Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(39)
“The size of a house and very, very ready to take some time off, put my feet up, and spend my days eating bonbons while oiled cabana boys fan me with palm fronds.”
I laughed. “They have oiled cabana boys with palm fans in this town? Awesome! Where do I sign up?”
She chuckled and hung the painting on another wall. I noticed that around the shop, there were a number of empty display easels and wall mounts. “We’re rearranging some stock, setting out some of the new inventory Robin picked up in Chicago. You’re here today to get familiar with things, since I’ll be leaving in a couple of weeks. And to move the heavier pieces.”
“Okay.” I nodded briskly. “Just tell me where to start.”
It turned out that Ling was actually willing to let me do all the lifting, light or heavy, while she sat on a stool and directed traffic. She instructed me about how to move the canvases and framed works without (hopefully) damaging them, and started teaching me a little bit about how the inventory was cataloged so that they knew what they had sold and when. I’d nearly finished moving the last piece she wanted moved when jogging footsteps drummed down the stairs in the back of the shop.
My first sight of Robin said that he and Geoffrey had obviously cast themselves in the wrong roles. Geoff, the clean-cut one, should be running the art gallery, while Robin, with tattoos starting at his temples and twining down both sides of his neck to disappear under his shirt, was obviously meant to be doing body art. If not for the ink, he would have looked like a Ken-doll clone: tanned, blond, and muscular. He should have been slathered in baby oil lifting weights on Muscle Beach or something. I stared at him for a moment, and he stared back.
“Robin,” Ling said, “this is Topher. Topher, Robin.”
“Hi.” I gave him a friendly smile, sticking my hand out.
He shook it, blinking at me, then shook his head. “Well, I’ll be f*cked sideways and backwards.”
I frowned, feeling hugely self-conscious. “It’s the hair, right? People always wonder about the hair.”
“Nope. Actually I’ve seen that before.”
My eyebrows rose. “You have?”
“Mm-hm.” He crooked a finger, a smile flirting at his lips. “Come back to the storeroom. I want to show you something.”
That could have been interpreted in some really filthy ways, but he wouldn’t do that in front of his not-quite sister-in-law, right? Ling merely watched us with wry amusement. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll just mind the store.”
Confused, I followed Robin into the back room, where he began sorting through carefully wrapped canvases that hadn’t been stored in the vertical racks lining the wall yet. Finally he located three large portrait-sized ones and propped them against a wall, lined up in a row like a triptych. Then he stripped off the coverings.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, staring at myself.
Well, it was me, yet not really. I mean, clearly it was, but not anything like I’d ever seen myself.
The first one, with a wispy background that suggested feathers, gave the impression of an angelic figure with my face, dark skin contrasting with the soft, golden lighting. I gleamed with a subtle gilt shimmer and my eyes both laughed and burned. I looked eager and innocent, and maybe a little nervous, as I lay on the bed awaiting an unknown lover.
The second was darker, as though hours had passed since the first and the sun had set. I looked lazy, heavy-lidded, debauched. A slightly smug smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. One very satisfied fallen angel.
The last one made my throat ache a little. The background was lighter again, this time touched with pink over the gold, as if the night was over and an unseen sun was rising. I was sprawled on the bed like I was near collapse, limp, dazed, exhausted. Love bites speckled my throat and finger-shaped bruises darkened my wrists and hips. Not only had the angel fallen, he’d been utterly and completely wrecked in the best possible way.
If I ignored the eyes, I would think the subject of the painting was ready to fall into a contented sleep. But the eyes ruined that illusion. They were wide open, and too old, too deep, too knowing for the age of the angel. They were the eyes of someone who’d seen way too much pain and ugliness. Cautious. Vulnerable. Soft. Sad. Full of wistful yearning.
It wasn’t the narrative of that carefree and passionate night I’d spent with Jace, not as I recalled it. And yet it was, from sundown to sunrise, told in stages.
They were gorgeous paintings, but what sort of impression must I have left on Jace for him to see me like that? They weren’t me. Not me at all. The semi-angelic young man in those paintings was idealized beyond all recognition, someone mythical and amazing, and that wasn’t me. I was just Topher, the f*cked-up kid who was betraying his best friend by making her dad an adulterer, the kid who would probably never finish college and who couldn’t seem to achieve anything more than mediocrity in anything he pursued. Not because he didn’t want more, but because something seemed to block him every time he tried to strive for it. In fact, it seemed like the only amazing thing I’d ever done was that night with Jace.
I wished Robin weren’t standing there, a complete stranger. The sight of those paintings was too intimate. It left me exposed, stripped bare, and not in the sense of nudity. His seeing them—or perhaps just my reaction to them—was an invasion of privacy way beyond the physical stuff.