Last Call by Sierra Riley

Author:Sierra Riley [Riley, Sierra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-05-17T07:00:00+00:00

17

Connor

One brushstroke at a time, the canvas filled in. Connor wasn’t defining the shapes; he was filling them in, like they were waiting just behind the canvas, waiting for brushstrokes to drag them out into the forefront.

Connor was utterly focused on the tip of the brush in his hand. He didn’t care that all he could smell was paint, or that his apartment was hot and sticky since he’d had to open the windows and turn the fans on to air out the paint fumes. He barely noticed his stomach grumbling, or his hand aching from the fine motor control required to drag each detail out of the scene in his head.

The man in front of him was frozen in midstep, one leg behind the other. His arm was flung out to one side, his fingers loose around the tumbler in his hand as his other hand pressed against the back of his neck.

Streaks of light shone down from the multicolored ball suspended above the dance floor. He hadn’t filled in the colors yet, but in his mind’s eye the blank spaces on the canvas were already filled in with bright pinks, yellows, and blues in thick, raised splashes of paint.

It was rare that he painted something and knew, before it was even done, that it was going to be good. Most of the time, he finished something and thought it was trash, and it became torture to wait the few days for it to dry without just wrecking it out of frustration. But the canvas would be wasted either way, so he usually let even his bad pieces dry.

And then threw them in the storage locker so he didn’t have to look at them. Oh, fuck, yeah… his yearly rent on that was due next month. He had to pick up a few extra commissions next week.

He brushed aside the thought and pressed another line along the man’s elbow, bringing it into focus.

There was a lot about his job people didn’t know, like the work he put into composing paintings, stretching canvases, preparing finished pieces, or the contracts and negotiations involved in actually selling his art via galleries. This was the bit everyone knew about, and if he could do this twenty-four seven and skip the rest of it—not do anything at all but this, in fact—he’d die happy.

Nothing beat this feeling. He still tasted Zach’s kisses from that afternoon, and faintly smelled his pine and spice scent in the air, and he sank even deeper into his state of flow as he reveled in these sensual details.

He poured every sense into the piece. The visual part was easy. That came automatically, like second nature to him.

But how could Connor show the salty sweat on the man’s neck, quivering on his fingertip as he touched his neck? How could he show the smell of alcohol and musk and cologne that hung thick in the air from a few hundred men crammed into one building, dancing and drinking and flirting?

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