“You can sleep in your own room. You know that, right?”
I bat his hand away and groan from the light infiltrating my senses again. “Impossible. Pretty sure you’ve got me handcuffed to your bed.”
A filthy smirk crosses his face, and even in my half-conscious state, I know exactly where his mind just went. And all I can do is groan again before closing my eyes.
“I’ll tie you up another night,” I mumble while burrowing my face against the pillow. “Too late. Too tired. You’d escape too easily.”
“And what if I wanted to be the one doing the cuffing? Could be a fun way to torment you even more while I ride you.”
The comment has my lids lifting, and I find him aiming another sinister smirk at me.
“Mmm, you paint a pretty picture almost as well as you draw them. Even at three in the morning.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “Smooth. Real smooth, Cam.”
“See? Knew you couldn’t resist me forever.”
All he does is roll his eyes and go back to what he was doing before I so rudely interrupted him. I should probably go back to sleep, knowing my wake-up call for practice in a couple hours will come far too soon, but the cuddle whore inside me isn’t content with the amount of space between us.
So, naturally, I rectify that.
Rolling to face him, I scoot my body closer until I’m pressed snuggly into his side. I don’t stop there, though, because it’s still not close enough, and I nudge his arm up so my head can fit in the space made by the crook of his elbow. His ribs vibrate with soft laughter where my cheek now rests against them, and his fingers sink into my hair, playing with the strands.
“Uh, hi. Can I help you?” he asks, his amusement evident inhis tone.
“Wanna watch ‘til I fall asleep again.”
He’s quiet for a beat before whispering, “Baby, I can just go to bed if—”
“No, keep going. I like watching you work.”
Despite my request, he remains still for another moment or two. But he doesn’t pull away or flip the sketchpad closed either, which gives me the chance to get an up-close view of what he’s been working on while I was fast asleep.
It’s a page sectioned out in six various sized rectangles, some vertical, some horizontal, and there’s something different happening in each. One could be a scene, while the next has a character taking up most of the panel. And while the words in the speech bubbles are difficult to read—be it because of my dyslexia or my half-conscious state—I can understand what’s happening on the page without them.
The character’s facial expressions, theart,tells more than any dialogue could.
“Are these your own characters or someone else’s that you like to draw?”
“My own,” he whispers after a moment, his voice raspy. “It’s, uh, called a one-shot. Which is basically a short story.”
Without thinking, I reach up and turn the sketchpad to see the number of pages he’s already finished. It’s gotta be at least ten or fifteen, maybe more. Which seems like a lot from where I’m sitting.
“How short is short?”
“It ranges. This one will probably be around fifty pages.”
My first thought isdamn, that’s a lot of drawing,and it’s no wonder he always seems to have it with him. Between school and everything else, I can’t imagine how long it’ll actually take him to finish it.
“What are you gonna do with it when it’s done?”
He’s quiet for a moment, simply continuing to scrape his fingers against my scalp, and for a second, I think I didn’t actually ask the question out loud. But then he lets out a little sigh, and quietly replies, “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Really?” I ask, unable to hide my surprise. “Wouldn’t the best option be to like…publish it or something?”
“Probably, but that’d require me to let people see it.” He pokes me in the cheek before adding, “Other than you, nosey.”
“Right, like I’m the only person you let see your art,” I say with a sleepy snort.
