Page 19 of Aries

“Hey,” Ricardo said, tutting. “No flirting.” He laughed. “I’m kidding, you love birds keep at it. If you want, I can put some headphones in.”

“Shush,” Gael said. “You’re too nosy for that to be a real offer.”

Between what Jenny had said and Ricardo calling us love birds, I was beginning to wonder just where this was headed. I wasn’t against the direction they were pushing, but I’d never been in that direction with anyone before.

“You’re looking a little pale,” Gael said, pulling the tattoo gun from Ricardo’s back. He tilted his head as if examining me closely. “You can sit in my office if this is all a bit strange. Or, you don’t have to stay at all.”

I didn’t want to leave, but I also wanted to go back to my apartment and paint. I wanted it all, and I was suffering the consequences as executive dysfunction. “I—I think I’ll head out and get more painting done.”

“Ok,” he said. “And I meant what I said. I’m gonna cook for you. Text me some things you like to eat, and I’ll grab ingredients. Your place or mine?”

As much as I wanted to see his place, I had a fire in me that needed to stay close to canvas. “My place,” I said. “And I’ll let you surprise me. Since you’ve read so much about me online, you should know.”

“Ooh, he’s getting sassy,” Ricardo snickered.

Gael chewed into his bottom lip. I knew that look, the type to tell me if I wasn’t sat here with someone, you’d be over my knee. And maybe that’s exactly what I’d wanted him to say.

I couldn’t remember the last time any singular man had inspired so much from me. Usually, I was inspired in the opposite direction, to paint dark and gloom, the force the depression that ate me up onto the canvas and be free of it. I just didn’t want to be free of the feeling Gael put inside me, among other things he put in me.

Back at my apartment, I wasted no time in stripping to nothing. I needed to see the colors on my skin again. Their beautiful discoloration had small amounts of yellow and orange to them now, representing real bruising. It was surface level at best, the perceived damage would vanish in only a matter of days.

Before I could think about all the ways I’d be able to represent that on the canvas, I was at my easel, mixing up new color combinations on my palette. The purple into ochre, lightened with a heavy titanium white paint. The color matching was accurate, I could’ve painted it right beside the hickeys and nobody would know which was paint or what was bruise.

I’d been in a world of my own when there was a buzz at my apartment.

I rushed to the phone by the door to buzz them in, expecting Gael, even though we hadn’t spoken since I got back. I just assumed it was him. Naked, I went back into my studio.

“Ash,” a voice called out from the front door.

“Naomi?” Fuck. I’d told her to come by later, and this was her later. I looked around and grabbed a pair of paint-stained shorts from the floor.

“Are you in your studio?” she asked, the tap of her stiletto heels clipping around on the cloth covering my floor. “You remember I was coming by, right? I tried calling, but you didn’t answer your phone.”

When she got to the studio at the back of the loft, I was partially dressed and covered in paint. “I—I got busy,” I told her.

“I see. You’ve been busy, huh. Or did you get into a fight with a vampire?” she snickered.

“Funny.”

“So, where are these paintings you were gonna get out for me,” she said. Naomi was always well put together. She wore a nice sleek black dress and a beige overcoat hanging from her shoulder precariously. “Can I have a look?” She gestured with the black clutch purse in her hand.

I’d totally forgotten about our call this morning. “I haven’t had a look yet, I’m inspired.”

“I remember you saying,” she said, clicking her tongue as she walked around. “These new pieces are feral. In a good way. You want to tell me more?”

“That one is about lust,” I said, simplifying it down. “And this—”

“Love those colors,” she said. “I take it your next series is going to be about the man who did that to you. A series all about love bites and whatever else you’re into.”

Unable to stop smiling, I nodded. “I think I’m actually ready to part with some of these blue pieces.” I couldn’t hold onto my depressionist paintings, coined from a personal depression era that I clung to.

Naomi stared at me; her eyes wide. “Ash, what—or should I say, who has gotten into you?”

“Someone I met, he’s really nice, and I’ve not been able to get him off my mind,” I said. “It’s really nice, actually. But I don’t want to get carried away with my feelings. You know how easy it is for me to do that.”

“Girl,” she said, popping her tongue. “I’ve been with you through all your different phases, eras, and iterations. I think we’re on Ash four-point-o now.”

“Five,” I said. It sounded about right.

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