“Just like that?”

He took a gulp. “Just like that. I love enchanting people around me. I love when so many creative people are under one roof. It’s like anything is possible.”

Michael and Hex truly were as different as I’d guessed. My ex hated other artists around him. The spotlight needed to be on him or a problem arose.

“Sometimes I do fun things like bring out a huge canvas. Imagine one that is bigger than the size of my studio. I drag it out to one of our gardens, call everyone around it, and just have everybody fill it with color. I must admit the result tends to be a mishmash of ideas and concepts, but none of that ever matters.”

“None of it matters?” I finished my wine. With all the weird things that had occurred around me today, a little liquid relaxation served as the perfect tool to soothe me. “What do you do with the finished pieces?”

“Throw them away.”

“What?” I opened my mouth in shock. “It could be worth something one day. You never know.”

“No.” He waved my declaration away. “None of that matters anyway. It’s never the end result that I’m looking for. I don’t ever care what the result will be from any of my crazy imaginations. I leave all of that stuff to Al. It’s how I’m able to do what I do--because Al gathers all those pieces of my artistic voyages and makes us money.”

“So let me get this straight.” I leaned forward. “When you and your friends do art together you just throw it away because none of those works matter?”

“None of any of the works matter. Neither their stuff nor mine.”

“None of it?” I tossed him a mocking smirk. “I don’t believe you at all.”

“It’s the truth. For me, the paintings, pictures, sculptures or whatever else I make is insignificant to the voyage I took to make them. It’s always about the process and the experience I get from it. That’s why I do it all.”

“For the voyage? So there’s nothing that you’ve worked on with others that you’ll present to the public?”

He waited for a few seconds and nodded. “There is one thing, but that would be only if the public was ready.”

“You’re not sure we all are, huh?”

“No.” As if newly energized, he finished his wine, sat back in the car, and wagged his arms around in elaborate circles and twists. “Anyway. With every new collection, it’s like I’m living a new life. I get to embark on some crazy adventures into theories and concepts that I would’ve never considered before. I mean, it’s addictive. I get this one thing in my head, just one thing, and it keeps me up all night. I turn into a madman, exploring its origin, smelling and tasting the idea until I can touch the texture and lap it up with my tongue and consume it whole. Surely, you must know how I feel.”

I sat there and hadn’t moved since he’d begun talking. “I’ve never felt that way before about anything.”

“Not even modeling?”

“Nothing.”

He frowned. “What about movies?”

“When I look at movies, it’s different. It’s almost like when you suck your thumb. Movies soothe me. Anytime I’ve ever gotten sad or depressed, I would get some ice cream or chips, a huge comfy blanket, and a bunch of movies to just fall into another world for a while and not think of the things going on around me. I started watching movies a lot when I was in my teens.” I twirled the liquid in my glass, but made sure it didn’t spill out.

Hex gazed at me. His look seared into my skin. “What’s your passion?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to know.”

“Actually, I don’t, but my goal is to find out.” Now that I’d left Michael thousands of possibilities lay out in front of me. I planned to model for a while, but not forever. I wasn’t even sure if I’d ever liked modeling to begin with if it wasn’t for Michael convincing me to do it. “I guess my journey now will be to find my passion.”

“You have to give yourself freely in order to receive that knowledge. You can’t just be safe all the time. You’ll have to dive into the ocean of obscurity with no destination in your head and just swim until you get exhausted and drown.”

“But then I’ll be dead.”

“No.” He wagged his finger. “Then you’ll truly be alive.”

“Says the man who was just sucking his thumb a minute ago.”

“Yes. Says the man who was just sucking his thumb.” Hex clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I know what I want my collection to be about.”

I held my hand up. “Hold on. You had no idea before?”

“No.”

“I thought you were working on the concept all year.”

“No. More like brainstorming and preparing for something to grab a hold of me, but nothing hooked me until now.”

Tags: Kenya Wright Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net