Becoming His Muse, Complete Set (3 page)

“He talked to you again,” says Ruby, her mouth gaping. “You held up that line for like, another whole five minutes. What did he say this time?”

Jonathan watches me closely.

“I don’t know, not much.”

I can’t remember the exact words anymore. His touch and smell have crowded out the details. I feel pulled into a lulling murky depth, one that takes me over sometimes while painting, when hours passed like minutes until I surface in front of a painting that I hardly remember creating. I force myself to snap out of it. It’s one thing to trance out in front of the easel. No
man
has ever induced that effect in me.

“Well?” says Ruby.

“He asked what I was doing later.”

“Really? Did you tell him?” says Jonathan.

“I told him what
you two
were doing—beers at Mick’s—but I’m going to head home now.”

Ruby grabs my arm. Her grip is tight. I can feel her nails. “If there is any chance,
any chance
, that he would actually come out for beers with us, you are not allowed to go anywhere.”

“Beers: optional. You said it. I’m tired and I have to get up early to get private studio time.”

“Ava! You can’t do this to me. If he comes and you’re not there he’ll just leave. You have to stay. Just in case.” Her eyes plead with me.

“I don’t know…”

“Two more hours! I’ll sit naked in that cold studio for two extra hours. Please?”

I laugh. “Fine. Sticking around for beer isn’t such a terrible hardship. If I come for an hour, I’ll hold you to one extra hour of modeling. Deal?”

She glances at the signing table. “What if he’s not done in an hour?”

I look over my shoulder just as Logan flicks his gaze toward our little group. Geez, I do not want to give him the wrong impression. Assessing the remaining worshippers in the line up, I turn to Ruby.

“If he doesn’t find us in an hour, it means he’s hooked up with one of his other groupies. You’ll have to take your chances, Ruby.”

As we pick up our coats from the coat check, Jonathan asks,

“What does your inscription say, Ava?”

“I don’t know.” I haven’t bothered to look yet.

“Mine says,
To Jonathan, a god among mortals
.” He shrugs. “Makes me wonder if he’s gay.”

Jonathan does have the physique of a Greek god. Logan may have just been observing a fact. More likely Jonathan is bringing up the gay card for Ruby’s benefit, to dampen her devotion to Logan. Not that it works.

“No way he’s gay,” says Ruby. “Listen to mine:
To Ruby, whose glow is more precious than gemstone
.”

“He could be bisexual,” Jonathan counters. Ruby is freaked out by bisexuality and he knows it. I smirk, guessing he’s angling to get back with her.

After I pull on my coat, I flip open my book. Logan’s writing is loose yet legible. His penmanship is unique, though it’s obvious he was once taught proper cursive. I focus on the combination of letters, to make out their meaning. At first, all writing is an image to me, a piece of art. Circles and lines, curls and swoops.

“What’s it say?” says Ruby, peering around my shoulder. She’s about 6 inches shorter than I am. I don’t bother reading it out loud.

To the girl who sees through shit. Wrong with me #1: I want to see you naked.

“Definitely not gay,” says Ruby in a singsong voice as she leads us out into the still young night.

I breathe in the brisk scent of fall rising on the heels of a retreating Indian Summer. I try—and fail—not to think about Logan O’Shane’s eyes, or his cryptic communications with me, including the sentence scrawled onto a page of the book I carry under my arm.
I want to see you naked
.

Why does that sentence feel like a secret carving a trail up my inner thigh? Or a tune set to unravel me from the inside out? And when I say inside, I mean the deepest, most private core of my being, where all secrets flow to and from.

He said it was wrong. He labeled it number 1. I wonder what number 2 would be? Do I want to find out? I’m not sure. I have a feeling I’d have to deal with number one first. A shiver runs up my spine and it’s not from the cold.

As we walk to Mick’s, Ruby is full of questions about the enigmatic Logan O’Shane.

“How old do you think he is?”

“Ancient,” says Jonathan.

“Could he be as old as forty?” Ruby muses.

Jonathan sighs. “All you have to do is Google him. He’s thirty-three. Probably looks older because of all that smoking. And fucking.”

“
You
googled him?” said Ruby.

Jonathan shrugs. “Know thy enemy.”

“What is it that you have against him? I mean,
come on
. He’s famous. For his talent. Honestly, that’s just amazing, and totally deserved.”

Jonathan shook his head. “Like always, you want to look through your Ruby-colored glasses.”

“Ugh! I hate it when you say that. You’re just jealous.”

I cover up a smirk. I can’t believe it took Ruby that long to reach that conclusion.

“Nuh-uh,” says Jonathan, contradicting what every cell in his body is surely exuding. “You just believe he’s something that he’s not, that no one can be, because you’ve idolized him to such a degree he’s no longer human, no longer real. You don’t like reality, Ruby, you never have.”

“Not this again!” And they are at it, another one of their bickering arguments. I slow down to let them get a few steps ahead of me so they can hash it out themselves. It’s clear to me Jonathan’s just hurt that Ruby doesn’t want to face the reality that he still loves her. Plus he’s mad that she won’t shut up about Logan.

Thirty-three, huh?

I didn’t think he looked all
that
old. Though he does look grown up, and experienced at life, unlike most of the male students on campus. Even Jonathan. Logan doesn’t have the Greek god looks of Jonathan’s type, but he’s got the tall, dark and handsome thing down pat. His sexy, rakish good looks hint at mystery, a little danger, and a deep well of wounds. He did say he had a pretty fucked up childhood, but now I wonder if he made that up to add to his persona, his mystique, his ‘act’. After all, he makes stuff up for a living. But there was a look in his eyes, something haunted, hurt. He probably didn’t have a great childhood, or why else would he grow up believing it was easier to act than be himself?

So, thirty-three. Twelve years older than I am, or eleven depending on his birthday. Too old?… For what?

Nothing, absolutely nothing. I give myself an imaginary slap on the wrist. Ruby is right, I’ve been too long without a bedmate. I should have accepted one of the propositions fired my way tonight. That’s the simple reason why I keep thinking about Logan O’Shane’s eyes, and the way he used them to pin down the object of his gaze. I rather liked being that object for a few minutes…

No matter how cool and detached I try to be, I have to admit he has unhinged me. Which makes me mad at myself. I am not an object and I don’t want to be one to any man. Particularly an arrogant author. Yet I can’t shake his aura of creative and sexual confidence. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that, though it’s my body I keep imagining wrapping around his…

I fight that feeling. I can’t go there. For so many reasons.

After tonight, he’ll be gone, back to New York or wherever he’s from. And despite Ruby’s certainty that he’ll follow us to Mick’s, I’m unconvinced that I’ve left such a lasting impression. Besides, he has his pick of dozens of young things ready to throw themselves at him, or
the idea
of him, because I think it’s really an idea of his tortured writer’s soul and his hard-won fame they’re attracted to. Well, that and his sex appeal. Can’t deny that. I cross my arms tightly over my chest as I walk. My book bag, slung crossways over my back, bumps against my hip.

Damn, why didn’t I just go home with that good-looking senior who thought I was a virgin? Or at least was willing to pretend I was for one night. Or Stephan, who’d I had a class with last year? I’m beginning to believe that the past two celibate months are at the root of my present obsessive musings about Logan O’Shane, Sexy Arrogant Possibly Genius Writer. I sigh with frustration and readjust my book bag over my other shoulder.

I try to focus on his flaws. The smoking is gross, of course, yet it gives him a sexy edge. He’s paler than he ought to be at the end of summer, but technically he has an indoor job. I think back to the reading. I couldn’t help but notice the way he moved his hands; the way he ran them through his hair, across a page, or fiddled with his pen or cigarette, showed a man who liked the
feel
of things. I like that. I like hands. They’re hard to draw but I’m always up for the challenge. That moment when he pulled a fleck of tobacco from his tongue, I knew I wanted to draw his hands…And then there was the way his eyes flashed around the room and seemed to ignite little fires here and there. His mouth, when it quirked up in a condescending smile, provoked irritation, but also a desire to bite those lips into submission. Very kissable lips…

Turns out I’m not very good at the focus-on-his-flaws thing.

So what do I do if he does show up tonight? What if he actually finds the elusive Michealangelo’s? What if he sits beside me and stares at me again, those green eyes boring into mine, challenging me, making jokes about being a virgin? I’m not a virgin, not by a long shot, yet somehow, in five minutes, he’d made me feel like one. Like a virgin ready to be claimed.

Ugh! What am I doing?

I take a deep breath, rein in my wild imagination, and reframe the moment: I’m just going for beers with my two best friends, who are still bickering I notice, and then I’m going to go home and get up early so I can meet Jenny at the studio at 6:30 am. I yawn just thinking about the early get-up.

As I follow these tangents in my mind I’m really just avoiding getting to the part of the evening-reframe that involves Logan O’Shane not showing up (and not even trying to find the pub actually because some desperate groupie is prepared to spread her legs for him and clearly fucking is all he’s interested in).

I suppose it’s a relief, really, to accept that I won’t see him again. But why do I feel a sick feeling in my gut? Like I’m jealous already. Like I’m missing something.

I stomp up the three steps that lead to Mick’s. Ruby and Jonathan are laughing and smiling now, and that makes me smile.

Once inside, Ruby picks a round booth that has a view of the door.

“So if he does come, he won’t miss us. You sit here, Ava. You’re our beacon.”

I laugh. “Don’t get your hopes up. The guy’s got better things to do.”

Ruby’s face falls.

“I mean he seems easily distracted,” I say. “And he was surrounded by people intent on distracting him.”

“
You
distracted him,” says Ruby.

“For like five minutes. And, honestly, I didn’t give him any reason to come looking for me. In fact, I was a little rude.” Definitely too rude.

Ruby shakes her head. “I just don’t get you sometimes, Ava. You’ve got your head down in your sketchbook and you miss half the cool stuff that goes on around you. Including cool people.”

Jonathan nods in agreement and then waves toward the bar to get a waitress’s attention.

“What do you think you’re going to do after you graduate?” Ruby continues. “Hide out in some garret hoping to be discovered? I swear you’re just doing this to piss off your parents.”

“Hey, I don’t rain on your passions, Rube. I’m serious about art and you know it. This has nothing to do with my parents.”

She holds up her hands in a peaceful gesture. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit below the belt.” She sighs. “I’ll just be disappointed if he doesn’t show. I just thought, maybe, if I made a decent impression, he’d take a look at my writing.”

“Given the chance, he’d probably want to look at more than that,” says Jonathan.

She whacks him not-so-lightly on the arm and then turns to me.

“Ava, forget my crack about your parents. I know you’re talented, that’s very obvious.” She glances over at one of my pieces that hangs here at Mick’s. In my sophomore year, the manager of Mick’s put out a call to the visual art students to come up with their versions of the Mona Lisa. I was one of ten that he chose to hang on the pub walls.

Jonathan orders three pints from Laura, a Rubenesque junior I’m dying to paint but she’s terribly shy. So shy she stopped making eye contact with me after I approached her about sitting for me in the studio. She thought I was joking, making fun of her because she has a fuller than full figure. But she’s gorgeous, even if she doesn’t fit the popular physical standards of the day. I don’t really either, but I can hide it easily and I have a few of the boxes successfully ticked off: large breasts, longish legs, a pretty, roundish face, healthy, shoulder length auburn hair, but I’m far from perfect. Besides, beauty and perfection are aspirations for the art world, and though I strive for them in craft and technique, I gave up finding them in myself long ago. I will never lose the extra fifteen pounds I put on in my first year when I moved into the dorms to get away from my parents. As far as I’m concerned those are survival pounds. And they protect me from the expectations of my perfect parents.

Ruby’s still going on about Logan. “I wish he could be our writer-in-residence this year instead of the woman from Greece. I mean, I like her work and all, but Logan’s is more gritty, more real. I think I could learn a lot from him.”

Jonathan coughs. “You mean about writing? Or the kind of stuff that ends up in his writing?”

“Writing, of course!” snaps Ruby. “Though it would be hard to resist a little extra tutoring, if you get my drift.” She winks my way.

Jonathan shifts uncomfortably. “You know you couldn’t do that, Ruby. He’d officially be a teacher. You could get kicked out.”

“Stop being such a downer. I’m only kidding.”

When the drinks arrive, Jonathan sits up straighter. “Thanks, Laura,” he says, flashing her a genuine, appreciative smile. Warily, she smiles back.

Ruby watches the small exchange and then gives Jonathan a ‘look’ once Laura has retreated with her tray.