Delia

Now

“So, do you care to explain why am I here?” Oswald asked, his fingers roaming through my brushes like they were caressing them.

I smirked. I had asked Oswald to come to the venue and help us set everything up for the show tomorrow, but I had an idea that I wanted to run by him.

“I don’t have time to apply paint on all of the statues tomorrow, we have too many volunteers, and a few of them will come by in a few minutes so that I show them what to do. The volunteers will be here soon and we need to have all the supplies prepped and handy.”

He nodded.

“I thought maybe you can help us with this task?” I asked tentatively. “And maybe even pose? I still have one square open . . .”

He narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see about the latter. But I can help you with the heavy work.”

“Cool! We’ll teach everyone how to apply the paint to make the human statues look as similar to one another as possible,” I explained, gently removing his hands from my boxes. “This is too advanced for you, mister,” I joked.

“Aren’t you going to let the volunteers touch the brushes,” he asked with a shit-eating grin.

I pulled a face, narrowing my eyes at him, and explained.

“Tomorrow.” But I dreaded it. Touching an artist’s brushes was like a stranger picking up a musician’s guitar and messing with it. It just wasn’t one of those things you did.

He grinned.

“Have this Anton person and my brother ever been in the same room?” he asked, and then I got it.

“No. But I don’t think it would be such a big deal—”

“My brother doesn’t share,” Oswald said, and I blinked a few times before what he was saying clicked.

“Well, it’s a good thing Anton is my teacher and I’m not asking Oscar to share me with anyone.”

The look he gave me—a mix of shock and embarrassment—was kind of cute, and I grinned at him as someone started to bang on the studio's door. “Maybe we should talk about this?” I asked, but saw his head moving in refusal.

I sighed and he winked at me. His wink was entirely different than Oscar’s. He blinked both of his eyes really fast, and they crinkled at the corners like we were both in on the same joke. It was cute. But I couldn’t understand how people didn’t notice all these blatant things. I unlocked the door to the studio. Our four extras were there, complete with Dalton, who had made the coffee run himself.

“Okay, peeps, make yourselves comfortable fast. We have a lot to go over and not a lot of time to do it in.”

When everyone was gathered at the center of the unit and mostly attentive, I started.

“I will teach you how to apply the paint, how to check if it’s dry, how to powder it to complete the effect. I will also pick a few people to help me with the mixes because there are a lot of volunteers and we need to be ready on time. For tonight, I made an ivory mix, but tomorrow, we will be using gold and gray. Okay, I need a volunteer to take off their clothes so I can talk and do at the same time.”

I saw looks being exchanged but no hands raised.

“Are you kidding me?” I snorted. “As a group, us artists are famously lewd, people. Most of you are volunteers for statues for tomorrow too,” I said. The day had been taxing and my fuse felt really short.

“I’ll be your Katniss Everdeen,” Oswald said loudly, and I turned to see him already pulling at his shirt to take it off.

I clasped my palms together and held them near my chin.

“Thank you. Oh, and we’ll do just the bust tonight.”

I ignored the snickering and giggling all around and started explaining while mixing the liquids.

“This is liquid powder, and this is a mixing liquid. It’s alcohol based, so we only mix small batches at a time. Otherwise, it would evaporate before we finished and we waste a lot.” I took a second to finish pouring the mixture and then continued. “You’re going to want to have a three to one liquid to powder ratio and once you added the liquid you will need to mix very fast and thoroughly so that there are no lumps in it,” I explained and raised my eyes to see if I had their attention. Everyone had leaned in.

“It looks like pancake batter, only thinner,” a girl in the back said.

“That would be crepe batter,” Oswald chimed in from next to me.

“Hey, no talking from the statues.” This earned a round of snickering from the people watching.

I turned toward the volunteers, making sure they were all paying attention, and then grabbed a two-inch brush.

Oswald’s body was still, the only movement that of his breathing. For a second, my breath caught. If it weren’t for the sleeve of tattoos running down his arm, most people wouldn’t have been able to tell him and Oscar apart.

I wasn’t most people. Not anymore, anyway.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t nice to look at, though.

“Can you slouch for me?” I asked softly, and he complied. “Everyone will have a specific position they will assume during the expo. You can sit or crouch or just stand still, but if you take a position that creates creases like this,” I said and moved my finger over Oswald’s back and abs, showing them where the skin had created ridges from the unnatural position, “the paint will have patches that we don’t want. Stand straight again, please.”

Oswald did as asked, and I applied the liquid over his chest.

“We’re going to pair up and do this at least on your arms so you can see how fast this blends and dries. I suggest you start covering the largest areas first and do the finishing touches after.”

My eyes lingered on Oswald’s shoulders. On his left side, right above the clavicle, there was a two-inch pink line, swollen and clearly out of place. I brushed the paint on top of it in a swift, light motion, and he flinched.

“You’re good as a teacher,” he murmured just loud enough for me to hear.

“Thanks. I just want things to go smoothly,” I whispered back to him. “Raise your arm.” After he did, I painted the liquid over his tattoos so that everyone could see that they were fully covered.

While I was busy slathering paint, I took note of his tattoo more closely. It was a beehive that looked more like armor than an insect sanctuary. The hexagons were precise and created a perfect mesh. The artist had been really good. The deep black inks, on a gray background created a stunning contrast against his skin tone.

I fixed a crick in my neck I didn’t even know I had and moved on.

“Now, we want to polish this off with powder. It’s cosmetic too, people, and expensive, so try not to spill. Use this kind of puffs and you should be fine.”

“What do we do about the hair?” asked Dalton.

“It should be up to the statues,” I said. “If you want to, it won’t stain and will wash out.”

“Does this adhere to clothes too?” a leggy brunette asked and Oswald chuckled.

“Nudity is optional, like we discussed. This can be put onto your lingerie and you won’t need powder to finish it off.”

“What about if I want to make someone look like they are made of bronze?” Dalton asked.

“Aren’t you already?” I teased, which had him flashing me his Cheshire smile.

“That metal look can only be obtained either with glitter or oils, and it’s extremely messy. I will only do that for exceptions,” I said.

We all started to work tirelessly and the coffees soon ran out. Oswald was really good at portioning and preparing the mixes. I guess the similarity with pastry batter helped. I was back to back with him and working on a guy’s extended arm. I was testing baby oil and snickered because, for such a big guy, he was extremely ticklish, when Corbin and Oscar walked in. Corbin carried his guitar and what looked like Ajax’s bass, and Oscar lingered behind him, trying to juggle some paper bags and the lock.

“Are you seriously leaving this door unlocked? Here? Do you want me to whoop your ass?” Corbin asked in a low tone I knew better than mess around with. Still, I did.

“But look, I’m surrounded by all these big men!” I said smiling, but he shook his head, completely unamused. He turned, took one look at who was standing next to me, and froze.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He stalked toward Oswald and me, and soon, they were squaring off against each other. They held their objects like weapons—Oscar with his brown bags, and Oswald with a can of paint and a brush. Had I not been able to feel their tension in my throat, I would have laughed at their stance.

Dalton broke the silence for me.

“Holy hotness! Double the fun, double the pleasure?” He elbowed me and got bronze paint on my arm. The twins turned their frowns toward him and all I could do was stare at their gorgeous faces. It was the first time their energy was jointly aimed at something other than their rivalry, and it was a beautiful thing to see.

“Watch what you’re saying to my little sister,” Corbin said, cutting off any comment either of the might have made.

“Okay, that’s a wrap people,” I said, my voice coming out all squeaky. “Whatever paint you have on you should be resistant to touch by now. Use baby oil on yourselves before body wash and you should be as good as new.” They all started moving at once, but I stopped them from cleaning the mess we’d made. “No, leave those, I will clean up,” I indicated to some brushes a girl was trying to arrange on a low table. “Corbin will help me, right, Corb?”

I raised my eyebrows at my brother who was not so subtly checking out some chick’s butt.

“Er, right . . .” He answered in a tone I’d heard thousands of times before, mainly after Mom asked us to clean our rooms.

Dalton turned to me with his mischievous smile, making a phone sign with his left hand’s fingers and mouthing “Call me” as he gathered his things and nudged people out the door.

The twins just stood there, face to face.

“I think you need to put something on,” Oscar instructed Oswald, and not in a friendly tone.

“Don’t worry, Os,” Oswald said, accentuating the ‘z’ in Os. “I was just leaving,” he threw over his shoulder as he was exiting the studio. He went out into the street just like that, covered in color and semi-naked. I glared at Oscar.

“Promise you won’t be as hostile tomorrow, please?”

His shrug looked like he rejected anything, but the wet of his eyes told a different story. He turned and started cleaning the place.

“Are you sure you want to handle these two, Twinkle?” Corbin whispered, just for my ears. I nodded and smiled.

“We’ll be fine, we gotta be,” I whispered back.

An hour later, Corbin and Enzo had left and I was alone with Oscar, I tried to ignore the hostility rolling off him as I added tiny amounts of body paint of different colors into small containers. Tomorrow, when the lights went out, the volunteers would apply the paint themselves, splashing the color onto the body parts they chose to expose. I had just dipped my finger into one of the samples and squeezed one bag to test it, holding my fingers at eye level and watching the yellow goo spread down my fingers when Oscar finally broke the silence. He came from behind me and pulled me against his chest, squeezing me so tight it was almost as if he needed me to enter his ribcage and fix his heart.

If only I could.

“Have you ever felt so stupid that you didn’t see any way out of the hole you dug yourself into?” he whispered.

“No, I haven’t, but it doesn’t seem like a good place to be.”

“It isn’t.”

I shook my head. “Not all is lost, you know.”

“No? We have a lifetime of being mean to each other,” Oscar whispered.

“More you than him . . .” I added in all truthfulness.

“Whose side are you on?”

I stopped what I was doing and turned.

“Honestly? There isn’t a side. There is only right and wrong. Past and future. You and Oswald may have had a shitty past, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay on the same road. You have a lifetime ahead of you, and there’s no reason why you can’t make amends and move forward.”

“I guess,” he said. “I just don’t know how.”

“You just . . . do. You make a choice and you stick by it. If you want him to be part of your life, let him.”

He didn’t look like he believed me, but I knew I was right. That the reconciliation between him and his brother was the only way forward.

“How do I even begin making amends, Chameleon?”

“One day at a time?” I smiled at him and he scoffed lightly.

“I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m a good person, Dellie.”

“Are you a bad one?”

“Not . . . entirely?”

I touched his handsome face in what I hoped was a reassuring gesture.

“No, I don’t believe so either. I think you’ve kept your blinders on for too long, and you started seeing some stuff a little too late, but I like you being able to admit your faults. It makes you whole, you know? Oscar, I think I like you more, actually.”

We were close, and I could catch a whiff of his clean scent. His eyes looked darker. Perhaps it was the light. Perhaps it was the hurt, or perhaps a combination of the two. They were molten, and when he noticed my lips parting and my face inching closer to his, they got lazy. I had the full smirk back. He extended his long fingers, and I watched them fascinated, as he slipped them through my belt loops and tugged me closer. I went flush against his solid body, my mouth joined by his. He kissed me softly, then harder, then deeper, making me purr with pleasure.

“I missed you,” I said as his kisses trailed over my jaw.

“I’m right here,” he whispered.

“Show me.”

And he did.

His kisses landed on my neck just beneath the ear, tasting me and breathing in the smell of my skin. I could feel his breathing was as hitched as my heart beat.

He took hold of one of the paint containers and lifted it between us, studying it.

“Here’s a thought. Why don’t you volunteer to be my statue?”

I huffed out a laugh, but who could resist that wink?

“What kind of statue will I be?”

“The kind that lets me show her all the places that I want to kiss. Take your top off.”

His voice was three tones lower, and I couldn’t help but comply. Under his hungry eyes, I took my top off and let him finger paint me with the shape of his love. It was much later, after we’d spoilt most of the baggies, spreading the colors on our ourselves and on the white tarp, that he actually helped me clean everything up, and it was after he’d taken a look at the mess we’d made on the floor, a chaos of colors, and limbs, and almost pornographic shapes mixed together that he’d declared he would keep that and frame it into our house. Only then did he help me finish putting together the supplies for the show.