That idea could be why Jaycee found herself sitting at the kitchen island thirteen days later with a sketch pad and a tin of pencils that she’d bought just that morning. When she’d read about the exhibition at the local gallery weeks ago, she’d wished that she could go, but had figured she’d be working.
With her and Beck falling into a routine, and him covering basically all the costs, she’d decided to treat herself with a day off… from her massage clients anyway.
Living with Beck turned out to be easy.
He never slept. At least, she never saw him use his bedroom. She guessed he slept in the bed in his studio. Whenever they were working AD at the same time, they travelled in and home together. And if she was ever on shift without him, he drove her in and picked her up.
Jaycee considered his attention to timekeeping something of a marvel and was surprised he was even aware of the time in his studio because with the shutters over the roof, he wouldn’t know if it was day time or night.
They were both due in AD tonight, but that was less like work and more like fun now that she could actually enjoy being on the stage again without worrying about every cent that was being put in her tips jar.
She’d been out early that morning and it was kind of a treat to see there was money in her bank account that she could splurge, so Jaycee made the decision that she was going to the exhibition, screw it.
With her chin on the heel of her hand, she was growing miserable. Yep, if she needed any kind of confirmation that she was awful at drawing, this was it.
She heard Beck coming down the stairs though she was at the end of the island with her back to them and didn’t see him. But she had to concentrate; there was no way she would get this right if she kept letting herself be distracted.
“What are you doing?” he asked, going over to the fridge to pull out a bottle of water.
“Nothing,” she sighed, fed-up with herself already.
Instead of asking more questions, he came to her and looked over the top of her at the paper her pencil was drifting over without making contact. “What’s that?” Yeah, wasn’t that the point? Even the goddamn abstract artist couldn’t make head or tail of what she’d drawn.
When Jaycee bumped her elbow into his hip, he bowed back to protect himself, then straightened and curved an arm over hers from above. Jaycee didn’t fight him when he took the pencil and began to add sweeping lines and small details to the page, bringing the image to life. When she heard the crack of plastic, she looked over her head to see that he was gulping down the contents of the bottle as his other hand worked on her picture.
Even with her full attention she hadn’t managed to commit anything to paper that looked like… anything. Beck wasn’t even looking at what he was doing and the image was leaping off the page.
“Ok, stop,” she said, covering his hand with hers. “You’re depressing me.”
“Why?” he asked, lifting his hand only to shake hers off and carry on drawing. “I love that sound, the scratch of graphite on heavy paper… you talk about sexy upstairs, but this is the real erotic shit.”
Pouncing from her stool, Jaycee turned to pat his torso once. “Give me paint on canvas any day.” Taking the back of his hand in her palms, she cupped them together to bury her face in his hand. “Mm… I love that smell.”
“I washed my hands,” he said.
Yeah, or she’d have paint all over her face right now. “I can still smell it,” she said, picking at the dried paint on his forearm. She probably plucked a few hairs with the lump she pulled off because he recoiled, but she didn’t let him go far. She pressed her nose to his arm, seeking out the oil paint scent.
“Ok, stop it, you’re freaking me out,” he said, though he didn’t really mean it.
Beck stole her seat on the stool and took over with the paper and pencil. Jaycee wasn’t going to argue with him, she needed a break anyway, so she went to the fridge to retrieve her own bottle of water.
“When you’re done, can I use that?”
“For what?” he asked.
Going back to him, she pulled a flyer from under the sketch book. Pushing a hand to his shoulder, she appreciated it when he gave her a boost onto the kitchen counter. Sitting cross-legged on the island where he was working on the sketch, she began to read her flyer.
“I’m going to an exhibition this afternoon and they have a competition running, everyone who enters their own pencil sketch is put into a prize draw.”
“Prize for what?” he asked. “You want me to sign it?”
“No! If your name is on it, how can I enter it as my work?” Lunging forward, she seized the pad from under his pencil to grab it up. The flyer fluttered away, but she was too astounded by what she was looking at to think about catching it. “Beck,” she gasped, clutching the pad closer. “How did…”
“What?” he asked, bending to retrieve the flyer. “It’s rough. Give me ten minutes to finish it and you can take it in for your competition or whatever.”
Only he could think that this was a rough drawing. The portrait was exquisite and the detail made the woman’s smile leap from the page… and it wasn’t just any woman, it was Jaycee’s smile. “I’m not giving this away,” she said, hugging it to her chest. “No one’s ever drawn me before.”
“No one that you know about,” he said, putting the pencil behind his ear before linking his fingers at the back of his head and stretching his back. “Artists draw people without telling them all the time.”
Leaning forward, she teased him. “Have you drawn me before?”
“Nope,” he said, “But I don’t sit down and sketch like I used to…” Taking the pencil from behind his ear, he ran it through his fingers, admiring it. “I should.”
“Do you want to come to the gallery with me?” she asked, picking paint out of his hair at his temple.
“Who is it?”
“Someone who’ll appeal to you,” she said, searching around for her flyer. “There’s this guy, his name’s pronounced Sm-ee-ton, but it’s spelled Smiton. He does the most incredible pencil drawings, they’re so detailed that they pounce off the paper. He created hundreds in the space of a couple of years and everyone was raving about how he’d be the next big thing, then all of a sudden, about five years ago, he vanished, poof, no one knows who he was. All the images were sent to galleries across the world in batches that arrived simultaneously. He’s never even claimed them back… Some people speculate that he wasn’t one guy at all, but a group of artists who’d trained together, thus creating the similar styles. Others say he was just one guy and some terrible fate befell him and that’s why he never drew more or claimed his pictures back.”
“Fascinating,” he said.
Admiring the portrait again, she laid it on the counter and smoothed her fingers over the lines he’d graced the page with. “But there’s a twist. About six months ago, there were a load of postcards delivered to different galleries. They were prints of his pictures and each one was signed on the back, autographed, a kind of nod that he might still be out there… Wouldn’t that be romantic?” Jaycee didn’t really think that Beck would agree with that assessment. “Anyway, everyone who enters the competition is in with the chance of winning one of these autographs. It’s amazing. Some of these cards are going for thousands of dollars! I don’t think I’ll win, but just a chance of—” Beck spun the sketch pad one hundred and eighty degrees to scribble something on the picture. “Hey, don’t…” When he spun it around again, it took her a minute to see what was at the bottom of the picture. But when she registered it, she inhaled and her hand covered her mouth as she looked up. “Beck… oh my god, Beck, you…”
Shrugging one shoulder, he put his hands to the back of his head again. “I signed a thousand of those damn cards,” he muttered. “Couldn’t fucking paint for two days after it.”
“Why would you—”
“Lost a bet,” he said, leaving his stool to start hunting in cupboards. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”
“No,” she said, scrambling to leap off the counter, using his back to catch herself as her feet hit the floor. “Why did you disappear? Why did you stop sending the—”
“It was a clear out,” he said. “I go through phases of doing the drawings, least I used to, I had a whole bunch cluttering the place. My liaison thought it was a good idea to play a game. He was the one who set up this exhibition too; he likes to keep things local.”
“A game?” she breathed out and as he started to put a sandwich together, she leaned on the kitchen island. “Why do you use different names? Wouldn’t it be easier just to use one?”
“Easier, maybe,” he said. “But I’ve always been a dabbler, I’ve tried pretty much every medium, some stick forever, some for a while, some I try a few times and don’t pick up again.”
That would be why his different personalities had their peaks and troughs, sometimes Beckett Trent was super productive, then he’d go quiet for a year or two, and that would be when Trenton Guy suddenly had a new show.
“Come to the gallery with me,” she said, curling her hands into the rear pockets of his overalls.
“Why?” he asked. “I’ve seen them all before.”
“Oh, come on, there’s something cool about creeping around looking at your own work, don’t tell me you’ve never done it before.”
“A couple of times,” he said, moving away from her to put his condiments back in the fridge. “But I’m not entering any competition to—”
“Screw the competition,” she said, leaning over the counter, supporting her head with her hand when he sat back down in his stool. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to win it now when I have this.” Bringing the sketch pad toward her, she smiled at the portrait again. “I love how talented you are and I hate you for it too.”
Taking a big bite of his sandwich, he considered her as he chewed, and spoke when he swallowed. “We have to be back by six. I want to work out and eat dinner before we go to AD.”
“Thank you,” she said, rounding the island to wrap her arms around his neck, squeezing herself close and rubbing her face in his hair. This was thrilling, she was going to a show with the artist, she’d never done that before.
Jaycee wanted to squeal, but she contained herself. “I’ll cook something while you’re in the gym.”
The gym was in the basement, but she’d only found that out when she went to seek out the pieces he’d said were stored down there. The stairs downward ran parallel to the ones that went up with the door to reach them under the stairs.
Leaving Beck to his sandwich, she began to search for what they might have for dinner. When she opened the fridge, the cascade of cold air made her nipples tingle and they got tight so fast that a sharp pain speared her so she closed the door again.
“You think I can go braless today?” she asked, looking down at her breasts.
Beck didn’t even turn around. “You trying to get in for free?” he asked with food in his mouth. “Pass me a beer, girl.”
She didn’t really want to open the fridge again, but did, just enough to snake her hand inside to get a bottle from the shelf. With her back to the appliance, she managed to avoid the cold air meeting her chest.
Taking the drink to him, she put it at his side before going to get the bottle opener. “I don’t want to get in for free,” she said, popping the top off his bottle. “My boobs hurt.”
He stopped chewing and his focus floated to her breasts. It lingered for ten or fifteen seconds and then ascended to her eyes. “You think—”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “Sometimes they’re tender at my time of the month too. So yeah, it could be a sign that our procedure worked, or it could be a sign my period’s about to start.”
He made himself swallow what was in his mouth, though he should’ve chewed more first. “Do you want to take a test?”
Fiddling with the beer bottle cap, Jaycee didn’t want to admit that she’d thought about it. “Doctor Nicks said two weeks… that’s tomorrow.”
But when she blinked and her eyes found his again, she could see his excitement. Jaycee wanted to give him what he wanted. The longer she lived here and the more time she spent with him, the more she cared about what he cared about.
Beck had asked a bunch of questions about Mavis too. At first, she’d thought it was something to do with the contract, except he’d started to drive her to the home and wait outside for her during her visits. It was almost like he was starting to care about what she cared about too.
“He won’t be mad if we don’t tell him,” he said.
Pushing her fist into his shoulder, Jaycee didn’t want to encourage dishonesty, but had to smile. “You behave,” she said. “If we rush and it’s negative then you’ll be disappointed and we’ll have a crappy day. If Doctor Nicks said two weeks, we have to figure that we’ll always get a negative before the two weeks… don’t you think?”
Beck did know more about this than she did, he’d been doing research for months, ever since he decided he wanted to do this. “You’re right,” he said, covering her hand with his. “We don’t want to rush and get a false negative.”
The eagerness in him was contagious and it didn’t matter how he tried to subdue it, she could see that he wanted her to be pregnant. Still, she kept her cool because the longer they waited to test, the more likely they would be to get an accurate result.
“So,” she said, projecting her boobs forward. “Bra or no bra.”
“Bra,” he said and she slumped as he took another bite of his sandwich. “Sorry, girl, but if you react in the gallery like you did to The Abyss upstairs…”
Her boobs might give away her arousal. Folding her hands on his shoulder, she propped her chin on them. “Speaking of which, with you down here and The Abyss up there all alone… can I…”
He nodded and she did squeal this time, but as she darted away, he snapped his fingers loud, halting her. “Look… with your eyes,” he said. “No bean play.”
“Party pooper,” she said, sliding her hand up the bannister as she stomped up the stairs all the same.
Jaycee hadn’t actually been going to play with herself, but the sound of his snigger followed her up the stairs. He did like to tease her about her fetish for his art.