Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
Facing a blank canvas was to painters what facing a blank page was to writers.
Rationalization didn’t satisfy his inner critic and free his hand. Neither did thinking about his fabulous date last night. He hadn’t kissed Phoebe good night except for raising her hand to his lips like a good gentleman, but then again, he’d always been the kind to take things slow.
He could already hear Brooke’s snail reference.
Which was what motivated him to finally pick up a paintbrush and stalk to the canvas, his paint palette in his other hand. He was done being a snail. They didn’t turn into butterflies. They just had people pour salt on them.
Hell, he really was a lunatic. Good thing most painters were…
Okay, that admission eased some of his tension.
He dipped his brush in some Burnt Umber and started to outline the shapes in the painting with light brushstrokes.
When he committed, he threw his everything in with him.
Even if he ended up painting an X through his painting or ripping it in half and tossing it into the garbage bin.
Phoebe’s shape came to being. The lean lines of her body. The oval face. He’d need to blend Alizarin Crimson with a brown for her hair, but even that might not be quite right.
He pushed that thought aside and continued to flesh out the underpainting.
Only he kept coming back to her, standing in the middle of the painting, the scene from when he’d first seen her last night.
Her aqua coat, glowing like an ocean jewel, would tonally be the perfect contrast for the blackness of the night around them. It was like she’d known…
Her smiling face. Her expressive eyes. The elegant brows. He started filling them in. He couldn’t help himself. When he reached the sides of her face, he realized he hadn’t paid attention to her ears. What shape were they? Would it be weird to text her and ask?
Yeah. Totally. But it was tempting. He’d already texted her last night to make sure she’d gotten home okay and to tell her again how much he’d enjoyed their time together. How much he couldn’t wait to go out again.
How many days did he have to wait to formally ask her? He wasn’t interested in playing games. He’d already told her he wanted to go out again. But asking for another rendezvous today would be too fast.
Wouldn’t it?
As he painted her eyes, their sparkle seemed to laugh at him. Too fast for Phoebe? Never. He should text her about having a café. A walk along the Seine.
Fuck being the snail.
They didn’t need to do another Michelin dinner, although that had been freaking delicious. He liked that she loved to eat. He’d never really gotten to enjoy food when he was growing up. His mother was a fanatic about diets and eating healthy. No butter. No sugar. No…soul.
That had been one of the reasons he’d pursued Nanine’s advertisement when he’d seen it on the student bulletin board years ago.
If anyone could teach him how to enjoy food, it would be the French.
Voltaire raved about food. But while Sawyer had loved his famous quote—nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity—he hadn’t understood it at the time.
Nanine had changed all that. She and his roommates had changed everything for him. Looking back, he realized he’d been starved—for food and connection and life. For love.
He wondered if Phoebe would change things for him too.
His heart pumped faster as he painted her mouth—the mouth he had studied throughout dinner as she spoke, ate, and smiled and laughed.
The mouth he would kiss next time, because it had taken every bit of self-control not to step closer and touch the cheek he was now painting before kissing those full, wide, rosy lips.
He got lost to the blur of paint. Of bodies taking shape. Of Phoebe coming more and more to life, standing tall and bold as the focus of his large canvas.
A knock sounded on his studio door. He wanted to curse. He wanted to yell, “Go away,” but he knew the person must need him. No one interrupted his studio time.
He stalked over to the door and used part of his painter’s smock devoid of wet paint to open it. Brooke and Axel stood there, a statement of power, like a major installation in the center of a museum. They were the thing you noticed first, larger than life.
“I’m so sorry,” Brooke immediately said with a wince. “No one had seen you since your date two days ago, and we were concerned.”
He pressed a hand to his temple before he realized he was holding a paintbrush. “Seriously?”
“Losing track of time while painting is a good thing,” Axel noted. “You’ve obviously been on a roll, as you Americans say.”
“I had to paint—her, the scene.” She’d been staring at him, almost daring him to do her justice. He’d picked up the challenge like he would a glove to duel over a point of honor.
“Have you eaten?” Brooke asked, zooming in on his face.
“I had snacks—”
She clucked her tongue. “I will arrange takeout if you disappear into your studio again like this. No one has to interrupt you. We’ll bang on the door and leave it. Can you remember the signal?”
“Do I look incapable of following simple instructions?”
“You have paint in your hair, and you don’t look like you’ve slept. So yes, but I’m used to fashion people. We’ll make sure you don’t waste away.”
“Operation Sawyer,” he finished.
“Exactly—although it is a funny name to me,” Axel remarked before gesturing over his shoulder. “That is very good. May I?”
Sawyer stepped back to let his friends inside. God, he could feel himself tense up. He supposed it was habit. When was that going to stop? Would it ever? He was going to need a Xanax for his first show.
“Sawyer!”
He noted the gift in Brooke’s hand as she thrust it out, distracting him from monitoring Axel’s every hum and gesture as he studied his work.
“You need this,” she was saying over the rapping of his heart, “although you may need food and sleep more.”
No, he needed this damn lack of confidence to wash out with the tide and never return. “You’ll have to open it for me as I’ve got paint hands.”
“Of course.” She tore open the green paper—a shade very close to Phoebe’s eyes, he thought suddenly—and held up the leather-bound day planner. “You can look later, but I put an inscription in it. Well, Axel chose it actually.”
“Tell him what it is, Brooke.”
Axel was standing in front of his canvas, a giant even in the large space, like a Viking god deciding his fate.
Was that a frown on his face? Was he being paranoid?
Probably. He wished someone would slap him across the face with a rose-scented glove and challenge his inner critic to a duel or something.
“Using an epigraph from a philosopher like Rousseau and Voltaire seemed silly, but this one…” Brooke was oddly embarrassed, he realized, which snapped him out of his inner drama enough for him to attempt an encouraging smile.
“It’s from Picasso. Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ”
His chest grew even tighter. Yes, it truly did.
His fear seemed to recede for a moment as the sheer magic of the feeling Picasso had captured in that saying rushed over him.
He’d been painting nonstop, and those words described the feeling inside him perfectly.
Hollowed out of the mundane, the doubt, the busy.
Filled with peace, satisfaction, and—yeah, he had to say it—joy.
He told himself to hold on to that feeling now, as his friend viewed his work. Hell, as anyone did.
“Thank you.” He touched his heart. “It’s perfect.”
She leaned forward and carefully kissed his cheek, likely where there was no paint. “I’m glad you like it. It’s from both of us.”
“It is from Brooke, Sawyer.” Axel didn’t turn around. “I might have been consulted, but the idea and execution were all hers.”
Sawyer almost laughed at the eye roll Brooke gave, but he admired Axel’s refusal to claim something that was not of his doing.
It was one of the reasons he liked the man.
Not only for Brooke. But as his friend. Because he and Axel shared an artistic understanding.
Both of them understood the loneliness and doubt of creative pursuits.
Yet Axel had triumphed over his inner demons.
Sawyer hoped to do the same. No, he had to do the same or everything would be lost.
“You like Phoebe Anderson a lot, it seems,” Axel remarked, making Brooke pause as she set his day planner down on a nearby table. “I only guess because I know of your personal connection. Others may not see it given the Impressionistic style.”
None of that conveyed what Axel thought. He found he was holding his breath again.
“I do like her, and I’m relieved it’s not obviously her,” he responded because a man was honest about such things. “I wouldn’t want her to be uncomfortable.”
He still planned on getting her permission when he saw her.
Shit! He needed to text her about their next date.
“I doubt a woman like her would be uncomfortable,” Axel only replied. “You captured her inner fire perfectly.”
He wanted to thrust his fist up in the air and let out a victorious cry. He’d thought he’d met his goal, but it felt damn good to hear confirmation from someone at Axel’s level. “She makes it easy. She’s bold and vital and very much herself. But I hear you’ve met her, Brooke.”
“Ah… We wondered if she was going to mention it.” She lifted her chin. “Sorry if you’re upset, Sawyer, but it’s what friends do.”
“I did not do it,” Axel said with a hearty laugh. “You should have seen them, Sawyer. Clustered together, talking in whispers. Dean even suggested changing into all black like a cat burglar.”
Sawyer spurted out a laugh. “Of course he did.”
“I laughed too,” Axel continued, “until I was practically hoarse, especially when Brooke confessed Phoebe had caught them because of an open window.”
He swung his gaze at her, but she only shrugged sheepishly.