Only Between Us (4 page)

“All right …” I’m fighting my awareness of the weight of his hands on me, of his scent.

“Can you slow down your breathing?”

I bite my lip and hold my breath, wishing he hadn’t noticed how he’s affecting me, though he probably doesn’t realize that’s what’s happening. Or maybe he does—his hands disappear … and I miss them.

“I said slow down, not stop altogether,” he says, his voice trembling with amusement. “Breathe, Romy. There you go.”

The smile in his voice makes me shiver, but I try to focus on drawing air into my lungs, expanding them completely. And then I do it again and again, dwelling in the silent rush as I exhale.

“Now,” he whispers. “What colors do you see?”

I laugh. “My eyes are still closed.”

“I know.”

I press my lips together and concentrate. He’s totally serious, trying to help me, and I shouldn’t waste this opportunity. But—“It’s hard to grasp. I can’t describe it.”

“Try,” he says, and I hear the shuffle of his feet. He’s right behind me, not touching, but I feel him anyway. He’s moved closer. A few more inches and his chest would be against my back.

“Try,” he says again, a little louder.

There’s something in the timbre of his voice that makes me want to do as he says, and for a moment I want to strike out, to rebel. But when he says it a third time, I remind myself that he’s not trying to control me. I will
not
let Alex make me see the world this way, scared and suspicious of everything and everyone. That would mean he’s still manipulating me, and I won’t let him ruin this for me like he ruined so much else. Caleb is trying to
help
me. He’s my teacher. “Mostly dark brown …”

“No,” he murmurs. “
Really
try.”

Somehow, I know what he means. I know what he wants. “Raw umber … mostly, but Prussian blue, too, maybe a bit of yellow ochre …”

“Intensity?” His breath skates across my cheek, and my stomach tightens, but not with fear.

“Dull, I guess. There’s a … a streak of light through it …”

“Romy,” he says, and it’s the gentlest of reprimands. “I think you can do better than that.”

So I try harder, pushing myself into the colors, swimming in them. And as I do, they stop slipping away from me. I gobble up the images, the swirls of rich tones, earth and sun. “Mostly titanium white, but a healthy dose of lemon yellow.”

He hears it in my words, my voice, I’m certain. He almost sounds excited as he asks, “Orange? Black? Warm or cool?”

“Definitely warm,” I whisper, so quiet that I’m not sure he can hear me. And suddenly I don’t know if I’m talking about the colors or him. His body heat fans across my shoulder blades. If I leaned back, even a little, I’d be touching him … but I can’t. I shouldn’t. That’s not what this is about. I open my eyes. The swirling, mysterious colors that dwell beneath my eyelids are gone. In front of me is my paper, dull white. A blank. The loss is shocking, like surfacing from a dream before you’re ready. Caleb is so quiet behind me that I pivot in my seat and my legs collide with his. I wobble and my hands rise to keep myself from sliding off the stool. His do the same, and I end up clutching his arms while his fingers close around my elbows, steadying me.

For a moment, he gazes down at me, and my heart skips and stutters. “Now create it,” he says. “Make it real.” His grasp on me tightens.

I’m not thinking of what I saw beneath my eyelids anymore.
Storm gray, spindly threads of yellow ochre, a tiny, brilliant spot of phthalo blue in his right eye but not in the left
... “What?”

He glances down at my abandoned palette. “Recreate what you saw. Do that, and then you can go.”

“I can go whenever I want,” I blurt.

His eyes flash with something, maybe annoyance or humor, and he releases my arms. “Of course you can. But you won’t want to go until you’ve done this for yourself.”

I open my mouth to argue with him, but then I realize he’s right, and my words slip back down my throat.

“We … uh … have open easel time on Sunday afternoons, too,” Caleb says, suddenly hesitant. My heart thumps as I realize he’s staring at my mouth. He bows his head and a few loose, chocolate brown strands fall across his face. “If you don’t already have pl—”

“Caleb?” A voluptuous woman with perfectly highlighted blonde hair peeks into the room—she’s the one who went upstairs earlier. His head jerks up in time for me to see the flush on his cheeks. The woman’s eyes lock onto him, and her lacquered red lips quirk into a seductive smile. “I was waiting for you.”

A ball of nausea forms in my stomach, and I have to look away from her. My gaze falls on Caleb’s hands, which clench for a moment before relaxing again.

“I’ll be right there, Claudia,” he says before looking back at me. “You good to go?”

I force a casual smile onto my face. As if the last several minutes were simply nothing, easy, meaningless, shallow. “Good to go. Thanks.”

He returns my smile, but I swear I detect a hint of sadness there. “Anytime.”

He turns on his heel and follows Claudia up the stairs. I watch him go, the broad expanse of his back, the way he follows her like she’s in charge, his shoulders slumped and his head down. Who is she to him? Why would he …
no
. I’m not here to think about Caleb or the women who so clearly want him. I don’t care.
I don’t care.

I look down at my palette, my brush, the lumps of color on the thin wooden board, the means to my salvation, my path back to myself. This is about me and no one else. I repeat that a few times, and then I settle myself on the stool again. My fingers tighten over the brush, and I start to mix the colors, feeling giddy and hopeful. But as I work, my hands and brain betray me. The color on my paper isn’t the swirl of earthy brown I saw when I closed my eyes.

It’s cool, thundercloud gray shot through with threads of yellow, along with a single pinprick of perfect, vibrant blue.

Chapter Four: Caleb

Claudia Dexter knows what she wants, and she doesn’t like to wait for it. That’s her rep, anyway. This semester’s the first time she’s taken a class of mine, but Daniel has some experience with her, and so does Markus. I have no idea how long she’d been upstairs lying in wait, but when she came down to get me, I saw the irritation in her eyes. When they flicked toward Romy, I almost stepped between them, to shield Romy from it. I can’t let the shit from my life rub off onto her. I get the feeling she has enough to deal with already.

“Nice of you to help some of the beginners,” Claudia says as we hit the second floor. “But I think your time is more valuable than that.”

“Huh?” I’m having trouble getting Romy’s face out of my head. There was something haunted in her expression, but also rebellious. Strong.

Claudia chuckles, patting her hair as the huge diamond on her finger twinkles yellow and red under the light. “That little charity case downstairs with the blank page.”

Anger explodes beneath my skin and roils inside my chest. “She’s one of my students, and she’s going through a block.” My mouth snaps shut. I shouldn’t be doing this, defending Romy like she’s special, not to Claudia. It’s not smart.

Claudia’s eyes flash, confirming as much. “I wanted to talk to you about your paintings, Caleb. I thought we’d agreed to meet. This is a great opportunity for you.”

Shit
. Her text. I said I’d meet her at nine. But I spent the afternoon putting out a fire … literally … and then I got so wrapped up in Romy that it completely slipped my mind. I clear my throat. “I’m so sorry, Claudia. I should have called.”

We reach my studio and she looks over her shoulder at me. “You should have. But I’ll forgive you.” She glances toward my canvas, the one Romy said was exquisite. “I want to commission a painting.”

My heart beats a little faster. Between my mom’s email and what happened this afternoon, I need cash in a major way. “Really?”

She nods, her gaze sliding down my body before returning to my face. “We’re adding some pieces to our gallery room in advance of our annual fall charity event, and I think a Caleb McCallum original might be the perfect addition.”

I gesture at my painting. “I could have this one done by—”

She laughs, and the edges of it slice at me, making me feel two feet tall. “Oh, darling, I can’t hang something like that on my wall. My husband would think I’ve lost my mind. No, I need something tasteful.”

“Tasteful,” I say, feeling like she’s punched me in the stomach.
You need the money. Be nice.
“I’m getting the sense you have something specific in mind?”

“It can be abstract,” she says, “but I want it to be … organic. Like a landscape. Greens and blues. Flowers. Things like that.”

“Flowers.”
Be nice nice nice.
Daisy does landscapes. She does flowers. And I could say that, but I fucking need the cash, and she’s not asking Daisy because Daisy doesn’t have the proper … equipment. “I could do flowers,” I say. God. I feel like a whore.

She arches an eyebrow. “I knew you could.” She saunters over to me. Her perfume makes me want to cough. Her manicured fingernails skim up my stomach, snagging a little on my shirt. And I don’t stop her. “You can do anything, can’t you?”

That’s the funniest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time, and it almost brings me to my senses. “Claudia …”

“My budget is five thousand,” she purrs. “I want something big.” Her eyes stroke down to my crotch, and my balls shrivel a little. “Can you do it?”

What are we talking about again? And … does it matter? Five thousand dollars.
Five thousand.
“Yeah,” I say, wishing it didn’t sound unsteady. “You just have to tell me what you want.”

She flattens her palm on my chest and steps closer. “I can do that.” Her breasts, artificially firm, press against me. Her perfume is giving me a headache. I take a step back and my hip hits the edge of the long center table. She follows, her hand finding my waist. “Before I can decide, I’d like to get to know your … work.”

I brush her hair off her shoulders, stroking my fingers along her neck and trying not to think about how much I hate myself right now. It’s not like I’m inexperienced or don’t know what to do. It’s that I’ve never had sex for any reason other than simply wanting the girl and enjoying the fact that she wanted me, too. This … Claudia obviously wants me, but it’s going to take some effort to reciprocate. Still, I’m going to do this. I need to. Claudia smiles up at me, going for girlish, but the effect is ruined by all the makeup and jewelry. I force myself to smile back. My chest aches.

She’s dipping her fingers into my jeans when Daniel walks in.

He stops dead when he sees us there, registers the look on my face, and rearranges his own expression into one of relief. “Dude. I’m so glad I caught you. I really need to talk to you about something.”

Claudia steps away from me, looking peeved. “We were having a meeting, Daniel.”

He gives her an apologetic little boy smile. “Sorry, Claudia. Emergency.”

Her eyebrows rise, wrinkling her forehead. Makeup gathers in the creases. She looks between the two of us and then takes hold of my arm. “Call me tomorrow, so we can schedule another consultation session. You can come to my place and see the gallery room.” Her eyes glint with the possibilities.

Before I can say anything else, she strides toward the stairs, her hips swaying. I don’t move until I hear the front door slam, and then I sag against the table. “Fuuuuck.”

“That’s definitely what was on her mind,” Daniel says with a laugh. “She was about two seconds from ripping your clothes off.”

Now I feel more like a whore than ever. I shudder and scrape my hand through my hair, coming away with the elastic dangling from my fingers. “She wants to commission a painting.”

Daniel’s expression sobers up quick. “I’m sorry for busting in like that, then. It was just, when I came in, you looked—”

“No, you read it right. Thanks for the momentary reprieve.” I sigh. “I have to take this, though. Katie’s struggling again, Daniel. She says her meds aren’t working. I’m starting to wonder if she needs to go back to the hospital. I almost took her there this afternoon.”

Daniel winces. He knows all about my ups and downs with my sister. “Did she try to hurt herself again?”

I shrug. “Maybe. She set a fire.”

His eyes go round.

“She said it was an accident.” She said she was trying to make herself a grilled cheese and forgot about it, then fell asleep. If I hadn’t caught it in time and put it out, our entire apartment would have gone up in flames—maybe taking both of us with it.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how you do it, man. If it was me …”

“She’s been through a lot.”
And it’s my fault.
“But if she has to go into the hospital again, it’s going to be rough. I’m still paying bills from last time.” When you don’t have good health insurance, even a day in the psych ward will wipe you out. And Katie is a frequent flyer.

“Doesn’t Amy help you out? She’s got money.”

I scrape a few flecks of paint off my forearm with the edge of my thumbnail. “Amy’s got her own family to worry about.” She’s always been on the outside, anyway. Eight years older than me, ten years older than Katie, Amy left for college only a few months after my mom married Phil. She doesn’t know what it was like for us. She wasn’t a part of what happened. “She helps a little. Does what she can.”

“Yeah,” says Daniel, his voice dripping with skepticism. It makes me want to hit something. Or maybe someone. Or maybe a lot of someones. Suddenly, I feel like I’m in a cage, iron bars close around me, my knuckles white as I try to break free.

“Claudia offered me five thousand dollars for the commission,” I blurt.

“
Nice
.” He blows a long breath between pursed lips, then gives me an assessing look. “It won’t be so bad, you know. Claudia takes care of herself, and she’s pretty nice. Maybe a little aggressive …” He gives me a sympathetic look. “You could do worse.”

I grit my teeth. “Yeah,” I force myself to say. “I know.” And he’s right. The lonely, bored wives of the local CEOs have too much time and money on their hands. They offer commissions or ask for private lessons, but there are always strings firmly attached. Daniel seems to enjoy it thoroughly and has been with a bunch of them. Markus, too. I’ve avoided that kind of entanglement … until now, because I can’t anymore. “Thanks.”