Page 15 of My End

“Thanks, Adam.” I smiled and waved him off.

The door clicked softly behind him.

I stood slowly, brushed crumbs off my pants, and took my coffee with me as I returned to the center of the room. The canvas sat there tall and silent, waiting for me.

From where I stood, I could see it all now. The bold blue shading across the cheekbone. The shadows around what would soon be his eyes. The strong set of the jawline.

Jake Style.

Even his name sounded like it was made for a painting. A mystery wrapped in black cotton and combat boots.

He hadn’t done much. Barely talked. Just walked with purpose and stood like he could snap steel in half without breaking a sweat.

But my mind wouldn’t stop playing him on a loop.

I barely knew the man. Had maybe five minutes of total interaction with him. Yet here I was with a two-foot by two-foot canvas, pouring every image and impression I had of him into the brush.

I should be trying to figure out why he’d taken up so much space in my head.

Why my stomach had fluttered when he looked up at me in the dark.

Why his presence made the air feel different.

But if I did that, I would have to start pulling at threads I wasn’t sure I wanted to unravel.

Safer to stay here—in this room with the light, colors, and the comfort of my brushes.

“Stick your head in the sand, Tilly,” I whispered to myself.

It was what I did best.

The world outside this studio? That was Boone’s world. A world of suits, backroom deals, and a future so carefully manufactured it barely felt real.

But in here?

Here, I was safe.

Here, it was just paint and shadows.

Here, I could breathe.

I picked up my brush and dipped it in the blue again.

And then I started painting.

Chapter Seven

Stretch

Sunday marked day five.

Five full days of walking circles around a mansion I wasn’t sure was meant to be lived in. Five nights of patrolling silent halls, watching empty feeds, nodding at guards who didn’t ask questions and never got any answers.

And five days without so much as a glimpse of Tilly.

I wasn’t obsessed.

I didn’t get obsessed.