But…
“Donovan,” I say again, softer this time. He draws up short. “What if I fuck up? What if I hurt someone else?”
I hate saying those words because the last thing I want is to hurt him. The last thing I want is to fuck up this tenuous perfection that feels like it’s slowly filling in all the cracks in my soul and making me into something whole.
Someone different.
“What if you don’t?” Donovan leans in, running his fingers through my hair and drawing me back against him so I’m enveloped in his warmth. “What if you never hurt anyone again? The world is full of what-ifs and maybes, but we don’t have to live with them hanging over our heads, okay?” He sounds so achingly sincere that I want to believe what he’s saying is true. That I don’t need to kill—that my talent and ability aren’t intrinsically tied to death and pain… but…
“But what if that’s all I can be?”
I expect his expression to go shuttered, for him to push me away again. Instead, he presses his forehead to mine when he answers. “Loh, you’re the kind of person who wants to make sure no other kid ever hurts the way you did. You’re more than your darkest parts.”
And just like that, I feel like I’m going to break into a thousand pieces all over again just like I did in his apartment. My gaze drops to the floor and I press my forehead to his shoulder.
“I just don’t want to lose you,” I whisper, hoping the words stay trapped against his skin, wrapped around his heart and settled somewhere behind his ribs.
“We’ll figure it out together, Loh, okay?” I don’t miss the gentle tremble to his shoulders, the way his heart rate picks up as he adds on. “No matter what happens. Together, okay?”
I don’t know if that’s a promise that he’ll be there for me if I fall apart and realize I am a monster after all, but his quiet confidence and sweet vulnerability is enough to make me nod.
“Okay…” I breathe the word against him in another promise that I’m going to try my hardest. “Okay… so when I can’t paint anymore because I don’t know how to do it, you can rent me a house with a studio and a deck so I can find my inspiration again.” I manage to squeeze the words out playfully even though something inside me still feels terrified, frozen around the possibility that I will fuck this up.
“First of all, you’re going to be fine, Loh. Promise, I’ll be your muse. And second…” Donovan tilts my head up and presses a kiss to my nose. “If you really need a house with a view of the water so you can paint sunsets, that’s what we’ll do.”
I blink up at him, feeling the softest smile lift my lips—something honest and real that I’m not sure I’ve ever offered him before.
“That easy, huh?”
Donovan nods. “Yeah, that easy. What’s the point in having money if I don’t get to spend it to be exactly where I want to be?”
That makes me ache just a little. “You want to be by the water with sunsets?”
“No,” he answers. “But I want to be wherever you are, California.”
I really, really hope I don’t fuck this up.
A few hours later, after Donovan convinced me to paint an entire ocean scene and put it up on my website to prove that I was still an artist after all, we’re cuddled on the couch together.
I look at the piece, the way it’s already markedsold. It’s one of my clients who lives in Florida, and they told me it would look great in their beach house before they paid me a thousand dollars for it.
Donovan was practically gloating when he dragged me into the shower so we could wash the paint off my body.
More surprisingly, I see a message from Sidney waiting for me when we settle against the couch after Donovan gives me what is probably the slowest, most teasing blow job a person could ever give. I half think it’s a reward for me proving myself wrong… but the other half of me is pretty sure he did it because he loves to touch me just as much as I love to touch him.
My eyes flick to the message waiting for me again before I swipe out of it.
Not your usual, but I’ll still take it. I feel like you haven’t put up anything new in a while.
I don’t like that he can tell that it’s different, though maybe he just means it’s not angry and full of pain for once. That art was full of hope. A promise for a future that I’m not even sure I deserve.
And the silly thing is, Donovan already had to talk me out of taking it back. Not because it has him in it… but because he told me to paint it.
I want to save it.
I want to hang it on the walls of a house that’s only hypothetical, but feels like a promise of a future we could have together.
I’m still staring at the image of the painting and contemplating refunding the thousand when Donovan tenses beside me on the couch.
