Page 65 of Catch Me
“You’re an artist. Being chosen as your subject on more than one occasion feels like an honor. Can I see?”
I shook my head. He gently took my hand and pulled it away from his chest. I let it fall to my side and refused to show my disappointment. After a minute, I held the tablet out to him. The way he smiled made it feel worth it, but I still hated the idea of him seeing the illustration.
He moved to lean against the counter beside me, close enough that our shoulders were touching. “Wow. You blow me away, Roman.”
“It’s not great.”
He looked at me and shook his head. “There’s no way you think that. When I complimented your art at the game, you were confident. Was that a front?”
“No. I know my worth as an artist, but this one isn’t great. I can never get them right.”
As he stared at it, he hummed thoughtfully. “Never? Are there more?”
Well, I might as well tell dignity to fuck off.
I reached over and exited out of the project so that he could see my library. All of the things I was working on were there—hundreds of them since I was constantly starting new things and many didn’t get finished. There were quite a few featuring his teammates that I’d worked with already. I’d done three or four each so that I had options for the final submission. Maybe I’d give them more than one per player if they were good.
Among all of those and some other random things, there were drawings of Travis. Looking at them now, with his eyes on them too, I realized how many there were. The swimming hole; the stands; what he’d looked like on the porch with his cigarette; a few of him playing with Tessa; him making breakfast; him sitting at the island, drinking coffee; a couple in his Jeep, including one when he had the window down and he was smiling while his hair whipped around; and two recreations of the LIVE video screen last night.
One was when he announced that he’d be donating to Sen and Kai’s campaigns. The other displayed an expression that I both hated and was drawn to because of its depth—after he admitted that he felt guilty about Dumont.
I glanced at him and remembered that moment. It made me want to hug him and tell him that he wasn’t allowed to feel like that.
Damnit. This made me look obsessed. Maybe I sort of was, even though it was ridiculous. Clearly, I wasn’t getting any better. I was a disaster, getting lost in some feeling that was mounting where it shouldn’t be.
I should flee and escape to my room. He couldn’t look at the pictures anymore, couldn’t see evidence of this part of me that I despised. If nobody saw it, it didn’t exist. There were only a few people who could make any claims about it, but even then, all they had were the times I’d slept with them. This was so much worse.
Travis was silent and I couldn’t bear it.
When I snatched the tablet, I didn’t do the logical thing. Instead, I leaned a little more to the side, pressing our arms together. I opened the one of him in the water and tapped on it.
“See?”
“No,” he admitted. “Is it the hair again?”
“I don’t know.” After staring at it, I zoomed in on his face. “The eyes.”
“They’re brown. I don’t see how they aren’t right.” He squinted his eyes, then widened them. “You have the reflection of the water in them. How do you see this as anything but perfect?”
I moved to stand in front of him and frowned as I studied the depth in his eyes. They were too complex, and for the first time, I didn’t feel confident that I could get them right.
“There’s always something more in them.” Tentatively, I reached up and brushed two fingers down his temple. Staying perfectly still, he kept his gaze on me. “It changes, but it’s always there. And the color is different in every light, only by a marginal amount, but it makes it impossible to capture it just right. It pisses me off.”
His lips curved upward, and I wanted to touch them, but I pulled my hand away from his face. I’d already done too much.
“I’m challenging, then. That’s why you keep drawing me.”
I met his eyes briefly before I looked to the side. “No.”
“Oh. Well, don’t leave me in suspense.”
As I considered how to answer, I suddenly felt so small. The weight of it all pressed down on me, suffocating me. I was trapped with this part of me that I didn’t want. No matter how many times I pushed it away, it came crawling back to fuck everything up. I couldn’t kill it without doing the same to myself. I didn’t want to think about that since it wasn’t the first time it’d come into my head.
Suddenly, he lightly pinched my chin between his thumb and index finger. He turned my face so that I was looking at him. “Tell me what’s in your head. You look...”
“What?” I asked.
“Lost.”
