Page 14 of Outdrawn

“I get your argument, but I think it could be more nuanced with the family,” Noah finally spoke up. Her voice was soft, but there was strength in it. Conviction.

My shoulders relaxed at her comment. Unlike my reaction to everyone else’s feedback, I felt less tense listening to hers. Maybe it was because I knew the back and forth would be more rewarding. I knew my argument would make Noah scrunch her nose. Maybe I’d even get her to do a prayer stance like she used to during our Art Center critique mornings. I used to hate critique days, but her presence made it ten times more entertaining. She always took every bit of feedback so seriously. Noah kept intensive notes on what everyone had to say, as if every opinion held equal weight.

“Without a family, it’s going to make it harder for the readers to relate to her.” She looked at me now, those dark brown eyes confident. I didn’t know why they set a spark in my belly, the kind of spark I got when I have a long day of drawing ahead of me. Those kinds of days were the only ones I looked forward to.

“Why do you think that?” I let my gaze flicker toward my computer screen on the off-chance Noah could sense my excitement about her engagement. Couldn’t have her getting the wrong idea.

Noah took a deep breath before answering. “Family humanizes her. She’s an immortal goddess. Without people around her, she'll become the beacon of hope you seem so desperate for her not to be. She will become a symbol, not a person.”

“What approach would you take, Noah?” Tyson asked.

I bit my tongue, holding back a retort. All eyes turned to her now that she’d found enough courage to voice her opinion.

“Could I…?” Noah pointed at the projector’s screen.

“Shoot me an email,” I offered.

“I already did this morning,” she said with a tight smile. “I included my storyboards in the attachments.”

My eyebrows furrowed. She’d emailed me?

I pulled up my account, and sure enough, there was an email from her titled Meeting questions for Leisah. My lips pursed as I looked at the time stamp. I opened my mouth to apologize, but Noah was quicker than me. She started her pitch before I could even pull up the visuals, and as she spoke, she never glanced in my direction.

“Leisah needs to be someone who has it all,” she started. “She was cursed with protecting her village. She had to watch her family grow up, live, and die for centuries. To be constantly surrounded by what you’re going to lose is devastating, but knowing you’re the reason your family will thrive is rewarding. The first season should explore that dichotomy.”

I placed her draft cover on the screen. It was in complete color, the details awe-worthy, and that’s exactly what everyone at the table thought. Tommy was vocal in his approval. Tyson grinned from ear to ear. I knew he had to be close to punching the air about his decision to bring Noah on. When I looked at Harry, he’s already looking at me.

He knew I was the world’s most terrible team player. The slight raise of his brow indicated he thought I was fucked when it came to working on my original idea. When I frowned, he shook his head. I could basically hear his motto: no comparisons, not now or ever. But hell, comparisons were what helped me get to and stay at the top of the game for almost a decade. It hurt, but it was the only way I knew how to be better. How could you be one of the best when you didn’t know what it looked like?

Hell, did I just admit Noah was one of the best? No. No way. She’s nowhere near that yet.

Yet.

I blew out a breath as quietly as I could before pulling my knee closer to my chest. I needed to focus so I could find holes in Noah’s work. There were always mistakes to find and gaps to fill in with concrete plaster made of my own desires.

The cover Noah created featured Leisah in all her gold jewelry, tight curls, and long-limbed glory. She was sitting on a throne surrounded by people who shared her features. It was a royal family portrait, a far cry from my solo portrait of her. I still preferred mine, but Noah’s was more interesting. There was something in Leisah’s eyes, a longing that couldn’t be placed unless I saw more. Unless I opened the comic.

My fingers tightened into a fist. Tyson signaled me to slide to the next image. The silence in the air was telling—they already loved it off the cover alone. I hoped the next screen was less impressive; thank God I didn’t hold my breath.

“A modern setting will work better,” Noah said. The longer she talked, the louder her voice became. She still clung to the binder she hadn’t opened even once, and I found myself staring at her fingers on the cover. There were dark spots on her knuckles, matching the ones on her collarbone, and I got the urge to sketch them out. They were pretty and worthy of a story I was surprised I wanted to hear.

Outside of art, I’d never been curious about Noah. When we were classmates, we only existed for one another during the semester. After, she faded for me, and I assumed I did the same for her.

As I listened to her speak, I decided I would make it my mission to get to know her. If I planned to be three steps ahead, I’d have to know more than her name and art style. To have a good shot at beating someone, you had to be able to see things from their point of view.

The break room was the temperature of an Arctic winter. Noah stood at the refrigerator, holding the door open with a confused look on her face. I caught her side-eye me, but she didn't voice a greeting.

After this morning’s meeting, we went back to our desks in silence. Everyone had voted for her idea, downright enthused to take Leisah back to the same old way she’d been in the nineties. I’d dug my nails so far into my pencil, it’d started to chip when the vote was unanimous. I couldn’t even get a sympathy vote from Harry, who was notorious for siding with the underdog. I never considered myself an underdog in any circumstance, but things were changing. Noah Blue was here, and she wasn’t going to go with the flow like she had in art school.

Tyson decided that, for the next week, Noah and I would work on incorporating her ideas into my outline. There was going to be a lot of back and forth, hours spent undoing the careful threads I’d spun together while drafting.

"I'm impressed." I leaned against the counter next to the refrigerator, close enough to see the small twitch in the corner of her mouth. "Truly wasn't expecting complete sentences from you so early on. I seem to remember Art Center Noah stammering through her critiques."

Noah's jaw ticked as she grabbed a carton of oat milk and closed the door. The air smelled sweet when she passed me to the sink, and her dress fluttered behind her with enough movement to brush against my jeans. I didn't feel it, of course, but the visual made me take a deep breath. The softness of her outfits mirrored the feeling one would get from watercolor paintings.

"Stammering, huh?" She set her milk down to fill up a kettle, nothing soft or watercolor about her glare. "Did you think you'd render me speechless with your predictable attempt at going rogue?"

I laughed at the 'come on' tilt of her brow. "Wouldn't be the first time. We were in plenty of classes where you didn't say a peep to me."

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