The doors slide open, and I follow him down the quiet hallway. At the final door, he scans his student ID and the lock clicks open.
“Welcome to my second home,” he says, pushing it wide. “And please ignore the mess.”
I step inside and my breath catches. The whole space is alive with colour. Paolo has large canvases leaning against the walls, each one bursting with colour and emotion.
Paint-splattered drop cloths cover the floor, and jars of brushes crowd every available surface. I walk closer to a nearby worktable where open tubes of paint lay scattered between charcoal sticks and stained rags. A large sketchbook sits near the edge, its pages warped slightly.
“May I?” I ask, lifting it carefully.
He offers an embarrassed smile. “Sure. But most of what’s in there is just rough ideas.”
I nod and open it, flipping through the pages of loose figure studies, gesture sketches, and what looks to be quick explorations of hands and movement, but I stop about halfway through the book, stunned.
A portrait of me takes up the page, not very detailed, but unmistakably me. My profile is angled as if I’m leaning against something, hair falling forward, eyes closed. The longer I stare atit, the more my mind starts to piece together that this must have been when I fell asleep on the bus ride to Florence.
I swallow and turn the page, finding another portrait of me. This time I’m laughing, my head tilted back slightly—the night we went out for drinks and karaoke.
I flip through several more pages of similar portraits of me before I glance over at him slowly,
“...Paolo?”
His posture is stiff, and he suddenly seems fascinated by reorganizing brushes that clearly don’t need reorganizing.
“These are…well they’re all…me,” I say gently. “Starting from the day we met.”
He exhales through his nose, a sheepish half-laugh escaping from his lips. “I didn’t plan for you to see those.”
I glance back down at the sketchbook again, fingertips brushing the edge of the page. “You’ve drawn me a lot.”
His voice is quieter when he answers. “You’re…interesting to draw.”
I don’t know what to say to that, but thankfully Paolo continues before the silence becomes uncomfortable.
“Something about your expressions,” he says, choosing his words carefully, “makes me want to create art, instead of just producing it. You bring life back to my art.”
A laugh slips out of me. “I didn’t realize I was your artistic breakthrough.”
A small smile tugs at his lips. “That's why I asked you to model for me. I want to see what else you inspire me to create.”
“And here I was thinking you were interested in me and using that as an excuse.”
The words leave my mouth before my brain has a chance to intervene. Regret hits me instantly, and an embarrassed heat creeps up my neck.
Paolo pauses, then smiles gently. “I can tell that man at the hotel isn’t just history to you,” he says, his tone calm and sincere. “And I don’t want to complicate whatever that is…or get in the middle of something unfinished.”
He leans back against the worktable, arms loosely folded across his chest, his expression open instead of guarded.
“So I’m going into this without expectations,” he continues. “No pressure or assumptions. I asked you to model because you inspire me artistically and because I want to capture something real and honest in my work. That’s all.”
His gaze softens slightly as I struggle to hold eye contact.
“But…if something more ever grew naturally between us, I wouldn’t pretend not to welcome it,” he admits. “I just want to make it clear that that isn’t why you are here. You’re here because you’re beautiful, expressive, and human in a way that translates onto canvas perfectly.”
I shift on my feet, considering his words.
“I think I’d like that,” I say quietly. “Just seeing where it goes, without expectations…creating something beautiful together.”
A soft smile passes across his expression.
