Page 5 of Painted

Rhys huffed an ironic laugh as they neared the classroom. “I’ll make sure you get the stipend we were going to pay Gary in your next paycheck,” he said.

That was like throwing paraffin on the fire making the butterflies in Early’s stomach dance. They were well aware of the barrier of employment that Rhys had thrown up between the two of them and any chance that something more than crushes and distant admiration might happen.

When they crossed the threshold into the painting classroom, over a dozen sets of eyes shot immediately in Early’s direction.

“Okay,” Rhys said, clapping his hands together and assuming his teacher voice. “Crisis averted. We’ve found a willing model for our first assignment. Early, there’s a robe in the closet, and I emptied a shelf so you can store your clothes there.”

“Ooh? Young Early is going to be our first model?” Violet asked, a little too pleased with the possibility.

“Hush, Vi,” Avril swatted at her from where the two sat at their easels. “He’s young enough to be your grandson.”

Early winced, and for several reasons. The pronouns were relatively new. They were just trying to figure things out, and whether they stuck or not remained to be seen. They couldn’t fault Avril for using the wrong ones when they hadn’t made any sort of public announcement about which they preferred.

It was the suggestion that the ladies in the room could be their grandmothers that turned their blood cold. They couldn’t help but imagine stripping naked and posing for their own grandmother.

“Early?” Rhys asked from the other side of the room.

There was enough of a hint of desperation in Rhys’s tone and expression to nudge Early out of their terrified stupor. They made a sound that didn’t quite form itself into words and started clumsily around the perimeter of the room to the closet.

They could do this. Hawthorne House was their safe place. The entire Hawthorne family and almost all of the students they interacted with on a daily basis were their safe people. If they were going to do anything like this for anyone and be completely protected while doing it, it was right then, right now.

And Rhys needed them.

That thought sealed the deal.

As they reached for the handle on the closet door, Rhys said, “Right. Welcome to Live Model Drawing and Painting. I’m so happy you could all join this class and that we’ve been able to offer it in the first place. As you know, my name is Rhys Hawthorne, and yes, I’m one ofthoseHawthornes.”

The class laughed as Early opened the door and slipped into the closet. They just hoped the class wouldn’t laugh again when they came out of it.

The closet was lit by a single bulb that came on when Early pulled the dangling string. As Rhys went on with, “The objective of this class is to learn the basics of rendering the human body from a live model, which presents a variety of challenges that drawing and painting from a photograph doesn’t present.”

Early shut the closet door, drowning out Rhys’s words, though they could still hear the sound of his voice. Whether that was a comfort or not remained to be seen.

Early sucked in a breath and blew it out in what was supposed to be a steadying way. “Okay,” they said, lifting their shoulders then dropping them. “You can do this. You get naked every day. There’s nothing any different from undressing now and undressing for a shower.”

They were nice words, but when they started unbuttoning their shirt, their hands shook.

“For Rhys,” they reminded themselves as they undid the buttons, then shrugged out of their shirt. “You’re doing this for Rhys. You’re showing him that you’re not just some untouchable kid. You’re a grown adult, for Christ’s sake. A grown adult he might want to ask out one night.”

Those last words felt like the part of them that actually was an adult, the tiny, sliver of a part, chastising the utterly confused, tumultuous part of them that didn’t have the first clue what they were doing.

The only thing for it was to strip down without thinking about it. They focused on movement, on just getting it done, with the hum of Rhys’s instructor voice coming from the other side of the door. Off with the shirt, then off with the shoes. One leg of the trousers, then the other.

“Oh, fuck,” Early blurted once they were down to their underwear.

Their sea-green, silky, lacy underwear.

For a moment, they just stood there in the harsh light of the single bulb, staring down and regretting their thing for slutty panties.

“No one will ever know, you said,” they scolded themself in a sing-song voice. “It’ll be our little secret, you said.”

They huffed a laugh a moment later, then hooked their fingers around the waistband of the panties and slid them down.

“I guess nobodywillknow,” they said. “Since you’ll be flapping around like an elephant’s trunk out there.”

Well, “elephant’s trunk” was being incredibly generous. They didn’t really have much to be proud of, though it had never bothered them before. There had never been anyone else that it might bother either.

Except now the guy they had an enormous crush on would see everything.

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