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“What are you doing?”

Paul turns too fast, nearly knocks over the easel, but catches it single-handedly. “Nothing alarming.”

“You sure about that?”

“I wanted to show you something.”

“You’re showing me plenty.”

His mouth twitches, but he looks nervous. More nervous than he did with my hand wrapped around his dick, which says a lot about whatever this is.

I step farther into the room.

The studio smells like paint, dust, and warm air from the open window. One canvas is sitting on the table, angled away from me.

Paul reaches for it, then stops.

“I should have told you earlier,” he says.

“That you’re bad at cleaning?”

“That I paint.” He says it like a confession. “I used to.”

“I know you paint. I’ve watched you from the hallway. Feet, right? I know a guy who’d pay your mortgage for those.”

He stifles a laugh, then back to serious.

“It’s not just—well, it is—but…”

He gives up and turns the canvas toward me.

A foot. Of course it’s a foot.

But then…

My sneaker on the floor. My sock hanging from my big toe.

“Oh.”

Paul watches me like my reaction might break something.

“Yeah,” he says softly.

He shows me more. One canvas at a time, like he’s introducing me to people who might not want company.

There are landscapes first. The courtyard. The pool at dusk. A slice of ocean between rooftops. Good stuff, I think, though good feels too small and useless. They look like places after someone important has just walked out of frame.

Then the pieces become a person. A shoulder in morning light. A hand curled around a coffee mug. The back of a neck. Parts made intimate by attention.

“Whose body?”

Paul’s hand stills on the next canvas.

“Renny.”

The paintings change without changing.

They’re not sexy. Or maybe they are, but not in the obvious way. They feel studied. Loved. Like Paul had looked at one small piece of him and found a whole life there.