“Careful, or I’ll start to think you’re complaining about capitalism.”
He gives me the slow smile. “Never.”
It’s devastating, that smile and that ambition. Devastating the way I can’t seem to look away from him, not even when he touches my cheek again. This time he isn’t wiping away paint. He cups my face and holds me still. His head lowers in slow degrees, giving me time to stop him.
My body is incapable of moving right now. Even my lungs are frozen, my throat locked tight. Only my heart beats hard enough to hear. It pulses in my lips, waiting, waiting for him.
I spent a good part of the past four hours painting lips that are the focal point of this piece—lips that are full of feminine beauty and eternal regret, of desire and revenge. I’ve worked through the meaning of every rise, every indent, translated the shadows, but now that I look at Christopher’s lips, with their masculine utility, I don’t know what any of it means. There’s a secret code written all over his skin, the message plain if only I could read it.
His mouth meets mine, and for a moment the warmth stuns me. I can only stand there under the gentle press of him, feeling the heat spread through my face and down my neck. Down my stomach and into my legs.
He touches his tongue against the seam of my lips—a question. And I open my mouth in answer, letting him sweep inside with sleep-drunk desire. We shouldn’t be doing this. There are so many reasons why this is wrong, but his hands on my waist feel impossibly right.
A sound comes from me, a moan that would embarrass me if I were thinking. I’m only feeling. Only falling and letting him catch me, as if we’re meant to do that forever.
His tongue slides against mine, and it’s so intimate I have to gasp. The rush of cool air in my mouth, when he had been so hot, wakes me from the strange slumber. I look into eyes dark and heavy-lidded and more shocked than my own.
He takes a step back, letting his hands fall away. “Shit,” he says softly.
I haven’t kissed very many boys in my life, not enough to hear all the things they might say after they do it, but this response seems particularly disheartening. As does the way he can’t seem to look me in the eyes. “Shit?”
His throat works. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Why not? That’s what I want to ask. Something to soothe this tangle of hurt and hunger inside me. Instead I say, “Is this because Medusa’s watching? She’s actually not as innocent as she looks.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t.”
My laugh sounds a little maniacal. “It’s kind of weird that she looks innocent at all, right? That’s not what people usually say, like, ‘oh, she has that girl-next-door look with the snake hair.’ But there’s definitely something innocent about her.”
“Harper.”
“She’s not shocked because you kissed her.”
“You,” he says gently. “I kissed you.”
“And then you said shit, which I feel like I should tell you, in case you didn’t already know, is not the best thing for a girl’s self-esteem, mythical creature or otherwise.”
“I’m not sorry I kissed you.”
“Then why did you stop?”
“Because you’re high on adrenaline right now. And paint fumes.”
“You’re doing the whole white-knight thing again, aren’t you? Only this time you’re saving me from you. Boys who think they know better than me are very annoying.”
“I don’t think if I had kissed you when you opened the hotel room door, you would have been nearly as receptive. Tell me that isn’t true, and I’ll kiss you until we both run out of breath.”
I consider lying, because I want to know what happens when we’re both out of breath. But I’m a terrible liar, which is how I got caught for doing the painting in the gym even though I hadn’t signed my name. Besides, he’s right about one thing—I wouldn’t have let him kiss me if I hadn’t been delirious from lack of sleep. Does that make the kiss more real or less?
In the end he leaves me on the sidewalk in New York City, a heavy-lidded bellhop standing with the door open, steam rising from grates in the flush of an industrial dawn.
The studio loses their minds, chastising me over e-mail and talking about procedures way more than any place with the words “creative genius” in their Facebook bio should. Thankfully I sleep through most of that, and by the time I wake up at three p.m., Professor Mills has smoothed things over.
I’m wearing a forest velvet Givenchy dress with a wrapped bodice. The head curator seems a little drunk by the time Mom and I show up. “I should have had more faith in you,” the curator tells me, eyes bright with excitement and secret champagne. “The phone has been off the hook. Everyone wants a ticket, but we’re sold out.”
I give her a hug mostly because it looks like she needs one. “Thank you so much for giving me the chance to be here. I’m sorry if I stressed you out, but I just wanted to do a good job.”
She bursts into tears and ends up crying into my velvet-clad shoulder about how shitty the New York art scene is and how this might actually save her. Mostly I get through that encounter by telling myself that it’s not really happening, that I fell asleep slumped against Medusa last night and now I’m still sleeping under Christopher’s watch.
Professional art movers have already brought over the other pieces, which are being carefully hung beneath heavy spotlights. Caterers are setting up a table of hors d’oeuvre with cheese and olives and sesame-seed-covered pita chips to dip into truffle hummus.
Daddy shows up a half hour before the doors will open and squeezes me tight. “I’m so proud of you, Harper. And so glad I got to see this.”
The words strike me as odd, and I squeeze him back. “I’m sorry you had to cancel Japan… but also not sorry. It’s no 4.0, but it’s all I’ve got.”
“I don’t care about your GPA.”
That makes me roll my eyes. “Sure you don’t.”
He cups my face in his hands. “I’m serious. The world is a crazy place, but you already know that. That’s why you painted that gymnasium in the first place. I just want you to be safe and secure, and if that means making grades and doing what society expects, that’s the only reason I’ve ever wanted that for you.”
My heart squeezes tight, because I know that’s true. Maybe he wanted to understand me better. Maybe I would have liked to understand him better, but I always knew he wanted what was best for me. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“Now give me a tour of this show before the whole world wants a piece of you.”
So I show him around the paintings of Medusa’s life and death. Only when we get to the final piece do I find Mom standing there, staring at it as if transfixed.
“Hell,” Daddy breathes.
Mom turns back with a slight smile. Her dress is glimmering and couture, showing off a figure some twenty-year-olds would kill for. She’s always been a beautiful woman, but never a happy one. “Look at what our girl did.”
Daddy clears his throat. “She’s… incomparable.”
Only I don’t think he’s talking about me.