Only Between Us

by Mila Ferrera

  I hate to admit it, but I’ve been wondering that myself. A few of the artists from upstairs have been hanging out—a pretty woman named Daisy with waist-length, wheat-colored hair, and a guy named Markus with black, grimy fingernails and full sleeve tattoos on both his arms. Both of them came back here to check on me, but I smiled and brushed them off, telling them I’m still settling in.

  And now people are packing up. Daisy announces that folks can stay until ten if they want, and then she and Markus head up the stairs, chatting about an upcoming gallery show in one of the places on Main Street. The girls head out to wait for their parents to pick them up, and the elderly people go out to their cars. One of the tailored middle-aged women from my class goes up the stairs, and the rest of them leave. All the while, I sit here, wondering why I ever thought this was a good idea.

  The front door slams and I flinch, cold prickles running through me. The lights in the room switch off, and I gasp.

  “Oh, sorry,” Caleb says. “I didn’t know someone was still in here.” The lights come back on. “Romy?” He steps into the room, looking windblown, smelling faintly of smoke, his gaze riveted to my face as his eyes fill with concern. “Are you okay?”

  I blink. “What? Yeah. I was about to pack up.”

  He edges along a row of easels, glancing around the empty room. “What are you working on?” He frowns as he reaches me and sees that my paper is blank. He looks down at my untouched palette, my clean brush. “Did you just get here?”

  I swallow. “I’ve been here for a while, actually. I’m kind of …”

  “Blocked?”

  I shrug. There’s a dark smudge of something on his temple, and I want to wipe it away. It makes him look vulnerable.

  “It happens to everyone sometimes,” he says.

  I never thought gray was a warm color, but as I look into his eyes, I start to reconsider. “It’s never happened to me before, but it’s been a while since I painted.”

  He nods at my palette. “You’re into oils? Why are you taking my acrylics for beginners class?”

  “It was the only one I could fit into my course schedule.”

  “What’s your major?”

  “I’m a graduate student in counseling. I’m in my second year.”

  His smile turns mischievous. “So you’re gonna be a shrink? Is that why you were analyzing my painting?”

  I roll my eyes. “Why, are you afraid I’ll discover your dark secrets?”

  He lets out a huff of silent laughter. “Maybe.” He gestures at my paper. “Are you afraid to reveal yours to the world?”

  I bow my head. “Maybe.” It comes out raw, more vulnerable than I want it to, so I lighten my tone. “Or maybe I should paint landscapes.”

  “Is that really your style?” He steps a little closer, and I swear, I feel the heat of him radiating toward me in the cool room. His scent is turpentine and soap and smoke, a strange and oddly magnetic combination.

  “Not really,” I say quietly. “I guess I don’t have a style.”

  “Bullshit,” he says, but his voice is gentle. He snags the stool next to me and sits down, tucking a bit of stray hair behind his ear. I wonder what he looks like without the top half of his hair pulled back, if he ever allows it to fall around his face.

  “I take it you majored in art?” I ask, eager to move the topic away from myself.

  His smile contains the slightest twist of bitterness. “Much to my family’s chagrin, yes. Not only college, but graduate school as well.”

  “Do you like teaching?”

  Those eerie wolf-gray eyes meet mine. “Sometimes. I like helping people express themselves.”

  “Me, too. Therapy can be the same way.”

  He sits back a little. “Maybe so. I like painting better, though. It’s the only therapy I need.”

  He sounds the slightest bit defensive, and I think back to what I saw last night, how much pain inhabited his canvas. “And does it always look … like that?”

  “Only when it needs to.” He tilts his head. “Are you stalling, Romy?”

  Looks like I’m not the only one eager to steer the conversation away from myself. “Stalling to avoid what? Going home? No.” Maybe.

  His eyebrow arches. “We have rules. You can’t leave here without getting that brush dirty.”

  “Maybe I should pack up for tonight.” I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of this guy.

  His fingers dance down the stalk of my brush, and I feel it like he’s stroked my skin. “Want to try something before you give up?”

  “Huh?”

  The corner of his mouth lifts into a lopsided smile. “Trust me for a second?”

  I frown. “With what?”

  He chuckles. “Come on, Romy. I’ve been through artistic blocks more times than I can count. Let’s see if we can’t get you through yours.”

  I look up at his face. There’s a few days-worth of stubble on his cheeks, and there are light circles under his eyes, like he hasn’t been sleeping well. I search his gaze to see if this is a sleazy pick-up or mockery and find none of that. “Okay.”

  Slowly, he takes the palette and brush from my hands and sets them on the floor next to my easel. Then he straightens up and puts his hands on my shoulders, and I tense up for a moment at the unexpected touch. He stills, but doesn’t let me go. “Face your canvas,” he instructs after a few seconds. “And close your eyes.”

  “All right …” I’m fighting my awareness of the weight of his hands on me, of his scent.

  “Can you slow down your breathing?”

  I bite my lip and hold my breath, wishing he hadn’t noticed how he’s affecting me, though he probably doesn’t realize that’s what’s happening. Or maybe he does—his hands disappear … and I miss them.

  “I said slow down, not stop altogether,” he says, his voice trembling with amusement. “Breathe, Romy. There you go.”

  The smile in his voice makes me shiver, but I try to focus on drawing air into my lungs, expanding them completely. And then I do it again and again, dwelling in the silent rush as I exhale.

  “Now,” he whispers. “What colors do you see?”

  I laugh. “My eyes are still closed.”

  “I know.”

  I press my lips together and concentrate. He’s totally serious, trying to help me, and I shouldn’t waste this opportunity. But—“It’s hard to grasp. I can’t describe it.”

  “Try,” he says, and I hear the shuffle of his feet. He’s right behind me, not touching, but I feel him anyway. He’s moved closer. A few more inches and his chest would be against my back.

  “Try,” he says again, a little louder.

  There’s something in the timbre of his voice that makes me want to do as he says, and for a moment I want to strike out, to rebel. But when he says it a third time, I remind myself that he’s not trying to control me. I will not let Alex make me see the world this way, scared and suspicious of everything and everyone. That would mean he’s still manipulating me, and I won’t let him ruin this for me like he ruined so much else. Caleb is trying to help me. He’s my teacher. “Mostly dark brown …”

  “No,” he murmurs. “Really try.”

  Somehow, I know what he means. I know what he wants. “Raw umber … mostly, but Prussian blue, too, maybe a bit of yellow ochre …”

  “Intensity?” His breath skates across my cheek, and my stomach tightens, but not with fear.

  “Dull, I guess. There’s a … a streak of light through it …”

  “Romy,” he says, and it’s the gentlest of reprimands. “I think you can do better than that.”

  So I try harder, pushing myself into the colors, swimming in them. And as I do, they stop slipping away from me. I gobble up the images, the swirls of rich tones, earth and sun. “Mostly titanium white, but a healthy dose of lemon yellow.”

  He hears it in my words, my voice, I’m certain. He almost sounds excited as he asks, “Orange? Black? Warm or cool?”

  “Defi
nitely warm,” I whisper, so quiet that I’m not sure he can hear me. And suddenly I don’t know if I’m talking about the colors or him. His body heat fans across my shoulder blades. If I leaned back, even a little, I’d be touching him … but I can’t. I shouldn’t. That’s not what this is about. I open my eyes. The swirling, mysterious colors that dwell beneath my eyelids are gone. In front of me is my paper, dull white. A blank. The loss is shocking, like surfacing from a dream before you’re ready. Caleb is so quiet behind me that I pivot in my seat and my legs collide with his. I wobble and my hands rise to keep myself from sliding off the stool. His do the same, and I end up clutching his arms while his fingers close around my elbows, steadying me.

  For a moment, he gazes down at me, and my heart skips and stutters. “Now create it,” he says. “Make it real.” His grasp on me tightens.

  I’m not thinking of what I saw beneath my eyelids anymore. Storm gray, spindly threads of yellow ochre, a tiny, brilliant spot of phthalo blue in his right eye but not in the left ... “What?”

  He glances down at my abandoned palette. “Recreate what you saw. Do that, and then you can go.”

  “I can go whenever I want,” I blurt.

  His eyes flash with something, maybe annoyance or humor, and he releases my arms. “Of course you can. But you won’t want to go until you’ve done this for yourself.”

  I open my mouth to argue with him, but then I realize he’s right, and my words slip back down my throat.

  “We … uh … have open easel time on Sunday afternoons, too,” Caleb says, suddenly hesitant. My heart thumps as I realize he’s staring at my mouth. He bows his head and a few loose, chocolate brown strands fall across his face. “If you don’t already have pl—”

  “Caleb?” A voluptuous woman with perfectly highlighted blonde hair peeks into the room—she’s the one who went upstairs earlier. His head jerks up in time for me to see the flush on his cheeks. The woman’s eyes lock onto him, and her lacquered red lips quirk into a seductive smile. “I was waiting for you.”

  A ball of nausea forms in my stomach, and I have to look away from her. My gaze falls on Caleb’s hands, which clench for a moment before relaxing again.

  “I’ll be right there, Claudia,” he says before looking back at me. “You good to go?”

  I force a casual smile onto my face. As if the last several minutes were simply nothing, easy, meaningless, shallow. “Good to go. Thanks.”

  He returns my smile, but I swear I detect a hint of sadness there. “Anytime.”

  He turns on his heel and follows Claudia up the stairs. I watch him go, the broad expanse of his back, the way he follows her like she’s in charge, his shoulders slumped and his head down. Who is she to him? Why would he … no. I’m not here to think about Caleb or the women who so clearly want him. I don’t care. I don’t care.

  I look down at my palette, my brush, the lumps of color on the thin wooden board, the means to my salvation, my path back to myself. This is about me and no one else. I repeat that a few times, and then I settle myself on the stool again. My fingers tighten over the brush, and I start to mix the colors, feeling giddy and hopeful. But as I work, my hands and brain betray me. The color on my paper isn’t the swirl of earthy brown I saw when I closed my eyes.

  It’s cool, thundercloud gray shot through with threads of yellow, along with a single pinprick of perfect, vibrant blue.

  Chapter Four: Caleb

  Claudia Dexter knows what she wants, and she doesn’t like to wait for it. That’s her rep, anyway. This semester’s the first time she’s taken a class of mine, but Daniel has some experience with her, and so does Markus. I have no idea how long she’d been upstairs lying in wait, but when she came down to get me, I saw the irritation in her eyes. When they flicked toward Romy, I almost stepped between them, to shield Romy from it. I can’t let the shit from my life rub off onto her. I get the feeling she has enough to deal with already.

  “Nice of you to help some of the beginners,” Claudia says as we hit the second floor. “But I think your time is more valuable than that.”

  “Huh?” I’m having trouble getting Romy’s face out of my head. There was something haunted in her expression, but also rebellious. Strong.

  Claudia chuckles, patting her hair as the huge diamond on her finger twinkles yellow and red under the light. “That little charity case downstairs with the blank page.”

  Anger explodes beneath my skin and roils inside my chest. “She’s one of my students, and she’s going through a block.” My mouth snaps shut. I shouldn’t be doing this, defending Romy like she’s special, not to Claudia. It’s not smart.

  Claudia’s eyes flash, confirming as much. “I wanted to talk to you about your paintings, Caleb. I thought we’d agreed to meet. This is a great opportunity for you.”

  Shit. Her text. I said I’d meet her at nine. But I spent the afternoon putting out a fire … literally … and then I got so wrapped up in Romy that it completely slipped my mind. I clear my throat. “I’m so sorry, Claudia. I should have called.”

  We reach my studio and she looks over her shoulder at me. “You should have. But I’ll forgive you.” She glances toward my canvas, the one Romy said was exquisite. “I want to commission a painting.”

  My heart beats a little faster. Between my mom’s email and what happened this afternoon, I need cash in a major way. “Really?”

  She nods, her gaze sliding down my body before returning to my face. “We’re adding some pieces to our gallery room in advance of our annual fall charity event, and I think a Caleb McCallum original might be the perfect addition.”

  I gesture at my painting. “I could have this one done by—”

  She laughs, and the edges of it slice at me, making me feel two feet tall. “Oh, darling, I can’t hang something like that on my wall. My husband would think I’ve lost my mind. No, I need something tasteful.”

  “Tasteful,” I say, feeling like she’s punched me in the stomach. You need the money. Be nice. “I’m getting the sense you have something specific in mind?”

  “It can be abstract,” she says, “but I want it to be … organic. Like a landscape. Greens and blues. Flowers. Things like that.”

  “Flowers.” Be nice nice nice. Daisy does landscapes. She does flowers. And I could say that, but I fucking need the cash, and she’s not asking Daisy because Daisy doesn’t have the proper … equipment. “I could do flowers,” I say. God. I feel like a whore.

  She arches an eyebrow. “I knew you could.” She saunters over to me. Her perfume makes me want to cough. Her manicured fingernails skim up my stomach, snagging a little on my shirt. And I don’t stop her. “You can do anything, can’t you?”

  That’s the funniest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time, and it almost brings me to my senses. “Claudia …”

  “My budget is five thousand,” she purrs. “I want something big.” Her eyes stroke down to my crotch, and my balls shrivel a little. “Can you do it?”

  What are we talking about again? And … does it matter? Five thousand dollars. Five thousand. “Yeah,” I say, wishing it didn’t sound unsteady. “You just have to tell me what you want.”

  She flattens her palm on my chest and steps closer. “I can do that.” Her breasts, artificially firm, press against me. Her perfume is giving me a headache. I take a step back and my hip hits the edge of the long center table. She follows, her hand finding my waist. “Before I can decide, I’d like to get to know your … work.”

  I brush her hair off her shoulders, stroking my fingers along her neck and trying not to think about how much I hate myself right now. It’s not like I’m inexperienced or don’t know what to do. It’s that I’ve never had sex for any reason other than simply wanting the girl and enjoying the fact that she wanted me, too. This … Claudia obviously wants me, but it’s going to take some effort to reciprocate. Still, I’m going to do this. I need to. Claudia smiles up at me, going for girlish, but the effect is ruined by all the makeup and jew
elry. I force myself to smile back. My chest aches.

  She’s dipping her fingers into my jeans when Daniel walks in.

  He stops dead when he sees us there, registers the look on my face, and rearranges his own expression into one of relief. “Dude. I’m so glad I caught you. I really need to talk to you about something.”

  Claudia steps away from me, looking peeved. “We were having a meeting, Daniel.”

  He gives her an apologetic little boy smile. “Sorry, Claudia. Emergency.”

  Her eyebrows rise, wrinkling her forehead. Makeup gathers in the creases. She looks between the two of us and then takes hold of my arm. “Call me tomorrow, so we can schedule another consultation session. You can come to my place and see the gallery room.” Her eyes glint with the possibilities.

  Before I can say anything else, she strides toward the stairs, her hips swaying. I don’t move until I hear the front door slam, and then I sag against the table. “Fuuuuck.”

  “That’s definitely what was on her mind,” Daniel says with a laugh. “She was about two seconds from ripping your clothes off.”

  Now I feel more like a whore than ever. I shudder and scrape my hand through my hair, coming away with the elastic dangling from my fingers. “She wants to commission a painting.”

  Daniel’s expression sobers up quick. “I’m sorry for busting in like that, then. It was just, when I came in, you looked—”