I gasped. “Lucy, that’s beautiful! You did that today?”
I slipped out from behind the island and approached his easel quickly, only slowing when I neared it, because I didn’t want to knock anything out of place.
Lucy, of course, followed me. I felt his eyes on me as I took in the painting before me.
It was dark, with bright portions of white and scarlet and touches of yellow. But it was mostly a dark night sky, just like the one that had been above us at my nana’s house when we spent the night together.
Oh.
Looking closer, I found the moon and the stars in the darkness, then streaks of red and yellow swirling over two forms that weren’t fully solid or detailed, yet somehow animalistic. Sentient. There was a patch of pitch black in the corner that almost looked like it was retreating from the forms near the center.
Was this us?
In Lucy’s morphed artistic style, was this us?
I turned to him, my mouth agape, and I saw the truth written all over his face.
His eyes were wide and worried, his thumb raised to his mouth to rub against his lower lip, likely so he wouldn’t bite it. His shoulders were still curled in on himself, but he was looking at me, searching.
He was worried about what I thought—or maybe what I saw—in his painting.
“It’s…” I searched for the right word to convey what I thought, what I was feeling, but nothing did it justice. I lifted my hands, trying to pull it out of me.
Lucy lit up, though it was hesitant, like he was hoping he saw what he thought he saw in my reaction, from the words I couldn’t find.
“Really?”
I nodded. “I can’t find the words, Lucy. It’s perfect. It’s–” I glanced at the painting again, drinking in the emotions that must have poured from him while he painted it. I was suddenly mournful that I wasn’t here to see him when he’d finally switched into that flow state that I’d heard about but never witnessed. “It belongs in a gallery—if galleries weren’t so stuffy, that is,” I couldn’t help but tease him.
When he laughed, all the sadness and tension lifted from his shoulders. “You really think so? It’s okay if you don’t.”
I turned back to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. This time, he let me. He wound his arms around my neck.
“I swear, Lucy.” I kissed him to show him just how much I meant my words. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
The rest of the tension just oozed out of him, and he melted into my arms just like he had the other night.
“I know you wouldn’t.” He sounded awestruck, like honesty was somehow more than he deserved—something I was now determined to convince him of otherwise. “You’ve been pretty open about your feelings from the start.”
I felt my face heat, and I knew he saw it by the way his eyes jumped across my face before returning to my eyes. He didn’t know I loved him—or, rather, that I wondered if I might love him.
But I had to be confusing that with something else—something that encompassed the intensity of what I felt when I was with Lucy. It was the kind of intensity I hadn’t felt since my nana was still alive, though the emotions themselves were different. But that couldn’t be love.
“You did this today?” I asked, deflecting from that train of thought right away. “I was only gone for a few hours.”
Lucy shrugged, smiling shyly and taking a step back to tug me back to the kitchen and our dinner. “I get kind of lost in it sometimes.”
I laughed. “I’ve heard that about you. Maybe you should hire someone to make you take breaks.”
Lucy shoved me, full of affection, even as he was scolding me for my joke. “If you know a guy, will you let me know?”
“Never.” I shook my head, tugging him back in and peppering kisses over the length of his neck. “You’re all mine.”
The laugh that tumbled out of Lucy’s lips was nothing short of a giggle, and it shot a thrill through me that there was still so much to discover about Lucy, so many more things to experience.
“All yours?” He leans back against me and tilts his head, encouraging all my kisses. “Even after tomorrow?”
After the exhibit. After the time his father had hired me for will end.
