She handed the notepad back to him. “Now sign it,” she commanded.
He raised an eyebrow but complied, filling the remaining space with his scrawled signature. She retrieved the notepad and carefully folded the paper near the edge of the spiral. She put the fold in her mouth to wet it, then pulled the square of the drawing free of its bindings. Time to be curator. There was a concrete support pillar in the corner, creating a small gap next to the wall.
Using the corners of her name tag as adhesives, she stuck the little line drawing on the pillar where it was not visible from the door. It might go unnoticed for several days, she thought.
Adrian laughed. “The curator is going to have an aneurysm when she finds that,” he said.
“I’m sure this happens all the time,” Caroline said, defending it. “It will be a temporary exhibit.”
“Very temporary.”
“Maybe it’s performance art too. What’s it called?”
Adrian’s dimple popped in the corner of his mouth as he replied, “Caroline Number Two.”
Caroline stuck the rest of her name tag below the drawing, filling in the numeral before adding,Ballpoint pen on scrap paper. That was very official, wasn’t it? There wasn’t room for biographical details about the artist, but perhaps the illicit nature of the exhibit made it better that his name wasn’t really legible.
She regarded the arrangement with satisfaction.
“There,” she said firmly. “Now your first work in a museum is out of the way.”
Adrian shifted closer to her to look at it, his shoulder pressed against her own. She suddenly worried that he’d think she was making fun of him. But when she peeked at him out of the corner of her eye, his face was suffused with nothing worse than wry amusement.
“There are great expectations infirst,” Adrian said, eyes half lidded as he looked at her instead of the drawing.
The expression hit Caroline harder than he’d probably intended, catching her low in her stomach with a sensation of spreading warmth.
“I think you can do it,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound so breathless. “Did you paint anything this week?”
His lower lip flexed a little. “I finished repairing two more paintings.”
“Nothing else?”
Adrian hesitated, then pulled out his phone. She’d seen the charcoal underdrawing of the goldenrod picture before leaving his studio. Now there was a wash of nearly transparent paint over the still visible lines, built up in the creases of her shirt and the angles of her face. The effect was dreamy and unfocused. Romantic, even. She curled her body around the phone, pleased.
She tilted her head at his choice of paint color though. “Purple?”
Adrian smiled, then tucked a strand of her hair back, fingertip barely grazing the shell of her ear. Her skin seemed to tingle at the brief touch.
“Blond hair and yellow flowers need dark shadows to bloom against the background,” he explained, gaze moving between her face and hair. “I’ll build the layers of color bit by bit until it looks like the brighter tones are shining through. You lay the light on last.”
Caroline felt more heat suffuse her cheeks at the way he was studying her face, his eyes dipping down to her mouth as he thought about his painting. When he looked right at her, she knew he was thinking about her, the shape of her, at least, and it made it hard to breathe. She was probably turning red. She hoped he’d blame the wine, held loosely in her hand down by her waist. She wished she’d set it aside somewhere.
Adrian was standing very close, so close she could see the rise and fall of his chest and the dark expanse of his pupils. He inhaled, and Caroline went completely still, overaware of every inch of exposed skin. She wondered if she should close her eyes, or if she should wait to do thatuntil she was absolutely, positively certain he was going to kiss her.
Abruptly, Adrian turned away, his breath making an audible sound. He stuffed his hands into his pockets.
The room felt brighter and colder than it had a moment before, the unrelieved white of the walls too sterile and empty even with the watercolors filling the space.
He stepped back, gesturing to the hall.
“I wouldn’t mind looking at Singer Sargent’s oil paintings too while we’re here. It’s usually too crowded to spend much time with them. Would you mind?”
Caroline blinked rapidly, wondering what had just happened. Or whether anything had. She’d probably misinterpreted things again. Her throat was very dry and tight.
“No,” she said. “I don’t mind. Can I get another glass of wine first though? I’m, um. I’d like another drink.”
The corners of his mouth barely twitched in response. “Yes. I’d like one too.”
