“You?”
“Yeah.” I closed my eyes. “I submitted a piece I’ve been working on for weeks to an art exhibition. I was really excited about it, but I just found out it’s been rejected.”
“Oh, Cassie,” Frederick said, his tone laced with sympathy. “I am so sorry.” His hand was still on my arm. His touch was grounding. I hoped he wouldn’t pull it back anytime soon. “Is that all?”
I sighed. “I’m such a fuckup, Frederick.”
“People are rejected from things all the time, Cassie.” He paused, thinking. “In a way, I was rejected from the entire past century.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not the same thing.”
“You’re right. What I did was worse.”
“How is it worse?”
His eyes twinkled. “I drank something Reginald offered me at a party. Like an idiot. Talk about being a fuckup.”
I hiccup-laughed a little in spite of myself. Hearing Frederick use modern slang was like seeing a toddler with a fake mustache. He smiled at my reaction, clearly pleased with himself.
And then, all at once, his expression grew serious. “If anyone fucked up here, Cassie, it was the committee that refused to accept a visionary artist into the exhibition.”
I blinked at him, stunned at the intensity of his praise.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I never say things I don’t mean.”
Before I could decide how to respond to that, Frederick pulled a square of fabric from the front pocket of his jeans. Muttering something under his breath I couldn’t make out, he turned on the faucet and ran the fabric beneath it.
“What are you doing?”
“No one seems to carry handkerchiefs anymore,” he mused. “It’s a pity. They work so much better than the thin paper tissues used nowadays. Now close your eyes.”
He turned to face me with a look of quiet concentration. His eyes flicked to mine. Or, more specifically, to the mess of black eye makeup smeared beneath them.
Embarrassment flooded me. “Frederick, you don’t have to—”
“Close your eyes, Cassie.” His tone brooked no opposition, his stern insistence touching some raw, primal part of me that was helpless to do anything but obey.
His free hand cupped my cheek, gently tilting my face upward so he could look at me more clearly. Suddenly, it felt like all my nerve endings centered right where he touched me.
My eyes slid closed of their own accord.
“What is this black substance you have used to paint your face?” His voice was quiet, curious, as he tenderly wiped away the remnants of my mascara with his handkerchief. His face was so close to mine I could feel each of his shallow exhalations of breath on my skin. “I’ve not seen this sort of cosmetic before.”
My mouth went dry. “It’s . . . called mascara.”
“Mascara.” He said the word with obvious distaste, but I only dimly registered it. It was hard for me to focus on much of anything at all but the gentle swipes of his fingers beneath my eyes and the press of his free hand to my cheek. All the oxygen seemed to have vanished from the too-small room. My heart was thundering in my ears.
“It’s vile,” he added.
“I like mascara.”
“Why?” His handkerchief dipped into the corner of my right eye, where the smudges were the worst. He leaned in even closer—probably to give himself a better view of what he was doing. He smelled like red wine and the fabric softener he used on his clothing. My lungs seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.
“It . . . makes me look good.”
His hands stopped moving. When he spoke again, Frederick’s voice was so low I almost didn’t hear him. “You do not need cosmetics for that, Cassie.”
All at once, the noise from the party, the slow drip of water from the shower behind me—all of it melted away. There was nothing but Frederick’s tender hands, touching my face so gently I could hardly bear it—and the steady, rapid beat of my heart.
After what might have been a few minutes, or an hour, Frederick dropped the handkerchief onto the counter. I could feel him shift even closer to me, in the small, confined room, until our knees touched.
My eyes stayed closed. My stomach tightened with anticipation and nerves. I suspected that once I opened my eyes again everything between us would change.
I licked my lips without thinking—and registered his sharp intake of breath.
“Are . . . are the smudges gone?” My voice was shaky. I felt moments away from flying apart at the seams.