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That feels too private to hand Don in the middle of a sidewalk.

“He was embarrassed this morning,” I say.

“Good. Embarrassment keeps young drunks from becoming old, grizzled ones.”

“I think I’ll invite him to the show this weekend.”

Don stops walking.

“Cavorting with the enemy? Babe.”

“He’s not an enemy. Not here, at least.”

Don’s expression shifts, quieter.

“He’s just… alone,” I say.

Don looks at me long enough to make me regret saying anything, then resumes walking.

“Fine,” he says. “But if he throws up on the boat, falls down any steps, or ends up in his underwear, he’s your problem.”

“He won’t,” I say. “But yes.”

I set the shopping bags on the kitchen counter, tiny dog hats on top, then stand there for a moment listening.

Either he’s asleep, dead, or successfully avoiding me. All reasonable options.

I head down the hall to the studio.

The painting from last night is still on the easel, waiting in the cooler light of midday. I stopped sometime after two in the morning, hands cramped, shirt speckled with blue and shadow. I thought I was going to finish the landscape I’d failed at earlier. Instead, I painted… a foot.

Clint’s foot, gray-white sock hanging loose over the toes.

It isn’t bad. It also isn’t right.

I should be concerned that the first thing I paint after months of nothing includes part of Clint’s body.

I am concerned. I’m also already reaching for my brushes.

A little more blue in the shadow under the couch. A sharper line where the pool light catches the tile. Everything around the foot, but not the foot. I am not painting the foot.

I paint the foot.

Time loosens. The house disappears into the narrow tunnel of brush, color, breath. My wrist remembers before I do. My hand finds the pressure. The paint goes where it’s supposed to go, then somewhere better.

Behind me, the hallway creaks.

Clint stands in the doorway, pale but upright, wearing shorts and a T-shirt not meant for public view. Rough, but somehow no less handsome for it.

His eyes move from me to the canvas.

“Painting again?”

“Apparently.”

“Cool.”

His gaze drops to the floor near the easel, where three new blank canvases lean against the wall.