It’s an abstract painting with no definitive lines. Just colors splashed over the canvas, but in the middle is the blurred appearance of a man and a woman. Both shirtless, the colors resembling just their skin tone, as he holds her waist and her head falls back while he kisses between the channel of her chest.
It’s bright and vivid, regardless of the vague lines and blotchy undertones.
When I painted it, I just thought of every moment I had withMimi that first night. When I traced her body with my lips and caressed her skin with my hands. Her head would fall back on the blanket as her body arched into me, writhing under my touch. It was like everything felt whole for the first time in my life.
“He’s right, Seamus. These are really good,” Hudson says just as surprisingly as he walks over to the one I finished two days ago. That one is less colorful than the one Dane is looking at, with just the outline of a woman seated in the same position Mimi poses herself in when she looks like a pretzel; her arms are crossed over each other in front of her body.
It has enough color to be happy and light, but dark enough to give you the same feeling that she gives me right now.
Closed off, hidden. Unwilling to open herself up. But still managing to be the same Mimi that smiles to the world, making everyone else feel good about themselves and comfortable.
Because that’s how she makes everyone around her feel.
Hudson pats me on the shoulder as Dane explores the other side of the room. He looks out the window and he gets a curious glint in his eyes.
Shit.
“So, did you know your hot neighbor does half naked yoga in her backyard?” Then he precedes to open the window, sticking his head and half his body out of it, shouting.
“Hey, yoga girl!”
20
NAOMI
“Exhale, press into your heels,” I whisper to myself as I rehearse my queuing.
I’ve been going through my poses for twenty minutes, but the feeling I normally get when I’m practicing outside is missing.
That tingling sensation I have when I feel his eyes on me has been absent.
I’ve always loved my privacy out here, but now I crave his hidden presence.
It’s a conflicting emotion. Like I shouldn’t enjoy it, I shouldn’t look forward to it. But I do, and I can’t help it. He provides me with an overwhelming feeling of admiration and protection, something I’ve come to enjoy more than I’d care to admit.
I wish I could explain it, but if the last ten years have taught me anything in the realm of karma and fate, it’s that sometimes there’s no reasonable explanation for any of it.
The few men I’ve trusted enough toofficiallydate were still short term, and even then, none of them made me feel as special or as safe as when I was with Seamus.
There is just something about him.
There was then, and it’s still there now.
“Hey, yoga girl!” A booming voice startles me as I push back into a seated position and glance up to Seamus’ window.
A very gorgeous man with a huge smile and shaggy, blonde hair is hanging halfway out of it, waving his arm back and forth, trying to get my attention, like he’s miles away from me.
He might be the happiest man I’ve ever met from afar.
I look behind me and glance at my surroundings, because that naturally feels like the right thing to do, then glance back up to him with a questioning look.
“My best friend is obsessed with you!” he yells, and my jaw drops as a laugh escapes me.
“Is that right?” I yell back.
“Yeah, he’s super crabby, but I think you could totally make him not crabby. So you should give him a chance to take you out.” His smile is a mile wide.
“Are you asking me out for your friend?”
