I smiled forlornly, remembering a simpler time in my kitchen, the sweet scent of pancakes around us, the joy of having Gil in the place where I’d been so alone.
We’d agreed to be together—to always have each other’s backs.
“It’s almost a challenge to see what else I can make you put up with.”
His voice echoed in my head as if it’d been only a few hours, not years, between that moment and this one.
I didn’t know back then that he would honour that joke-given threat. That he would hurt me worse than anyone and push me away again and again, and yet...
“Go ahead. I’ll still be here.”
My own voice sounded young and innocent, dragged from the past, threading with his inside my mind.
I’d made a promise that day.
I intended to keep it...until Gil no longer needed my help.
“I’m going home, Gil.” I dropped my hands. “I’m going home to rest, but I will come back.”
“Don’t. Don’t ever come back.”
“Why?”
His temper acted like a shield, a suit of chainmail cold and heavy around his heart. “I can’t enlighten you, O. No matter how many times you ask.”
“I won’t ask. I’ll just pop by and offer support.”
“You can’t. I owe you a debt for today, but that’s where this ends.” Snatching the money again, he held it out. “Take it. It’s the least I can do.”
“I’ll be seeing you, Gil.” I turned to go, to somehow make my way home when my entire body was in pieces. To nurse my bruises and tend to my wounds alone.
“Wait.” The command was a snap, a grenade.
His teeth ground together, making his jaw tight and veins thread visibly down his neck. “The phone call...I need...” He grunted as if talking about such things drove splinters into his mind. “I wasn’t going to ask. I would...prefer to use another canvas, but...I need to do another commission.”
I paused, hiding my hurt. “You’d prefer another canvas because of my tattoo?”
“I’d prefer another canvas who isn’t you.”
I stumbled at the force of such a nasty phrase.
His face flickered with untold things. “I didn’t mean...” The contrition in his voice punished him worse than I ever could. “I...” He rubbed his eyes, seeking truth but battling lies. “I should have the strength to stand here and tell you that the ridges of your scars are hard to hide. That your ink isn’t worth the time it takes to camouflage. That you have flaws I’m not prepared to fix.”
“I see.” Tears prickled my eyes as anger settled in my stomach. “How stupid of me. The Master of Trickery would never paint flaws.”
He stepped toward me. “You don’t have flaws, O. You never have.” The way his tone thickened with remorse made my anger falter.
“Don’t.” I held up my hand. “It’s fine. I knew when I applied for the job that I wasn’t perfect.”
He swallowed a groan. “Fuck.” Dragging hands through his hair, he bared his teeth at whatever had him cornered before breaking its hold and swooping toward me. His hands captured my cheeks, shaking and full of tenderness. “I promised myself I’d be as cruel as necessary to keep you away. That I’d hurt you all over again if that’s what it took. But...I’m too fucking weak. You’re perfect. You’ve always been perfect.”
His lips crashed onto mine, kissing me swift and true.
My mouth opened under his, shock and surprise making me totally his.
His taste was dark and distressing. His tongue violently claiming.
He kissed me as if this was all my fault—as if he blamed me for making his life ten times harder when I’d only tried to help.
His arms shuddered around me, clutching me close.
He kissed me until I was breathless from his pain. Only then did he let me go, drop his touch, and back away as if distance could somehow erase what he’d just done.
Clearing his throat, he balled his hands. “He knows you’re here now. You made him think there is an us.” His gaze caught mine in a fatal web. “You should never have seen what you did, but I can’t change that and now...” He stopped talking, his body stiffening to steel. “Now, everything is all fucked up and you can’t keep disobeying me. Be my canvas once more, have a reason to be here, accept my money and keep business our only reason for meeting, and then...” He stood taller as if facing an execution. “Walk away and never come back.”
I licked my lips where his taste still lingered. “Is that what you want? For me to never come back?”
He looked away; rage imprisoned in his gaze. “Yes.”
“Liar.”
“It’s what I need.”
I didn’t bother asking why.
There were only so many times I could ask an unanswerable question. Instead, I asked something I hadn’t verbalised, even to myself. A question that’d been haunting me. “Are you so determined to give me your money, because you think you owe me—”
“I do owe you.”
“Not for today, but for all the times I hid money in your backpack so you could get something to eat.”
His eyes snapped shut, his body quaked. He rubbed his mouth as his green eyes reopened with shame. “No. But by the end, I did owe you more than I could ever give you.”
“You owed me nothing. It was given with love. A gift.”
He flinched with ghosts of our past. We balanced on words—words that could heal the history between us and pave our future. But Gil rearranged his face from pained to impatient, and he was no longer the boy I was in love with but the body painter I couldn’t figure out. “Talking about the past won’t change anything. It’s over between us. It was over seven years ago. All I can offer you is money. Come back tomorrow and—”
“I can’t.” I cut him off. “I just agreed to work for another company. I start tomorrow.”
His face stayed carefully blank. “I can paint you in a few hours. Come by after work.”
The thought of being in his presence again so soon? The energy it would take to survive him? I honestly didn’t know if I had the strength.
I opened my mouth to push the commission back. To plead exhaustion and beg for time to put my pieces back together again. To be whole enough to help him, even when he was adamant he didn’t want such a thing.
But Gil stood frozen, a raincloud of torment overhead, a crack of lightning forking right through his chest. He smiled gravely, tasting my reluctance and hurting because of it.
He nodded. “It’s for the best. I won’t ask you again.” Stalking toward the exit, he murmured, “Please don’t come back here, Olin. I mean it.”
I followed him, waiting while he unlocked the door, and sucking in courage when he opened it.
Stepping over the threshold, I twisted to face him and raised my hand to cup his jaw.
He winced. His face was a torn mask, cold indifference slipping to reveal passionate concern.
“I’ll be your canvas, Gil.” Dropping my touch, I slid into the dusk. “I’ll help you in whatever way you need.”
He shuddered.
Looking back at him, imprinting him, I added softly, “See you tomorrow.”