“Do I need my jacket?” She snatched it off its hook.
“Nah. We’re not even going outside.”
“We’re… not?”
Zack opened the door. “When I said it was an easy walk, I wasn’t kidding. It’s next door.”
She dropped her jacket.
“Come on. You wanna see where I spend my days when I’m not down at the marina? I’m not shy about showing off my workspace. It’s a lot messier than this place, anyway.”
It was those kinds of winks that made Rachel want to kiss him.
He hadn’t been kidding about the easy walk. He also hadn’t been kidding about his studio being next door. Literally. One of the doors they had passed on the way to his apartment was the door to his large, spacious, well-lit studio.
And when he said that whoever owned their apartments could do whatever they wanted with them… well, he hadn’t lied about that either.
It was like walking into a completely different space. Gone was the functional furniture, the electronics, and the art hanging on the walls. The only thing Rachel saw when she walked beyond the entryway were sheets, tarps, and paint splatters on the concrete floors and walls. “Little mishaps,” Zack called them when she pointed them out. “Nothing to be concerned about.”
The only reason it didn’t smell so strongly of craft materials was because of the great ventilation and carefully controlled temperatures – Zack hadn’t foregone the technology on that. He also had different lights he could adjust with different colors so he could replicate exactly how he wanted his works to be shown on gallery floors.
He didn’t have many works in progress in his studio, and even fewer completed works, but what he did have blew Rachel away. Especially since she had never bothered to look up his artwork after finding out he was a full-time artist. Why would I? I assumed he was a hack, like every other rich person who has the luxury to do their hobby full time. Rachel had met many such types while studying abroad. Hell, in college…
“Oh, that?” Zack practically turned sheepish when he caught Rachel looking at a carved marble statue of a woman lounging on a couch. Isn’t this like… really hard to do? Making marble look like fabric? While Zack wasn’t on the same level as some of the greats, at first glance Rachel was tricked into thinking that the woman was covered in silk instead of smooth, rippling marble. “It’s not finished. Not sure I’ll ever get around to finishing it. It’s too big to put into any of my current collections, and private buyers don’t like statues with features too fine.”
Rachel pulled back her hand before she touched the tiny nipple poking through the rocky silk. “You have private buyers?”
“Not gonna lie, most of them are the same people. My agent keeps a mailing list for me. He comes in here all the time to take pictures for it… but yeah. I’ve got buyers in Asia, Europe, New York… used to have a big Argentinian fan, but he died. His daughter said he had a stroke when my last nude painting arrived.”
“Are you serious?”
“That’s what she told me.”
Rachel could hardly believe it. “So you only do statues and paintings of nude women, huh?” She laughed. “And you wanted me to be one of your models?”
Oh, he was definitely sheepish now. “I wouldn’t say that,” he softly said. “I take commissions if I think it’s worth my time. That guy from Argentina commissioned artistic nudes. Sometimes he sent me the model he wanted me to paint. I’m guessing most of them were either his mistresses or women he pined after.”
“Really?” Rachel decided to follow one of her hunches. After all, a man like Zack, regardless of how good of an artist he was, would not pay attention to certain details unless he and the model were engaging in certain acts. “Did he know you were sleeping with them?”
“Please.” Zack turned around. “Only about a third of them. Many of them aren’t exactly my type. Or they’re taken. Or they’re gay.” He waggled his eyebrows in her direction.
“Must be nice to be a big bad artist who gets all the ladies he wants.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Zack sat on the stool in the middle of the room. A workspace was setup before him. Looked like two pieces of marble sitting side-by-side, a chisel and brush left on the ground. “I get a few, though.”
“Let me guess.” Rachel continued her lap around the room. The natural light was superb that time of day. Perhaps not for getting work done, but certainly for enjoying it. That went double for the half-finished works. Sometimes it was the imperfections that showed best in the setting twilight. “You bring them, they take off their clothes, and pose for an ungodly amount of hours while you toil away over canvas and stone. Then you both take out your pent-up aggressions next door in your apartment.”
“Nah.” Zack picked up the brush and dusted off his small work in progress. “I’ve got the master bedroom still set up back there. We do it in there. Way easier. Less personal.”
“Heaven forbid art be personal.” Laughing, Rachel hopped into the empty reading nook. I bet a bunch of naked women pose here. Angels in the daylight, succubi in the moonlight. “What’s it like getting laid whenever the hell you want?” She reached the window, tracing the carvings that had probably been there since the building went up decades ago.
“What are you talking about?”
Rachel swung her legs, sneakers barely grazing the concrete floor. “You’re handsome, you’re rich, you’re an artist who sets his own schedule… you must be drowning in pussy.”
“I don’t know if I’d say drowning… and I don’t get laid whenever I want.”
“When’s the last time you got some?”
Yes, Rachel was aware that she was swimming into dangerous territory. On one hand, it was friendly banter. On the other, Rachel risked setting herself up for jealousy. This was, after all, a man she was attracted to. A man she had been willing to sleep with when her body begged her to have him.
Yet hearing about his sex life might help her decide that she had dodged a bullet. At best, it would tell her that they were not compatible anyway. Better off friends. Or maybe better off never hanging out again, depending how this went.
Zack took five seconds to think about her question. “Two and a half weeks ago? I honestly don’t keep track.”
“That long, huh?”
“I go through dry spells. Honestly, I don’t think I get as much as you think.”
“Suuure.”
“When was the last time you got some, Ms. Taylor.”
Rachel kept her face turned toward the window. From that high up, traffic looked like tiny ants scuttling in line. Planes blinked on their way in and out of the local airport. A window cleaner had almost made his way to the top of the building across the street. “Last weekend.”
She could’ve sworn there was a beat before he responded. And his voice cracked. I swear that, too. “See? You’ve gotten some more recently than me. Not a big deal. It’s just sex.”
Rachel drew her feet up into the nook. Behind her, Zack hopped off his stool and rummaged through a bin of discarded canvases. “Is that what we would have been doing last night? Just sex?”
Zack paused his rummaging. “Anyway! Do you like painting?”
“Hm?”
Zack laid a large square canvas flat on the floor. It had a nice tear going down the center. Had the artist done that in a fit of creative rage? Or was it one unfortunate mishap out of many that happened in a studio? “Painting.” Zack placed a large mason jar of water next to the canvas. Next, six oil paints appeared, most of them almost to the bottoms of their containers. “You wanna fool around?”
“Uh…”
“With art, Rachel.” Zack pulled his phone out of his pocket and used it to turn on the speakers lining the studio. “What’s your creative poison? Classical?” A rendition of Beethoven’s 2nd blared over the speakers before he turned the volume down. “Pop?” Britney Spears stepped out of 2001 to tell them how lucky she was. “Maybe some adult contemporary?” Sting spent most of his time in fields of gold.
“Got any metal on there?”
Zack laughed. “What’s a good band? Can’t say I listen to a lot of metal.”
“For me, it’s either that or Bollywood soundtracks.”
“Let’s stick with metal for now.” Zack must’ve found the most generic metal playlist he could summon on Spotify, for the songs that played were the gateway drugs, not the hard stuff. “Get over here and paint with me.”
Rachel reluctantly hopped off the nook and approached the canvas laid flat next to a line of colorful paints. Zack was already mixing some together on a palette. The shade of green he created with the bright blue and neon yellow was impressive. I could do that. Come on. How hard is it? Rachel loved playing with colors as a kid. A little red, a little white… such a nice pink…
“I’m warning you,” Rachel said, picking up the nearest paintbrush. “I’m not a good artist. I can’t draw for shit.”
“You don’t have to draw anything. Close your eyes and…” He looked up at his speakers the moment a Norwegian man shouted death grunts over the thrashing guitars. “That you, Satan?”