As I was shading in a rounded curve of the heart with my pencil, my door blew open. In strode Wes shoving a hamburger into his mouth and balancing a soda and a notebook in the other hand. When he saw me and realized he’d waltzed into the wrong room, he did the opposite of what I had expected. He walked over and plopped himself on the ground next to me slurping from his cup and dripping hamburger bits all over my masterpiece.

He’d finished eating his hamburger there while watching me shade and contour the image of the heart. Somewhere between chews and slurps, he’d introduced himself, but what I would never forget was how he complimented me on my dedication to my artwork. People had always told me how talented I was, or what a beautiful piece I was working on, but no one had ever commented on my actual dedication to it. I remembered staring at him after that compliment, unsure of why it felt so profound. That was when he grinned. His smile stretched from side to side and each dimple popped out. POW. POW. Upon his exit from my room, I erased my PE coach’s name and wrote WES above the heart.

I was under Wes. His larger frame hovered over me and blocked out nearly all of my synthetic light. “Can you move a little to the left for a minute?” I asked.

“Sure thing,” he said shifting over a step closer to me on the stool he stood on. I was so over using colored paint and opted to paint one of the silhouettes after lunch instead of another wave. It just so happened to be directly below the area Wes had been working on since he came in. “That okay?” he asked smirking down at me. I rolled my eyes.

“You’re a mural hog,” I said turning to dip my brush into the black paint. I swirled it around, working the paint between each bristle.

“There are three other dudes you could be painting. You chose the one closest to me. Not that I’m complaining. I kinda like the view of you under me,” he smirked, and I peered angrily over my shoulder. His response was to hold his brush out in a fist in front of him and crudely hump the air. The roll of my eyes was just beginning when I felt the wet plop of paint land on my shoulder.

“Wes,” I said reaching back to grab my spare towel to wipe it off. “You got paint on me.” I wiped my shoulder when another drop landed on my hand. “Wes!” I shrieked at him. “Watch your brush.” Then another drop fell in a splat directly in my cleavage. I jerked my head up to Wes, who had his back to me and was shaking silently with laughter. “You jerk! You’re doing it on purpose?” I questioned, though clearly he was. I swore, sometimes I felt like I was with a child.

I turned and quickly grabbed my brush from the paint dish. I whipped back around and applied a steady stroke of black paint across Wes’ bare foot. He froze and looked down toward his foot before up at me. “Oh, it’s on now,” he said jumping down from the stool.

I took off running across the gym with my brush in my hand. I didn’t know what he had planned, but I wasn’t staying close enough to find out. “Running isn’t gonna help you.” I heard Wes behind me just before I felt a splatter of paint on my back.

I stiffened and turned around slowly. “You’re ruining my clothes,” I seethed at him trying to hide the smile that wanted to break through.

He shrugged his shoulders flipping the brush in his hand. “It doesn’t look like one of your good outfits so who cares.”

“Are you telling me that I look like crap?” I asked offended that he called me out on my comfy clothes. I’d dressed in a pair of well-worn jeans and a plain white tee topped off with a pair of old converse. Not my most stylish, but I’d planned for them to be covered in paint. Just not like this.

Wes laughed at me, “No, C. I’m not saying that at all. In fact, I think this is my favorite on you.”

“Now you’re just teasing me,” I said squinting my eyes at him in annoyance.

He put both arms in the air in surrender and walked toward me. “I’m not teasing you. Those jeans...” He clicked his tongue against his teeth and let his eyes slide over me. I shuddered at the way my body seemed to melt under his stare. Every inch his eyes passed warmed and softened in response.

I ignored the flutter it gave me to have him look at me in such a feral way and seized my opportunity. With his eyes strolling their way lazily around my chest, I lifted my paintbrush and flicked it at him sending a splatter of paint in his direction.

I imagined his eyes would have snapped to mine in surprise, or irritation maybe, had they not been covered in paint. He lifted his shirt and wiped the paint from his lashes. My mouth dropped at seeing that stomach in its perfectly rippled glory. His chuckling moved his abs in a synchronized dance for my viewing pleasure. Then, they disappeared behind their white curtain. Take a bow, abs. Take a bow.

Wes tugged on his shirt sleeve to dab off the paint that had sprinkled across his upper arm. I didn’t even notice how successful my attack was. Being that it was black paint, it blended seamlessly with his colorless tattooed arm.

“You have any?” Wes asked, flashing his dimpled grin with a smear of black paint that he’d missed.

“Any what?” I asked, thinking that if I were as nice to Wes as I was to everyone else, I’d go help him wipe the paint off. Instead, I bit back a giggle when he licked his lips and his face pinched in disgust at the taste of the pigment on his tongue.

“Tattoos,” he said wiping his forearm across his mouth, successfully removing the paint.

“No.” I laughed. I’d never be getting a tattoo. I held no judgment whatsoever to those who had them. In fact, both my brother and Kensie had them. Tattoos just weren’t for me. I had no desire to permanently ink my body. I’d rather accessorize with the latest trends.

“Shame,” Wes said closing the gap between us. I watched him approach and felt my eyes grow wide when he reached out toward me. “This spot right here would look really nice with something small.” I shuddered at the feel of his finger trailing across the skin of collarbone. He was close enough that I could feel the puffs of his breath as he studied me. Each exhalation set a jittery butterfly into flight inside me one at a time.

From an onlooker, the touch would have looked incredibly intimate, but from here, I knew it was all business. Wes had a purposeful look on his face that told me his delicate touch was nothing more than a consult between artist and customer. I wondered if he’d ever crossed that line. Most likely, he had.

“I think even something small would hurt right there,” I said keeping our conversation casual and ignoring the rabble of butterflies now partaking in disorder and mayhem in my stomach.

He shrugged and took a step back. “Anything on the bone hurts. You could handle it, though. A lot of the chicks I’ve worked on take it like champs.” He winked at me. God, he couldn’t even talk about my collarbone without thinking of other women.

“C, I gave this chick a piece the other day right on her ass,” Wes said with his voice rising in excitement.

“Cool,” I replied, ready to check out of this conversation and get back to work.

“It was amazing; this huge lion on one entire cheek.”

“Great,” I said walking past him toward the mural without looking at him. Normally, when he talked about his art with this enthusiastic little boy quality, I melted a little. I knew his work wasn’t just a job. He tattooed because he loved art and was lucky enough to discover his perfect medium to create. It made me almost proud of him.

“And her ass was so tight, C, so in shape, it held the form of the lion perfectly.” His current enthusiasm was nothing short of obnoxious.

“Awesome,” I said with my back to him, reaching my arms up to readjust my ponytail.