"Not a problem." He looked around at her walls.
"I know what you're thinking," she said.
His mouth twitched. "Do you?"
"You're wondering why a Parrish would live in a hole in the wall like this," she said. "Right?"
"No. I was thinking how your place shows what you care about." He gestured at the drafting table, the books, the shelves of drawing supplies and art monographs. "But since you said it, go ahead. Tell me. Why is a Parrish living in a hole in the wall like this?"
Edie dragged in air, hardened her belly. There was no point in trying to misrepresent the unenviable situation she was in. She'd tried that before. It always blew up in her face, sooner or later.
"This is all I can afford, with no help from my father," she said. "The books are selling well, so it'll get better eventually, but for now..." She shrugged. "Parrish money comes with strings attached. I'd have to be good, take my meds, not embarrass anybody, not say anything strange. I've tried, but the meds make me feel half dead. I can't draw when I take them. I don't even recognize myself. My father thinks I'm doing it to spite him." She shook the painful thought away. "So, here I am."
"Here you are," he echoed quietly.
"I'm lucky I make enough money as an artist to afford even this much," she said. "I'm not much good at anything else."
The autumn sun slanted in the window, lighting up his eyes and warming the color into the luminous jade of a glacial lake. She'd never gotten anywhere near his power with her drawings, though she'd tried for a decade. His scars just made his stark male beauty more poignant. They put it in sharp relief, a brutal reminder of his vulnerability.
He was no superhuman. He was real.
His scars made her think of that day that split her life in half. All his revelations were bringing her own long-buried truths to the surface. Things she knew so deeply, she barely thought about them. They were the bedrock of her deepest self, the underlying landscape of her mind.
Seeing the burned man, wounded and desperate, had broken something inside her heart when she was eleven. Something that could never be mended until she could soothe those wounds, and give him the help that he had begged for. She still couldn't. There was nothing she could do for him. But God, how she wanted to. She ached for it.
It was ridiculous. Pathetic. And it was the truth.
She looked down, eyes skittering around the crowded little room. Afraid of looking stupid. Of being judged by him. She wished she were bolder, more uncaring, more fuck-you-all. But she just wasn't.
She couldn't bear to look at him, and she couldn't bear to look away. Slices of sunlight shifted on the wall as drafts from the warped window moved the blinds. The crystals she'd hung spun rainbow splotches lavishly, everywhere. The space seemed incredibly small. He just stood there. Not twitching, not ill at ease or embarrassed. A silent, powerful presence, patiently waiting for something. Who the hell knew what. She was the jittery one, hoping desperately not to screw this up.
Not even knowing what "this" was. Where she wanted this miraculous turn of events to go. Just one thing was for sure. She didn't want to chase it away. Like she'd chased away every other man she'd ever gotten close to. But it wasn't up to her. It never was.
It was out of her hands, and that made her so scared.
Well. You could ask the man to sit down, suggested a dry voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like her mother.
"Have a seat," she offered. "Can I make you a cup of tea?"
"That would be nice," he said.
"Oh, and yeah. Here." She rummaged in her cupboard, and pulled out a colorful cardboard box. Animal crackers. She placed them on the table. "I know they're ridiculous. My mother would turn over in her grave if she saw me offer these to a guest, but it's all I have at the moment. I keep them for Jamal. He stays here a lot. You know, to use the computer, and sometimes he sleeps on the couch, when his mom is, um, occupied, with her boyfriends. I leave my window open for him, the one with the fire escape, so he has a safe place to do homework when I'm not here." She pulled it shut, latched it. "But, ah...not today."
He gave her a smile that made her wish she'd kept her mouth shut. Babbling on about Jamal, like a fatuous fool. "Stop it," she said.
"Stop what?" His low, gentle voice sounded caressing.
She waved her hand at him. "Stop looking at me like that."
"I can't help it," he said. "It's a sweet thing for you to do for the kid. It's a total nightmare from a security point of view, but it's sweet."
"I have nothing here worth stealing," she retorted, flustered. "And I wasn't trying to get your approval, or trying to prove anything to--"
"Of course you weren't. You don't have to. It's obvious."
"What's obvious?" she snapped.
He hesitated. "Who you are," he said. "Your quality. Never mind. I don't want to embarrass you. You don't take compliments well."
"I guess not," she said testily. "Will you please sit down? Eat some of these cookies." She ripped open a box, undid the wax paper, held one out. "Here. Sit down, eat a giraffe. You're making me nervous."
"In a moment," he said. "I'd like to look at your pictures. May I?"
She huffed out a gusty breath. "Be my guest."
She shoved the giraffe into her mouth, and crunched it while he walked the walls. She'd covered the walls with clippings, magazine images, things scribbled on restaurant bills, napkins, paper towels, paper plates. A chaotic, fluttering floor to ceiling collage.
She tried to ignore him by putting the teakettle on, setting up mugs with teabags. All she had was spiced green tea chai. No point in asking if he liked it, since she could offer no alternative.
And then there was nothing to do but wait for the water to boil.
She forced herself to turn around. He was peering at the wine-stained sketch of her father, the one she'd done in the restaurant. She'd almost thrown the ill-starred thing away, because it hurt to look at it.
Then she'd pulled it out of the waste basket, and put it up on the wall. She had to learn to use the information that came to her in this elliptical way. To save people, change things. Not just be a helpless witness to disaster. Throwing the sketch away would mean that she had given in to despair. She wasn't ready for that yet.
"Your father," he said quietly, touching it with his finger. "I recognize him. This is the drawing you told me about? The prophetic one that you did of him at the restaurant?"
His perception startled her. "I wouldn't go so far as to call it prophetic," she forced out. "How did you know that was the one?"
"It gave me cold chills. The other sketches of him didn't."
No other person had ever had an independent reaction to one of her "charged" drawings before. It felt strange. Not entirely good.
He prowled her space, peering at her things and drawing his own imponderable conclusions about her. He wouldn't sit. She wanted that leopard-about-to-pounce energy to settle, so she could breathe.
"I don't know what to do with you," she blurted.
He shook his head. "You don't have to do anything."
She rushed on. "I'm sorry I don't know more about your past. The only thing I could possibly do would be to ask my father, but I'll tell you right now, that's not as simple as it sounds. He's angry at me, and defensive about that incident with you, and I have no idea what else, if anything, he knows about it. And in any case, you might have more luck asking him independently of me. He hates...this. This whole situation." She gestured towards the wine-stained sketch. "The drawings. The things I see, the things I say. It freaks him out, and I don't blame him." She approached the wall, and stared at the sketch. "I saw that he's in danger, but I don't know from what, and I can't warn him. It would just infuriate him. I'm useless to him, just like I was to my mom. And you." Tears started into her eyes. "As useless as I was the first time you saw me."
"You were not useless."
She shot him an ironic look, but the blazing force of his gaze startled whatever sarcastic th
ing she was going to say out of her head.
"You've been in my dreams for eighteen years," he said. "You were my angel. Leading me, hiding me, protecting me. Jesus, you even had a halo. What were you wearing on your head that day, anyhow?"
"I had on a white flower wreath," she admitted. "With tinsel and baby's breath. And white ribbons."
His throat bobbed. "I remember a halo. Like a medieval saint."
"Um." She swallowed. "I'm, ah...I'm no saint."
"Oh." He cleared his throat. The silence abruptly got very thick, almost stifling. "Well. Ah. Thank God for that."
The teakettle started to whistle. She was pathetically grateful for the distraction. A reason to turn her burning face away. Her hand wobbled as she poured, thinking what a disappointment the real Edie was going to be to him, after his shining angel projections. No woman could live up to that, let alone an awkward weirdo like herself. He'd cop to the truth soon enough. How unsure of herself she was, how prone to sadness, how liable to mope. He'd be creeped out by the weird things that popped out of her mouth at the most inopportune moments.
It was doom in the making. No way to swerve.
And even so, she was so physically aware of him, she couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. All the oxygen in the room was on fire.
She placed his mug on the table, sat down, and sipped her own, although it blistered her mouth. Steam rose in a shaft of light that sneaked through blinds. He sat, and waited in silence for what seemed like an hour, though it was probably just a few minutes. Not touching his tea. "There is something you could do for me," he finally said.
"There is?" Her heart thudded, her face went hot. She gulped some chai, dragged in a deep breath, held it. Never before had she so desperately wished that she'd inherited her father's ironclad poise.
"Draw me," he said.
Shock, disbelief, disappointment, all jostled for place. She gazed at him stupidly. "Excuse me?"
He didn't repeat himself, just swept a look around the wall collage. "Like what you did to that girl in the bookstore."
"You want me to do that? Deliberately? For you?"
He nodded.
A breath hissed out between her teeth. No one had ever solicited that from her. As if it were a service of some kind. A desirable thing. It was as if someone handed her a baseball bat, and said, "hit me."
So. He didn't want hours of hot, pounding sex. Draw me, he said. It was nice, complimentary, gratifying. But it wasn't "Do me."
So he wasn't interested in her romantically. He wanted to use her like a human divining rod. So? At least he was honest. It wasn't his fault she was a knot of sexual deprivation. Nor was it his problem.
Neither was the fact that she'd been having dreams about sex with Fade Shadowseeker for years. Erotic dreams that made the honest efforts of real, normal guys pale in comparison, which effectively ruined any chance of a real love life. But probably Kev Larsen himself could never live up to Fade's imaginary sexual prowess. Just like she could never live up to his shining angel. That knife cut both ways.
They were just people. She had to face reality. That was what he was trying to do. It took guts to tune in to Edie Parrish's Grim Reaper radio show. She admired his bravery, in spite of feeling...well, stupid.
And hot. And damp. Her hair was sticking to her neck.
"It doesn't work the way you seem to think," she explained, in a halting voice. "It's very imprecise, very impressionistic. It's not like I get a clear picture of somebody's future, or their past. I just get glimpses of what's on their mind, or I see something that they're trying to suppress, like I did with the girl in the bookstore. I won't see your lost memories, because you won't be broadcasting them. So don't get your hopes up, because I don't think that I--"
"You saw me going over a waterfall fourteen months before it happened." He reached for one of the graphic novels he'd lain on the table, opened Midnight's Secret and leafed until he found a specific picture. He turned the book to her. "Look. See that?"
It was a full-page color drawing from the beginning of the story. Fade, languishing in his mute exile, staring at himself in the shattered bathroom mirror. "Yeah?" she said. "And?"
"That mirror? See those cracks in it? That was my mirror, in the the bathroom of the place where I lived for seven years. You drew the pattern of the cracks exactly, Edie. Right down to this missing chunk here. That angle, those proportions. They're mathematically exact."
She shook her head, but he persisted. "You might wonder how I remember details like that, but I didn't have much else to think about. I studied cracks in the mirror. I memorized the peeling paint. I remember the precise shape of the water damage on the ceiling."
"Oh." She swallowed. "I, um, don't know what to say."
"I'll take you there and show you, if you want. You can compare."
"That won't be necessary," she said hastily. "I, ah, believe you. It's just that I don't want to raise false hopes."
He let the book drop. "I wouldn't call it hope, exactly. It's just a door to knock on. Anything at all would help me, Edie. Anything."
She tore her gaze away, and the wrench felt physical. She was sick with nerves. God knows, she'd disappointed enough people in her life. All the important ones. She couldn't bear to disappoint him, too.
He waited for a long moment. "I've spent more than half my life in a room with the windows painted over," he said, his voice tight with emotion. "If you showed me one ray of light, from any direction, past, present, future, whatever, I would kiss your feet. Shower you with praise, worship at your shrine. Be in your debt forever. Get me?"
She cleared her throat. "The theatrics won't be necessary," she said primly. "I'd be glad to help. Just don't expect too much."
"Not at all," he said. "Anything is fine. And if you don't see anything, I'll be grateful to you for trying."
She busied herself by pouring her half drunk tea into the sink. Then she grabbed her pen, and the largest of her sketchbooks. Something inside her was already rubbing its hands together, eager to get to it. She craved it. Finally, she could play. No boundaries, no rules, no fear. No one would yell at her to stop. No one would be scolding her, or forbidding her, or freaking out on her. She didn't have to draw fast, to grab an image before her head started tuning into the broadcast.
She could take her own sweet time. Just go to that place and linger there, feeling so whole and centered and alive. Play there, for as long as she wanted. Let the broadcast roar. He'd asked for it.
As long as it wasn't something scary and horrible. Doubt stabbed through the rising euphoria, but the hunger was stronger. She'd been chained for so long. She couldn't even imagine how it would feel to be loose. The sense of freedom made her almost dizzy.
He looked shy. The first time she'd seen a crack in his perfect poise. "Uh...how do you want me...what do I do?" he asked.
"Whatever you want," she said. "This was your idea."
She waited, but he looked so lost, she finally took pity on him. "Take off your coat." She grabbed a chair, and set it in the middle of the room, if a room so small could be said to have a middle. "Sit here."
He got up, shrugged off the coat, held it like he had no idea what to do with it. She grabbed it, tossed it, and gave his chest a shove to encourage him to sit. The wool of his sweater didn't shield her hand from the shock of contact.
They both gasped, and stopped breathing for a second. Whoa.
He sank into the chair. Such long, stong legs. His thick muscles showed through his jeans. Nothing he wore was meant to show off his body, but the graceful drape and fold of fabric as it settled over him revealed it anyway. He'd look good in anything he wore. His hands were beautiful, too. Long, graceful fingers. And his chest. So wide. She'd felt the taut, coiled strength of him in that instant that her fingers had touched him. Oh, boy. Concentrate, Edie. Concentrate.
He looked intensely self-conscious, which gave her a flash of tenderness. She leafed through her sketchbook for a blank page and sat for a moment, lettin
g the pencil point dance on empty air. So nice, not to have to hurry. No shortcuts. She was used to using the fewest pen strokes possible. Not today. She could indulge herself. Take her time.
Tingling rightness filled her hand as she set pen to paper, and almost instantly, the small, nervous Edie faded away, submerged in something larger, stronger. Unafraid. And perfectly, utterly happy.
She'd drawn Fade Shadowseeker thousands of time, because it made her happy to draw him. Kev Larsen was Fade's image in every detail, but drawing Kev was infinitely more satisfying. He pulsed out those macho, charismatic vibes right before her very eyes. She didn't have to dredge images up from the depths of memory, or flesh them out with hopeful imagination. He was right there, offering infinite entry points into this drawing and a thousand future drawings.
She was so accustomed to reaching, yearning. Grasping for something as fleeting as smoke. Kev was rock solid, real. Right there.
She was having so much fun nailing down the details, she hardly felt the inner eye open up. It was so smooth, a natural extension of her regular perceptions. She was concentrating on the flare of his back, the breadth of his shoulders, the elegant jut of his cheekbone beneath the mottled webwork of scars. She sketched his nose, the grooves bracketing his mouth. And his eyes, over and over. Trying to catch the luminous flash, the fabulous effect of captured light. She wanted more; the patterns of his body hair, the shape of of his nipples, the way his pants rode on his hips. She wanted these things...right...now.
"Would you take off your sweater, please?"
It popped out of her, in the offhand tone of an artist making a request of a professional model. Then it hit her, how provocative the words must sound to him. He was no artists' model. He looked startled.
"Never mind," she said hastily, her face burning. "Don't."
"No, no, it's OK," he muttered, but he looked lost and nervous as he fumbled for the bottom of his sweater. She opened her mouth to beg him to stop, but he yanked the sweater off with a jerk. Too late.
She choked on whatever she was going to say. And then forgot it.
He was covered with scars. He was lean, every tendon, muscle and sinew of his body on display, and the skin of his entire torso was crisscrossed with a tracery of silver scars, in eerily regular patterns. Someone had cut him, all over. Burned him, too.
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