“I’m looking for Baz Allard.” His voice is low, smooth, musical, with the faintest hint of a British accent. A voice designed for melting hearts or panties.
I pretend I’m immune to such voices. “That’s me. I’m Baz.”
He cocks an eyebrow.
I’m not about to explain the history of my weird name to this guy or the fact that staying gender-neutral online and refusing to post pictures of myself have spared me from a lot of unwanted attention by random incels. Might have cost me a bigger following and more sales, but it’s worth the peace of mind—at least that’s what I tell myself. “Are you looking for something specific?”
“I’ve seen your work on Instagram. Some of it is like this”—he gestures dismissively at the ocean-themed art—“but other pieces are much more interesting.”
I waffle between offended and flattered for a second before I reply. “I keep my darker stuff back here.” Hopping off my stool, I walk to the back of the shop, sliding a huge seascape aside and pulling several smaller canvases out from behind it. A cockroach scuttles across the carpet, and I bite back a scream before crushing it under the chunky heel of my BlackCraft Cult boot.
These paintings are my babies—my beautiful Gothic children. Fish swimming through a rib cage while light glances down through the water, sparkling on a diamond ring that encircles a rib. A spider spinning a web across the jaws of a skull. A hawk lying dead at twilight beside a country road, one wing jutting brokenly upward, a moth perched on its half-open beak.
The customer scans the paintings briefly before shaking his head. “I’m talking about your character art.”
The only people I let myself paint are entirely fictional, created from my head. I barely glance at reference photos. Too risky.
I nod and walk over to a battered dresser, tugging on the sticky top drawer. “I’ve got some samples here. You have a D&D character or something you want art of?”
Another smirk. “Do I look like I play Dungeons and Dragons?”
“Um…” I turn, prints in hand. “Maybe? It’s anyone’s game. I do art for authors, too. Any original characters, really.”
“I need a portrait.”
My heart sinks. “A character portrait?”
“No, an actual portrait. Of me.” He’s still smiling, but his jaw goes tight, a muscle flexing near the sharp corner.
Great. There goes my chance at making some replacement-iPhone money. “Sorry, I only paint fictional characters.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug, putting the prints back in the drawer and pushing it shut. “For some reason, I’m just no good with real faces. The results are crap every time.” I give an airy little chuckle.
“Bullshit.” His white teeth bite off the word crisply.
“Excuse me?” I frown at him.
His debonair attitude drops like a coat falling to the ground, leaving behind a naked intensity, a steely desperation that’s palpable through the taut air between us.
He steps toward me, and I back up against the dresser. I’m immediately angry at myself for retreating. But he closes in before I can undo the recoil.
“Look, man, I’ve got pepper spray,” I tell him.
“Where?” His gaze travels the length of my bare legs sheathed in tattoos, skims over my tight black shorts, faux leather and clearly pocketless, then roams my black vest and cropped white tank top.
“Maybe it’s hidden in all that hair,” he muses.
The left side of my skull is shaved, and the rest of my hair spills over my right shoulder in an abundant pink-and-black waterfall.
I wish I had pepper spray hidden in my hair. But of course it’s back home, where it’s useless.
“Fuck you,” I hiss.
He shutters the predatory light in his gaze, shifting back a step. “I don’t mean to frighten you. I just want honesty.”
“And I told you honestly that I can’t do your portrait.” I sidestep, snatching a palette knife from my worktable. “I think you should leave now.”
