I smiled and swallowed my protests. Good that Nigel would get me home fast, actually. Then I’d go to bed fast, and fall asleep fast, and this warm, delicious night would be over before I could spend too much time luxuriating in alone time with Logan. I could rest easy knowing I was exhibiting the wise decision-making skills of a woman maturing.
I watched him thumb a quick message to Nigel, biting his full lower lip.
This ache in my chest was simply growing pains.
17
Comfort Zones
“Tilt your chin up,” Zoey instructed. “You’re the Queen of the Fairies, remember? I need you to look proud and like, atinybit horny.”
I winced, but tilted my chin and gave proudly horny my best shot. “Like this?”
She peeked around her canvas. “Nailedit. Thanks again for doing this. I can’t believe my model flaked at the last minute to stay at Burning Man.”
I tried to talk without moving my lips. “Wasn’t Burning Man weeks ago?”
She shrugged. “Take enough drugs and apparently you never have to leave. You know you can relax, right? It won’t mess up the painting. Besides, this is just a practice study. I want to test how you look in the light.”
“Thanks.” I massaged my stiff jaw. “I’ve never sat for an artist before.”
Besides the art she showed in galleries, it turned out Zoey made the bulk of her living off commissioned paintings. Yesterday she’d called in a panic because the woman who’d agreed to model for a commissioned piece had bailed, and Zoey’s deadline was coming up. She’d begged me to sit for her, promising the painting was a tasteful take on Edmund Spenser’s poem “The Faerie Queen,” a request from a UT English professor. The fact that Zoey thought I was second-string fairy materialandshe wanted to hang out again was enough to overcome my shyness.
She’d instructed me to meet her at the Tite Street Artist Collective, where she rented work space. I’d looked it up and found out Tite Street was the name of the street in London where Oscar Wilde once lived. Naively, I’d thought,what a nice literary allusion. Then I’d arrived and discovered it was more of a lifestyle commitment. As far as I could tell, the Tite Street Artist Collective was single-handedly keeping Austin weird. I’d popped over here after finishing school, and from the moment I’d arrived, I’d felt like a chicken accidentally let loose in a peacock coop.
“Are you sure none of this distracts you?” I waved at the courtyard, where a man covered in paint kept yelling “No!” at his canvas and shaking it, right next to a circle of people smoking a hookah, who were each taking turns nodding and puffing out ideas: “make it avant-garde but also normcore,” “miniature, but like Koons, but for pets.” In the fountain, a topless woman wearing a mermaid tail sunbathed and splashed while chain-smoking.
“Nope,” Zoey said cheerfully. “Helps me concentrate. Careful, your leaves are slipping.”
I hastily tugged the miniscule leaf top Zoey had given me in place over my chest. It had turned out Zoey’s and my definitions of “tasteful” werenotthe same, which I’d realized when she revealed the costume I’d be wearing in the painting, a series of stitched-together fabric leaves and a floral tiara. Apparently, the costume had been specifically requested by the English professor, who I now suspected was less a fan of sixteenth-century poetry and more a fan of fairy porn. I patted the leaves down over my nipples and reminded myself for the millionth time I was doing this to be a good friend.
“So tell me about this library conference,” Zoey said, squinting back and forth between me and the canvas. “I want to hear about your moment of triumph.”
I shook out my hair like I imagined a fairy queen would. “I wouldn’t go that far. But I did make it through without fainting or throwing up. And Logan seemed happy.”
She arched her eyebrows. “I’m sure he did. I watched that press conference y’all did to announce you were a couple. That man was looking at you like he wanted to take you right there on the podium. Should’ve rated the news NC-17.”
“Zoey!” I blushed and looked around, but the sunbathing mermaid didn’t seem scandalized.
She put the wrong end of her paintbrush in her mouth, spit it out, turned it, and chewed. “I’m just saying, you guys put on a hell of a performance.”
I groaned. “That’s exactly the problem. Life cursed me with an overly romantic brain, and it’s getting harder to separate what’s real and what’s part of our act.”
Saying that out loud felt freeing. I didn’t have many people to talk to—Zoey and Lee were the only two who knew Logan and I were faking it, and Lee wasn’t exactly beating down the door to reopen the subject. “I’m constantly telling myself to snap out of it. Meanwhile Logan is completely unbothered. To him, all I am is a way to win. When we were out having drinks the other night—”
“Wait. Just the two of you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“At a bar?”
“This hole-in-the-wall he loves.”
“So no press?”
“Definitely no press. Not even any voters, apparently. Logan wanted to celebrate in private after my speech.”
“Hmm.”
