So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (17 page)

He rolled his eyes. “It’s always business
with you, ain’t it, Goldilocks? Lighten up a little—it’s not good
for the soul to be so serious.”

I could feel my jaw tighten. “You’re
certainly one to talk, Mr. Dark and Broody,” I snapped.

For some reason, my bad mood seemed only to
amplify his good mood. He whistled a tune as he sprayed over his
recent tag until it was indecipherable. “Shows how much you know,
Goldilocks. I’m a lot more multifaceted than you’ve given me credit
for.”

I could feel my fists tightening into a ball.
Was
he
really going to lecture
me
on the importance
of giving people the benefit of the doubt? Before I could say
anything I might regret later, he had gathered his cans of spray
paint.

“I need to get going now, but I’m sure we’ll
see each other soon. I’m here most days . . . as I’m sure you
already know, since you’ve been stalking me.” He winked.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re incorrigible, you
know that?” Still, I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m glad you’re on
board, though.”

He looked me over for several long moments.
“Yeah, me too, Goldilocks. Me too.”

I
was beginning to get anxious about my decision to work with Chase.
As psyched as I was that he was on board, he was known to be a
volatile guy—not just by me. And, from all my run-ins with him, I
knew that his unpredictability would be a major issue if I didn’t
set some ground rules with him right off the bat: delivery
deadlines and professional expectations, to name just a couple.

I’d been worried about what Kendra would say
when I told her that Chase had conceded to do the piece for the
show, but if she thought it was a bad idea, she definitely didn’t
show it. “Way to go, Annie!” she’d praised me in the midst of
painting her toenails bright yellow.

“So you think it’s a good idea? Because I’m
not too sure myself.”

She shrugged. “Chase is the hottest artist in
New York City, and I’m definitely not just referring to his
devastating good looks. What you did was smart—and more than that,
it was strategic.” She grinned at me. “You’re one sneaky little
bitch, you know that? This will totally make Elsie flip her
shit.”

I rolled my eyes. “Because that’s exactly
what I need: for Elsie Donegan to hate me more than she already
does.”

“Oh, I was just teasing you. If anything,
it’ll be good for both of you. She needs a little humility. And you
could use a little spray paint to tarnish your classical
reputation. I’m sure Professor Claremont will approve.”

I was glad my friend had faith in me, but I
still felt an inexplicable dread. Chase had been quick to say yes
to doing the project, but why? Especially if he felt so ambivalent
about Quentin Pierce? There was something in this whole scenario
that I was clearly not seeing, and I wanted to know what it was.
But, of course, there was no time for that now.

Luckily, my meeting with the committee had
been rescheduled for Friday, since Claudia’s family was in town, so
I decided to pay a visit to the permission wall in the Meatpacking
District and lay everything out for Chase once and for all.
Besides, I was afraid that if I waited too long, he would take it
all back. He didn’t strike me as dishonest, but he did seem more
than a little flighty and unreliable. I at least wanted some dry
ink on our contract. Without it, I was never going to relax.

As I headed down to the wall, I felt every
muscle inside me bracing itself in anticipation. “Want me to come
with and beat him up if he gets all art snob on you?” Kendra had
asked. I had politely declined my friend’s offer. I knew that what
I most needed to do was gain Chase’s trust. He wasn’t going to do
anything for me out of obligation, after all—that much I knew. If
he were to deliver on his promise, he’d do so out of respect . . .
if not for Quentin, then for me.

Chase appeared to be in a good mood when I
saw him. He even came in for a hug, which I received rather
awkwardly. It took me several moments to recover from the sensation
of his body pressed against mine, but when I did, I gasped at the
sight of a freshly painted brick wall behind him. The stunning
mural he’d been working on was gone.

“Did someone tag it up?” I asked
apprehensively.

Chase laughed. “No way! I just painted over
it.”

I was aghast. “Why would you do something
like that?”

“Meh—I wasn’t that happy with it to begin
with.”

I frowned. “But it was . . . perfect.”

“Maybe so, but all graffiti is a temporary
art form. You can’t hold on to a mural, Goldilocks. There are only
some things that are forever.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Like a painting in a
gallery?”

He laughed. “More like . . . scars. Or
love.”

I could feel my heart get all fluttery when
he said “love.” I wasn’t sure if he was being facetious or not, and
I decided it was probably best not to investigate.

“Um, I need your permanent address for our
records, and so we know where to send the stipend,” I said, fishing
out the paperwork Claudia had given us.

“Yeah, later,” he said, as if I’d burdened
him with the most mundane of details. “First, I want to get to know
you a little. I want to know what kind of art you go batshit insane
over.”

I regarded him carefully. He seemed sincere,
but I wanted to know where this was leading. “Why? What does that
have to do with anything?”

He held up his hands in a gesture of
innocence. “Take it easy, Goldilocks. If we’re working together,
we’re gonna have to be friends, right? I mean, we could make this
all impersonal and shit, but that’s not really the way I like to
work. And in order for me to be inspired, I have to know exactly
who and what I’m dealing with.”

“Well . . . okay,” I said, waiting for the
other shoe to drop. But he looked genuinely curious. “I guess my
favorite artist is Marc Chagall. All of his work is considered
whimsical and kind of storybook-like, but it’s also filled with
this deep sadness, this deep sense of time and space and myth and
loss. Loss that’s both personal and part of the larger human
condition.”

Much to my surprise, Chase was nodding.
“Okay, this is good, Goldilocks. Chagall’s one of the few modern
artists who doesn’t suck, in my opinion. I don’t know . . . like,
his stuff was more homespun or something.”

I smiled at the description. “Yes, that’s
because he had this way of combining the art forms of the time,
like cubism and symbolism, while remaining true to something
altogether more real and moving: village life, the rhythms of the
simple people he knew and loved. He had this visual language that
conveyed everything from revolution to falling in love. And, Jesus
Christ, he knew what color really was, and he wasn’t afraid to use
it!”

Chase drew in his breath and let it out in
one big exhalation. Then he started to clap. “Preach it,” he said,
sounding genuinely impressed.

“So now you like me? I pass the test?” I
asked, half in jest.

He grinned. “I think I’m the one who had to
jump through a few hoops in order to get your stamp of approval,
Goldilocks.”

I wanted to contradict him, given all the
occasions on which he’d made me feel like an ignorant upstart, but
I decided to stick to the subject.

“Believe it or not, Chagall’s work was a huge
influence on the muralists of today. That’s because his sense of
space was about movement, not static imagery. And since graffiti
draws inspiration from stuff like hip-hop, skateboarding, and forms
of art that aren’t just visual, it does a better job of capturing
the physical essence of a person or idea.”

“Can you just . . . repeat that again?” he
asked, pretending to record me on his iPhone. “Because what you
just said right there is pretty genius, and it’s not something I’d
ever considered.”

“So maybe
I’m
the one who’s here to
change your preconceptions about street art,” I said playfully.

He looked me up and down approvingly. “Maybe
that’s the reason we met, so we could school each other’s
asses.”

I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore the
smoldering sensation in the pit of my belly. “Don’t tell me you’re
the kind of guy who thinks there are reasons for everything.”

“I don’t
think
, I
know
,” he
said. “There’ve been too many times in my life when everything
could have ended through a random and senseless act of violence,
but destiny seems to have strong-armed those opportunities time and
again.”

“Destiny? Do you consider yourself spiritual
or something?”

He made a sound of derision. “Hell to the no!
But I’m not dumb enough to mock the mystery behind things.”

The conversation was starting to get a bit
too heavy for me. I didn’t want to be swept into a philosophical
debate with Chase, even though I was certainly tempted. “Okay,
Chase, the reason I’m here is that I wanted to give you this
paperwork and I wanted to talk a little about your plans for the
piece you’re doing. Were you thinking of a mural? An installation
of some sort? We’re putting it into the new sculpture garden in the
Barney Building, but it’s totally open as to what you want to do .
. . although there might be some restrictions with budget and
materials—”

“Planning is for amateurs,” Chase
interrupted. “I’m not about to create something that’s prescripted
and preapproved, Goldilocks. What I make isn’t about the
concept—it’s about the experience. It’s not just a cadaver on a
slab or some lump of shit sitting in the middle of a gallery.” He
moved closer to me, as if to underline his point, and I felt my
knees weaken as I breathed in his warm, velvety scent. “What I do
is meant to make people feel alive, but, moreover, it’s meant to
show you that the art itself is alive—just as much as you or
me.”

It was hard to argue with that, but I was
still stuck on Chase’s belief that planning was for amateurs. I was
about to give him a piece of my mind, when, at that moment, a boy
on a skateboard sidled up to us.

“Yo, Chase!”

When I looked at the boy, I almost did a
double take. He must have been about sixteen years old. He was tall
and gangly, wearing a baggy T-shirt and jeans that hugged his
skinny legs. He was wearing a baseball cap backward and slouched
over his somewhat shaggy hair, but his eyes were bright and
distinct. They were the same bottle green as Chase’s.

Chase’s voice was oddly stern. “What the
fuck, Kyle? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

The boy grinned affably. “Yeah, but if I have
to hear about telomeres and chromosome deterioration one more time,
I swear I’ll shoot myself.”

“Hey, don’t joke about that,” Chase said
gruffly, pulling off the boy’s baseball cap and giving him a
playful noogie (which I thought was a little strange-looking,
considering that the boy towered over Chase by at least three or
four inches).

“Whatevs, man. I’ll go back tomorrow, but
today’s a prime day for the skate park,” said the boy, as he made
an intricate maneuver on his worn-out-looking board (which, I
noted, was covered in graffiti scrawls). “I need to practice my
heel flips and aileron rolls if I wanna impress the chicks.”

“Oh yeah?” Chase asked, amused. “What does
Marcie think of that?”

The boy just winked. “She knows how to hang
with a playa,” he quipped. At that point, he noticed me standing
there, but perhaps it was just because I was shifting
uncomfortably, annoyed with the fact that they’d both been ignoring
me.

“Oh, hey,” he said cheerfully.

“Hey,” I replied, smiling despite myself.

“Annie, meet Kyle. Kyle, meet Annie,” Chase
said. “Kyle is my younger brother. And apparently, he skipped a
grade a couple years ago only to become bait for narcs and truant
officers.” He shook his head, although I could tell that he was
brimming with pride. “Just as youth is wasted on the young, genius
is wasted on the footloose and fancy-free.”

“If being a genius means being caged up all
day and made to perform like you’re part of a three-ring circus, no
fucking thanks,” Kyle joked, grinning broadly at me. “Hey . . .
Annie . . . your name sounds familiar.” He doffed his baseball cap
and looked at me a little more closely. “Oh shit, you’re the girl
Chase has been talking about.”

“You’re treading on dangerous ground, Kyle,”
Chase snarled.

“He told me he thought you were cute and you
reminded him of Lila Maynard.”

“Who’s Lila Maynard?” I said.

“The first girl he had a crush on,” Kyle
said, ignoring his brother.

I blushed. “Um, thanks, I guess?”

Kyle studied me, as if searching for a
resemblance. “I guess I can see it a
little
bit, but I think
he’s mostly using his artistic license in the comparison.”

If Chase felt self-conscious about his
brother’s disclosure, I couldn’t tell, since he seemed to be
avoiding eye contact by placing most of his attention on the mural
wall.

“So, I need some money, bro,” Kyle said,
turning back to his brother.

“Kids . . . no respect these days,” Chase
said drily, as he shoved a few bills into Kyle’s outstretched hand.
“Are you coming by tonight?”

Kyle shook his head. “Nope. I’m heading to
Marcie’s for dinner. Her parents said you can come, too, if you
want. It’s spaghetti-and-meatballs night.”

“Yeah, sure, maybe I’ll stop by. It’s been a
while since I’ve seen Josh and Amy,” Chase said.

Kyle turned to me and bowed in mock elegance.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said.

I curtsied in response. “The pleasure’s all
mine.”

At that, Kyle winked at his brother and
jetted off down the street.

“He’s funny,” I remarked, noticing the
softness that had suddenly come over Chase’s face. “He seems like a
really good kid.”