Page 25 of Unconditionally Yours

He doesn’t even look around. Just tosses his briefcase in the passenger seat and slides behind the wheel like a man who fully intends to spend his Friday night watching black-and-white noir films alone, probably with subtitles and a lowball glass full of something aged and expensive. I bet his couch is leather. I bet his house smells like cedar and restraint.

I want to ruin it.

I want to show up in fuzzy socks and a slutty little cardigan and feed him overpriced cheeses off a marble tray while he explains the themes of the movie to me, even though I already know them. I want to listen anyway. I want to be good for him in that very specific, let me sit on your lap and validate your trauma kind of way.

But instead I’m sitting in my car, half-delirious with sodium and desire, trying not to fog up the windows with my breath. This is fine. This is healthy. This is step one in becoming the kind of girlfriend who respects boundaries.

Even if I do kinda want to wear his shirts like a nightgown and read his patient notes out loud like bedtime stories.

He doesn’t drive to a house. Not a bachelor pad. Not a sad little apartment. Not even one of those painfully modern condos with too much glass and zero personality.

Nope. Rhys turns into the parking lot of the community art center.

Because of course he fucking does.

I trail a few cars back, discreet as hell, all tinted windows and borderline obsession. I idle at the curb and stare at the glowing signage. The Community Art Center. A place where people, allegedly, choose to spend their Friday nights. Willingly. With no threat of blackmail or jury summons.

I watch him park. Watch him get out. No rush. No nerves. Like this is just what he does.

Art center. Friday night. Alone.

What are we doing, baby? Is this who you are? Is this a secret kink? The kind of man who gets off on brush strokes and tortured metaphors? Are we staring with reverent silence at abstract paintings that might be either flowers or childhood trauma? Is there an underground poetry reading in the basement? Should I have brought a beret?

I roll into the parking lot and find a spot close enough to stalk but far enough to preserve the illusion of sanity. There are a few other cars here, which is somehow more concerning than if he were the only one. Other people are doing this too? Is this… a group thing?

Communal art appreciation?

I check the mirror. Glitter gloss still popping. Mascara intact. I spritz myself with vanilla-spice body spray because I believe in assaulting all five senses when I’m imprinting, and then I get out and stretch out the stakeout stiffness.

The steps are dramatic. Too many. The building’s trying to weed out the emotionally unstable and the physically unfit. Which is ableist, and also rude. By the time I reach the door, mythighs are burning and I’m quietly wheezing through my nose with revenge cardio asthma.

Inside, it smells like paint and moral superiority. There’s a stuffy-looking man at the reception desk, squinting at me, trying to place my exact level of chaos. I give him my best I’m totally meant to be here and definitely not stalking anyone smile.

“I’m here for…” I trail off, let the smile widen. Sweet. Innocent. Dangerous.

“Figure drawing?” he says, deadpan.

Oh.

Oh Rhys.

You secret, buttoned-up, highly-respectable pervert.

You’re here to draw naked people.

This changes everything. This deepens the lore.

I grab one of the fliers off the desk, fold it neatly, and stash it in my backpack because I will be signing up. If they do roll call or check names or some other adult shit, I need plausible deniability. I scribble something vaguely legible on the sign-in sheet.

The desk man looks down, then back up. And smiles politely. “Do you know the way, Miss Darling?”

I freeze for a half-second. Then smile back, too sharp to be soft. “Oh, I will,” I say. “Soon.”

The guy at the desk waves me down a short hallway that smells like linseed oil and socially repressed horniness. I follow the muffled sounds of charcoal scratching paper until I reach a door that’s slightly ajar, light spilling out in warm, dramatic tones that scream “art is happening, bitch.” Be normal.

I push it open and slip in like I belong.

Confidence is camouflage.