But the truth stares me in the face, undeniable. It hollows me out, sets my mind spinning.
There is a point at which my portrait might crumble into nothing.
And when it does—ifit does—what will become of me?
2
Baz
Three months later
I don’t paint portraits. Ever.
Which is why I have to respond with a gentle no to the commission request in my inbox.
Sometimes people get pissed about being denied. Like they have a right to my talent and my time. They come back with a faintly belligerent “Why not?” which I usually brush off with “I’m just no good at faces” or some such excuse. Never the real answer.
Others simply don’t understand. They love my style, and my refusal makes them want it more. They give me sweetly emotional reasons why they want a portrait of this person or that. It’s tougher to say no to the nice ones.
But in the end, everyone gets the same answer—including this latest potential client.
My thumbs fly over the screen, spelling out one of my usual excuses. I push Send and lay aside my battered iPhone. It’s several generations old. I’m hoping to replace it soon.
People think I’m a rich girl because I own a studio neardowntown Charleston and a house close to the waterfront on Wentworth Street. Thing is, I inherited both of them.
When you lose something in life, you almost always get something in return. I recently lost my last living relative—an aunt I barely knew. In return, I was able to pay off my college debt, and I got an adorable squashed-looking single house on Wentworth Street, along with a tiny shop on the corner of Columbus and Meeting Streets.
Inherited houses and retail spaces come with all kinds of chains, like super pricey insurance, heavy taxes, repairs, you name it. Home insurance near the beach, in a hurricane-prone area? Yeah, it sucks.
What I’ve dubbed my “studio space” used to be a secondhand clothing store. It’s a dingy room with carpet that curls up in the corners, which I have to keep stomping down. The lighting isn’t great, but I’ve got lots of thrifted lamps around the place, so I make do.
I dab another blob of mixing white into the ultramarine blue on my palette and absently swirl it around with my brush. The resulting shade is almost right for this coastal painting—the kind of art tourists gobble up. When they come to Charleston, they want pretty, beachy paintings and sketches, not the art of my heart, the creepy gloriousness I keep tucked away at the back of my shop. That stuff is too morbid, too “weird,” attractive only to the small group of followers I’ve cultivated on Instagram.
I have to force myself to paint the art that sells. Usually I arrange a mental bribe, like if I finish two beach vignettes, I can work on one ofmypaintings.
The bell on the shop door jingles, and I startle, my surprise blending with an inner thrill because I have abellnow. After four years of slogging through college, I’m finally doing this art thing for real.
The slim young man who saunters in is so tall his hair almosttouches the top of the doorframe. To be fair, the door is shorter than standard, and his blond, shoulder-length hair is thick and wavy, adding another inch or so. Still, his height is impressive.
Andgod.
He’s obscenely pretty. I mean really…howdare.
Slanted cheekbones designed for slicing open soft little hearts. Plump lips, as red as if they were glazed with the blood of said hearts. Perfect nose. Neatly arched eyebrows over electric-blue eyes.
His mouth tilts in a little smirk, dark lashes hooding his gaze. It’s all I can do not to scoff as I look away. Despite my instant flare of attraction, he’s just the sort of self-centered pretty boy I despise. A walking TikTok thirst trap.
But he’s wearing a Dior T-shirt and Escada jeans, so clearly he has money to burn. Which means I can’t tell him to fuck off.
Why the hell is he inmyshop? He belongs in one of the fancy galleries in the French Quarter.
As he breezes past me, a sage-and-lavender fragrance unfurls from him—delicately masculine, probably an expensive cologne. He smells damn good, like the incense I usually burn at home.
Rolling an unlit cigarette between his fingers, he inspects the paintings on display—still lifes of shells and pebbles in vivid blues and rich browns; a scene of bristling boat masts against a peach-colored dawn; waves crashing on cliffs; gulls with cruelly blank eyes. Everything’s priced lower than it’s probably worth, but hey, there’s a lot of competition in this city, and a girl’s gotta eat—and pay for hurricane insurance.
He scans them all, his eyes hooded as if none of them meet his standards. There’s an insolent slouch to his posture, a casual carelessness I’ve come to associate with rich, gorgeous assholes. I knew a couple, distantly, at the University of South Carolina.
I swallow my inner resistance and force out polite words. “Can I help you with something?”
