Page 104 of Gap Control

TJ dropped the granola bar, crossed the room, and wrapped his arms around me from behind. His chin rested on top of my head. “You’re not gonna puke.”

“I might.”

“Okay, but you’re not gonna do it on the art. That stuff’s valuable now.”

I swatted at his arm without much conviction. “She said ten to fifteen sketches. Line over polish. Emotion over perfection. I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means you’ve got the goods. You’ve got emotion leaking out of your ears half the time. Just pick the ones that make you feel something.”

I tilted my head up to look at him. “You’re coming with me, right?”

“Do I look like the kind of fake boyfriend who’d miss a gallery debut?”

“It’s not a debut.”

“It’s close enough. I’ll even wear a shirt with buttons if it helps your street cred.”

I smiled. “I told you to wear something distracting.”

“Oh, I will. I’ll be so distractingly handsome they’ll forget to look at the walls.”

He grinned at me, totally unselfconscious.

“You’re gonna kill it,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”

I didn’t know what to do with that. Part of me still didn’t believe it—still thought the call had been a mistake or a prank or a weird dream, and I was still sleeping.

TJ believed it.

That would get me through until tomorrow.

***

I had to pee twice before we even got in the car.

By the time TJ parked in downtown Portland, I’d started to second-guess every sketch in the folder on my lap. The charcoal was too smudged, the linework too raw, and the expressions too exposed. I kept flipping through them, searching for a reason to call the whole thing off.

“You good?” TJ asked.

“I’m great.” I immediately opened the folder again.

TJ reached over and gently shut it. “We’re going in.”

The Cornerstone Gallery looked exactly like I imagined it would—clean and bright and terrifying. It was the kind of place where art floated on white walls like it had been placed there by magic. The air smelled of citrus cleaner and turpentine.

I followed TJ through the glass doors, trying not to clutch my sketch folder like it contained national secrets.

We were barely two steps inside when a woman’s voice rang out from the back.

“Well, look who’s not dead.”

TJ froze beside me.

I turned my head in time to see a small, silver-haired woman emerge from behind a canvas taller than she was. She had a paint-smeared bandana wrapped around her head.

“I was starting to think you ghosted me, Jameson.”

TJ smiled. “You told me not to show my face unless I brought backup.”

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