Page 11 of Paint Eater
Jay and Logan, alone at night, the thrill of adrenaline in their blood?
What could possibly go wrong?
CHAPTER FOUR
JAY
The heat of the summer night was a different beast. Calmer, more content after an active, hunting day. The air was still but not heavy, no longer thick to walk through.
Jay had his spray paint cans in a duffel bag and had already set up the battery-powered light that illuminated the wall he’d make his canvas. He and Logan were tucked into a currently deserted corner of Flatbush by closed shops abandoned for the day. Jay had picked the wall by the Old Navy, a stunningly ugly building that could do with some sprucing up, in his humble opinion.
Jay felt self-conscious as he picked through the paints despite knowing exactly what he wanted to draw. He’d decided on an optical illusion, the perspective from the underside of a magnifying glass, a girl peering through it, eye big and distorted while the rest of her face scrunched up in curiosity. The piece was just for fun, a way to play with proportions comically, a bright piece that would make people smile.
“You do this a lot?” Logan asked, and Jay startled a bit.
“Oh, uh, not really, anymore. With the job and stuff, and I don’t really wanna get caught. This location is pretty high profile, like, a lot of people come by here during the day, and it’s gonna be taken down in like a week I bet, but…” Jay shrugged. “That’s the cool thing about graffiti, you know. How temporary it can be. Like you’re releasing it into the wild and it’s bound to run away. If that, uh…makes any sense.”
Jay was still crouched by his bag, peering up at Logan, who nodded once. “Kind of the opposite of tattooing.”
Jay grinned widely. “Yeah!” he said brightly, choosing a spray can and standing up. He shook it a few times, the clink of the metal ball inside a familiar, soothing sound, and then sprayed the air once to make sure nothing was clogged before getting to work.
The hiss of the paint and the distant honking and sirens that were ever-present in Brooklyn were the only sounds that fell over them, not even a dog barking or a bird calling out. Just Jay and the whisper of Logan moving around, of his camera clicking. Even that melted away as the painting drew him in.
Jay wasn’t a fan of stencil graffiti, but sometimes, when he had the time, Jay would begin by outlining the drawing on the wall. This time, though, there was just him and the picture in his head coming to life, an ancient ritual started millennia ago, capturing spirits on stone.
Time lost meaning as an abstract thing, solidifying in layers of colours upon white, of the details of an eye, of the frizzy colour of light-blue hair, of a polka-dot dress. Of freckles, the glint of sunglasses on her head, the rounded bookshelf in the background, distorted by the magnifying-glass effect.
Jay took a few steps back, surveying the girl. A few added details, some more saturation here and there—
“Hey!”
Jay turned around quickly and groaned at the sight of someone approaching them. He would recognise the NYPD uniform a mile away.
“Fuck!” Jay cursed, throwing the can he was holding into the bag and zipping it up. “Grab the light, let’s go!”
Jay only waited long enough to see that Logan was doing as asked before they were both pelting down the street.
“Hey!” the officer shouted, apparently bored enough to chase after them.
“Really?” Jay panted out, rounding a corner, making sure that Logan was with him. “The dude has nothing better to do? Come on!”
Honestly, Jay didn’t expect cops to be in shape. Most of them were big and bulky or big and soft, but none of them seemed to know how to run.Thismotherfucker, however, was going after them like he’d just seen them murder somebody.
“What the fuck?” Logan replied, looking back to see the cop still behind them.
If this were a movie, maybe it’d be comical. Jay and Logan careening down streets, skidding around corners—fuck New York for being all straight, long streets and no alleys, by the way—but Jay sure as hell wasn’t laughing. There was a white cop chasing after them with a determination that was frightening, and there was no way he was going to get Logan into trouble.
“Up here,” Jay wheezed, pulling Logan into a residential area. “Fuck, yes.” Jay yanked him into a yard, hopped a fence, and they were on the parallel street. “Short cut!”
By the time they got away, they were completely winded, hiding in the deep alcove of a shop they’d found once exiting the residential neighbourhood.
Logan placed the light on the ground. “Jesus fuck, that’s heavy,” he groaned, straightening up. His back was to the door as Jay blocked him from sight.
“I think I died,” Jay confessed, clutching his side and dropping the bag of spray-paint cans. “Holy fuck.”
Logan snorted but didn’t reply as they caught their breaths. When Jay looked up from staring at his shoes dizzily, the air in his lungs threatened to choke him all over again.
Logan had his head tilted back, forehead gleaming with sweat, lips parted, the darkness of a wet tongue beyond them. Jay was taller, but he could still see the exposed line of his neck, the way his shoulders were still heaving slightly. The exaggerated curve of his eyelashes on his cheeks. Fuck, how had he not noticed how goddamn long Logan’s eyelashes were? How black the deep brown of his skin was in shadow? The heat and magnitude of how beautiful he was?
