Fearless (The Story of Samantha Smith #1) (5 page)

“Did you wipe the drool off your drawing pad?”

“What?”

“I saw the way you were staring at the model,” Romeo said coyly.

“I wasn’t staring!”

Romeo grinned. “Then how’d you do all those drawings? I know
I
was staring at him the whole time,” he tittered.

I huffed, fresh out of retorts. I walked around the room, surveying the work of the other students. Some were pretty good, others not so much. Kamiko, on the other hand, was much better than everybody.
 

There’s always a genius in every bunch. It didn’t have to be me. I was okay being in the middle of the crowd, even if I trailed near the rear of the middle. At least I wasn’t completely terrible. For a second there, when I’d started drawing, it felt like being here was a pipe dream joke and I would have to be smoking crack to think I wasn’t wasting my time on art.

Maybe I
could
do this.

“Okay, everybody,” Professor Childress said, “next we’ll do some five minute poses.” Everyone returned to their easels. “These poses will be full nude.”

What, WHAT?!

Adonis stepped onto the dais and removed his boots and socks, then unzipped his pants and pushed them down. I barely restrained a face palm. No underwear! I had been right.

Adonis was completely naked. He struck a standing pose with his back to me. I’m sorry, but I had to look at his ass. Only for a second. I couldn’t help myself. Oh gawd.

I was going to faint. I definitely needed that AED from the Student Center bookstore. Heart attack was imminent. This was not going to work. My body broiled from head to toe. I’m pretty sure steam was coming out of my ears, and my face was as red as a stop sign.

What was I doing here again? Was this a real class? Had I missed the part in the course description that said HOT NUDE GUYS? Why wasn’t there a mile-long line of young women outside waiting to get into Life Drawing?

“Do you need oxygen,” Romeo whispered. “I know I do.” He was equally flustered. For Kamiko it was business as usual. From the look on her face, she could’ve been drawing a basket of fruit or a vase of flowers. She must have done this before, or else she was a lesbian, or maybe asexual. How could she concentrate?

I wanted to fan my face. I wanted to run out of the room again. Both would call more attention to myself. I surreptitiously glanced around. Was I the only person not drawing?
 

Even the preening flamingo girls were drawing where they stood on the other side of the room, albeit with lusty looks on their faces. Maybe they
had
known the secret about life drawing class. Adonis’ back was to me. Which meant his fully-nude front was facing those flamingoes. Which meant they were staring at his—
 

“Long poses are intended to give you more time to focus on the anatomy and structure of the model,” the professor said to the class. “Lay in the same gesture you did for the one-minute poses, then add three-dimensional form on top.”

Concentrate, girl. This is school, and you’re in class. You’re here to learn.
Who was I kidding? This was an educational environment? Was I being graded for staring at a naked, beautiful man? If so, I was going to ace this class. If I could only stop staring long enough to draw.

“Start again with the gesture.”
 

I jumped.

Out of nowhere, Professor Childress was drawing on my pad again. I’m pretty sure my heart stopped for real this time.

The professor drew another stick figure on my pad, matching Adonis’ pose. “Then add structure.” He drew cylinders and cubes on top of the stick figure. Watching him work was magical. “Now you try.” He smiled and walked away.

Deep breath. Relax. Okay, one more deep breath. I started drawing and focused all my attention on copying the professor’s drawing on my pad. I didn’t look at Adonis. Well, maybe once or twice, to make sure I got the butt right.

A few minutes later, Adonis changed his pose.

Help!

Adonis faced me directly, in all his glorious splendor. I think I heard angels sing. I looked everywhere except at Adonis. The ceiling looked pretty good. I took a moment to appreciate Romeo’s shoes. They really accented his outfit.
 

Romeo giggled. “Are we having a problem?”

“No. I. Uh.”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t bite.”

“What doesn’t bite?”

Romeo snickered.
 

Oh, duh. Now would’ve been a good time for Kamiko to punch him again.

Speaking of Kamiko, what else could I look at that wasn’t the naked man five feet away from me? She held her charcoal at arms length, toward Adonis, and squinted at it. I’d seen artists do that before, but I didn’t know why. Maybe I could try that.
 

I held my charcoal out toward Adonis.
Oh, I get it. The charcoal is there to block the model’s—
 

“You haven’t drawn anything. Is something wrong?” Professor Childress asked.

Caught red handed. Or should I say red-faced? “It’s just that I, well, I’ve never done any drawings like this before.”

The professor nodded encouragingly. “It’s nothing more than shape and form. Tubes—”

Did he say tubes?

“—and boxes.”

Crap. He said boxes.
Tubes in boxes. I mean tubes AND boxes. Did someone turn up the heat in here? I swear it’s like a hundred degrees and totally humid.

“Give it a try. You’ll do fine. I promise.”

I managed to finish my drawing using Kamiko’s charcoal-eye-shield trick to black out the, um, tube. I had to hold my charcoal close to my face to block out all of Adonis’ uh, you know. My drawing was sort of empty in the center, since I couldn’t see his, ahh, yeah, that. But I drew his head, er, I mean face, and arms and legs. It looked okay.

Thankfully, the next two poses were sitting, and Adonis angled himself in such a way that I didn’t have to use the charcoal-eye-shield trick to hide his tube from view.

“The model will now take a break before we start the contour drawings.”

“Wow, Sam, those are good,” Kamiko said.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. I wasn’t sure if I believed her. She was
so
talented.

“Seriously,” Romeo chimed in, “not bad for a first time.”

“Thanks guys.” I smiled uncertainly.

“Because it’s pretty obvious you’re a life drawing VIRGIN,” Romeo gasped scandalously.

I swatted his arm. “Am not!”

“Well, not anymore. Now that your charcoal cherry’s been popped!”

I swatted him again.

“Ow, ow, ow! I think you dislocated my shoulder!” He was fine.

“Baby!” I giggled.

“So what if I am?” Romeo tilted his head back proudly and shook his imaginary locks. “I’m a sensitive artist.”

Professor Childress walked over and examined my drawings and smiled. “Nicely done. I knew you could do it.” He walked to the next student.

I was so busy basking in all the praise, I almost missed Adonis putting his pants on for the break. What a relief. Now he was only shirtless, and I could steal glances at his amazing body without embarrassment.
 

There’s something indescribably sexy about a man wearing nothing but pants, like he’d just jumped out of your bed and thrown them on. Where was my butterfly net? My stomach was filled with them.

I decided it would be wise to stop thinking about Adonis and bedrooms because he was busy with the two flamingoes again. One of them was tall and had a perfect hourglass figure and beautiful hair. Adonis was putting her phone number into his phone. She did the same while the other girl thrust her mammoth breasticles out at him. Bitches. I wish those two girls would flamin
go the fuck away
.

What was I thinking? This guy wasn’t for me. Madison wanted him way more than I did anyway.

“For the next drawing,” Professor Childress said, “I want everybody to do a blind contour drawing. Fold back your pad to a fresh, blank page. Then lift the blank page and draw beneath it, with the paper covering your hand, so you can’t see what you’re doing. The purpose of this exercise is to focus on seeing. Don’t worry about your drawing.”

Adonis walked onto the dais, put his cell phone into his pocket, and slid his jeans off. Oh, my. Again? Could someone get me a bucket to collect the drool pooling at my feet?
 

“This will be a ten minute pose,” the Professor said. He punched some buttons on a small kitchen timer and set it down on the dais where Adonis could see it.

Adonis sat on the colored pillows and faced my general direction. He propped himself up on one tattooed, muscled arm and draped the other over his hip like a lounging gladiator reclining on a roman couch. All he needed were laurel leaves and a handful of grapes to complete the ensemble. He bent his top leg, shielding his manly business from my view.
 

Okay, this I could work with.

“Start moving your pencil freely,” the Professor continued. “Pick any point on the outline of the model and follow it along the contour of his body.” I could do that. “Imagine that where your eye touches, so does your pencil. Imagine that your fingertip is literally sliding across the surface of the model.”

You’ve got to be kidding me! How am I supposed to get any drawing done thinking like that?

“Don’t think about what you are drawing on your pad. Think only about what you see in front of you.”

Hot guy. Amazing body. Perfect muscles. Aggressive tattoos. Pant, pant.
 

 
I wasn’t going to get anything done at this rate, so I started at his toes, just to be safe. Toes and ankles weren’t nearly as sexy. Some minutes later, I had made my way up to Adonis’ shoulder. I wondered what my drawing would look like.

“Don’t be tempted to look at your work,” the Professor said. “Concentrate on looking only at the model. Take note of every curve, every muscle, every bulge.”

The only bulging I could think about were my nipples pressing against the cups of my bra. I’m sure glad I wore my print dress this morning. Perfect camouflage.

Deep breath. Sigh. My eyes worked around the shape of Adonis’ head and hair. I stole a glance at his eyes across the length of his impressive body. He caught me peeking and winked back. Could I draw his eyes? Was that part of his outline?
 

I flashed on the image of him exchanging phone numbers with one of the flamingoes. And the fawning Delta Pi Deltas. And him kissing Tiffany Kingston-Whitehouse-Snootfest. I felt bad for Madison. She had no idea what she was getting into falling for Adonis. He was a total player.

Luckily, I didn’t have to waste my time on him. That made it easy to focus on my work.

Several minutes later, the timer started beeping. “Time’s up, everybody,” the Professor said.

“Lift up your paper,” Romeo said. “How’d you do?”

I almost forgot I’d been drawing anything, I’d been so focused on looking. I lifted the blank page, expecting the worst. I was surprised to see a quivering line around my paper that somewhat resembled Adonis’ pose. Romeo had produced similar results.
 

“Nice work, Sam.” He patted me on the shoulder. “You’re pretty good at this.”

Even Kamiko’s contour, while better than everyone else’s, wasn’t perfect like her other work. Maybe I wasn’t so bad after all.
 

The last drawing of the class was another long pose. This time we were supposed to look at our work. Adonis sat on the stool with his side to me, in the classic Thinker pose, chin resting on his knuckles. This was the least distracting pose so far. I focused entirely on my drawing. And how bad it was.
 

The more I drew, the worse it got. Romeo wasn’t struggling at all. He looked repeatedly from his pad to Adonis, laying down lines with assurance.
 

Kamiko was halfway through a masterpiece, complete with shading.
 

I was making a mess. I was sweating again, this time from stress. My drawing sucked ass. Pretty sure my armpits were dripping. Good thing my print dress disguised what were likely frisbee-sized sweat stains. I felt like my wardrobe decision was the only good thing that had happened today.

I set my charcoal down before the pose finished. I was spent, and not in a good way. Every line I drew had made my drawing worse. It was a charcoally black mess. Romeo worked enthusiastically on his, too busy to help.
 

I’d hoped Professor Childress would come by and encourage me, but he was working with the other students. Finally, the timer beeped. Adonis began dressing, not that I cared. I felt like a failure.
 

The other students folded their pads closed. I did too. I didn’t want anyone to see my horrible drawing.
 

I glanced at Kamiko’s pad. She was adding final touches without having to look at the model. Her drawing was amazing. It looked like Adonis, right down to his facial features. How did she do that? She’d even pulled out a blue colored pencil at some point to do his eyes. She got that right too.
 

The face on my drawing was a black smear. I know, because I had rubbed it out with my fingers earlier.

I wasn’t an artist. Who was I kidding? I belonged in accounting, with smelly coffee feet, taking notes on a laptop like everyone else. I wasn’t meant to do something special or romantic like art.

Emo. Goth. Witch. Sorceress.

Shit, I was none of those things. Those things had a spark of originality. I was completely common. I couldn’t make anything magical. I was plain old Sam Smith. Boring CPA.

Adonis walked out of the room. Hourglass Flamingo had her arm around his waist and her breasty minion in tow.

Blue Eyes took the last of the magic with him when he’d left the room. Well, except for Kamiko’s drawings, which were pretty damn magical. Unlike mine.

College sucked ass. What was I thinking when I decided to move across the country, leaving everything behind? Did I think I could change my life so easily? My parents had been right all along. I was nothing special. Why bother trying? I should go home and be miserable in familiar surroundings. At least I knew how to do that.