of dark hair and lightly tanned skin.
I’m leaning onto the studio’s large-basin sink, now filled with brushes in need of saving, and praying it keeps me steady as my legs refuse to do that work for me.
My eyes are undoubtedly wide and unblinking and probably freaky-looking as I fight with myself to gain back consciousness.
Seriously, what is wrong with me?
“Yoo-hoo! Killer! Are you in there?”
“Yes,” I say, snapping my eyes away from him. My thoughts are stuck with the web tattoo covering his elbow. “Sorry, I thought I saw…a spider.” Yes, clever. Fooled him, Prue! Well done! God, the laugh my mother would have at my expense.
“A spider, right.” He chuckles, before lifting a paint can off the floor and reading the text on the side.
It took me twenty minutes to get Milo to start working.
He was a kid in a candy shop running around eagerly taking in each of my mother’s paintings.
I swear I saw him almost cry at the long rectangular one by the door.
It’s literally just a big white canvas with a single blue dot in the center, small, the size of a pencil eraser.
It’s arguably my least favorite of the hundreds here.
But he gave it five whole minutes of the two hours he claimed to have.
Art lovers are weird.
“What kind of spider?” he asks, tossing an emptied can into his black trash bag.
“I don’t know.”
“Was it furry? Purple? Black? Orange? Big? Small? Wearing a hat of some kind?”
I officially loathe him. “Shut up.”
“Interesting…” Milo nods slowly, dropping another can into the trash bag he holds open. “You a big fan of spiders, Killer?”
I don’t know when that became his nickname for me, and I’ll deny it if ever questioned, but I don’t entirely hate it.
I like a little healthy, fearful reverence as much as the next girl.
It’s at least better than darling, princess, love, sweetie, or any of the other delicate type of nicknames I’ve earned from my parents or the townies. Those never felt quite right.
“Not particularly,” I mumble, picking up pieces of ripped-up sponges off the floor.
He pouts disingenuously, and his eyes widen as he nods in performative disbelief. “Wow… Really ?”
I sigh, tired of his teasing. “Yes.”
“Huh,” he says dryly. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“All right,” I answer absently, lowering onto all fours to try to scrape some old paint off the tiled floor.
“From where I was standing,” he says, much, much closer now, his voice filled with arrogant glee, “it seemed like you were really into spiders for a second there.” His tone threw quotation marks over the word spiders.
I refuse to look at him or give up on removing this stubborn paint splatter baked into the floor.
“It’s interesting you mention that, because I was just reading the other day that spiders have narcissistic tendencies…
” I say, chipping off a small corner of the dried paint splatter with my thumbnail. “Fascinating, right?”
“Oh, do they?” His laugh is a short, punctuated point— ha.
“Yes, they are deeply, deeply arrogant creatures.”
“It’s true what they say, I guess…you do learn something new every day.”
I roll my eyes even though my back is to him.
“Or, maybe, possibly, you weren’t looking at a spider at all. Maybe, if you’d like to be honest with your new neighbor, you were looking at something else…. Someone else.”
“Can I help you with something?” I turn over my shoulder and immediately regret it.
Oh. My. Everloving. Fuck.
Milo has taken off his button-down shirt, revealing the white tank he is wearing underneath that puts so much more of him on achingly salacious display. If rolling up his sleeves was to be considered pornographic, this is…well, this is the real deal.
I get lost in the curvature of his shoulders, the muscles that blend and stack on top of one another to form the mountains that flow into perfectly carved biceps.
Every inch of his arms is tattooed, covered in varying tattoos each drawn in black ink.
It’s all so suddenly, stunningly available for me to view and though I suspect it should feel wrong to stare, it doesn’t.
Probably because he looks so pleased with himself. Probably because he clearly loves the attention. Probably because he’s placed a paintbrush inside of his jeans’ waistband, as if to purposefully draw my eyes down to his beltline, forcing me to wonder what lies underneath it.
He knows what he’s doing, and I hate that it’s working.
My pulse thunders in my ears as everything else dulls and slows. Suddenly, looking at him feels like a reminder of all I haven’t done and desperately want to do.
I’ve never seen a man without pants on in real life…never placed my hand on someone else’s bare thigh…never kissed my way down an abdomen toward—
“I don’t know.” He smiles knowingly, his eyes dipping to my parted lips as his head tilts in insincere boyish curiosity. “Can you?”
Another question: Why does every word out of this man’s mouth sound like innuendo?
I swallow, trying to soothe my parched throat. “I’m sure you have no shortage of people who like… spiders… in your life.” The tip of that damned smile crooks his damned mustache upward and I feel the heat pool in my cheeks.
“That’s true.” He nods slowly, his hungry eyes still held on my lips as if he’s forgotten the disheveled person they’re attached to.
“So, it doesn’t matter what I think of them,” I whisper raggedly.
Without a word Milo reaches into his back pocket, plucks out a credit card, and drops to one knee beside me. He smoothly scrapes the droplets of paint I’ve been fighting to get off the floorboards in one clean go with the edge of the card, then purses his lips to blow off the chalky residue.
Before I’ve managed to close my mouth, he’s wiped the card clean and tucked it back into his pocket.
Then he turns to face me, lifting his chin so his eyes are level with mine. Up close they’re still as dark as night but there are flickers of lightened shades among the deep, deep brown. Like faraway stars against a midnight sky.
I realize two things at once.
One: He is undeniably, ridiculously gorgeous.
Two: He is far, far, far too close to me.
“Actually,” he says in a low voice, “I would love to know what you think, Prudence.”
Oh. I force an inhale, and it’s louder than I’d like. But it couldn’t be helped. It felt urgent to pull air in. I was getting dizzy.
“I—” I don’t even know what to say.
What do I think of him? I think he intrigues me, that’s for sure. I think he’s beautiful, but he already knows that to be true. I think he’s hiding something under this bravado of his, but it’s probably none of my business. I think I want him to touch me, but I know better.
Above all else, I know for certain that I wouldn’t ever want to face the mortifying ordeal of having Milo be the first man who sees me naked. I know I wouldn’t want him to be the man who watches me fumble my way through what should probably be second nature by my age.
“I think you’ll keep me wondering, won’t you?” Milo whispers. “I think you like it better that way.”
I nod without thought, feeling my chest rise and fall with each labored breath.
“Stand up, Killer.” He leans back, relaxing into his kneeling position. “Stand up and get back to work before I do something about that look on your face.”
I hate myself a little bit for it, but I immediately stand and aimlessly walk over to the other side of the room.
I am woman enough to admit to myself that I was momentarily weakened by a mustached man with a litany of dirty thoughts behind darkened eyes. But how could I possibly not be?
In sports, from my limited knowledge of them—my artistic parents were otherwise concerned—you play against teams or individuals of equal skill and ranking.
I think the whole world would agree, if we took to polling them, that Milo and I are not of equal skill or ranking when it comes to romantic pursuits.
Maybe I’m judging him too harshly, as I tend to do.
Maybe he’s more modest than his slutty little mustache, top, or general demeanor would have me—or anyone, surely —believe.
But I’d be willing to bet it all that his number of sexual conquests isn’t zero, like mine.
In fact, if I was betting on this game, I’d wager that his number, at some point or another, had two zeros in it.
I will not be going up against that type of opponent as a rookie. I despise losing.