Page 16 of Brushed and Buried
Conversations drift into smaller clusters. Someone asks about jobs, hometowns, and hobbies. Trevor launches into stories about his work with Azure Tides, this luxury resort brand, talking up branding campaigns and investor perks like free champagne and rooftop pool access. George mostly keeps to himself, but I spot him telling one of the bridesmaids about life down in Chula Vista, sharing stories of border town energy,wild nightlife, and tacos so good they deserve their own epic poem.
Lance, predictably, has a backlog of ER war stories, each one sounding more like a battlefield than a hospital. “You wouldn’t believe the shit people come in with. Last week, a guy stuck his hand in a garbage disposal trying to retrieve a wedding ring. Spoiler alert: he didn’t get the ring.”
Holly confesses she still goes to auditions “for the craft,” though stripping actually pays the rent. “L.A.’s brutal if you’re not nepotism-adjacent. At least when I dance, I know exactly what I’m putting out there.”
Then, she nods at me. “Adrian’s the real artist,” she holds both her hands up like she’s presenting an exhibit. “Seriously talented since he was a kid. Paintings, sketches, the whole deal. He just got bored and decided to pick up stripping for fun, and some money.”
That draws more curious stares than my dancing ever has.
“An artist, huh?” George says. “Explains the whole…showman energy.”
I shrug, flashing a smile. “Brooding doesn’t pay bills. Stripping does, at least for now.”
Vince has been quiet through most of this, but I spot him looking at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention. It’s like he’s trying to solve a puzzle he can’t quite figure out.
Lance smirks. “Yeah, well, you weren’t exactly subtle grinding on Trevorlast night, Adrian.”
“No, I wasn’t.” I shoot back. “That was me being generous. You’re welcome, Trev.”
The group howls, Trevor turns red, and I lean back, smug.
Somewhere between jokes and stories, the boys convince me to stay for the weekend. I have no gigs booked, and Dinah, Holly’s friend who is apparently rich beyond reason and the one who originally hired us for this stripper gig along with Vince, offers to cover the extra hotel nights.
“Stay,” Trevor insists, clinking his glass against mine. “What’s the worst that could happen? We get drunk, play some beach volleyball, and someone ends up passed out in the sand.”
“Probably you,” George mutters.
“Bloody oath,” Trevor says cheerfully.
And just like that, my decision is made. I’ll stay for a while, not because it’s smart, safe, or what I’d planned, but because I want to. The late morning sun dips lower, spilling gold across the water as if blessing my recklessness. For the first time since stepping into this madness, I unclench, letting the tension bleed from my shoulders. It feels dangerous and indulgent, but also good. Maybe even necessary.
Even in this morning glow, I feel Holly’s gaze on me, determined to shield me from hurts that happened years ago.
6
Adrian
The sliding door groans as I push it open with my hip, sketchpad tucked under my arm. The air outside is warm, thick with salt, and smells faintly of sunscreen and grilled shrimp drifting up from the pool deck. The ocean stretches wide and gold before me, waves rolling in steady pulses, the kind of rhythm you can breathe with.
The terrace hums with quiet, just the hush of the surf below and a thread of laughter drifting up from somewhere near the pool. I sink into one of the lounge chairs, sketchpad heavy in my lap, pencils laid out beside me in a careful row, sharp and expectant like surgical tools waiting for the first incision.
Holly had been the one to push me into it, grinning as she said, “Call down, see what they’ve got.”
And it was a good thing I asked for it. Half an hour later, a polite knock announced a box being placed in my hands, containing a sketchpad, neat little rows of HBs and 2Bs, and even a couple of charcoals nestled like jewels. A simple starterkit, the kind you’d find in an art student’s first semester, but it felt like something far rarer.
The feel of it in my lap is intoxicating. Smooth graphite, crisp paper, the faint, almost medicinal scent of fresh pencils. The tools are ordinary, but the way they settle into my palms isn’t. I hadn’t realized just how badly I’d been itching for this until the moment I wrapped my fingers around the first pencil. It isn’t indulgence; it is necessity, the kind of hunger you only notice once it’s being fed.
The paper is blindingly white when I flip it open. I haven’t faced a blank page in years, not seriously. Commissions, stripping, and other side hustles paid the bills, but none of it was this. None of it was mine. This feels like stepping into a room I bricked up years ago, now forcing the air back into my lungs.
I start small, using quick gestures and fast lines to catch the pulse of the moment before it slips away. I find myself drawing Vince, his broad shoulders, the easy curve of his neck. I sketch him in negative space, with unfinished lines that almost touch and then veer away, as if avoiding him on the page could undo how he occupies my mind.
He sits heavy in his body, muscles built not for show but for use. His movements are minimal and economical, yet they draw more attention than anything else. He doesn’t need to posture; he commands without effort. A glance, a subtle lean, the brush of his hand against the table, small things that anchor me.
I leave him half-formed on the page, a shadow I can’t stop tracing. My pencil refuses to let him vanish, even if I want it to. Vince has always been like that, an unfinished sketch in my head that never fades.
The pencil slows. My chest is tight, but not the suffocating kind. It’s the fullness of remembering.
I was seven the first time someone called me gifted. I drew my classmates at recess, proportions a little wonky, sure, but their likenesses were unmistakable. My teacher pinned them up like masterpieces, my parents sat me down and whispered words like “prodigy.” Suddenly, I was winning ribbons, drawing on every scrap of paper I could get from the printer. It wasn’t about money, not then. It was about seeing something and catching it before it slipped away.
