She studied the screen. “These three posts have more than a hundred thousand likes.” She scrolled through more posts. “How many times have you gone viral?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure.” When something took off, he would usually mute the notifications.
Rachel’s eyes widened. “Tim Sale follows you!”
Nathan nodded, even though he had no idea who that was. “Lots of people read those books.”
“It’s not the books…” She scrolled down and pointed to a portrait he’d made of the main character, Inara, once she’d come into her full power as a Phoenix mage. He’d drawn her with ebony skin and glowing glyphs etched into her arms. “I don’t even know how you did this one. What did you use to make the fire?”
Inara was framed with flames that he’d created by scanning red and yellow leaves and manipulating the digital image in Procreate. Once he’d fully explained the process, Rachel shook her head and laughed. “How can you say you’re not an artist?”
“Because I’m not,” he said. “I’m not trained. I never went to college or took a class. I’ve never even sold anything. I—” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I do it because I can’t not do it, if that makes sense.”
She looked down, still chewing her bottom lip. He desperately wanted to kiss her. Lust knifed through him, sharp and visceral, and he had to look away.
“Can I see those?” She was staring at the sketches on his counter.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Because they’re of you. He’d been drawing her for days now. “They’re not finished.”
“Well, you definitely sound like an artist.”
The way she said artist, like she was daring him to disagree with her, was almost enough to make him believe it was true. “They’re pretty rough. I just made you smile with my old stuff. Let me thump my chest for a little while before I show you anything newer.”
She laughed and moved to the couch, the tablet on her lap. A languid smile settled on her lips. “Come sit with me.”
Nathan quickly complied because resisting Rachel felt like rejecting ambrosia. She smelled sweet and expensive, like something you’d want to roll around in.
“Do you want to draw professionally?” she asked.
“I don’t really think about it,” he said, which wasn’t a complete lie. Thinking about an art career was pointless because it would never happen. His ideas were too small, his inspiration unpredictable and fleeting. He didn’t understand why some things worked and others didn’t, or how to produce good art on demand. Beto used to say that luck wasn’t enough to build a life with, and that’s what his best work felt like: a lucky accident. Nathan wasn’t some prodigy. He was a guy with enough money and free time to ruin a dozen canvases until he drew a straight line.
“The laundromat is fine. I mean, it’s something to do.” He wiped the sweat from his palms and tried to focus so he wouldn’t ramble. “I’ve never been good with deadlines. Right now, I can paint whenever I feel like it. It’s…” He looked down at his fingers, at the flecks of blue acrylic lining his nails. Rachel followed his gaze. He folded his arms. “It’s fine.”
“How often do you paint?”
The past week, he’d been in the basement every night until two a.m. Ideas kept coming, like a flood. “Sometimes daily. Sometimes I don’t paint for months.”
He rubbed his neck again. Rachel watched him, staring at his tattoo. She pointed to his wrist. “May I?”
He nodded, and she inched over, her body heat sparking his skin like static as she leaned in to unbutton the cuff. Her fingers grazed his arm, rolling his sleeve up to his elbow, slowly revealing his phoenix.
“Those books meant a lot to you, didn’t they?” She touched the inside of his wrist, almost like she was taking his pulse. “Why is that?”
His heart was knocking against his rib cage, and he wondered if she could tell. Stringing words into sentences suddenly took all his brainpower. “Stories like that make you want to believe that what makes you different also makes you special. That it’s your superpower.” He twisted his forearm to show her the flaming tips of its wings on the other side. “In Phoenix, Inara was brown like me. She was always in trouble, like me. But ultimately it was because she’d been kidnapped and hidden from her real home and family. Her powers only manifested once she went back to where she belonged.” He briefly met her eyes. “You know, kind of your basic adoption fantasy.”