By Degrees (19 page)

Tarin gets out of the car and stands next to me.
 
He won’t look at me, but that’s okay.
 
What I’m about to do doesn’t require that he like me right now.
 
Or ever.

“What’s this place?” he asks.

“It’s a friend’s studio.”

“I already trashed one studio today,” he says, sounding just a little bit disappointed himself.
 
My joy edges up another notch.

“It’s not that kind of studio.”
 
I take a key out of my small purse and fit it into the lock.
 
Before I can finish unlocking the door, it swings open, and a man with disheveled hair and paint splatters covering most of his body is standing there in the doorway.

“Scarlett!” he exclaims, holding out his arms.

“Greg.”
 
I move in for a quick hug, hoping this time the paint is dry.

“Oh shit,” he says, backing away.
 
He searches the front of my clothes.
 
“Did I get ya?”

I look down.
 
“Not this time.”

“Awesome.”
 
He looks over my shoulder.
 
“Bring a friend?”

“Yes.”
 
I step inside as he moves out of the way.
 
“And Scott, of course.”

“Yo, Scotty boy.”
 
Greg holds out his hand and they shake.

Tarin walks in last with his hands in his pockets.
 
He nods a silent hello.

“I know this guy.”
 
Greg points at Tarin with a smile on his face.
 
Then he breaks out in a raspy rendition of one of Tarin’s older hits.

Tarin smiles, even though I can tell it pains him to do it.
 
Greg’s kind of hard to resist that way and his voice isn’t bad.

“Man, that piece was awesome,” says Greg. “That reminds me … I gotta show you something.”

Greg walks over to stack of paintings and starts shoving them around, obviously looking for something he can’t remember the location of.

Tarin’s gaze roams the room while we wait for Greg to join us again.
 
I wonder if what Tarin is seeing scares or intrigues him.
 
I hope for the latter.
 
This warehouse has been Greg’s home away from home for years.
 
It’s covered in acrylic paint splatters from floors to walls and even some spots on the ceiling.
 
Good thing he owns the place or I’m sure the landlord would have kicked him out a long time ago.
 
Canvases lean against the walls, four, five, and six deep.
 
They’re stacked up on almost all of the surfaces, sometimes a few feet high.
 
Bigger pieces that are in the process of being worked on are attached directly to the wall.
 
There are cans and bottles and tubes scattered throughout.
 
One corner of the room is dedicated to making canvases with rolls of the heavy material, a chop saw, small pieces of wood, and various staple guns, hammers, nails, and wire.

“Here it is,” exclaims Greg, sliding a canvas out from a big pile.
 
The remaining ones teeter, and Scott gets there just in time to save them from crashing to the floor.
 
He works on straightening them out as Greg walks over to Tarin to show him his find.

“I did this after I listened to
Break Me
for the first time.
 
I’ll bet I heard that song a hundred times as I painted this.
 
Probably more.”

Tarin takes the painting from him and just stares at it.
 
Greg prattles on and on about the inspiration he received from Tarin’s music and lyrics, but I can see that Tarin is hearing none of it.
 
He’s lost in the colors and the movement of the paint across the fabric.
 
Greg is a genius.
 
His pieces have never failed to grab my lost boys and pull them in, and now I know that Tarin is no exception.

Tarin’s voice is rough when he speaks.
 
“What’s it supposed to be?”

Greg’s tone holds traces of humor.
 
“I don’t know, man.
 
What do you see?”

Tarin tries to give him back the painting.
 
“Nothing.
 
Just some colors, that’s it.”

Greg pushes the painting back at him.
 
“Nah, you keep it.
 
It’s a gift.”

“I can’t.
 
I don’t want it.”

I cringe inwardly, knowing how sensitive Greg can be sometimes about his work.

Greg pushes his lips out and then shakes his head.
 
Finally he says, “You got it bad, dude.
 
Better suit up.”
 
He walks away and grabs an old coffee can, looking inside it as he goes.
 
At the sink on the far side of the room he fills the can partway and locates a few brushes lying on the draining board, making sure they’re clean before dumping them into the water.
 
He disappears into a large storage closet where I can hear him moving things around.

Scott walks over to Tarin and takes the painting from him.
 
“If you don’t want to ruin your clothes, you’ll want to get one of those suits on.”
 
He motions to the rack of car-mechanic jumpsuits hanging from hooks near the door.
 
They’re in several sizes and none of them are clean.

“What are you talking about?
 
Is this guy gonna start flinging paint everywhere or what?”

“Not him.
You.”
 
Scott carries the painting over to the door.
 
“I’m going to go wait in the car.”
 
He leaves before any of us have time to say goodbye.

“What’s he talking about?” Tarin asks me.
 
I can’t tell if he’s angry or just confused.

“Three days a week you’ll paint.
 
Get a suit on and get ready to have your first session.”

Tarin frowns, his face going darker than it already was.
 
“I don’t want to paint.”

“So what?
 
Paint anyway.”
 
I move towards the door. There’s a stool there that’s safely out of Greg’s paint-splashing zone, and it gives me a great view of the room.
 
I climb up on it and rest my feet on the bottom rung.

He puts one hand on a hip and gestures angrily with the other.
 
“So even though I don’t want to paint, you’re going to force me to do it anyway?”

“Yes.”
 
I shrug, offering no apology.

“And if I don’t follow your orders?”

“I think you know what happens if you don’t cooperate.”

His nostrils flare as he drops his arms to his side.
 
“This is bullshit and you know it.”

“No, it’s not bullshit, Tarin. You’re a creative person.
 
If you can’t create music right now, you’ll create something else.
 
Work out your emotions in a way that doesn’t destroy your house or your friendships.”

He shakes his head, thoroughly disgusted with me.
 
“Un fucking believable.”
 
But he shuffles over to the wall and yanks a suit off a hook.

Before I can look away, he pulls his shirt off over his head.
 
Tattoos I’ve never seen before glare out at me.
 
A particularly rough-looking one across his abdomen jumps out at me.

Guilty
is what it says.

I wonder what he did that was so terrible it inspired him to brand himself with such negativity.
 
It makes me sad to see it.
 
I turn to the side when his hand goes to the first button of his pants.

“What’s the matter?
 
Worried about seeing me naked?” he asks, finishing with a bitter laugh.
 
He’s taunting me.
 
He’s not happy.

I turn back around, my face expressionless. “No.
 
Not at all.”

He drops his pants, and I try not to let my shock show.
 
He’s not wearing underwear and his entire body is right there on display, not more than five feet away.
 
His tan lines only emphasize what I’m seeing just below his waist.
 
My heart flips over at the raw maleness of it.
 
My eyes roam north in self-preservation.

His body is lean, the tattoos roaming over muscle bulges and smoother sections of skin, wrapping around arms and ribs and shoulders.
 
Some are old and faded, others brightly colored.

Guilty.

That tattoo keeps drawing my eyes back down to his waist.

I catch him smirking at me as Greg reappears, coming out of the storage room just in time to save me from saying something really stupid and embarrassing myself.
 
I turn to face him instead of a naked Tarin.

“Ho, yeah, okay … all right,” says Greg, nodding and shrugging.
 
“Painting in the buff.
 
I can hang.”

“Nah, I’m getting dressed,” says Tarin.

When I hear the suit being zipped up, I look at Tarin again, trying with everything I have not to appear affected by having seen him in all his glory.
 
And glorious his body is, too.
 
I’m going to have to drink a lot of alcohol to scrub my brain clean of that image.
Guilty, guilty, guilty...
 
I resist the urge to actually wipe my eyes.

Seeing him clothed in the painting suit should have been helping to get me back to Earth, but it isn’t.
 
I can’t get rid of the sensation I experienced seeing him standing there naked with a knowing smirk on his face. He’s completely covered now, from neck to ankle, but my libido still knows that all it would take is one downward yank on that zipper and he’d once again be standing there with just tattoos for clothing.
 
And then it would be all over for me.

At this point, now that I’ve seen pretty much all of him, I’m going to have a hell of a time keeping myself from staring at him while he works and not fantasizing about all kinds of dangerous things.
 
It’s been way too long since I’ve had sex.
 
The way I’m reacting to his body, in the middle of an art studio no less, tells me that I’m on a hair-trigger.
 
God forbid he realize that and use it to manipulate me.

No matter what, I cannot afford to let that happen to either one of us.
 
No matter how much certain parts of me might want it, there will be no sex or even a hint of that between us.
 
And under no circumstances can he find out that he makes me think about these things between us.

I move around on the stool uncomfortably, my nipples suddenly too sensitive and other parts of me just as aroused.
 
I seriously need an ice cold shower
right now.

Tarin avoids my eyes as he zips the suit up the rest of the way.

Thank the universe for small favors.
 
I fan myself, pretending it’s the weak air conditioning in the room making me sweat.

“Okay, so you ever work with acrylics before?”
 
Greg, who’s totally oblivious to my sexual distress, is pulling out a blank canvas and setting it on an easel in the middle of the room.

“No.
 
Nothing.
 
I’ve never painted.”
 
The tone of his voice belies his interest. Now that we’re past the butting of heads, his natural interest is taking over.
 
I’m secretly thrilled but I make sure to keep that emotion from showing.

“Okay, well, first thing you need to know is it’s water-based, so if you want to change colors, you just rinse your brush in the can.
 
Here’s a rag so you can dry it off.”
 
He hands Tarin an old rag as he approaches.
 
“The paints dry a lot faster than oils, so you don’t have as much time to make changes before things start to get tacky.”
 
Greg gestures to a flat board covered in a rainbow of colors.
 
“There’s a palette.
 
You can squeeze out the colors you want around the edges and use the center to mix new ones.
 
You remember probably from kindergarten … the primary colors are yellow, blue, and red … you can mix them into whatever you want or use these colors that are already mixed in the tubes or bottles.
 
If you want something lighter, add white … darker, add black.
 
Don’t be shy about loading up your brush with paint.
 
You don’t want the canvas showing through.”
 
He gestures to the can with the water in it.
 
“I’ve got brushes there for ya, but if you prefer to use a palette knife, I have some of those too.”

“I don’t need any of that,” says Tarin.

Greg looks at Tarin and then at me, shrugging.
 
“Whatever you say, man.”
 
He turns his attention more fully to me as he walks over.
 
“Listen, I have to take off for a while.
 
You okay here?”

I nod.
 
“We’re fine.
 
Want me to lock up after I go?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.
 
See you in a couple days?”
 
He leans in to kiss my cheek.
 
All I can smell is paint, turpentine, and dust.
 
This is Greg’s normal cologne.

“Yeah, see in you in two days.
 
I’ll text you if anything changes.”

“Stay golden,” he quips as he shuts the door behind him.

The room goes almost completely silent. Tarin stares at the empty canvas.
 
The sounds of a clock ticking get louder as the sense of awkwardness grows.
 
I say nothing, determined to wait his stubborn ass out on this chair until it’s time to go.