Chapter 6 #2
Simon turned his attention back to the grinder. “Mm-hmm. And you were working on it upstairs? In your room?”
Niko flashed a guilty look at her that she refused to try to decode. She adjusted her glasses and smiled vaguely at Simon. “Niko was just showing me some of his furniture. It’s very impressive.”
Simon grinned. “That’s our Niko, a man of many talents.
Speaking of which…” He dumped the contents of the grinder onto the tray and passed it over to Niko, who pulled a paper out of the pack and got to work without hesitation.
She allowed herself one long ogle of his fingers as he cradled the delicate paper between them.
“I should probably get going. Thanks for inviting me over, I’m definitely interested.” She paused awkwardly. “In some furniture.”
“Come on, stay a little longer. Smoke with us,” Simon wheedled playfully.
She shouldn’t have even considered it. Getting high with her contractor and his barely legal roommate was probably not the best way to keep things professional. But when she opened her mouth to decline, what actually came out was “Okay.”
Merritt forced herself not to look directly at Niko when she said it, but out of the corner of her eye, there was no mistaking the pleased expression that washed over his face before he ducked his head to refocus on his task.
Actually, this was a good idea, she told herself. Smoking with someone you didn’t know that well was one of the fastest ways to realize you found them incredibly off-putting.
She pulled back the chair she was leaning on and sat down.
She asked Simon a few questions and tried her best to absorb his answers, but her attention was on Niko.
When he lifted the joint to his lips and ran the tip of his tongue across the edge of the paper to seal it, she had to ask Simon to repeat himself twice.
She expected them to smoke there at the table, but Niko stood up and led them out to the garage.
Most of the space was taken up by an enormous workbench surrounded by various power tools, a half-finished chair leaning against it.
One corner had been set up with a few folding chairs and a card table holding an ashtray.
In the other corner was a bench and a small rack of free weights.
It was a little dirtbaggy, but Merritt was surprisingly charmed by it.
It stirred a twinge of nostalgia in her chest for the parties she’d gone to as a teenager before she’d been expected to exclusively attend parties full of adults.
Besides, the open garage door provided a breathtaking view of the sherbet sunset streaking over the mountains, which was enough to counterbalance the slight seediness of the setup.
Simon passed her the joint and the lighter.
“Ladies first.”
She sparked it and took two deep, expert inhales before passing it to Niko, his fingers brushing hers as he took it.
Pretty quickly, it became clear that Simon was the type who got extra talkative when he was stoned, while Niko turned quiet and introspective. Merritt tried to follow the conversation, but since it was more like a monologue, she found herself zoning out.
Her attention strayed to the far corner, where a set of open, vertical wooden shelves housed rows of canvases.
“Are those your paintings?” she blurted out, accidentally interrupting Simon mid-sentence.
Niko cleared his throat, his voice still thick with smoke. “Yeah. Some of them.”
“Can I look?”
“Sure.”
She pushed to her feet, steadying herself after the unexpected head rush, then made her way to the other side of the garage.
Halfway to the paintings, she realized her mistake. If they were even slightly better than terrible, there was no hope left for her. Now the only way to get over her crush would be to have awkward sex with him and then never talk to him again, and Olivia had already vetoed that plan.
And, of course, they weren’t terrible. They were beautiful.
Mostly oil landscapes, with a few still lifes and a figure painting here and there.
They were more impressionistic than realistic, his colors vivid and surreal.
There was something unpolished about them, too, which only made them more compelling.
When she looked at them, she knew without a doubt that she was getting a glimpse of the world exactly how he saw it.
That thought moved her more than she expected.
She must have taken one hit too many.
As she studied them, she heard footsteps and rustling behind her. She turned her head slightly to see Niko hovering, looking self-conscious. Behind him, Simon was slouched in his chair, scrolling through his phone, oblivious.
She wanted to compliment him, but she was too in her head, and nothing felt right. Anything she could think of seemed both too personal and too impersonal at the same time. So she didn’t say anything, just pulled out another canvas.
“Oh.” Everything she was struggling to say flew from her brain, replaced immediately by Penis, Niko’s penis, I am looking at Niko’s penis and Niko’s abs and Niko’s naked body.
In a flash, Niko was beside her, his hand on the other edge of the canvas, not trying to take it from her but not not trying to take it from her, his words spilling out in a nervous jumble.
“Shit, I forgot that was in there. It was supposed to be a gift. I mean, she asked for it. She took that picture. It’s not something—I don’t usually—I should probably just get rid of it.”
“No, don’t—I mean, it’s yours. I’m not going to tell you—” She somewhat reluctantly let him take the self-portrait from her and shove it back into one of the shelves. “But congratulations. On…” She gave him a quick once-over. She couldn’t help it. “…Everything.”
It was hard to tell in the fading light of the garage, but it seemed like his cheeks went pink.
“Thanks.”
They stood there, somewhat uneasily. It was long past time for her to make her exit.
“I should probably go.”
She didn’t move.
He nodded, still seeming a little bashful about meeting her eyes.
“Thanks for inviting me over. I learned a lot.” She paused. “About your furniture.”
He nodded again, finally lifting his head, his eyes boring into her, dark and intense. “Just let me know what you need from me.”
Was that a double entendre? Was he finally flirting with her?
Whether he meant to or not, the way he said it made the tips of her ears grow hot.
She had to remind herself it was for the best that she would never actually get what she needed from him—which was a shame, now that she had a better idea of the exact dimensions.
She started to head toward the open garage door, but his hand on her upper arm stopped her. Just a gentle touch, but it halted her in her tracks like he’d grabbed and yanked.
“Use the front door. Always leave out of the door you entered.” His voice was soft—a suggestion, not a command. She must have looked as confused as she felt, because he grinned. “Greek superstition. Don’t want to tangle the thread of your life.”
“Too late for that,” she muttered, but she waved goodbye to Simon and followed Niko through the connecting door back into the house.
She grabbed her bag from the kitchen counter and slung it over her shoulder, willing her head to clear. “Thanks,” she repeated, a little unsure what she was thanking him for.
“You don’t do this a lot, do you?”
“What?”
“Hang out.”
Her first impulse was to get defensive, but her words came out sluggish and dreamy. “I hang out all the time. All I do is hang out,” she mumbled. “Just…not with other people. People I don’t live with.”
He smiled a little. “You should.”
She waited for him to continue, to elaborate whether he meant with him or just in general, but he didn’t.
She should’ve known better by now. What she saw with Niko was what she got. The problem was, she could never be sure exactly what she saw.
She smiled awkwardly. “Okay.”
That seemed to satisfy him. He moved to open the door for her, and she brushed past. When she was halfway down his driveway, he called out to her.
“Merritt?”
She whipped her head around. “Hmm?”
His grin got wider. “Now we’re even.”
It took her a moment to process what he meant. The bathroom. The painting. The nudity. But by the time she figured it out, he’d already closed the door, and she was alone again.