“How about this.” She pushed their easels a little closer together and turned her canvas so it was taller up and down instead of sideways, and did the same for Roman’s. “We’ll each paint half. Since the couple is right in the middle, you’ll only have to paint the girl, and I’ll paint the guy.”
“Okay. But my girl is going to look like a stick figure still. I hope you’re okay with that.”
When the instructor gave Bex a nod to let her know she was ready, Bex started the camera filming. The woman at the front showed how she put a piece of paper that was cut into a big circle in the middle of the canvas where the moon would be. Then she put paint right onto the canvas—black in the top corners, then purple, then a deep blue, then a lighter blue. She showed how to first spread the paint and blend the colors slightly, and then use stippling brush to make the paint look like the night sky.
Roman and Bex started by trying to put their half of the moon in the right place on their canvases and have it line up correctly, still looking like an actual circle. As they struggled, the instructor came around to see how everyone was doing. When she saw they were each doing half, she pushed their easels together so that their canvases were touching. “You must have them touching if you want them to look right.”
If this had been a date, Bex would’ve been all for that. But this was an interview where she was interviewing the CEO of a company, not interviewing a date for her viewers to weigh in on. Not that the interview was supposed to be stuffy and professional—she wanted it to be fun. She was just going to have to work extra hard to not show how attracted she was to the man.
The painting was going pretty well. The night sky was kind of like abstract art, so Roman actually seemed like he was enjoying himself. And so was she. They were both working on getting the top middle part to look right, and they were only a few inches apart. “You smell so amazing,” she breathed. Then she sucked in a breath and looked back at the camera. “I’m going to have to edit that out.”
A smile tugged at his lips, and then he closed the last couple of inches and gave her a peck on the lips. “While you’re at it, you should probably edit that out, too.”
She looked at that beautiful face of his before she went back to work. She was loving the feeling of both of them being side by side, working together on the same project, helping each other figure out what parts needed to change and what parts were perfect like they were. This painting was definitely turning out a lot better with both of them working together than it would be if either of them were working apart.
And there was definitely a lot of parts she was going to have to edit out so she wouldn’t totally give away how she felt about this man.
Their instructor had them remove the circle of paper, revealing the huge, white moon in the night sky. Seriously, they could be done right now and Bex would call their painting a job well done. But apparently, the moon had to be painted, and the instructor showed them how to make it look like the moon. Then they painted black along the bottom for the ground, with little blades of grass coming up from it.
Bex was painting the grass at the edge near Roman’s. She moved her brush back to get more paint right as he leaned in to draw the fine blades, and her paintbrush went right across his cheek.
He turned to her, a giant black streak on his cheek, like a cat’s whisker, and she gasped. “I am so sorry.”
He didn’t say a word—he just reached out and painted what she was pretty sure looked like a cat’s nose on her nose. Then he went back to work, like nothing had happened.
Bex turned to the camera. “Well, I guess that evens the score.”
They watched as the instructor showed them how to paint the silhouettes of the couple about to kiss.
“Well,” Bex said, “remember how the part of painting that you hated most as a kid was drawing the picture on it before painting? You don’t have to draw on this one.”
“I’m not sure ‘can’t draw it first’ is any better than ‘can’t draw at all.’” He motioned at the instructor. “How did she even know where to use the black paint to make it look like a person without drawing it first?”
Bex studied their beautiful moon and night sky. “Maybe we should paint something other than people, then.”
Forty-five minutes later, after finishing their paintings, using the handheld fans to dry them, and filming the end of their interview, they walked out to Bex’s car with their masterpieces.
Roman held his up in the glow of the streetlight and studied it. “I can’t believe you had us paint two cats instead of two people.”
“Oh, come on. You know it was easier than painting a person.”
“I painted a black avocado.”
“But a black avocado with cat ears and a tail, so it counts as a cat.”
She smiled as he carefully placed his painting in the back seat of her car. He might not admit it out loud, but he was proud of it. Just like she wouldn’t admit out loud that even though this was an interview and not a date, she had still enjoyed herself more than she had on any date she’d gone on with anyone else.
16
Roman
Roman walked out of his office building and immediately called Bex. Sometime over the past several weeks, that had just become what he did whenever he had something he wanted to share—he called Bex first.
“Well?” she asked, forgoing a hello, eager anticipation coloring the single word.
“They signed on the dotted line. It’s official.”
Her excited shout was loud enough that he had to pull the phone away from his ear for a moment. “Roman! I’m so thrilled for you!”
Adrenaline was coursing through his body, and it made him want to run and leap over things. Like a fence. His car. His office building. The investors said they wanted to invest in his company around the time that the third interview with Bex aired, but he held back his own celebrations until the paperwork was done and everything was official. Now, though. Now he was thrilled.
“I couldn’t have done it without you, Bex.” He unlocked his car, started it, and let the car’s Bluetooth take over the call.
“I know.” He could hear the smile in her voice through the car’s speakers.
“And not just because of the interviews. Although that did make a big difference with them. But I couldn’t have done it without you staying up to brainstorm with me and pushing me to try things with my business that I hadn’t tried before. I owe you.”
“You have stayed up plenty of times over the past few weeks to brainstorm about my business, too. Plus, you agreed to put on a monkey suit and spend hours at an awards gala with me on Saturday. I think that is enough to call us even.”
As he pulled onto the road and headed toward Interstate 84 to make the thirty minute drive to his parents’, he chuckled softly. He was equal parts dreading the gala and excited for it. Bex assumed that the parts he was dreading were the suit and the small talk. But he liked dressing nice and he liked talking to people. He wasn’t about to correct her, though, because then he’d have to tell her the real reason—that he was worried what people in his business world and his family would think if they knew he and Bex were dating. Not that they wouldn’t find out eventually, but he wanted to keep it their little secret for as long as possible. As long as he could see her often. He needed her in his life like he needed food, business projects, and sleep. Actually, he could do without sleep if it meant seeing her more often.