Page 51 of Oleander

I stared at him in shock. “You want to draw me?”

He flicked his gaze up from under his messy blonde hair. “It isn’t really a matter of wanting; it’s a matter of necessity. I have to submit a life portrait for my art exam and since there is very little life around here...” He looked around the room specifically. “You’ll have to do.”

My mouth dried up as I gripped the strap of my bag against me to steady myself. This wasn’t even close to what my mind had come up with when I’d wondered what he’d needed me for.

“What about Gideon?”

Without looking up, he said, “Gideon couldn’t sit still if his life depended on it.”

“I’m not...” I wanted to say ‘model material’ or ‘not going to make a good model’, but instead I said “… doing it.”

Caspien sighed. “Yes, you are. Sit down, Jude.”

“You threatened me. Now you want me tohelpyou? That’s not...that’s messed up, Caspien.”

“Oh, well, if we’re going to be doing that, then technically, you threatened me first.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. “That...wasn’t the same thing.”

“No?”

I huffed my way across the room towards the window seat. “I mean, couldn’t you just ask me to sit here for you like a normalperson? Like a friend?” I already knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“We’re not friends, Jude.”

“No. We definitely aren’t.” I walked to the window and threw my bag down first before slumping into the window seat. “We’re playing at it; for Gideon and Luke.”

He levelled a look at me. “That’s correct.”

I glared angrily out the window for a few minutes until he said, “Didn’t you bring a book?”

I turned to glare at him. Of course, I did. I always had a book in my bag, something he knew well enough. Something he’d found surprising at first given my ‘airhead-looking face’.

“I mean, you can read if you like. That’s sort of how I imagined it.”

Well, now I wouldn’t read. Not if it was how he imagined it. Instead, I pulled my knees up on the seat, wrapped my arms around them, and stared out the window.

With a soft sigh, Caspien began to draw.

I rested my head on my knees and stared out at the grounds of Deveraux; honeyed autumn light poured over its surface. You could see the lake from this window, our cottage too, but at a different angle from the window in Caspien’s bedroom. The breeze was pleasant and soft, the sound of birds hypnotic, and with the gentle scratch of Caspien’s pencil lulling me off, I felt my eyes begin to close over. I was on the cusp of sleep when I heard his voice, soft as a feather against my skin.

“You’d have said no,” he said.

My eyes snapped open, and I lifted my head to look at him. “What?”

His shoulders dropped, and he rolled his eyes. He motioned with one finger for me to turn my head back around, and I complied.

“If I’d asked you to come over and model for me, you’d have said no.” His voice wasn’t as soft, but there was still an edge of vulnerability that I hadn’t heard before – not since that night I’d found him alone, but that didn’t count. That night existed in some weird alternate universe where this Caspien didn’t live.

Would I have said no? Everything was strange now after we’d kissed. AfterI’dkissed him. It wasn’t as if things had ever been normal between us. Caspien was like no one I’d ever met before, but before the kiss, it had been manageable, at least. We had been making small incremental steps toward something that might have, under some definition, be called a friendship. Until I’d ruined it.

Christ. This was actually my fault.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

I could imagine him frowning but I didn’t dare turn my head.

“What for?”