Page 22 of Calculated Risk
"I don't want accommodations. I want to finish.”
"Then we finish." He pulls out his revised schedule. "We have four days. Six pieces.”
"You really think we can do it?"
"We've done everything else. Why stop now?"
So we don't stop. We work around the clock, Marcus managing logistics while I create. He orders food. Organizes supplies. Keeps me caffeinated and focused.
By Thursday evening, we're down to two pieces. An installation and one final painting.
"I can't see anymore," I admit around midnight. "Everything's blurring together."
In this quiet moment, with dawn breaking through the windows or darkness wrapped around us like a blanket, the world narrows to just this. Just us. Everything else—all the complications, all the questions—fades to background noise.
"We should stop for the night."
"We can't stop. The show opens Saturday?—"
"And you'll be useless if you're exhausted. Come on." He pulls me away from the canvas. "Bed. Now."
"Your bed or mine?"
"Mine. It's closer and you're staying with me tonight."
"Bossy," she jokes.
"Practical, also concerned about you falling asleep standing up."
We walk to his dorm. His roommate is gone for the weekend, conveniently so we have privacy.
"Shower first," Marcus insists. "You have paint in your hair."
"You're covered in charcoal dust."
"Good reason to shower together."
I laugh, exhausted and giddy and so in love with this man it hurts.
The shower is sweet and innocent and very much not innocent when Marcus pins me against the tile and kisses me like he's been dying to do it for hours.
"We should—" I start.
"Stop thinking." His hands move over my body. "Just feel. Isn't that what you keep telling me?"
"Yes. But we're tired."
"I'm not that tired." He drops to his knees. "Tell me to stop and I'll stop."
I don't tell him to stop.
Later, wrapped in his sheets with him solid beside me, I feel something click into place. Like all the chaos of the past two weeks was leading here. To this moment. This person.
"I'm scared," I admit in the darkness.
"Of what?"
"That is too good. That I'll mess it up. That you'll realize I'm too much work and leave like everyone else."
