Micah pulled in a wet breath. “Yes. Just go. I can’t do this.”
Cosmo said something, but it was too low to make out. He hurried down the stairs, and his footsteps receded.
Micah picked himself up, walked inside, and slammed the door behind him.
Each throb of his heart sent pain shooting up to his elbow. Scrapes and lacerations ran across his knuckles, and they were already starting to swell. He wouldn’t be able to draw or paint for days. But who cared? He might as well shut himself up in here and never come out again.
The portraits of Cosmo stared back at him from the wall. He took off his glasses, slumped over the drafting table, and sobbed into his arm. His chest hitched and he fought for breath, praying that the next gasp of air wouldn’t come. Then, in a month, when he didn’t pay rent, someone would find his bloated corpse and take him away from this cursed studio and put him in a grave – the grave he should have ended up in after his assault. He’d survived, been doped up and stitched up, and sent on his way. But he wasn’t fixed. All the hospital’s horses and all the hospital’s men couldn’t put Micah back together again.
A soft knock came at the door, and Cosmo’s voice drifted. “Micah?”
His heart surged. He wiped his face and sucked back his tears. After raking a hand through his hair, he drew in a deep breath and opened the door.
Cosmo stood on the step, one hip jutted out and a cigarette dangling from his fingers. He took a drag, and smoke curled from his nostrils. “Well, the good news is that since you’re unable to invite people inside, you’ll never have to worry about vampires.”
“I’d gladly trade the risk.”
“You should have told me.”
Micah blinked at the city lights through the blear in his eyes. “I thought it would be different with you.”
“Is it only company in your place that gives you an attack? We were in the bistro together and you were fine. Can you go into other people’s houses?”
“I think so. But I can’t remember the last time I’ve done that.”
Cosmo shivered, then tugged his jacket around himself and sat on the step.
“You’re not leaving?” Micah asked.
“I tried. Ximena said if I wasn’t actually dead, she’d make me wish I was if I didn’t come back up here and spend time with you. I explained about the funeral party but managed to slip out of her grip before she grilled me on anything else.”
Micah sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“She really likes you.”
“Yeah.” He pulled the blanket off the foot of his bed, then sat on the step and handed it to Cosmo. “But she goes overboard. I don’t mind her acting motherly, but I’m sick of the pity.”
Cosmo opened the blanket, but instead of wrapping it around himself, he flung it across both of their shoulders. He scooted next to Micah until their thighs and shoulders touched. His warm scent of raspberry and clove filled Micah’s nose, and Micah was certain any moment his heart would stop beating.
Curls brushed his cheek as Cosmo pulled the blanket tightly around them. “You won’t get any pity from me. I hate that it happened to you, but it did. And it’s okay to not be okay.”
Micah shut his eyes and pulled in a slow breath. “Thank you for understanding.”
“Darling, I killed myself over an ex-boyfriend. Not literally, but…”
“But sometimes keeping death close is a comfort. Maybe that’s why the thought of you as a ghost intrigued me so much. I liked you in my studio.”
“Of course you did, since you can’t let a mortal person inside.” Cosmo sucked his cigarette, then stubbed it out on the step. “Am I less intriguing now that you know I’m not dead?”
“No. Am I?”
Cosmo smiled and shook his head. “May I see your art?”
“Sure. Most of my recent figure studies are above my drafting table in the front room.”
Pushing away the blanket, Cosmo stood and walked inside. Cars sighed past on the street below, and cheesy comedy music drifted from a neighboring unit. Everyone on the block had probably heard Micah’s outburst, but hopefully Ximena wasn’t eavesdropping from the rosebushes below or sitting in the parking lot with binoculars.
Cosmo walked out with a drawing clutched to his chest. “Your portraits are beautiful. And strange. There’s something… coercive about them. They’re eidolic and ethereal, and you’ve created that with bodies that society oftendoesn’tconsider the ideal. It’s like you’re swaying the viewer to your vision simply by depicting it. It’s not at all passive art, and I am in awe.”
