6. Ash #2
“Like a human being.” Kael throws his arms wide in an overdramatic shrug.
“Thought you wanted the answer.”
“That’s the answer? What did you say again?”
I can’t win with this guy, so I shut up. Every time I close the distance, he speeds up, and it’s a few minutes of tug-of-war in silence before he says three words I don’t understand.
“I know Alistair,” he repeats when I ask.
My head draws back on instinct, my brain trying and failing to overlay the image of Kael’s paint-stained jeans and secondhand hoodie in the same room with a man who makes presidents wait.
“You know Alistair Blackwood, the founder of Query? Investor in half the Valley’s unicorns—that Alistair?”
“I don’t need to hear his résumé.”
“I’m just making sure I follow. You know billionaire Alistair Blackwood.”
“Yes,” Kael says, annoyed, maybe even disgusted. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Alistair referred to in that way.
Usually people talk about meeting Alistair with stars in their eyes. They tell the story over lunch. Every. Lunch. But Kael’s tossing out other people’s claim to fame like it’s trash.
“I work for his company,” I say, “and I haven’t met the guy. Forgive me for being skeptical.”
“Fine,” he says. “Say whatever you did before so I can figure out how to paint index refunds or whatever.”
“I believe you,” I say.
A bird flutters overhead, trilling a slow succession of high-pitched chirps.
“Whoopee.” Kael twirls a finger in the air and keeps walking.
This time I match his pace. This is a whole lot more interesting than a group project.
“If you were lying, you’d at least know he’s a legend,” I say.
“You have got to be kidding!” Kael shouts up at the canopy. The bird whistles back like it agrees. “Alistair is a creep. You work for him. You don’t know him.”
The emphasis makes it clear: There’s only one way someone like Kael gets close to someone like Alistair. Tabloids say he has an inner circle full of beautiful men and private parties.
“And how do you know him?” I ask carefully.
“Do we have to talk about this?”
“You brought it up.”
“I was trying to explain why I don’t like Query,” Kael says, “and your deference to the great Alistair Blackwood is proving my point.”
He’s hot. Alistair’s rich. That’s how these stories go.
“Sorry I don’t hate some guy I’ve never met,” I say. “Didn’t know that gave you permission to be an asshole.”
“You didn’t ask for permission.”
I almost trip while the rational part of my brain takes a vacation and the desperate part starts connecting dots. If Kael really knows Alistair, maybe there’s a way to get that impossible promo endorsement. Maybe this ridiculous coincidence is how I get my freedom date back.
“Stop me if I go too far,” I say, “but I think I understand. No judgment. Alistair is loaded, and he’s… kind of cute.”
“Ew. What?” Kael glances back, and I try for a sympathetic face. “What do you think you understand?”
So much for a gentle approach. I put my hands up. “The news reports on his…”
Kael stops his relentless speed walk and just stares at me, daring me to finish.
“…special friends?”
“Friends?” His eyebrow rises.
“Why else would a hot artist know Alistair Blackwood?”
“So I’m hot?”
My face burns. I abruptly focus on the trail ahead. “Alright. Don’t tell me. But don’t act like it’s ridiculous to connect the dots between you and Alistair Blackwood.”
“Would you stop saying his full name like he’s some deity?”
“I didn’t— I mean—” I sigh, suddenly as exhausted by him as I am curious. “Can you tell me how you know Alistair? I think he’s smart, but if you say he’s a creep, I can be convinced. Makes no difference to me.”
“I’m a painter,” he says, holding up his canvas and wooden box. “And, not that I’m judging people’s life choices, but I am not some gold digger.”
“That does not explain it,” I say. “I’d guess roughly zero percent of painters know Alistair B— know him.”
“He reached out on social media to offer his support. Financially,” Kael says. “That’s it. I take his money and live my dream.”
In my head, his logic crumples. His own description makes Alistair sound like a patron saint of the arts, not a creep. The question tumbles out before I can stop it.
“And how is that not being a gold digger?”
Kael’s chest lifts on a slow breath. It looks like he’s going to deck me, but then he laughs.
“I take Alistair’s money to do what I love because, I’ll admit it, I don’t have a lot of options. You, on the other hand, take his money doing something you hate. What’s your excuse?”
“Got it,” I say quickly, hands up again. I’ll take any excuse for Kael to stay in my orbit if he’s my only possible “in” to the most powerful man at Query. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.” This needs to be handled gently, so I pivot back to the project like I’ve forgotten all about his connection to my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. “Mind thinking about how we’re going to paint this? I mean, you’ll be doing the painting.”
Kael lets himself be pulled back into it. “Tell me the answer again.”
We circle the lake while I explain the relationship between cost of living and financial freedom; how high-interest debt, like credit cards, is a woodchipper aimed at your future; and how low-cost index funds beat most managed funds without even trying.
Kael winces. Maybe the woodchipper metaphor landed harder than I meant it to.
He listens, asks a few questions, and the initial tension thins. We land on a plan where I’ll do the voiceover and he’ll paint a visual metaphor with symbols for each part of our three-pronged million-dollar strategy.
“We need to stop for a few if I’m going to paint this,” he says.
“Can’t you do it once we’re back?” I check my phone. “There’s no service here, and there’s no prize money if we miss the deadline.”
Kael drops to one knee and brushes pine needles off a flat slab of granite. He sets the canvas down with the care of prepping something sacred.
“I’m just going to ‘crank it out’ right here, if that’s fine with you.” He looks over the crystalline water. “It’s beautiful.”
I shrug off my backpack. We’ve made good time, and with the parking lot just visible across the lake, it looks like we’re already halfway.
Watching Kael paint feels uncomfortably close to watching him undress. He’s not taking anything off, but his movements all feel naked. His hands know exactly what they’re doing. His mouth softens when he concentrates. I shouldn’t be looking long enough to learn that.
He dips his brush into thick, creamy paint, fingers sure as they glide from one hue to the next. Each stroke blends color into color. He’s not painting the lake, but his eyes keep flicking back to it, like he’s listening to something only he can hear.
In another universe, Kael is exactly the kind of person I want to be. Someone who trusts himself enough to make something without needing a model first. What he’s doing on instinct, without numbers or formulas, I could never do.
I watch in silence, half-hoping that if I stare long enough I’ll figure out how he does it.
He glances over his shoulder. “Do you mind?”
Heat climbs my neck. I look away so fast it’s a blatant confession. I yank my laptop out of my bag and flip it open, grateful for the familiar grid of numbers waiting to make sense.
My spreadsheet works offline for moments like this. Well, not exactly this.
“What are you working on?” Kael asks, brushing color across the canvas.
“My life.”