“Don’t you want to wait until you’re home?” he replied, looking around his studio anyway. He had a few glasses and cups from years back that he’d scavenged from antiques stores, but most of them were now holding tools or old paintbrushes.
“No, they’re for you.”
“You bought me flowers?” he asked, confused.
Caroline laughed, the first time his studio had been graced with that sound.
“Yeah,” she said. “I thought you could paint them, if you’re struggling for inspiration.” Her expression was hopeful over the tops of the golden blossoms. It turned a little sly. “Also, aren’t I supposed to get flowers for my sugar baby? Maybe shoes too? What else do sugar babies like?”
“Please stop calling me that,” Adrian said, striving for dignity. Surely he had some left, albeit a dwindling supply. He reluctantly took the flowers when she thrust them at his chest.
“Come on,” she said entreatingly. “Don’t you like painting flowers? You didn’t forget how to, did you?”
“I didn’t forget how, I just moved on in my work,” he told her, his tone stiffer than he’d intended.
Caroline’s face fell in disappointment, and he mentally kicked himself. He was such an asshole. For everything she’d done for him already, the least he could do was paint some flowers for her. He turned back to his box of bowls and vases, emptying out a tarnished silver julep cup.
“I’ll paint them for you,” he muttered. “God knows I haven’t set brush to canvas for any better reason recently.”
“No, no, you don’t have to,” she said quickly. “I just thought having the fresh flowers in your studio might... inspire you. Or the fruit, maybe?”
Adrian tried to rub away the tarnish on the cup with the sleeve of one of his smocks, but it didn’t budge. It had been years.
“It wasn’t about lack of inspiration,” he said absently, setting the cup aside and picking up a glass vase to inspect it for chips. “It’s easy to paint flowers.”
“What was it, then?”
“People thought my work wasn’t progressing. It was time to move on to new subject matter.” He’d phrased it more politely than the critics had.Sentimental and juvenilehad been the message out of that last show. Along with Nora’s promise of gallery space contingent on exploring more complex themes with his next series, he’d concluded that the critics were right.
The vase was chipped, and Caroline was looking at him with that pinched expression that he’d come to know meant that she didn’t understand what he was saying but didn’t want to admit it.
“Can you just hold these for me?” he asked, passingthe bundle of goldenrod back to her. None of his vases were right for the long unstructured shape of the flowers. He nodded at the stool nearest to the window.
“What, like a model?” she asked, sounding surprised but not displeased. She sat obediently on the stool.
“Sure,” he said. “Do you mind?” He grabbed a charcoal pencil and put his smallest canvas on his easel. He’d already applied black gesso for the base layer.
With her spare hand, Caroline plucked at the front of her top. She was dressed in neon activewear again, though mercifully her midriff was covered today in deference to the colder weather.
“If I’d known I was going to have my portrait painted, I would have worn something other than spandex,” she complained.
Adrian hadn’t planned to do a portrait. He opened his mouth to tell her that he’d give her some cloth to drape the flowers with and he’d keep the rest of her out of the frame.
“I’ll work around—” he began to say.
But her mouth curved up mischievously. “Should I take my clothes off instead?” she asked. “Would that be better?” She grasped the bottom hem of her shirt as though she was about to rip it off.
Adrian wished he had an immediate, charming quip to respond to that. Nothing came to mind. Picasso had already cornered the market on paintings of beautiful naked women holding flowers. Adrian had worked hard to gain a reputation for unsparing accuracy in his themes, a reputation that would only be squandered if he tried to convince an audience that someone who looked like Caroline had taken her clothes off for him. There was no way he could be expected to paint with all the blood in hishead rushing south. No, that last part was obscene as well as not charming.
Instead, he only stared at her with his suddenly dry lips struck still, his mind helpfully suggesting the proportions of alizarin crimson and titanium white he would mix to capture the likely color of her areolas. At which point he discovered that he already possessed firm opinions on what her areolas looked like, as well as the rest of her naked body.
“You can keep your clothes on,” he croaked after the moment stretched on, because he really had to say something to counter the obvious implications about why he wasn’t saying anything.
“Are you sure?” Caroline asked, eyebrows raised, and he was positive it had to be a trap. “I don’t see a lot of Lululemon in museums.”
“Maybe that will be my hook. I’ll get in with a corporate sponsorship,” Adrian said, recovering once he pulled his eyes off her and began rummaging in his sack of clean smocks. He found an oversize men’s shirt and handed it off to Caroline, averting his eyes as though she were actually naked, not just wrapped in a few layers of brightly colored performance fabric. He stripped off his own sweater and folded it on his futon, then grabbed a smock for himself.
“We’ll just have to work on that,” Caroline said inscrutably. She shrugged into the shirt and began to button it up, flowers resting in her lap. The dress shirt swamped her frame, but the fabric was thick enough to drape nicely. She looked down at her now-concealed chest.
