Page 13 of A Little Merry

He was standing so close now, I could feel his heat.

“Let him get his own lover.”

We kissed, a soft, warm kiss. Nothing at all like his dark, heart-breaking paintings.

Then, when the kiss intensified, and he crushed his lips on mine, I instantly saw pink stars and snowflakes. When our tongues met, it felt delicious. Heat caressed me, and I leaned in closer, wanting more. His hand came up and cupped the side of my face, and I swear I swooned.

He abruptly stopped and looked at me, taking a couple of steps back. “I’m… I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Christmas magic,” I told him, wanting more of the same and then some.

He shook his head. “Can’t be. I don’t believe in it. And Lucas is my best friend.”

“He’d be happy for us.” The words came out, and I knew they were true without giving it another thought. These guys were so close, I knew there could never be any jealousy between them.

“How do you know that?” He looked concerned. As if he’d just been bad and wanted to erase it, but it happened, and there wasn’t any way to undo it.

I shrugged. “I just do.”

“Just like you know I should paint something festive?”

“Just like that.” I stared at him for a moment, and a strange knowing came over me. “You’ve already painted something festive. Something recent. Why are you trying to hide it?”

“I’m not hiding anything,” he said, taking a couple of steps sideways.

That was when I noticed it. A large canvas covered in a tarp, as it stood on an easel, right near the glass wall. A drab gray sofa sat next to it, with a small pillow and a cranberry-colored blanket. It looked as though he’d spent many nights on this sofa, instead of going off to bed in his apartment downstairs, which we only walked through. His place looked fine. A little messy and void of any real colors, but it seemed clean and comfortable enough.

Just not as lived in as this space.

The stairway to this private studio rose up from his small living room.

“What’s that? Should we bring it down?”

“No. Not appropriate… and besides, it’s um… it’s not finished.”

“Can I see it?”

For some reason, I knew this painting wasn’t like his others, so now Ihadto see it.

“I don’t like to show my paintings before they’re finished. You might say something that’ll influence me in the wrong direction.”

“I promise not to say a word,” I said, taking a couple of steps towards the covered painting, now so curious, I could taste it.

He stepped in front of me. “I can’t let you.”

“Why? Is it festive? Colorful? Is it a painting from your heart?”

He stood his ground. “You might not understand.”

“I get that, but I feel as though we’re old souls. That we’ve known each other before.”

“Like in another life?”

I knew that wasn’t right. He was grasping, but I knew exactly what I was feeling.

“No… this is more like we’ve met before, just not formally. As though I’ve seen your art before, when it was full of life instead of death. That I fell in love with your art, with a particular painting, but I only saw it for a moment, then it was gone. Like the first time I saw a Monet, and I cried. I think I may have cried over one of your paintings as well.”

“I very much doubt that. My work hasn’t been shown much, especially some of my older work. Aside from a couple of showings with my art class, I never had an official showing of any of that work. This is what sells, not that other trivial stuff.Nobody wanted it when I first started out, and nobody wants it now.”

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