Page 18 of Shot Taker

I should find facilities and get their help.

But he’s already sizing up the area to paint.

“Go slow,” I say. “Don’t press, squeeze lightly. The color looks like it’s not coming out at first, but it is.”

Clay’s face scrunches up in concentration, the same way as when he’s analyzing a defense to break down.

The blue mists onto the wall, and my breath catches.

“Move around,” I say quickly. I should have led with that. “Smooth strokes, nothing jerky.”

He does what I say, and the rich color floods the wall. I keep guiding him with my voice.

“That’s not bad,” I admit.

His mouth curves at the corner. “You like telling me what to do.”

“Only when you listen.”

The low sound from his throat could be a muffled chuckle, and damn if it doesn’t make my chest ache.

It’s not as if he cares about me.

He went out of his way to make sure I knew that.

Maybe he didn’t realize how much he hurt me when he broke things off, and now he feels guilty about it.

But as I watch him work, the deliberateness of every stroke, it softens me.

I’m remembering how good it felt to be with him. How I swore I saw him and he saw me. He’s the first person who really believed in me as an artist.

“Stop,” I bark after ten or fifteen minutes of me directing him.

He looks down, quizzical.

I survey the wall in its entirety. “I think that’s it.”

Clay steps down and holds out the airbrush.

We’re standing too close, and I take a stiff step back. “Could you move the ladder?”

He carries it easily a dozen steps away before returning.

I’m scanning the wall with a critical eye when I glance over and spot droplets of blue on his expensive sweater.

My stomach sinks.

I grab his arm without thinking, tugging at the fabric to see if the stain was a trick of the light.

No luck. There’s an aqua mist drying on half his forearm.

“Oh no…”

One time, Brad’s white shirt got a paint stain on it. He was annoyed for weeks, and it probably cost a fraction of what Clay’s wearing.

“Hey.” He lifts my chin with his finger and forces me to look up at the straight nose, dark eyes, and firm lips I’ve traced so often in my dreams. “I don’t give a shit about the sweater.”

Suddenly, I’m thinking of how we laughed at Red Rocks, running across the landscape. The night he held me at his place after the ruined bachelorette party—

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