The coffee shop is small, but our corner booth is hopefully out of earshot. Making enemies with the barista isn’t exactly conducive to the picturesque studio-across-from-a-coffee-shop vibe.
Whatever. He isn’t that cute.
“I just wish my muse got as much action as my Grindy profile,” I say, staring out the window at the studio and the empty canvas waiting upstairs.
I sip the MachiUnicorn-thing and can’t keep from puckering at the lukewarm concoction.
“Why do you always order that shit?” Jamal asks, making the same face just watching me drink it. “Just get something you like.”
“I like trying new things. No struggle, no strength,” I say, hearing my gram in my own voice.
“She didnotmean for that to apply to a coffee order.”
I touch my heart, kiss my finger, and point to heaven. I’ve had enough of pitying baristas and ghosts of my grandmother for one morning. “Tell me what you’re working on.”
Jamal swipes to a photo on his cracked screen and holds it out. The word CLARISSA is stamped in his usual big block letters.
“Are those—” I squint at the details tucked into the L. “Are those… dildos?”
Jamal erupts into giggles, his shoulders shaking.
“Who’s this for? What is this?”
“I have no idea.” He covers his mouth, still laughing. “I take orders, but it’s got to be for a sex shop, right?”
“Clarissa?” It sounds more like a second-grade teacher than a sex shop to me.
“The owner, maybe? I don’t know, man. I’m just glad to pay the rent. We’re not all social media stars…” Jamal’s eyes drift toward Pete behind the counter. “No matter what he thinks.”
“Forty thousand followers gets me two hundred bucks a month,if I post.”
“Stick with it.” Jamal looks back at his phone. “What’s Alistair got you making in the meantime?”
“Dealer’s choice,” I say.
Jamal shakes his head, eyebrows pulling together.
“I don’t know. I think he means I should paint whatever I want, but I was going to do something poker-related as a joke.”
“The empty canvas?” he asks.
“That’s my progress. Or lack thereof.” I finish my lukewarm drink. “Think Clarissa wants photorealistic sex toys?”
“I can message her.”
“Imagine that shop,” I say, seeing it in my mind. Brightly colored, larger-than-life oil paintings of dildos and fuzzy cuffs hang in ornately carved wooden frames. “Could be dope.”
“You’ll be spending a lot of time in sex shops if you treat every guy who’s interested in you like that.” Jamal nods toward Pete.
Instead of turning to look, I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my response: a smooth, one-pound river rock.
“Not this,” Jamal groans, rolling his eyes.
“Why can’t they be more like you, Rocky?” I say to the rock, rubbing my thumb over his head. Rocks don’t need anything but a pocket.
I painted a small red tie beneath his wide black eyes, little specks of Wite-Out making him look perpetually up and to the right.
“Very chic,” Jamal says, pointing back toward Pete, “and alarming that you’d trade that for this.”
