Page 33 of Painting Celia

“Keep scrolling,” she said.

He swiped on the photos. Same shoot, different poses. Celia bent at the waist, fingers splayed around her calves. Celia, on tiptoe, stretching tall but hands behind her head, elbows akimbo. Celia hunkered down, knees spread wide, her hands clasped and dangling between them. She was smiling in that one. Pretty.

She really could pose! She looked like she was in motion but was actually holding complicated postures. That took strength. Her angles were well-considered, meeting the camera with no foreshortened shoulders or feet disappearing behind the other.

She didn’t look like a dancer or a professional model, someone who’d studied how to point a toe or extend an arm. Instead, she looked authentic and natural, like she’d been candidly caught standing that way.

It reminded him of their painting lesson. Her body gave her away, expressing things she thought she was hiding. Truth seeped out of her naturally, and the lack of filter kept it pure. The turn of her waist in the first picture was tender and raw, honest—

“All right, quit staring.” Kelsey reached for her phone.

León frowned. “I was just—”

“I know, looking.”

•••

The day of the second lesson dawned. Celia turned her phone off first thing. No interruptions today.

When she heard León enter, she was reading in her bedroom, lying on her stomach across the bed. Nonchalant. She heard him moving around, looking in the craft room across from her bedroom, then he poked his head in her open doorway. She looked up as though she hadn’t heard him.

“Oh, hey,” she said. What a farce.

He held up a laundry bag. “Can I wash these while we paint?”

She jumped up, glad to be able to start with something she knew how to do. “Sure, I’ll show you.”

The clothes started in the washer, she looked at him almost bashfully. His look at her was sharper.

“What are you feeling right now?” he asked.

Unexpected question! Somehow, her tongue ran away. “Nothing. Embarrassed. Nervous.”

He smiled, taking the sting out of barking at her. “Why?”

Well. She was trying to get better at this, right?

“It’s new. I want to learn fast and get better at it. I’m excited about it, but I feel silly.”

He grinned. “If you enjoy it, why not be excited? But let’s get going. This might be quick today. I’m going to that gallery with Trevor later.”

She didn’t feel deflated at all. This was just a lesson. She already knew she was too excited. She breathed slowly to calm herself.

They moved to the craft room, where she again had supplies set out casually. Her experimental canvases were put away, and she picked up a brush, itching to find out if her practice had been worth it.

“Actually,” he said, “we’re doing something different today. I’m going to paint first.”

But she’d had a plan!

“You do life modeling, right?” he asked. She nodded. “Let’s do a little of that. I’m going to name an emotion, and you’re going to model it for me. First, I’ll capture some lines, then we’ll identify why certain shapes show emotions.”

She felt her cheeks getting hot again.

His face clouded, then cleared. “Oh. Clothes on, of course.”

“Of course.” She moved uneasily further into the room as he put some black on the palette, addressing the canvas board.

“Let’s do sadness. How would you pose for that?”

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