Page 30 of Wet Paint

We cooked dinner every night, took turns picking movies, played board games.

And sometimes, we fucked. On his couch, his bed, the shower.

One night, three days in, I woke to find him sketching me. The lamp beside the bed was on, casting soft light across his face and the open sketchbook on his lap. I didn’t say anything, just watched him for a moment, memorizing the way his brow furrowed in focus. When he noticed I was awake, he smiled, set the pencil down, and crawled back into bed like nothing about what he’d just done was out of the ordinary.

We didn’t talk about the outside world.

Not once.

Not about Eleyna. Not the people who would have opinions, or the fact that this time next week, we’d have to pretend we were nothing again.

Because here, I wasn’t just a student.

And he wasn’t my professor.

We were just Ivy and Will.

But on Thursday, something shifted.

Will had been acting a little off since morning. Distracted, even though he tried not to show it. He kissed me like usual, touched me like usual, but there was a tension in his shoulders he hadn’t carried all week.

When I asked what was up, he just said, “Later.”

I didn’t press. I trusted him. But I couldn’t help watching him a little more closely as the day wore on. He spent most of the afternoon in his home office, shutting the door for phone calls he wouldn’t explain, and when I passed by, I caught pieces of his voice, calm but clipped. Purposeful.

Dinner was already prepped when I wandered into the kitchen around six, confused when he told me not to help.

“Go sit on the porch,” he said, sliding two glasses across the counter toward me. “Sun’s setting. I’ll bring everything out in a few.”

I furrowed my brows. “What’s going on?”

He just smirked. “Nothing bad. Promise.”

I did as he said, partly because I was curious, and partly because I was too comfortable in his hoodie to argue. The sky was streaked in lavender and pink, and the forest just beyond the house was bathed in gold.

Ten minutes later, he came out with two plates of pasta, a bottle of wine, and a piece of paper tucked under his arm.

We ate first. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. Not even when I narrowed my eyes and asked four different times.

Finally, after we finished, he took a deep breath and pulled out the folded sheet of paper, setting it in front of me on the table.

“What’s this?”

“Just read it,” he said, barely containing the grin threatening to break across his face.

I unfolded it.

And then I froze.

It was an email. From the director of the city’s modern art museum.

Your student’s submission, “Rain in Blue”, was exceptional. We’d be proud to display it as part of our spring emerging artists installation.

My eyes scanned the lines again. And again.

“I didn’t submit it,” I whispered.

“I did,” Will said softly. “A month ago. It just sits there for nobody to see. It needs to be seen, Ivy.”

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