Page 9 of Starrily (Perks of Being #2)

Chapter 9

C allie stretched her arms above her head and yawned. Mid-afternoon was becoming late afternoon, and her computer models weren’t cooperating.

Well, they were just computer models; it wasn’t their fault the data didn’t fit. It only meant that Callie was either a genius on the brink of discovering something requiring a whole new model or she’d made a mistake in processing her data.

But she wanted that to be a problem for tomorrow, not today.

She turned off her computer and packed up her stuff. In the quietness of the office, she could even hear steps coming down the hallway—coming toward her.

Please, no overtime. Ava would say Mars was in retrograde or some similar nonsense, but it was just one of those low-energy days when Callie was particularly exhausted and in need of relaxation.

A knock sounded, and the door opened. “Good, you’re still here,” Simon said.

“What are you doing here?” It wasn’t—no, it was most definitely Wednesday. “It’s not one of our days.”

“ Our days, huh?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“You know what I mean.” She started to move past him, then paused. What did she intend to do, leave him in her office?

He’d probably booby-trap the whole place.

“Why are you here?” she tried again.

“I have an invitation.” He leaned on the door frame. “For something fun.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“How do you feel about body art?”

“You want us to get tattoos? No thanks.”

“No—but speaking of that, I knew you’d be against it. What I have in mind is slightly less permanent.”

She shooed him out and locked the door behind him. But since she was leaving, she had no choice but to walk with him.

“Have you heard of Althuro?” he asked.

“Another musician I should know?”

“An artist. Quite famous. He has a special project where people replicate well-known works, painting them on the floor, with their bodies.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’ll show you.” He paused as they exited the QueLabs building. “Unless you have something better to do?”

“You came here just to invite me to an event?”

He shrugged. “I was bored.” But he didn’t look at her, instead occupied by a speck on his shoe.

She wanted to go home and lie on the couch and eat some ice cream. Or did she? If she allowed herself to consider … Simon’s invitation didn’t sound bad. Ava had always said painting was relaxing, and she direly needed some relaxation.

“Let’s go.” She looked around for the black limo. “Where’s Stan?”

“We’re walking. Stan has the day off, and the art gallery is just around the corner.”

Althuro couldn’t stop gushing when Simon showed up, as if Simon surprised him and did him a great favor, not (at least Callie presumed) pay a great deal of money or pulled some strings to get this appointment. She looked around the gallery while Simon talked to the artist, and based on the place’s immaculate appearance and the quality of pieces, participating wasn’t open to the general public. Or, if it was, the spots had to be extremely limited.

Simon returned to her. “Let’s pick a painting, shall we? They’ll get our clothes ready in the meantime.”

“Painting—clothes—you know, at some point, you’ll have to explain this.”

“I thought I’d throw you in. You’re smart; you’ll figure it out.” He led her to a counter where a catalog was displayed. “You can choose. I’m told I’m severely lacking in recognizing the fine points of art.”

She frowned. “By whom, and why?”

He opened his mouth but paused. “Never mind. Just pick one.”

She leafed through the selection. She’d seen most of the works before, even if she didn’t know the name or the artist, and they ranged from classic portraits to abstract modern paintings. Callie stopped in the middle, inspecting, for a few quiet and strangely relaxing moments, a painting with swirly stars in the sapphire night sky. “This one.”

“Of course you’d choose Starry Night.”

“Hey, if you didn’t want to—”

“No, no.” Simon raised his hands in surrender. “I said you do it. It’s a good pick.”

She returned her gaze to the painting, sliding her fingers over the glossy paper. “The swirls … they look like pictures of Jupiter’s surface.” When she looked back at Simon, he had a soft smile playing on his lips—one that made her relaxed, comfortable; just like the painting itself. A smile that created a pocket of its own universe, and sucked her in—until she shook her head and reminded herself to start making sense again. “Uh, what’s next?”

They were directed to separate rooms to change into appropriate clothes. Appropriate was debatable—Callie didn’t think much of the white jumpsuit she pulled out of the locker at first, but as she put it on, its tightness became very apparent. It wasn’t indecent, but it did hug the curves. They were allowed to wear underwear beneath it, but not normal clothes—easy to see why, since there was no way they’d fit. There was even a white cap provided, similar to those swimmers wore. Callie wrangled her hair into it and checked herself in the mirror. With the jumpsuit covering her feet and hands, only her face was visible.

If aliens ever came to Earth and were similar to humans, this is how she imagined they’d look like.

She exited the room through another door with a sign This way to The Canvas . Artists . The Canvas turned out to be a large room—bigger than her whole apartment—with windowless white walls and a peculiar smooth-carpet white floor permeated with something chemical. It wasn’t until she saw giant buckets of paint in the corner that Callie understood what “body art” in Simon’s description meant.

She looked down at her close-fitting jumpsuit, then at the floor, then back at the paints.

No. No.

“I don’t think they have my size,” Simon’s voice said from behind her. She turned and froze, unable to decide if she should look away or keep staring at him.

Forget the suits not being indecent. On him, it looked like a superhero costume over-exaggerating all muscles, only these jumpsuits didn’t have fake muscle implants, so each and every—very well-highlighted—curve of his body had to be his.

Focus on the fact that with that cap on, he also looks like an alien in a 60s sci-fi movie.

Unbothered by his attire, Simon walked past her to the buckets of paint and leaned down to pick up a copy of Starry Night to serve as their guidance.

Don’t look at his butt.

“I gather you figured it out.” He turned back to her.

“Uh …” she shook her head. “Yes. The floor is the canvas. We step in paint and walk on it to make a giant replica of our chosen painting.”

“Close.” He grabbed one bucket and approached her. “It doesn’t have to be feet. It can be any part of your body. Hence, the jumpsuits.”

“ We are the brushes.”

“Exactly.”

“But there’s so much of the canvas to cover.”

“Then we’d better start rolling.” He walked to the center and slowly angled the bucket full of blue paint, then moved around, letting the paint drip down in long lines. “Come. We’ll begin with the sky.”

The beginning was awkward, as they tried to find the best technique. Simon crawled through lines of paint; Callie tried a more refined method, reminiscent of rollerskating. She’d inadvertently made a good choice with the painting; the style lent itself well to the smudged, intermittent lines they made with their movements.

“Now, for the stars,” Simon said. They stood carefully, trying not to smudge anything else with their bodies, and checked the guiding copy. Most of Callie’s suit had been spattered with shades of blue, white, and black, and Simon’s looked even worse—unlike Callie, he’d adopted the “dead bug” pose to paint with his back.

At least the paint disguised the outlines of his muscles.

And some other parts.

“We’ll need yellow and a bit of orange in the middle.” As Simon studied the painting, he stroked his chin, transferring some paint. “Let’s start with the one on the left and do the moon last.”

“Should we make a circle with the paint and walk out of it to expand it?”

“We could, but surely we can be more innovative.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I have an idea.” He led her to the spot of the first star and pooled a generous amount of paint between them, then sat straight onto it, a slurping pop covering up Callie’s gasp.

He wiggled, and Callie had to look away, bursting out in a laugh. He was like a kid playing in a mud puddle.

“No, no, you don’t get to run.” He reached for her hand and gently pulled her down. “We’ve a star to make, remember?”

“How are we possibly painting like this?”

A corner of his lips rose, together with one eyebrow. “We swirl around the center—me—and paint with our feet.”

“There’s no way for the physics to work out unless I sit—” On his lap.

He raised his eyebrow a fraction of an inch more.

Damn Simon and his challenges.

She lifted into a squat and slowly wiggled into position, acutely aware of every brush against his thigh and the warmth of the unyielding muscles, hiding underneath the much-too-thin jumpsuit.

“Got some paint on your feet? Good. Now extend your legs past me.”

She dabbed her heels in the sunny yellow paint, then did as he said—but to keep her balance, she had to put her hands on him . She tentatively touched his shoulders, trying to think of anything but the fact she was sitting in his lap and they were touching everywhere—well, everywhere it mattered—and that it should feel like a horrible breach of privacy, but instead, currents of desire ran through her being and gathered in her belly, and she only wanted to stay in his embrace—

“Phoenix?” Simon was looking at her, head slightly tilted.

What the hell was that thought? “Yup. Yeah. We can do it—I mean, you can start—”

He chuckled. “Got it. Hold on. Here we go!” He reached back with his hands and pushed off the ground; once, twice, three times, as they started spinning in a circle and gaining momentum. Callie carefully lowered her feet to scrape along the floor, then lifted them back up. She kept repeating that in a sporadic rhythm while extending and contracting her legs, leaving behind interrupted circles of yellow paint.

“Oh, yeah. Look at that star forming.” Simon’s voice carried laughter, and Callie leaned her head back, laughing in delight. How was this so much fun?

“We need to make a swirl to the next one,” he said. “Quick, while we have momentum!” He reached back for the bucket of yellow paint and sprayed it in an arc. “Go, go! Roll!”

Still laughing, Callie crawled out of their intertwined position only to hook her foot on his calf. She wasn’t sure if she’d brought Simon with her because of momentum or if he tried to intercept her roll, but suddenly, he was holding her, and they were rolling together, stopping a few feet away with a wide yellow trail behind them and Simon on top of Callie. He caught himself onto his hands, so he didn’t crush her, their faces ending but inches apart.

Callie’s breath caught in her throat, and her lips went dry. She felt a sudden need to lick them—no, worse. She wondered how it’d feel if he did it. He was so close, his mouth caught in that perpetual beginning of a smile, one she usually thought mocking. Now she could only think about those lips descending to meet hers, and how they’d taste, and how he’d feel if he enveloped her whole …

Simon frowned, rolled off her, and quickly got to his feet. He offered her a hand to help her up.

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, she could live 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. It had been 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.”

“Yeah.” He chuckled.

She clutched her umbrella, looked down the street to her bus stop, then back at him. “You can come to my apartment to dry off and call Stan to come pick you up.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“You’re soaking wet, and it will take you at least one hour to get home if you’re lucky. You’ll catch a cold.”

“Are you worried about me?”

“You catch a cold, you come to my work, you infect the rest of us. No, thank you.”

“Very well.” He pulled his jacket above his head and walked down to her. “Lead the way, Phoenix.”