Six Feet Under (Mad Love Duet Book 1)

by Whitney Barbetti

  Elaine pulled off the blank canvas and replaced it with the sun one, propping it on the easel and smiling broadly at me. “I knew this painting needed something else.”

  “What else could it possibly need?” I asked, awed by how my eyes found the center circle and spread out over the lines that connected it and flew off the canvas, off into a space unseen.

  “Texture,” she explained. She placed a hand on mine on the palette knife and scooped up the mixed material. “That red sun needs texture; it needs to lift off the canvas.” With her hand still on mine, she brought the scoop of red, globby material to the canvas and plopped it on the center circle. She let go of my hand and gestured for me to go for it. “Spread that around the circle. It doesn't need to be smooth. In fact, the more raised it is, the more textured it will dry.”

  “I’ll fuck it up,” I said, resisting.

  “It’s just paint. You can’t screw it up, because it’s you.” She placed her hand on my shoulder, and I stilled myself to keep from wrenching out of her hold. “It’s not a test to pass. It’s expression. You can’t do it the wrong way.”

  It seemed impossible that there was something I would be incapable of fucking up. But I did as she asked.

  Using the palette knife, I spread the paint around the dried circle. Elaine reached behind me and grabbed a smaller brush. “Use this small brush to spread the paint, add some texture.”

  “How will I know when it's done?”

  She didn't answer me, bringing the palette knife to the sink on the other side of the table. She grabbed two more bottles of color.

  “Which one?”

  I eyed the purple and blue. “Blue?”

  She dropped the purple back onto her glass palette and opened the blue bottle, squirting a small glob onto where she'd mixed the red. “Bring some of this into the red. Not too much,” she cautioned. “The impasto will add texture, but this blue will add a little dimension.”

  I saw what she meant when I picked up the smallest bit of blue, incorporating it into the thick layer of impasto on the red sun.

  “I knew you were an artist.” She was beaming as she took in what I was doing.

  “I wouldn't call myself an artist.” I shrugged and handed her the brush. “I like making a mess.” I thought of my apartment, of the broken pieces of the mug Six had cleaned up for me.

  She took the brush, but the tips of her fingers touched against the scabs that were still healing on my wrist. The action shocked me, because it felt so deeply intimate to have her touch me there, without seeing. Her eyes flicked to mine and then back to my wrist. “You're a creator.”

  It was an odd thing to say to someone who was as destructive as I was. “No, I don't think so.”

  She let go of my hand, and I pulled it back to the safety of my lap. “You feel a lot, don't you?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “The best artists do.”

  “Hey,” Six said from behind us. “The shower head had an issue with the anti-scald function, but it's back to normal.” He took in the painting we'd been working on and stepped closer to look at it. “This new?”

  “It is. It was unfinished, though, just sitting here, waiting for the right hands to come upon it.” Elaine smiled up at Six and patted his arm. I was embarrassed by her praise, as if she was a proud mother when all I'd done was add some texture to a painting that had looked beautiful before my hands had touched it.

  “Looks good,” he murmured, standing to the side to look at it critically from another angle. “I have to run to that little strip mall this week, where your supply store is. Do you need me to pick up some things?”

  “I'll make a list,” she said. “Such a good boy.”

  Six's eyes met mine over his mother's head and he seemed to be asking if I was okay. When I nodded, he wrapped an arm around his mom and said, “We've got to get going, mom. I'll be back next weekend.”

  At the door, Elaine leaned in and hugged me tightly. “Don't forget,” she said against my ear. “You're a creator.”

  But, like all those who created, I was also capable of destruction.

  8

  It wasn't until Six had brought me back to my apartment late that night that I realized I'd forgotten about him completely during the time I'd painted. I hadn't thought about anything while I was in Elaine's studio, just focused completely on mixing paint, and layering, and making something flat more three-dimensional.

  I knew then that painting was therapy. Over the years, I'd dabbled in painting—feeling a strange call, a pull, to create the things in my head. Which was why my mom had bought that kit for me—on the suggestion of one of the many shrinks she’d dragged me to.

  But being in Elaine's space had fostered that desire, and I'd released whatever restless thoughts I had into Elaine's painting of the sun and everything inside of me had quieted to hushed voices. I knew then, that I wanted—no, needed—to start painting more.

  Six walked me to my door in silence, as usual, his head seeming to be somewhere else completely. When I opened my door and looked over my shoulder at him, I felt an inexplicable loss. Loss of noise? Loss of mania? I was rested, as if my brain had just endured a massage. For so long, I ached. For years, I battled the voices. And now the roar had subsided, leaving a wake of calm in its place.

  And I wondered if Six could see it in me, if he'd brought me to his mother's to see if she could give me something that he couldn't. We hadn't talked about the moment he'd cleaned my cuts, not in such simple words at least. But he hadn't needed me to go with him to his mom's, and his mom certainly hadn't needed me to come over. The only reason I could surmise that he brought me to her home was to meet the woman who colored his life.

  His eyes were soft, thoughtful, again. I was realizing just how vulnerable I was to that look, the look of wanting that I knew was echoed in my own eyes. I wondered if he could see the loss I felt then, the silence that filled my head more fully than the voices ever did.

  He leaned in, breathing warm air across my lips. I sucked in a breath and then licked my lips, relishing the warmth from his breath heating my lips. I didn't make any move to meet him halfway, and I think he waited for that, waited for me to grab him and close the distance between us. But I didn't.

  He backed away while my heartbeat thundered in my ears.

  He was standing against the wall of my hallway, hands in his pockets, looking at me with question in his eyes. I wasn't sure how I looked back at him, but whatever he saw in my face seemed to unsettle him because he tried to leave a moment later.

  “No,” I said. “Come in.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the first time I’d invited Six inside without an expectation attached. By the look on his face, the way he seemed to battle what to do with the tick in his jaw and the tightening of his fists, I assumed it probably was the first time I’d invited him in.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m never sure.” The answer didn’t appease him. “Yes, come in.”

  I backed away, leaving the door wide open for him. He breezed through the door, taking in the mess I’d left it in. He picked up a dish on the floor, set it in my sink, and poured some flakes into Henry’s bowl.

  “You don’t have to take care of him,” I said, shrugging off my coat and draping it over the one armchair that existed in the room. “I’m perfectly capable of feeding my own fish.”

  “Hm,” he said, glancing at me before spinning the top back onto the fish food with just a flick of his thumb. The movement made my own thumb twitch. He was so talented, in the tiniest ways. It made me feel inadequate, small in his presence, and I tried to remember why I’d invited him in.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, opening my fridge and likely surveying its measly contents.

  “I could eat.” He looked over at me, over his muscled bicep. He’d removed his leather jacket, leaving him in his jeans and long-sleeve t-shirt, and my mouth went a little dry looking at him.

  “What would you like to eat
?”

  It shouldn’t have sounded so seductive, but it did. I gripped the back of my armchair, resisting the urge to sink into it.

  Meeting his mom had exposed another side to him, a side that was tantalizing. It was like he was luring me, a fish to his hook. I glanced at Henry, who lazily sucked down his fish flakes. I wasn’t a fish.

  “I see what you’re trying to do.” I pointed at the floor as I met his eyes.

  He raised one eyebrow and closed the fridge, standing up. “Feed you?”

  “Yeah. With bait.” I walked to the counter, bypassing him completely to grab his leather jacket.

  “With bait.” It wasn’t said like a question, but there was confusion in his tone regardless.

  “Yeah. You think you can show me all these parts of you and I’ll fall right at your feet.” I could, though. But I was wary of the why. Why would he want to lure me in?

  He turned, facing me. My back was against the kitchen wall. He was blocking me in, but he hadn’t advanced toward me.

  “Is that so? That’s what I’m doing?”

  “Yeah. I’m not stupid.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “Why would you even want me?” I waved a hand at my apartment. “Want this? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “If it doesn’t make sense, then why would I, in your words, bait you?”

  “I don’t know.” I shoved his jacket at him and tried to move past, but he blocked me.

  “Tell me, Mira. Does everything you think make sense to you? Do you have a rational explanation for every feeling that comes over you?”

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  He closed his hands over mine, holding his jacket. “Then don’t ask me to explain mine. Especially when you can’t explain yours.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “I don’t play fair, Mira.” He took a step forward, and I backed up. The breath in my chest fluttered, but I kept my face placid.

  “I’m not good. I’m bad. Very, very bad.” It was a warning.

  “But you’re good in the ways I want.” He reached out, and I sucked in a breath. His hand hovered over the side of my face before he tenderly tucked my hair behind my ear. “But here’s a newsflash: we’re all a little bit bad.”

  “Not you.”

  “Especially me.” He dropped his hand to my shoulder, squeezed. “But,” he took a deep breath, “I don’t want to be bad when I’m around you.” His fingers slid slowly down my arm.

  I didn’t want to be bad around him either. I liked to keep private, but with him invading my space, it was hard for me to find the time to indulge in the things that fed that darkness, that bad that I often embraced. I thought of that as his fingers gently grazed over the three scabs on my wrist before clasping my hand.

  “Is that enough?” he asked. His eyes searched mine, and I saw his honesty in them.

  “It’s enough for now.” I lifted my chin, momentarily content with where we were. Now that I didn’t think he was manipulating me, I felt a bit better about it all. My lips brushed his and before I knew what was happening, he picked me up and carried me into the bedroom.

  He set me down on the bed and helped me remove my boots, shirt, pants, and underwear in that order. Naked, and perched on the edge of the bed, I stared at him as he removed his own clothes.

  We were wordlessly watching one another as he undressed. There wasn’t an insecure bone in his body—not that he needed to be with that body. But I found myself looking more for the flaws than taking in the masterpiece as a whole. Surely, he had some problem, somewhere.

  I mentally shook the thought away. I knew, based on my past, that I sought out flaws to exploit them when things weren’t going the way I wanted.

  He placed a warm palm to the center of my chest and gently pushed me until I was on my back in the sheets, with him standing over me.

  “You look so beautifully wild,” he said, and the softness of his hushed words made me equally pleased and afraid. This was unlike the first time our bare skin had met—this was more intimate and just … more. He knelt onto the bed and hovered over me. “Like a thunderstorm, right before it unleashes its fury.”

  “You should really stop painting me with such pretty words.” But a part of me didn’t want him to stop. I wasn’t accustomed to this kind of flattery. It felt foreign, but from him I believed it.

  “No,” he said, softly but with finality. He dropped his head and rubbed his scruff over my lips. I put my hands on his shoulders, but he sat up a bit, removed my hands, and wrapped his around my wrists, holding them down onto the bed.

  I was his captive, as his mouth grazed along my skin. Lazy, like he had all the time in the world. And, because he obviously just wanted to show off, he managed to hold both of my wrists in one hand as his other joined his mouth in teasing, pressing, and pulling until I was sure my skin was going to split open to release all the tension he had filled my body with.

  When he slid inside of me, finally, he let go of my hands. But I was already so spent, so overwhelmed, that my arms felt heavier than I could possibly lift. I was still his captive, but he didn’t need to hold me to prove it.

  When I fell asleep that night, my mind was calm, quiet, my heart slow, and my breaths even. It was my first taste of peace in so long that sleep, for once, came easy.

  The moment the sunlight squeezed through my broken window shades the next morning, I whispered the thought that had kept me up all night. “I don't want to be your girlfriend.”

  My back was to him on the bed. It was cowardly of me, I knew. But if I looked at him, if our eyes met, I'd succumb to him again. I closed my eyes, waiting.

  “I never said you were.”

  I sighed, pulling the sheet up to my chin, refusing to turn and face him. “You brought me a table and chairs, you feed me, you feed Henry.”

  “Technically, I tried to feed you last night.”

  Because my back was to him, I indulged in a small smile before releasing it. “I'm serious.”

  “Why don't you want to be my girlfriend?” I felt him shift behind me on the bed. “Is it because you think you've already figured me out?” He moved closer to me, until his chest met my back. His fingers traced the curve of my hip as he pressed a kiss to the nape of my neck.

  I shook my head in answer and tried to move away from his touch.

  He hooked an arm around my front and rolled me to face him. I stubbornly avoided his eyes, running a finger over the veins on his arms. He sighed, seemingly resigned to my inability to look at him. “Is it because I'm so ugly?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the base of my throat.

  Damn him. Six wasn't a comedian, not by a long shot. But still, my lips twitched. “Yeah, that's it. You're terrible to look at.”

  “I know that's a lie,” he whispered, bringing his lips to my collarbone.

  My eyes closed at the first brush of his stubble on my sensitive flesh. “You're also very modest,” I murmured.

  “Another lie.” I felt his smile against my breast. “You're not so good at this lying thing.”

  “Mm, so you've said,” I murmured. “You're awfully chatty this morning.”

  “Mhm.” He brushed his stubble down my stomach, lower and lower.

  My mind carried me away on the moment before my eyes snapped open. My blood ran cold, and I shook my head. “No, no.” I pushed him from me and backed up, my bare skin against the wall behind my mattress.

  Six sat back on his haunches and regarded me carefully. “What's swirling around in your head, Mira?”

  I heaved a breath and pushed my hands into my hair. I craved, for the first time in a while, a hallucinogenic, something to remove me from this conversation. My tongue was bitter with the feeling. “I don't want to be your girlfriend,” I repeated once more.

  “What do you want?”

  I thought of my past relationships, thought of how far I'd let this connection with Six go. “I...” I pulled on my black locks, stretching my hair straight befo
re letting the strands bounce up into curls. “I want to be Mira. You can be Six.”

  His eyes narrowed in confusion. “You are Mira. And I am Six. I fail to see how that's changed.”

  “Exactly!” I shouted, pointing a finger at him. I rolled off the bed and stood up. I pointed that same finger to my chest. “I am Mira. And I don't do relationships.” I shook my head rapidly, back and forth as I paced the length of my bedroom. “I'm a fuck up.”

  Six fell back into the bed, pulling the sheet up over him, making it clear with his actions that he had no intention of leaving upon my pronouncement of my fucked-up-ness. “And?” he asked, an eyebrow raised, clearly undisturbed.

  I stopped my pacing to cock my head to the side. “You don't have to say it so matter-of-factly.” I glared at him and tugged my hair.

  He stretched his arms up and tucked them under his head, settling in to listen to me say whatever I had to say.

  “I don't do relationships, I don't do”—I waved a hand between us—“this. I'm just going to screw it up eventually. I'm not good, Six.”

  My thoughts, which had fit together like a neat puzzle in my head, scattered every which way in my brain, disabling the speech I'd prepared, neatly, in between the night and the dusk of the day.

  I plopped onto the edge of the mattress. “I'm going to hurt you, Six.” I said it seriously, needing him to understand. We would both be hurt. It was the one thing I was good at, being the eye of the storm.

  Six sat up, the sheet pooling to his waist. I averted my gaze from his chest, needing to stay focused. “Mira,” he said, his voice drawing my eyes to him again. “I am not afraid of you.”

  I wasn't explaining this well, I knew. “Well. I am afraid of myself.” And I’m afraid of you, too.

  “You don't have to be.”

  “Oh, but I do. Six, I'm poison. I can't get attached to you.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “I think it's a little late for that now, don't you?”