Page 84 of The Other Side of Paradise

“No. I mean, you can tell when I’m lying. I’ve been told I’m bad at it.”

“Atrocious.”

“Yeah, yeah… just that, you know.” She hung her head, picking at the window ledge. “I don’t want to… get too attached.”

I stopped, looking over at her. “To me?” I said softly, and I slipped a hand to her back. Her breath caught, and mine too—the lines of her body that I’d been studying so closely, real and physical under my fingertips. She was so soft…

“W-well. Yeah. I mean, you know how I feel, and I… I’d get carried away if we did something like…”

I caressed my hand up her back and down again, and she let out a small, soft sigh of satisfaction. “Something like what?” I said. “Me coming over to your house to take my clothes off and paint pictures of each other’s bodies while I told you about my deepest insecurities and vulnerabilities?”

“I mean. That would do it.”

“Well, here we are. Do you feel attached?”

She made a noise in her throat. “Well… yeah.”

“Me too.” I didn’t think, just moved—stepped up behind her and let my hands fall on her hips, feeling how soft her skinwas, and she tensed up under me as I spoke. “I haven’t stopped wanting to spend time with you since you showed up with flowers when my dad and I had a fight.”

“Oh. Yeah. That. I mean, they weren’t too expensive.”

I paused, resting my chin on her shoulder. “I thought they were a hotel thing.”

“Oh—god. I mean, yeah. They’re cheap for the hotel to buy in bulk and… um…”

“You bought me flowers,” I teased. I wasn’t reading into why I felt like my chest would burst at the idea. Probably something to do with the fact that I wanted to kiss her.

“Yes, I bought you flowers,” she groaned, resting her head against mine. “I wasn’t thinking about it and I just thought it was something to pick up a bad day and the florist was on the way and…”

“They were just what I needed,” I whispered in her ear. “Thank you.”

“I-I’m very glad you… enjoy them.”

I slipped my hands around to her front, resting just above and just below her navel. “Anything you want to ask for, as a gift, too?”

“U-um.” Her voice was high-pitched… she was definitely thinking something dirty. I doubted she’d say it out loud.

“You can ask for anything at all…” I moved one hand higher, up to the base of her bra, and I teased my thumb along it. She swallowed hard.

“C-can I… can I see your painting?”

I laughed. That was what I figured. “Sure thing,” I said, standing back, and she seemed like she could breathe again once I stepped away. I wonder what she’d been thinking about. Probably something fun.

I felt more human again, more whole, as we got back to the painting—everything off my chest, I poured myself into thepainting, and Allison took my breath away with showing me hers, and we sketched again, painted again, another round of them. We made small talk and laughed over Allison’s stories, in between her coming over to my side and guiding me in painting principles, telling me how to do a specific technique like this or that, and we broke eventually for some lunch—Allison got her way and we had sandwiches on bagels, and I’d insisted that I wasn’t dirtying my dress by putting it on for lunch and that I didn’t want to be the only one in her underwear, so I made sure Allison didn’t put hers back on either. I wasn’t done looking at her yet.

And she wasn’t done looking at me yet, either, judging by the way she looked when I pulled a stool over towards her after we finished our food and she got back to her easel and I sat on it, pushing my chest out and spreading my legs around the stool.

“I’m a little tired of painting,” I explained. “And I don’t want you to have to paint the same pose every time.”

She opened her mouth and closed it again before she nodded. “I-I mean. Okay. If you think you’ll be comfortable in that position.”

“Or we could do a nude portrait.”

She sighed hard, looking away. “Oh my god, Stella.”

“What? You don’t want that?”

“What, do I want to see you naked, of course I want to see you naked, just—just—you know!” she bristled, speaking in a huff, and I laughed, a long and languid feeling building up in my core. I reached behind myself, and I watched Allison’s breath hitch when I unhooked my bra, dropping it onto the floor. “Oh,” she said, her gaze falling to my chest. “Oh, wow.”