“Don’t move,” he murmured, pulling his large sketchbook and tin of charcoal out from his satchel. “Stay just like that. Leave your hair right where it is. The light is perfect.You’reperfect.”
Drawing her like this made him feel more like himself than he had in a long time.
Everything else faded away once his focus took over, and for a blissful stretch of time, there was nothing but him, and her, the sun, and his sketch. The room disappeared, and with it, the ache in his hip and the shaking of his hands. The charcoal moved smoothly across the paper, capturing the soft curves of Audrey’s mouth, sweeping along her body, tracing the dark strokes of her lashes, spilling over the edges of the pillow with her hair.
After a few minutes, she came back to herself enough to tug at the duvet, seemingly still shy. But when he looked up from his work and locked his gaze with hers, something shifted in her face. He could only assume it was the intensity in his eyes reflected back at him in her own that made her slowly drop her arm, fully baring her breasts to him again. Eventually, she kicked the rest of the duvet away from where it had tangled in her legs, and relaxed while she watched him watch her, studying him and lying on her side with a soft, knowing smile.
One of his own tugged at his lips, crooked and mischievous.
He put every bit of his love for her in that drawing, his hands gentle when he repositioned her, adjusting her to his liking to start another. And then one more, each one better and more relaxed than the last.
He’d never done this with someone he loved before. He’d only ever drawn nude live models in classes, and it was nothing like this.
This was the most intimate, electrifying thing he’d ever done.
And given the way Audrey was looking at him now, unabashedlyposing for him, glowing and reveling in the warm, winter sunshine streaming through their windows, he was certain she felt that way too.
He loved her.
Every piece of her.
And he knew she couldseeit.
Only a fool wouldn’t be able to see it in his eyes, in his expression, in the way his gaze softened, how his hands took such care with her, how he stilled for a minute, just to gaze at her, for him and for no one else before he began to draw anew.
And given the way Audrey padded over and slid carefully into his lap once he finally set his sketchbook aside, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing warm, languid kisses to the underside of his stubbled jaw, he knew she understood. He knew she understood why he’d needed to do this.
He didn’t know how long he held her in that chair, smudging black charcoal all over her arms and her neck while he traced the lines of her all over again, tapping across her freckled constellations, smoothing along the white slashes of her own scars, the few that he found.
But no matter how long it was, it still wasn’t long enough.
It was never enough.
It never would be.
The days andweeks passed. They framed the drawings he’d made of her and put them up in their bedroom, the rare example of his own art he was actually willing to display. He let Audrey try her hand at cooking and then immediately revoked the privilege. She adjusted to her new job not at a café while he kept working on his art. His physical therapist, Andy, came back to his house for their appointments and they started working together in earnest again.
His limp began to fade.
“We’ll have to retrain your gait,” Andy said with a pensive hum. “You walked with a limp longer than you should have, and you don’t need to anymore. But you’re in the habit of it now, so we’ll work on it. It’ll suck, but we’ll train up your muscles and get you back into proper form.”
It did suck.
But after six months of work, Theo walked almost normally again. Almost—but not quite—like he did before the accident. He hardly ever needed a cane anymore, and didn’t mind so much when he did.
It happened so slowly, he didn’t even notice.
And something else happened so slowly, he didn’t notice—until he finally did.
It was eight months and thirteen days since he found himself in an optometrist’s office, staring at a mirror while wearing a new pair of glasses, all because he was out for a run one morning and the street signs were a little too blurry for him to read.
He didn’t think he could hate having something on his face more than his scar.
But he was wrong.
He may or may not have been scowling deeply at his reflection when Dr.Hamilton came up behind him and patted him on his shoulder. “That’s a good pair Willow helped you pick out,” the older man said kindly. “They really suit your face.” At least he didn’t completely hate the design of the rounded, plastic, tortoiseshell frames. At least they were classic. It was the fact that they had to be on hisfacethat bothered him.
Why was everything aimed at his fucking face these days?
