Page 55 of There Are No Saints

“Do I look like I need to bribe women for sex?”

“No,” I admit.

Half my roommates would fuck Cole in a heartbeat. Actually, all of them would, except maybe Peter.

I bite the edge of my thumbnail, considering.

“Don’t bite your nails,” Cole snaps. “It’s disgusting.”

I bite my nail harder, scowling at him.

He’s going to be bossy and controlling, I can already tell. Is that what he wants? A puppet dancing on his strings?

“Can I come see your studio?” I ask.

This is an audacious request. Cole Blackwell doesn’t show his studio to anyone. Especially not when he’s in the middle of a series. I have no right to ask—but I have the strangest sense that he just might agree.

“Already making demands?” Cole says. He stirs his straw through his ice with a cold clicking sound.

“Surely a protégé gets to see the master at work,” I reply.

Cole smiles. He likes being called “master.”

“I’ll consider it,” he says. “Now . . .” he leans forward on the table, steepling his slim, pale hands in front of him. “We’re going to talk about you.”

Fuck.That happens to be my least favorite topic.

“What do you want to know?”

He looks at me hungrily. “Everything.”

I swallow hard. “Alright. I’ve lived here my whole life. Always wanted to be an artist. Now I am—sort of.”

“What about your family?”

Come to think of it,that’smy least favorite topic.

I put my hands down on my lap so I won’t start chewing my nails again.

“I don’t have any family,” I say.

“Everyone has family.”

“Not me.” I glare at him, lips pressed together, stubborn.

“Where’s the alcoholic mother?” Cole says.

To me, our conversation at the studio was a blur of shouted accusations and utter confusion. Cole apparently remembers every word, including the part I blurted out and now fervently regret.

“She’s in Bakersville,” I mutter.

“What about the stepfather?”

“As far as I know, he lives in New Mexico. I haven’t talked to either of them in years.”

“Why?”

My heart is hammering and I feel that sick, squirming sensation in my stomach that always arises when I’m forced to think about my mother. I like to keep her trapped behind a locked door in my brain. She’s emotional cancer—if I let her out, she’ll infect every part of me.

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