Chapter 6
Trey stands in the middle of my room, towel around his waist, water dripping from his skin onto the floor. He’s staring at the drawings.
I close the door behind me. The click of the latch sounds like a gunshot.
He stays quiet, head tilted slightly as he takes in my wall of shame.
A dozen sketches of his face, his torso, his eyes.
And on the easel, the big one. Trey in his gaming chair, leaning back in those gray boxer briefs, every muscle shaded in painstaking detail, the outline of his cock front and center.
His last neighbor might’ve been a narc. His new one is a full-blown stalker. A creep. There’s no other way to see it.
The silence drags on, and with every second, I want to disappear a little more. If I were Alice, I’d shrink to the size of a teacup and hide behind the leg of my desk.
I should say something. Explain. Apologize.
But my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth.
I’m waiting for the punch. For him to turn around and ask what the fuck is wrong with me.
For the curiosity on his face to turn to disgust. For him to shove me against the wall and tell me to stay the hell away from him.
Why did I pin the sketches to the wall in the first place?
A sane person would’ve kept them in a folder.
Hidden them. But I’ve been so consumed by it all that being discreet never crossed my mind.
I’ve been living in my own world, and now the subject of my obsession is standing in the middle of it, dripping on my floor.
Trey steps closer to the easel. Stares at the big drawing. Reaches out, then stops, fingers hovering above the paper.
“You’re really good,” he says quietly.
I let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? Being talented?” He leans closer to the easel, studying the drawing, a crease between his brows. “You got me down, man. This is... holy shit. Even the little scar above my eyebrow.”
“Trey, I should explain. This is weird. I know it’s weird.”
“Yeah, it’s a little fucked up,” he says, and turns to look at me. There’s an intensity in his eyes that pins me to the spot. “But I’m not gonna lie, it’s flattering. You must’ve been looking at me pretty close to get this right. You got a photographic memory or something?”
“I guess I’m… observant.” When it comes to certain people.
“Observant,” he repeats. The towel is barely hanging on, and my eyes drop to the sharp V-lines disappearing under the fabric. “So why me?”
Because you’re the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Because I listened to you through the wall and got so hard I could’ve cut glass with my cock.
“Your face,” I say. It’s the truth. Just not all of it. “You’ve got a great face for drawing. Strong features. Good bone structure.”
“Good bone structure.” His mouth twitches. “You sound like my barber.”
My eyes keep darting to the towel. It’s so loose. One good tug and it would fall.
“Is that why you drew me like that?” He nods toward the easel. “In my underwear?”
“That’s… I mean, that’s what you were wearing. When I came over. I just drew what I saw.”
“So if I’d answered the door naked, you’d have drawn me naked?”
My face is on fire. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe I would. Depends on who’s knocking.” He takes a step closer. “I’m very comfortable with my body.”
Yeah. I’ve noticed. He’s so close I can feel the heat coming off his skin. I could reach out and touch him. My fingers ache to trace the curve of a bicep, the line of his collarbone.
“Tell me where you want me.”
“W-what?”
“I’ll pose for you. Right now. Since you like drawing me so much.”
I swallow. My throat is bone dry. “Trey?—”
“Come on. Where do you want me? Chair? Bed?”
He’s messing with me. He has to be. But I can’t tell anymore. Those dark eyes haven’t left mine, and I think about how the players on the other side of the line must feel when they see him coming.
“Trey, sitting for a portrait takes hours. You’d have to stay still the whole time.”
“So?” He shrugs. “I got nowhere to be. My evening’s wide open.”
“It’s… it’s really boring. You’d just be sitting there.”
“I can handle boring. I’ve been riding the bench all season.” He flashes his teeth. “Besides, good excuse to get to know my neighbor. So where do you want me?”
I hear myself say it before my brain can catch up. “Maybe... on the bed?” The second it’s out, I want to take it back. The bed. My bed. Where he’d be sitting in nothing but a towel. That’s an image I’ll never recover from.
Trey doesn’t miss a beat. “The bed it is.” He walks over and drops onto the edge, then leans back on his elbows. The towel rides up, revealing more of those powerful thighs. He looks like an ad for expensive cologne.
“Like this?”
I have a hard time forming words. “Yeah. That’s… yeah. Good.” Trey on my neatly made bed. This giant, masculine presence in my carefully controlled space.
I grab a fresh sheet of paper and clip it to the easel, my hands shaking so bad I can barely get it secured.
I need to focus. I’m an artist. This is what I do.
I observe and I render. I can compartmentalize.
I can ignore the fact that my crush, my obsession, is nearly naked on my bed and that the room is getting smaller and hotter by the second. I can.
But before the pencil touches paper, Trey looks down at the towel, then back at me, his mouth curling at the corner. He hooks a thumb under the fabric and tugs. It falls open across my sheets.
“Better,” he says. “Right?”