Destyny wipes off her fingers with the provided wet-wipes, then turns the canvas around.
It’s a tomato. A very impressively detailed tomato, actually, given that it was done with finger paints. So I guess this is what she means when she says she only paints tomatoes.
This tomato, though, is clearly rotten and spilling forth moldy insides.
Genesis gasps in horror. Calista giggles.
“This is a Brandywine tomato,” Destyny says. “It looks nice when it’s in its prime, but as you can see, this one is wrinkly and gross inside. Which represents Genesis for obvious reasons.”
“Oh my,” Monroe says, perhaps just now realizing that this one isn’t going to go as well as Kate and Calista. “All right. Genesis, why don’t you show yours?”
“Gladly,” Genesis growls and turns hers to face us. She’s about as good an artist as either Jason or me, but I can tell that the huge, thick splotches of orange and red are supposed to be fire, and the stick figure in the flames with the big yellow hair and even bigger boobs is supposed to be Destyny. “This is hell, where adulterers go.”
Now Destyny’s the one gasping. “I’m not an adulterer! Keith was the one who wanted to have sex with me first!”
“And you weren’t the last, were you?” Genesis shoots back with a smug look.
“How dare you,” Destyny says, her nails practically sharpening themselves as we watch.
“How dareyou! You’re a homewrecker, and it’s only fair that your home got wrecked, too, you—”
“You need tocalm down!” Destyny yells.
“Don’t you tell me to calm down!” Genesis screeches, and before any of us can even think to gape, she chucks the painting at Destyny, who manages to dodge just in time.
I am not so lucky. With a loud, sticky splat, the canvas hits me right in the face. I stumble back, flailing my arms and knocking over our palatial log cabin before Jason manages to catch me.
There is an audible gasp from everyone around us.
The painting un-sticks itself and flops to the ground, and I stand there, shocked, tasting paint in my mouth and smelling paint up my nose and seeing orange flames and stick figure boobs smeared across my shirt.
Everyone stares wide-eyed in silence. I’m pretty sure every camera in the world is pointed right at me.
There’s a little whine from the direction of Monroe, and we all look over to seeTiberius humping away on Dinokins.
“That’s it!” Jason announces, grabbing my hand. “Therapy’s over. We get our two hours.”
No one protests this, not Monroe and not Rich, who’s probably worried we’re going to sue the show for assault with artwork.The cameras point in our direction as we stalk off—me unable to keep from spitting out paint as we go—but none of them follow.
“Oh my god,” Jason says, pulling me around behind some tents where the cameras can’t see. “Are you okay?”
I blink.There are paint blobs in my eyelashes. I spit out another glob of the orange and find a small clean patch of my shirt to wipe the paint off my mouth.This shit had better be non-toxic. I spread my arms out. “Look at me! I’m covered in the flames of hell!”
“Literally,” Jason says, tugging his lip between his teeth, holding in a smile.
I can’t help it; I burst out laughing, and then he does too. We’re dying, laughing so hard, and he wraps me in a big hug, smearing himself with paint.
“Oh my god,” I echo, wiping tears (and paint) from my eyes. I pull back from him, shaking my head. Now his shirt is covered in paint, and it’s streaked across his neck and jaw. “Look atbothof us.”
“Can’t have you suffering in hell alone.” He strokes his fingers along my paint-splattered cheek, and between that gentle, perfect touch and those incredible blue eyes of his locked with mine, I feel a shiver run down my entire body.
I reach up and run my own fingers lightly along the paint on his jaw, the little streak down his neck. His eyes close, and he leans down to press his forehead against mine.
My heart’s beating hard, my body pulled to his like it knows it should never be apart.
It shouldn’t be, and yet with all the fear and hurt and anger that has become wedged between us, it feels like we’ve been apart for so much longer than the last time we had sex.
“Do you think they’d let us clean all this mess off in their precious shower?” I ask in a low murmur.The thought of washing all this paint off, his body pressed to mine under the hot water . . .
