Page 40 of Starrily

Callie blinked, and blinked again, and stared at the hand as if this was the first time she’d seen one. Well, it was preferable to staring at his face. She needed to stop doing that; it led to horrible, outrageous thoughts.

Kiss Simon Montague? You crazy woman.

She took the hand, and he hoisted her up.

“The stars are looking pretty good,” he said.

She inspected their work—a good excuse not to look at him. Simon’s technique worked; their first star came very close to the original painting.

“And we’ve added some artistic flair of our own,” Simon continued. The yellow trail they’d accidentally painted by rolling away didn’t quite resemble the swirls in the painting, but it was still oddly fitting. “You shouldn’t be afraid of mistakes. It’s art, not science.”

“I wasn’t,” she said.

“Phoenix, with an artistic streak?” The smile crept back into his tone.

“Scientists aren’t creatively bankrupt.” She made the mistake of looking at him and quickly averted her gaze. “If anything, I’d say we’re pretty imaginative. Just in other ways.”

“Then we should have no problem finishing the painting.”

The painting? No. This was exactly what she needed—something fun and relaxing. Strange, how the gallery was so close to her work, and she’d never paid it any attention. If it weren’t for Simon, she’d have no idea this existed. And if she had, would she have found the courage to come and do this on her own? Would she have even considered it?

Probably not. She’d go home and sit on the couch and watch a movie or read a book. Nothing wrong with that, but she could do that every day.

Perhaps every once in a while, shecouldlive a little.

They finished the painting. There had been no more rolling, but Simon wasn’t short of ideas on how to paint the rest of the stars, and Callie gave her idea to recreate the orange crescent of the moon: put orange paint on the whole right side of her body, then lie down in a stargazer position. Not only was it thematically appropriate, but when she got back up (with Simon’s help, so as not to smudge her imprint), she had to admit it came out looking great.

After admiring their life’s work for a solid ten minutes, they headed back to their separate rooms to clean up. Callie wrangled with the tight and now also wet and dirty suit, and by the time she’d changed into her regular clothes, washed, and returned to the lobby, Simon was already there, looking as effortlessly flawless as before. Even his hair was still perfectly tousled as if it hadn’t been squished under a tight cap.

Althuro gushed some more about the “absolute masterpiece they’d created,” then hinted at them having to leave since the gallery was closing down for the day. Only then did Callie check the time. Past eight already—they’d been painting for almost two hours.

“What will he do with the painting now?” she asked Simon as they headed for the exit.

“Display it somewhere, probably take pictures of it for a book? I’m not sure.” He shrugged. “The fun part was in creating it.”

It was. Ithadbeen fun. Minus the part where her hormones went haywire. That was it, right—just hormones? It’s been a while since she’d had a relationship. It was a moment of subduing to her body chemistry, and now that moment was gone, and she was fine.

There was no way she’d want to kiss Simon.

“See you at work on Friday, then.” Simon opened the door to the street—and stepped right into a massive downpour.

Callie immediately drew back, as did he—too late.

“Okay, did we do some strange hoodoo in there and call the storm of the century, or what?” he said, somehow still smiling.

“They did say it could rain in the evening.”

“Rain, yes. Apocalypse, no.”

She rummaged in her bag for an umbrella. “Well … luckily, the bus stop for my line is just down there.”

He nodded and raised his hand in a wave. “Good night.”

She made it a couple of stairs down, then stopped and turned. “How are you getting home?”

“Not sure yet. I was planning a nice romantic walk to a station, somewhere over … there.” He pointed in a seemingly random direction. “You know, just the city, the darkness, and me.”

“And the flood of the century.”