by Monroe, Max
I wonder if she even remembers she’s given me her phone. Or that it’s my phone gripped between her fingers.
With one tap of my index finger, I open up her message inbox and proceed to pull up a blank text and type in my phone number as the recipient. It doesn’t take long before I’m hitting send, and the phone in her hands vibrates with a new message.
Me: What song should I play next?
Indy furrows her brow as she looks down at my phone, and then her tiny smile grows. Her fingers tap across the screen until the phone in my hand buzzes.
I glance down to see a message from her.
What are you in the mood for?
What am I in the mood for? The real answer? Pretty much anything she wants to throw my way, but I don’t say that. If Indy knows how deep I already am with her, about the crazy thoughts I’m feeling, I’m confident she won’t stick around to find out anything else.
So I dial it back a few emotional notches and stick with something a little more fun and lighthearted.
Me: The Beach Boys.
A laugh escapes her throat when she reads my message, and her big blue eyes meet mine.
“What?” I ask through a smile, but instead of answering, she just shakes her head and types out another response.
You don’t really seem like a “Beach Boys” kind of guy.
Me: That’s blasphemy. I’m all kinds of laid-back and beachy.
Indy giggles and snorts, and my smile stretches until it consumes my face.
And instead of waiting for her response, I send her another text.
Me: What kind of guy do I seem like?
She reads the message, and without even looking at me, she responds.
An emotional, deep, broody artist.
Indy isn’t wrong. The last time I listened to something like the Beach Boys, I was probably eleven and cruising down the highway with my stepdad. That doesn’t mean I’m not open to turning over a new leaf. Open to having fun every once in a while.
Indy makes me want to have fun.
Me: You’re right. The Beach Boys are really more of an occasional thing. What would you recommend for someone who is an emotional, deep, broody artist, and a little bit of a dick?
She looks up, laughs, and takes the phone from my hands for a brief moment. Just as she slides it back into my fingers, the opening beats of her song choice fill my ears. It’s haunting and sweet and melancholic. It is a daydream and a nightmare.
And it is perfect for someone tortured. Someone who’s been through the wringer like me.
In fact, this isn’t a new-to-me song.
Gently, I grab my phone out of her hands, find the exact song in my library, and hit play.
Now, we’re both listening to a song named “Dust it Off.”
Indy looks up at me through her big, dewy blue eyes, and my breath gets tangled up in my lungs. She’s both shocked and awed, and this crazy connection between us burrows a little bit deeper.
I want to bask in this moment and stay there for a while, but the wheels of the train screech to a stop over the music flowing in my ears, and I know this is the stop. My stop.
Our stop.
I stand up from my seat and hold my hand out for her, maintaining the rhythmic trance between us the music has created.
She hesitates for a beat, her gaze jumping between my face and my hand, but eventually, she slides her petite fingers between mine and lets me lead the way.
We climb the stairs to the sidewalk and stroll until the very end of the song. Once the music bubble is broken, Indy lets go of my hand to take the earbuds out of her ears and hand my phone back to me.
I do the same with hers.
“So, uh, where are we going?” she asks at precisely the right time, and I smile.
“Right here, actually.” We’ve stopped in front of my favorite little coffee shop, and this is step one in my two-step plan.
The sign reads Not-So-Average Joe, and Indy squints her eyes up toward the sky as she takes in the building.
“You’re showing me coffee?” she questions, and her little nose scrunches up in the cutest fucking way.
I grin. “Do you not like coffee?”
“What? No.” She bends her chin into her neck and puts a concerned hand to her chest. “Are there people who don’t like coffee?”
“Maybe. But they’re not people I want to know.”
She laughs and glances back at the building again, her face a mask of confusion, and if I’m not mistaken, a little bit of disappointment. “Is this coffee shop really what you wanted to show me?”
“No.” I chuckle and shake my head. “First, coffee,” I add. “Then, I’m taking you to my studio.”
Indy
“Here we are,” Ansel says as he stops us in front of a brownstone in Greenwich Village.
The stairs are ornate concrete with a heavy black iron railing, and a mature tree shades us from the direct sun. It doesn’t look like an area where anyone would want to have a place of business because, for New York City, this is off the beaten path.
“Your studio is here?” I ask as he unlocks the door.
“Well, one of them. My most important studio is here.”
I raise my eyebrow and follow him inside. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means this is my private studio.”
“Where’s the other one?”
He nods. “On the Upper East Side. It’s where all the pretentious people come in and view my paintings and, subsequently, try to buy them,” Ansel says with a grin. His opinion of his buyers might make him sound pretentious himself if he hadn’t already explained his reasoning at the dinner with Lily. As it is, it just makes me laugh as he leads us into the house.
It only takes me a moment of being inside to realize he’s sold this place short in its description. Not only is this his private studio, it’s also quite obviously his home.
And it’s gorgeous.
Modern fixtures and furniture with clean lines and a neutral color palette fill the space, but the exposed brick and paintings hung along the walls create just the right amount of vintage charm.
Busy taking it all in, I almost trip as Ansel guides me to the bottom of a set of steps. Two flights of stairs lead into a massive room that takes up two whole floors. The winter sun flows in through the windows that stretch from the floor to the ceiling, and one lone, worn-out leather couch sits dead center.
The rest of the room is littered with blank canvases, painted canvases, and enough art supplies to last a lifetime.
It’s chaos. It’s order. And for some crazy reason, it’s exactly how I would have imagined it to be.
“This is…” I pause and let my gaze take in every corner, every canvas, every brush, and jar of paint. “Well, it’s kind of messy. Beautiful, but messy.”
His answering smile turns my insides to melted caramel.
“That might be the best compliment I’ve ever received.”
I snort at that. “Liar.”
“No, really,” he says as he walks across the large space and turns on the rest of the lights throughout the room. “It’s honest. And real. That kind of response is rare these days.”
“You don’t think people are honest with you?”
“Sometimes, they are. But a lot of times, they’re not.” He shrugs and leans down to pick up a blank canvas that rests against the wall. “Let’s put it this way—you’re the first person in a long time to admit to me that they don’t know anything about art.” His boots tap across the hardwood floor as he carries the canvas back toward the center of the room.
“Really?”
He sets the blank canvas on an easel and pulls up a small stool to sit in front of it, a smile lighting up his entire face. “Once you reach a certain level within the art world, people start catering to what they think you want or expect rather than being real. It’s hard to tell if people even really like what you create, or if they’re just going along with it because everyone else is.”
His grin doesn’t fade. “Most of us artists are self-deprecating fools, Indy.”
The ease of our conversation isn’t lost on me.
I feel like I’ve known him all my life, yet I’ve merely just met him.
It’s strange and would be overwhelming if Ansel gave me any time to explore the anxiety building beneath my skin. As it is, I barely have time to take a breath before he’s pulling me another step further outside my comfort zone.
“It’s your turn,” he says and points toward the empty canvas.
I scrunch up my nose. “My turn?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you asked me the other night at dinner, and I feel it’s only fair if I put myself on the other side of things. You know, fully grasp what it feels like to be the subject.”
I look at the blank canvas and then at the leather couch and then back at him.
“That’s great and all, but who’s going to paint you? I can’t paint. Like, at all.”
A handsome smirk lifts up the corners of his mouth, and he waves off my words with a nonchalant hand. “Anyone can paint. You just pick up the brush and put it to the canvas.”
“You and I both know it’s not that easy.”
Ansel points toward the couch in front of the canvas. “Do you mind if I sit, or would you prefer me to stand?”
I silently wonder if I asked him to get naked, would he do it?
That might actually make doing this worth the embarrassment of the garbage I’ll no doubt create…
Oh. My. God. Don’t be such a pervert. I quickly squash that ridiculous thought and focus on my lack of skill.
“There is no way I’m painting you,” I declare. “I mean, I can hardly draw a stick person, much less create a portrait that would do you justice.”
“Who says it has to be a portrait?” he asks and sits down. He stretches his arms out along the back of the couch and makes himself comfortable. “Just because I’m the subject doesn’t mean my face has to be on that painting.”
I laugh at the absurdity of a famous, incredibly talented artist acting like anyone can paint. “Ah, see,” I say with a snap of my fingers, “that’s where you’re going wrong. You’re forgetting that I know nothing about art.”
“Just think of all the paintings inside the Met—” he begins to say, but I cut him off.
“I’ve never been to the Met.”
Ansel’s brown eyes widen in shock. “You’re kidding me, right?”
I shake my head and suck my bottom lip between my teeth. “I told you I don’t know anything about art!”
He rubs an agitated hand across the top of his head and barks a laugh. “You did. I just assumed that meant you didn’t know anything current. Everyone should go to the Met.”
I blush and shrug again.
“Okay, so don’t try to picture the Met,” he says through a soft laugh. “Do you know who Jackson Pollock is?”
I’m pretty sure I do. “The guy who did those drip paintings?”
“That’s him.” Ansel grins and nods at the same time. He’s proud again, like maybe I’m not a total lost cause. I decide not to tell him I only know about Jackson Pollock from that movie with Ben Affleck, The Accountant. “Think about his paintings and compare them to a painting like the Mona Lisa.”
“Okay…”
“Well, just because da Vinci painted a portrait of an actual female and Pollock didn’t, doesn’t mean Pollock didn’t have a muse that inspired him. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t actually painting a subject.”
I glance back and forth between the canvas and the handsome man on the couch.
I have no idea what I’m doing here. Hell, I don’t even know if I should be here.
But here I am, standing inside Ansel Bray’s private studio, and I’m so fucking intrigued by him, so damn curious about this man, that I don’t think about anything else.
Eventually, my brain absorbs all of his advice and guidance, and an idea takes over.
I take off my coat and set it and my purse at the top of the stairs, sit down in front of the canvas, and while I choose my paints, Ansel picks up a remote from a wooden table beside the couch. With one small click, the exact piece of music I played for him on the subway starts to echo inside the room—“Comptine d’un autre été.”
It’s already halfway through the composition, and I look up to meet his gaze. “Did you play this on purpose or…?”
“Do you want the truth or a sugar-coated lie?”
What is that supposed to mean?
“The truth, obviously.”
“This was the last song I was listening to when I was in here painting the other day.”
My heart kicks up a rhythm inside my chest, and I have to inhale a deep breath just to make the damn thing relax.
What is it between us? Why do the two of us, people I wouldn’t have thought would cross paths in a million years, have so much in common?
“That’s…” Crazy. Weird. Makes me feel nearly drunk I’m so consumed.
“Yeah.” A secret smile kisses his mouth. “I agree with that.” He doesn’t need me to finish the statement to know what I’m saying. He feels it too. “Tell me, Indy, why do you like this piece of music?”
“For a few reasons, I think,” I answer honestly as I try to wrap my brain around what it is about Yann Tiersen’s composition that touches me the most. “For one, it’s on the soundtrack of one of my favorite movies…”
“Amélie,” he provides, and I nod. Once again, we’re so in sync it scares me.
“And, mostly,” I continue, “I like it because when a piano composition is done right, it is nearly painful how beautiful it is.”
“Music is a passion of yours.”
“It has been since I was a little girl.” A wistful smile kisses my lips. “My dad is a talented jazz musician and always had music playing in the house. I’m pretty sure he’s on a lifelong mission to hear everything that’s ever been created.”
Ansel chuckles. “That reminds me of my friend Nigel. But only, his mission involves every piece of beautiful art.”
“Whatever I’m about to create right now—” I point the tip of my brush at him to emphasize my threat “—your friend Nigel doesn’t need to see.”
He grins at me and crosses an X over his heart. I focus my gaze back on the canvas. Maybe if I just take an abstract approach, I might come up with something that’s not entirely embarrassing?
Fingers crossed.
The music switches over to something with a soothing beat, while a woman with a pretty voice sings softly in Spanish. My head sways back and forth to the relaxing lull, and my fingers guide the bristles of the brush across the stark-white canvas.
Blue turns to gray turns to yellow turns to splashes of gold and brown.
Occasionally, I glance at Ansel, but mostly I just focus on the canvas.
One song bleeds into another and into another until I don’t know how much time has passed. But the sun has set, and the only light coming in through the windows is from the streetlamps and nearby buildings.
By the time I set my brush down, the canvas is a kaleidoscope of colors.
Without question or exchange, Ansel senses the finality and stands up from the couch.
Once he’s standing behind me, he rests his hands on my shoulders, and I can feel the warmth of his fingers through my sweater.
“Is that me?” he asks, and I glance up to meet his eyes.
“If you were a rainbow, I think these would be your colors.”
His smile lights up the whole fucking room. “It’s brilliant.”
I laugh at that. “Now, that’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”
He shakes his head and reaches down to grab my hand and help me to my feet. Standing directly behind me, he pulls my back against his chest and places his lips near my ear.
“I’m not lying,” he whispers, and the heat of his breath triggers goose bumps that start at the back of
my head and slowly move down my neck and arms. “It’s heartfelt yet cool and both soft and rough. It’s pensive and maybe even a little irritable around the edges, but there’s also a lightness to it. If I were a rainbow, this would most certainly be me. There’s just one thing missing.”
“What? Something missing? I’ve gotta tell you, buddy, I think the ol’ Indigo creative well has run dry.”
He laughs and runs an intimate hand through my hair. My stomach lifts itself into my chest, and I have to swallow just to keep myself from moaning. Ansel either doesn’t notice or pretends not to.
“You need to sign it.”
I glance at him. “Sign it?”
“Yeah,” he says and points to a nearby canvas resting against the wall. “Every artist needs to leave their signature.”
I look at the canvas and see the inscription in the right-hand corner.
AB.
It’s simply his initials. A messy script with an A and a B.
I pick up the brush near my hip and put it to the canvas. Only instead of my initials, I sign Indy in the bottom right-hand corner of my creation.
“Perfect,” he whispers near my ear, and every nerve ending beneath my skin comes to life.
My eyes flutter shut, electrified by the way I feel when his body is pressed up against mine. The insane urge to turn on my tiptoes and press my mouth to his full lips damn near consumes me.
God, he makes me feel so good…
Across the room, the sound of “My Boyfriend’s Back” by the Angels starts to play inside my purse, and everything—and I do mean everything—comes crashing down around me at once.
It’s Matt’s ringtone—the one he set for himself on my phone—and the lyrics are entirely too ironic for my liking.
I blink out of my stupor and step forward to put a little distance between us.
“I’m glad you like it,” I whisper hoarsely, the realization that I’ve completely forgotten my boyfriend for almost an entire day making me feel sick.