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Also wrong, but in a more encouraging way.

From the room next door, a drawer opens. A moment later, it shuts. My fingers stiffen around the pencil.

Clint moving around in the bedroom. Clint getting dressed. Clint existing on the other side of the wall with no regard for my recovery.

I wait for the sound to pass, then return to the canvas.

I draw the window frame.

Too stiff. I rub it out.

The bedroom door opens. Footsteps. A pause in the hall. The faintest rustle of fabric.

My entire body listens.

This is ridiculous. I’m a forty-two-year-old man, not a dog waiting for a treat.

I pick up a tube of blue and squeeze too much onto the palette.

Clint passes the doorway and stops.

He’s in a black T-shirt and shorts, both tight in places they should and shouldn’t be. His nose is pink at the tip from the sun. He has a look of casual, respectful interest as his eyes flick from me to the easel then back again.

“Painting?” he asks.

I look at the blank canvas with two failed pencil lines and a smear of premature blue.

“That’s the rumor.”

His mouth tips. Not quite a smile.

“Cool.”

He keeps walking.

From the front of the house, he calls, “Heading to work.”

The door closes.

I pick up the brush, dip it, and lift it toward the canvas.

Don’t let him distract. He isn’t trying to, so don’t let him.

I lower the brush.

For one more second, I try not to think about Clint. Try to be a version of myself that doesn’t care how he spends his days and respects mutual boundaries.

And then I leave the studio.

I’m not following him. I’m simply walking in the same direction a couple minutes behind. Heading down the same hill toward the same part of town. No plan beyond movement and no intention beyond the open air.

All of this is, of course, a lie.

The evening has begun to darken the edges of the city. Heat still rises from the stone steps, but the light is lower now, gold giving way to neon signs. Tourists drift uphill from the beach in trunks and sunburns. Restaurant hosts stand at the edges of sidewalks behind podiums, smiling like they know everyone.

I keep Clint in sight. Not close enough to be obvious, but not far behind either.

He moves through the streets like he has already learned them. Long legs, easy shoulders, head tilted once toward a bar spilling music onto the sidewalk. He doesn’t look back.