by Lily Summers
When someone’s art changes you, you should let them know.
Ezra takes my hand again and I wonder if there will be a good time tonight to tell him how much I’ve changed since that night he tagged my store’s building.
We swing through the sculpture and digital art displays, and I don’t even mind that we’re surrounded by too-cool-to-care people who are more invested in perfectly draping their scarves than appreciating the incredible work around us. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed being surrounded by art.
Once we’ve had our fill and Ezra’s made his rounds through the gallery three times, we head back upstairs. Outside, the air smells like clove smoke and rain. Ezra brushes along the inside of my forearm before taking my hand. My whole body warms at his touch. Handholding has never made me want to get horizontal this badly before.
Good god. I only had one beer. Calm yourself, body.
“Have you eaten?” Ezra asks, and I snap back to reality.
My stomach growls in response. I think that ice cream was the only thing I’ve had for the past two days.
“I could eat,” I admit.
We find a nearby café and sit under the awning outside. The heat lamps keep me warm enough, and we order espresso and a charcuterie board complete with housemade pickles and fancy mustards.
“I had no idea you could add banana to mustard,” I say after a particularly weird bite.
“They should have left that recipe wherever they found it,” he says, wrinkling his nose.
“Maybe in the deepest portal of hell?” I propose, and Ezra laughs, snorting into his espresso cup.
I watch him run his hand through his hair as leans back in his chair. Framed by the golden light and mist, he exudes this inexplicable coolness, even in spite of the plate of gross pickled watermelon rinds in front of him. He always looks so effortlessly comfortable that I can barely stand it. It fans the flames of my attraction to him about 500 times higher. He stretches his feet out below the table and brushes against mine. I want to run my toes up his leg.
What is the matter with me? I’m not even into foot stuff.
“Thank you for bringing me out tonight,” I say to distract myself. “I had an amazing time. The way to this girl’s heart is through art shows and cured meats, and you’ve provided both.”
“I’ll do my best to leave out the watermelon rinds next time,” he says. Then he leans forward on the table and a strand of his hair falls loose against the side of his face. It’s very alluring.
“I live near here, actually,” he adds. “If you wanted to come by for a little while, I wouldn’t complain.” He taps his espresso cup against its tiny saucer, ignoring the glares he receives from the people beside us. “Actually I’d do the opposite of complain.”
He doesn’t have to ask twice. Being near him makes the emptiness go away, and I don’t want to lose that feeling anytime soon.
“One hundred percent yes,” I say.
“The full hundred percent?” he laughs. “Hot damn. Right this way.”
We walk past a half dozen more galleries and shops before we reach a newly renovated residential building. After punching in a security code, Ezra pulls open the front door, bowing me inside with a flourish and a cheeky grin like he’s a proper gentleman. There are four flights of stairs between us and his place, and by the time we finally reach it, I’m almost too winded to comment, but not quite.
“Whoa,” I manage to say.
It’s a beautiful loft. Exposed brick and ductwork give it an industrial look without detracting from its warmth, which comes from furniture and accent pieces in rich reds and yellows. A large floor-to-ceiling window frames the area behind his bed. The lights of the Pearl District dance down below, restaurants and entertainments spots brimming with people. When I look beyond the streets, I can see a strip of the Willamette River, black and silver in the darkness.
I turn in a slow circle and gasp at what I see. Ezra isn’t like me, squirreling his art away in sketchbooks that he hides under his bed. His art is tagged directly on the walls, covering any available surface. The woman from his other paintings makes several more appearances, and I wonder why she plays such a prominent role in his art. What—or who—does she represent? I recognize the skyline of New York City and the trees of Central Park. His work is bold, colorful, and flowing. But I see that underlying darkness everywhere, too. It’s in his subjects’ expressions and the shadows they cast.
Ezra is completely at ease, leaning against one of the exposed posts and watching me admire his space.
“You like it?” he says.
“How do you afford this place?” I blurt. Surely he can’t be making that much in tips, can he?
Ezra laughs, the surprise taking him off guard. “That’s what I like about you, Mia,” he says, pushing himself across the room to stand right behind me, so that we look at his work together. His breath is warm against my neck. “You always keep it honest.” He slides a hand to my waist and I lean into him. “And to answer your question, there’s no way I could afford this full price. I worked out a deal with the building owner. I get a decreased rent for moonlighting as an on-site maintenance guy.”
“I hope they won’t make you paint over all this if you move,” I say. “It’s incredible work.”
He follows my gaze around the room and shrugs. “If that happens, I’ll make more. This is nothing to write home about.”
“Ezra, of course it is,” I say easily, but he doesn’t respond. “Ezra?” I ask, but I’m met only with silence.
I turn to look at him, and he drops his hand, stuffing it in his back pocket and not quite meeting my eye. He doesn’t believe me. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t see the magic in his own work, the pure spirit that brings his art to life. “You put more passion and pain into your work than half the people I went to school with,” I tell him. “Anyone who looks at it will be able to see that.”
Ezra’s face transforms. Opens, somehow. The shield that guarded him, that brushed off his art as inconsequential, unimportant, disappears and I see all of him. His drive. His vulnerability. His incredible passion that burns white hot.
He comes closer, reaching out to run his fingertips over my shoulder. They leave a trail of goosebumps in their wake.
“You make me feel like more than a party trick,” he says.
I swallow, watching his mouth move as he talks. “That’s because you are more than a party trick.”
He closes the distance between us, tracing the line of my neck, drawing me nearer to him. I melt under his touch, the pressure of his fingers against my skin intoxicating. “Mia,” he murmurs, before sweeping me up in a kiss. My lips part and I nearly moan against him. Suddenly all I need is to have him closer. He backs me into the wall so that I’m up against his painting, the color stretching around me like wings. Miraculously, the nagging voice in my head is absent, which is good, because I want this so desperately. I run my fingers through the hair at his temples, gripping it and pulling him in deeper until his body is flush against mine.
My body is coming alive, begging for more. My blood thrums beneath my skin and every touch resonates down to my very core. It’s not just that a beautiful man is kissing me – it’s that it’s Ezra, and Ezra sees the art etched into my bones. He’s brave and bold, everything I wish I could be.
And he wants me.
His hand trails down my side and over my hip, tapping patterns on the outside of my thigh. I feel his tongue brush along the seam of my mouth and our breath mingles together. He tastes like coffee in the very best way.
The door to my heart is opening, and this time I want it to. I want to fling it wide.
My hands rove from Ezra’s hair to his shoulders as I pull back enough to kiss down the length of his throat. He sighs and wraps his arm around the small of my back to lift me off my feet. We pivot together and the next thing I know, I’m on his lap on the couch. My hair comes undone.
I run my fingers down his upper arms and grip him tight as
he pulls me closer. The muscles of his biceps flex under my hands and I have a very sudden and very burning desire to get his shirt off.
When I break our kiss to make enough room between us to get to his buttons, he stops me long enough that he can sweep my hair out of my eyes and tilt his face up to brush my nose with his lips. It’s enough to make a girl turn to a puddle on the floor.
My hands are shaking as I undo his buttons. I want this so much, but this is the most intimate I’ve been with someone since…
No. I’m not thinking of that tonight.
I plant more kisses on Ezra’s neck as I slide his shirt off of his shoulders. He rolls them to make it easier on me, and I admire the way the movement makes his tattoos ripple. They stretch over his shoulders and torso, bright and full of life. I trace a tree twining up his ribs, admiring every muscle as I go. Then I place an open-mouthed kiss on the cresting waves over his heart and he hums in appreciation.
He encircles me with his arms and stands with me still wrapped around his waist. I laugh and get him to put me down before he leans in for another kiss.
As he takes my hand and pulls me gently toward his bed, I drink in the tattoos on his back. One right between his shoulder blades makes me pause because it’s so unlike the others. Bright blues and oranges cover most of his skin, but this tattoo is a void – completely black. The silhouette of a winged man plummets, his feathers scattering on either side of Ezra’s spine. Script twists out from the black to curve along the underside of his shoulder blade. It reads, “I will survive the fall.”
I stop, and the weight of me tugs Ezra’s hand to makes him turn around to look. He’s lovely in the yellow light of the exposed bulbs, his eyes languid and dark with want.
“Are you all right?” he asks. “We can stop if you want.”
I shake my head. “It’s not that, it’s just…” I gently reach out to turn him so I can look at his back again, and I put my palm over the falling man.
“This tattoo isn’t like your others,” I say. “Why is that?”
As if I’ve flipped a switch, he goes rigid beneath my hand. I feel him strain against himself trying and failing to relax. He pulls away.
“Not anything you need to worry about,” he says in a measured voice.
I rub my knuckles together, my nerves creeping up on me. Did I do something wrong? Did I open the door to a past he wants to hide from?
His past can’t push me away from him. If anybody understands being marked by darkness, it’s me.
“I know what it’s like to run from your shadows,” I say quietly. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand, but I’m here if you do.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says, and there’s finality in his tone that I don’t push.
“Okay.” I think about our first dates, how he never pushed me, but waited patiently, gently, for me to come to him. I will be as good as him. I’m resolved to it. But when I look at him, at the dark ink stained across his spine, the urge to ask again rises. It’s not just from curiosity, but the desire to know him, this incredible person who surprises me at every turn. I want to know all of Ezra, and have him know me.
His features soften as he looks at me. He reaches out and pulls me in for another kiss, but this one is gentle. Kind.
I press my forehead to his, so that the tips of our noses touch and his eyelashes nearly skim mine. “It’s late. I should probably head home.”
“Stay,” he says. “You don’t have to go. Sleep here tonight.”
I haven’t slept anywhere but my apartment since I moved here. It’s not lost on me that spending the night means letting him even deeper into my life. Am I ready for that?
His eyes shine with hope as he looks at me, his hands resting softly on my hips. A person would need willpower of steel to resist that look.
Yeah. I’m ready.
“I’ll stay.” I lean down over him and his eyes go heavy-lidded as I kiss him.
I text Audrey to let her know I won’t be home tonight and crawl beneath the sheets, tangling my legs with Ezra’s. He rubs my back and I memorize the muscles of his chest with my hands, paying special attention to the beat of his heart. I wonder if mine’s this steady. I doubt it.
He whispers into my skin. “Goodnight, Autumn.”
“Goodnight, Summer,” I echo, feeling him warm me like the sun.
As I’m drifting off to sleep, I think of how disappointed Audrey will be that I don’t have a bunch of hot, sexy details to spill to her over breakfast tomorrow.
But then again, as Ezra’s pulse beats against my lips, I don’t especially care.
14
Unsurprisingly, Audrey’s laying in wait the second I walk through the front door.
She hangs over the back of the couch, purple coffee cup in one hand. The whole apartment smells like cinnamon and espresso.
“Spill,” she demands, then takes a noisy sip of her coffee.
I roll my eyes and trudge past her toward my room. “Let me shower first.”
She’s already up off the couch and following on my heels. “Spill,” she says again.
“Audrey, seriously, I have an imprint on my hip from sleeping on the zipper of my skirt all night. Could I have a minute?” I push my way into my bedroom and, much to my chagrin, she follows me inside. Thank God I took down all my sketches already.
“Spill. Spill. Spill.”
“Audrey, would you—”
“Spill.”
“I’m really getting—”
“Less cranking, more spilling.”
“Fine,” I sigh as I yank off my top and throw it at her. “I spent the night at Ezra’s. Happy?”
She squeals, holding her mug in both hands and doing a little dance. “I need details!”
“You’ll get details after you let me brush my damn teeth. Now get out.”
She complies, and after the door clicks shut behind her, I cover my face in my hands to cover the absurd grin plastered across it.
Once I’ve freshened up, I come out to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal and find Audrey already dressed in a chunky sweater and overlarge scarf.
“Going out?” I ask. I’m surprised she’s going to leave before getting the full story.
She leans over the counter. “We’re going out. Stumptown has new blends. I’ll buy you breakfast and you can give me all the savory details. Let’s go!”
I groan. “But I just got home.”
“Coffee time. Come on.”
“No way.”
“I’ll get you a blueberry bourbon basil donut from Blue Star Donuts on the way.”
I slam the cereal box on the counter and wag my spoon at her. “That is a dirty, dirty trick.”
She beams at me. “I know. Go put on something warmer.”
I silently curse letting her discover my weakness for sugary pastries and skulk back to my room to dig out some appropriately cozy clothes. Nothing fashionable – I used up my quota of looking cute this morning by sneaking off to the bathroom before Ezra woke up to make sure my hair was adorably sleep-tousled rather than a rat’s nest.
I remember the warmth of his body next to mine as I crawled back under the covers beside him and the way he smiled in his sleep as he reached for me. His hair had come loose and fell across his face. The memory makes me break into a goofy grin.
Audrey decides to spring for an Uber, so we hop in and ride to Southwest Washington Street for our donuts. Blue Star Donuts isn’t the tourist trap that Voodoo Donuts has become, but it’s popular with locals, so there’s already a line. Thankfully they’ve just made a fresh batch of the blueberry bourbon basil, so I snag one. Audrey opts for the bananas foster and we happily munch on our prizes as we walk down and around the corner.
“This is the best thing I’ve put in my mouth all week,” Audrey moans around a bite of her donut. “I might die.”
“I’ll make sure your obituary reads, ‘She died as she lived: overcaffeinated and hyperbolic,’” I say.
Stumptown Coffee comes into view ahead of us. The storefront is nothing but windows, so we can see that the line’s pretty reasonable as we push our way inside. If warmth had a smell, it would smell like this place: all frothed milk and espresso, the mingling of sleepy patrons before their morning caffeine dose. Once we get our coffee – a light roast for me and some kind of almond latte I can’t pronounce for Audrey – and score a spot near the front window, she takes a calculated sip of her coffee and makes her move.
“Okay, you’re fed and caffeinated,” she says. “You owe me details. Leave nothing unsaid.”
I raise my eyebrows, lifting my cup and making a show of savoring my sip. I smack my lips dramatically. I’m about to go in for another slurp when Audrey groans and swats my unoccupied hand.
“You are a tease and I love you for it. Tell me.”
Despite myself, I feel my mouth quirk up. “He invited me to the exhibit at the MAG last night.”
“Yeah, he called me and I figured he might.” She leans on her hand, expectant. “Go on.”
“It was a really incredible exhibit, you would have loved —”
“Now you’re stalling, and it’s very rude,” she says, but her scold is dampened by her smile.
I sigh. “Fine, make me cut to the ending, I see how it is.”
She waggles her eyebrows at me. “I hope it was a happy one.”
I put my hand up to hide my face. “We didn’t have sex.”
“Aw,” she says, her expression falling in disappointment. “Way to bury the lead.”
“It wasn’t the right time yet.”
She takes another drink. “Okay, fair enough. I can respect that. So there was no boinking… what was there?”
“I did get his shirt off.” I shrug.
“Oh, good. That’s good.” She leans closer. “Tell me about that. Was he ripped?”
“Are you serious? You sound like a middle schooler.”
“It’s an important question.”
Despite my embarrassment, I feel a giddy laugh rise in me. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that Audrey isn’t my best friend.
Although, as I’m contemplating spilling last night’s details, I realize that maybe she is.