So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (22 page)

Claudia continued to chide me. “As you can
see, we’re still waiting on you to tell us exactly what Chase Adams
has in mind. I would get in touch with him myself, but does he even
have an email address?”

“I understand, Claudia, but Chase doesn’t
really . . . plan ahead,” I said, palms upward in a gesture of
helplessness.

Claudia frowned and started typing furiously
on her keypad. “Well, that’s not going to wash down well with
Quentin. Also, I don’t buy that crazy-making ideology that says
that in order for a work to be inspired, the artist has to fly by
the seat of his pants. There’s a considerable stipend involved
here, and we want to ensure that Chase understands the
responsibility he is being tasked with.”

“Yes, I know. And trust me, he does. I can’t
think of anyone who loves this city more than Chase Adams, and I
know we can count on him!” I insisted, but my tone felt like I was
almost imploring Claudia. I didn’t really know what else to say,
though. It was true that Chase loved New York, but part of me was
in disbelief that he’d even said yes to the whole thing.

Claudia snapped her laptop shut and pursed
her lips, like she was trying to control her anger. “Let’s get this
straight, Annie—there are still a ton of college kids who would
love to be in your position. I need to know you are taking this job
very seriously, and so does Quentin. We cannot afford to have any
flubs or mistakes. We are at a very critical juncture in our
process, and everything needs to be moving like iPads down a
conveyor belt from this point forward. Do you get me?”

I nodded emphatically. “Yes, Claudia, I do.
And while Chase may have an unconventional method of working, I can
assure you that he’s a professional.”

“Well, I guess we’ll see about that,” she
said tartly.

The meeting was adjourned, at which
point—predictably enough—Elsie came out with the snark and
claws.

“It’s officially clear to all of us now that
you’re in way over your head,” she said, one hand on her model hip,
which was hugged by a long skirt.

“Excuse me?”

“Everyone knows Chase Adams is the worst kind
of flake. I mean, we all know why he said he’d do it in the first
place,” Elsie gloated.

“What are you talking about?”

She exhaled dramatically. “Jesus, does
anything get through that gaping shithole you call a brain? Chase
Adams is just about the skeeviest guy in New York City, the kind
who’s only in
anything
to get something in return. And from
where I’m standing, it’s plain to see you’re pretty much serving
your ass up to him on a giant platter.”

I practically guffawed at the idea that Chase
had decided to do the show just so he could get in my pants. I
wasn’t naive about the way most guys worked, but Chase could have
just about any woman he wanted without going to great pains to do
so. I knew he had his own motives, but it wasn’t entirely clear
what they were. Yet.

“Seriously, Blondie, quit thinking with your
twat and get a clue,” Elsie said uncouthly. “A lot is riding on
this, and I don’t want you to make me look bad.”

“Excuse me for forgetting this was all about
you,” I said, rolling my eyes and pushing past her. But even when
Elsie was way out of range, her words continued to clang and echo
in my head. The idea that Chase was doing all of this for me—to
have
me—was strangely arousing.

I shook my head, refusing to fall prey to
Chase’s animal magnetism. Because it didn’t change the fact that I
was, appallingly, miles wide of my target: a project that I could
truly depend on, from an artist who was 100 percent reliable.

I groaned. I’d mistakenly believed that
getting Chase to agree to do the show had magically solved all my
problems, when it was abundantly clear that perhaps this just
wasn’t the case. What had I gotten myself into?

I was
definitely not looking forward to skulking back to Chase,
especially after the awkwardness of my little subway exit the last
time we’d been around each other. I was guessing he wouldn’t take
too well to being cajoled into making my deadline, but then again,
Chase was an unpredictable guy, so who knew how he’d react?

After hours of my sending him texts (which
quickly went from the casual and polite “How’s it going” type to
“Call or text me now—it’s important” ones), Chase finally responded
with a tacit “Meet me at Hunts Point, Drake Street, south of
Spofford @ 8 pm.”

I frowned. I didn’t recognize the
intersection he’d mentioned. “Is that Manhattan?” I texted
back.

After a few seconds, he replied: “The Bronx,
baby.”

I closed my eyes. I really had very little
interest in heading back to the Bronx after dark, so I was annoyed
by Chase’s insistence on post-sundown meetings. “Can we do
earlier?” I shot back.

Several minutes passed, and there was no
response.
Uh-oh, he thinks I’m a giant square, and now he won’t
do anything for me
, I worried to myself. But just at that
moment, he sent me a text: “Nope, gotta bomb cuz it’s a full moon
tonite, Gldlks.”

I frowned. Chase seemed to be paying more
attention to his bombing getup than to his paid obligations, which
made me think a lecture might be in order tonight. But I wanted to
stay on his good side enough to ensure he wouldn’t get upset at me
and renege altogether on his agreement to do the piece for the
exhibit.

And, if I were honest with myself, I wanted
to stay on his good side enough to ensure I’d see him some more. I
hated to admit it to myself, but being around Chase—as infuriating
as he could be—made me feel invigorated and alive. I was beginning
to pay more attention to my surroundings, to the ever-changing
canvas that was the city itself. I was starting to see high-quality
murals and spurts of color that appeared to me almost as if they
were mysterious languages conveyed in coded text. I didn’t know if
the art was genuinely getting better or if the way I was seeing
things was transforming. When I’d mentioned this excitedly to Chase
via text a week ago, he’d responded, “The world is full of magic
things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” I sighed
deeply and wrote back, “You’re a poet too?”

“No, but W. B. Yeats is.”

Chase’s reading Wordsworth and Yeats seemed
too good to be true, but his intellectual prowess had clearly not
been compromised, even if college wasn’t in his foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, that served only to make him more attractive to
me.

Get over it, Annie
, I told myself as I
boarded the 5 train, which would take over an hour to get to the
Bronx.
You’re Harrison’s girlfriend now, and you’re just doing
business with Chase.
But as much as I tried, I couldn’t stop
the butterflies in my stomach from fluttering in anticipation at
the mere thought of seeing Chase.

As I walked up to street level, I noticed the
dilapidated state of things around me. Pockets of apartment
buildings and multiunit row houses flanked large, ugly, industrial
edifices. There weren’t too many people around except for the
occasional staggering wino. I noticed some women, most of them
wearing miniskirts, dangerously high heels, and clownish makeup.
They were slumped up against walls, eyeing traffic. Some of them
were even stopping cars. One woman, with feathered bangs and an
alarmingly young face, laughed loudly and opened a passenger door,
slamming it behind her as the car screeched off down a dark
alley.

I shuddered, clutching my backpack more
tightly and zipping up my jacket. Chase hadn’t mentioned this was a
red-light district.

“Hey, girl, can I get a minute of your time?”
A middle-aged man with a bedraggled beard and sores on his face
stumbled toward me.

I began to walk faster toward Drake and
Spofford. “Sorry, I don’t have any money,” I said tightly.

“I don’t want your money, bitch!” he spat
after me. My heart was racing, but the man didn’t pursue me any
further.

“I’m gonna kill you, Chase,” I muttered under
my breath. Thankfully, he was exactly where he’d said he would be,
at the intersection of Drake and Spofford, right next to a metal
pull-down gate attached to an ugly factory building. I breathed a
sigh of relief, which was complemented by that old, familiar
weak-kneed feeling I got every time I saw him. Chase was grinning.
His hands were shoved into the pockets of his dark jeans, and a
thin gray T-shirt clung to his chest. He had a cigarette hanging
from his lower lip and his eyes glinted like emeralds in the
darkness.

“Hi,” I said, shifting my weight from one leg
to the other.

He opened his arms in a gesture that I took
to mean,
Ain’t it grand?

“Welcome to my life, Goldilocks,” he said.
“Bombing after dark. You’re lucky to see it, you know. Those of us
who deal in the dark arts try to be like stealth invaders. Whenever
a LunaBomber original goes up, you can trust that nobody but my
closest associates have ever been there to see it.” He winked at
me.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good
time,” I joked nervously, looking around to ensure there were no
vagrants or drug dealers hanging out in close proximity. “You
don’t, like, have a home or a studio? You’ve never told me where
you live.”

He licked his lips and examined me. “Why? You
wanna have a sleepover or something?”

“No,” I snapped, suddenly embarrassed. Chase
always had a way of making me feel self-conscious, even when he was
trying to be friendly, and I didn’t appreciate it. “I just don’t
understand why we have to be out this late in . . . this kind of
environment.”

“Well, Goldilocks, like I said, it’s a full
moon tonight, so I’m taking advantage of it by putting down some
fresh paint. ’Cause of the way I work, I don’t get to have my stuff
out there the way the rest of my crew does, so time is of the
essence.” He nodded at a small bag next to him, which I assumed was
full of paint.

I hesitated before I spoke, trying to figure
out what the most diplomatic words might be. “That’s really great,
Chase, but the reason I’m here is that I wanted to talk about the
Quentin Pierce project. My other teammates are already ahead of the
game with their artists, and I want to make sure you and I are . .
. on the right track.”

Predictably, my words made Chase smirk. “Why
do you care so much, Goldilocks? You want a good grade or
something? I told you not to sweat it. Just because I don’t work
according to some arbitrary timeline doesn’t mean I don’t have my
shit together.”

“That’s not fair, Chase,” I said, attempting
to keep the shake of defensiveness out of my voice. “I already told
you what you were signing up for, and, as you know, I’m working in
a professional setting under a very specific set of rules and
circumstances. If you can’t cut it here . . .” My voice trailed
off; I could tell from the stern look on his face that I’d crossed
a line.

“You think I can’t do the work?” He took a
can out of his bag and shook it aggressively. “I’ve thrown up
thousands of pieces of my own volition. I don’t make stuff on the
orders of some shitty professor or an artist without any chops or
’cause Instagram made me do it. This, right here?” He kicked the
bag lightly. “It’s my blood, my soul.” He popped the cap off his
spray-paint can, which he held up proudly.

I was starting to get alarmed, as Chase’s
voice had risen. “Chase, what if a cop sees us?”

That seemed to amuse him. “Just chill, okay?
Busting hookers is their beat around here. There’s too much real
stuff going on for the fuzz to get all bent out of shape over petty
shit.”

He started shaking his cans some more, which
frustrated me. Clearly, Chase had invited me only in order to have
an adoring audience, not to talk business. But he definitely had
another thing coming if he believed I was just going to stand here,
oohing and aahing over his illicit activity.

“Look, Chase, I’m not trying to be a bitch,
but you have to show me that you’ve at least made a little progress
on the mural. Seriously, heads are going to roll if I don’t show
the committee something. As it is, it was a risk to—”

“To what? Take a chance on a shady street
artist?” Chase shook his head. “I expected better from you,
Goldilocks, but you’re still too caught up in that high-and-mighty
university world of yours to see there’s an entire wonderland that
goes unacknowledged right under your nose.”

“I’m not saying that isn’t true,” I insisted,
my own voice starting to rise. Arguing with Chase was hopeless, and
I was frustrated that I was beginning to lose my temper, seeing as
it was a losing battle. “All I’m saying is that I need to know you
have something for us, or else . . . or else I’ll need to look for
a different artist.”

I hadn’t meant to issue a threat, but he was
giving me no choice. Chase sucked in his cheeks and glared at me,
but I stood my ground. He wasn’t going to intimidate me this
time.

“Fine, Goldilocks. You wanna see what I have?
Here it is. Right here, right now.”

At that, he furiously whipped out his
spray-paint canisters and lined them up in an efficient row, then
proceeded to go to town on the pull-down gate.

I looked around. I could’ve sworn I’d heard
voices and sirens not too far away, and I was afraid that Chase’s
impulsiveness was going to get us both in trouble. “Chase . . .” I
started. But when I turned back to him, he was completely engrossed
in his work. In a mad blur of paint and movement, he looked like
some crazed genius moving to his own enigmatic dance. I watched, my
mouth agape.

A hieroglyphic collage of faces and letters
began to emerge, in an array of colors so bright they almost glowed
in the darkness beneath the faded light of the street lamp. A city
skyline began to take shape amid the faces. Chase was creating
something I’d never seen before, not even on the most adventurous
and far-out murals. He was making his shapes and figures entirely
out of text. I don’t know how long he went on, because I was too
intrigued by his process to keep track of the time. He finally
ended with his tag—a bubbly “LB” curled around a full moon rendered
in opalescent paint.