We stayed in my gallery the rest of the night, smoking, painting, and making love until all of our limbs were sore. We talked a lot too—about our favorite artists, our top colors, and the various things that inspire our works.
My driver took her friends home, only after a long lecture from one of them. I must admit that Coco was a bit scary and looked close to punching me in my face, when I’d explained how I got her phone.
As the hours continued with just her and me, the conversation became deeper. She learned things about me that others never knew. Smoking my bong, we discussed the harder things—dreams we had that didn’t come true, moments when we’d been so heartbroken that we’d almost given up, if not for a friend or bit of luck, and even brought up our fears.
I held her naked body to me and combed my fingers through her red strands. “What scares you the most?”
“Being homeless with no way to get out of it.”
“Tell me more.”
“When I look at people sleeping on the street and babbling to themselves, it freaks me out. You know they didn’t choose that life. Something happened to them. Something made them go so crazy that they stopped living like the rest of society. Not all of them, but some. . .they just got so abused and used that they lost it all.”
“You would never be homeless.” I targeted her with my gaze. “Trust me on that. You will never have to worry about that.”
“Promise?”
“You’re going to be a success, and although I would like to say it would be due to my help, it will all be due to you. You’ll be the hero for yourself. Your murals stand in a class of their own.”
Blushing, she looked away. “Thank you.”
I took her chin and moved her view back to me. “It’s true.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
“Always.”
“Now, let’s take the spotlight off of me. What are you most scared of?” she asked.
I wished she hadn’t. I didn’t like admitting it. I studied her face. “I’m scared of dying alone.”
She formed her lips into a smile “Now it’s your turn to trust me.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll never die alone.”
I gave her a wicked grin. “Promise?”
“Promise.” She kissed my lips. “As long as we’re friends, you’ll never die alone.”
I want to be more than friends.
By the time dawn came, I had my staff make us breakfast. We crept up to my rooftop and greeted the sun half-naked and marked with paint, our fingers sore from holding down the spray tabs.
We welcomed the morning in the middle of our city.
Off in the distance, thousands of graffiti artists must’ve been dragging themselves back home, off from painting their own masterpieces.
We sat on that roof for an hour or so, before, finally she gave me her number, put on her clothes, and kissed me goodbye.
A week later, she saw me again and let me take her out to eat.
And I kept her safe, just like my father did with my mother. The instinct came out of nowhere. I held doors open for her, where with others, I let them open them their selves.
On the sidewalk, I stayed closer to the street so that she wouldn’t be the first to get hit. When she sat in my car, I maintained a reasonable speed and launched my arm in front of her, at the appropriate times.
She earned the right to be treated like a queen, and I remained her servant.
And those seconds,
hours,
days,
weeks,
months,
and years with her,
those times mirrored daydreams that only fairytales could breed.