I considered resting the cold glass on his stomach, but that would be cruel. I sat next to him and rested my hand on his abs instead. Yum. Even hungover, he was ten times sexier than mortal men.

He sat up and drank the water thirstily.

“Thanks,” he sighed. “I could use five more of those.”

“Do you want me to get the pitcher for you?”

“No, thanks, I can get it. I might have to crawl, but I can do it,” he grinned.

“Christos, is everything okay?”

He blinked and looked at me seriously. “What do you mean?”

“Uh, um, you’ve kind of been drinking a lot lately.”

Christos’ brows drew together in a frown.

I winced, expecting an argument. Memories of short fused Damian Wolfram gnawed at the edges of my awareness. I reminded myself that Christos wasn’t a hothead. He might be drinking more than he should, but never once had he raised his voice at me, or shown a single sign of anger. That was one thing I loved about Christos. He never seemed to get angry. He knew how to handle his emotions like an adult. I hoped this discussion wouldn’t be the exception.

“Yeah,” he sighed and laid his forearm across his eyes.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe later?”

At least he didn’t get angry at me for bringing it up. Maybe I should’ve waited until he wasn’t hung over.

“Do you want some breakfast?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“How about I make you breakfast in bed? You’re always doing all the cooking anyway.”

He lifted his forearm off his face and smiled at me with his dimples and brilliant blue eyes. “Sounds awesome.”

“Eggs and toast?” I suggested.

“Perfect,” he said sleepily.

“You wait here, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

I went down to the kitchen and made breakfast for both of us. When I brought it upstairs on a tray, Christos was fast asleep.

I didn’t have the heart to wake him.

When Monday morning rolled around, I woke up to an empty bed. I threw on a robe and went downstairs to find Christos. I heard slashing and rattling noises as I approached the studio.

I leaned my head through the door to the studio, afraid of what I might find.

Christos stood behind the big canvas of Isabella, practically attacking it by throwing big gobs of paint at it with a loaded brush.

“What are you doing?” I asked tentatively.

Between slapping paint on the canvas, Christos said, “Getting the canvas…” WHACK! “…ready for Isabella…” SPLAT! “She’s going to be here…” GLOP!” “…at ten.”

I walked around behind Christos and the canvas. The painting of Isabella was almost entirely covered in wet brown paint. The only part that wasn’t covered was the face. “Oh my god, Christos,” I gasped, “what did you do to your painting?”

Now he was working the blobs of paint into the canvas with a big brush. “It needed some work…” SMEAR! “…a lot of work.” SCRUB! “I’m going to change…” RUB! RUB! RUB! “…the pose.” He took a step back from the canvas to assess it.

“But it was almost finished,” I said, feeling an overwhelming sense of defeat. He had put a tremendous amount of work into this painting. It had looked amazing to me before. Now it seemed, I don’t know, ruined. “You’re starting over?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? It was beautiful. Kamiko and Romeo and Madison and Jake all thought it was amazing. I thought it was amazing.”

He grimaced, “It wasn’t working.”

I sighed. Oh well. I wasn’t the one who’d sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of paintings. I trusted that Christos knew what he was doing. Besides, it was too late to do anything about it now. He really did have to start over, no matter how far it put him behind on his deadline.

Since I had the week off and Christos had to work, I decided to spend the day in the studio with him. When Isabella arrived and they went to work, I sat down at my drawing table to work on some cartoons for The Wombat based on ideas Romeo and I had discussed.

Isabella got undressed and Christos had her sit in a variety of different poses until he found one he liked. They all looked good to me, but based on Christos’ brooding demeanor, I could tell he wasn’t happy with any of them.

Once he started painting, he sighed audibly at least once every five minutes. He wasn’t enjoying himself. Too bad the weather was so nice outside. It was the perfect day to get out of the house and take a road trip or do something relaxing in San Diego. There were a hundred options of fun things to do in town, but Christos needed to work. He didn’t need to add more stress by losing another work day today.

So I sat quietly at my drawing table and worked. If Christos had to work today, I would too.

After painting Isabella for half an hour, they took a break. Christos walked into the living room and returned with a glass of bourbon and the bottle. When he went back to work, it seemed like every time I looked over, he was taking another swallow of liquor. I couldn’t decide if the bourbon was helping his mood or making it worse.

I contemplated finding Spiridon and asking him if he could throw away all his booze or at least hide it until after Christos’ gallery show. Too bad that wouldn’t actually solve anything.

Around one o’clock, I was ready for a break. I set down my pencil and closed my sketchbook. “Does anybody want a sandwich or something?” I asked, standing behind Christos.

Christos laid down his brushes like they weighed a ton each. “Sure,” he mumbled, sounding exhausted. I knew it was the stress.

“May I break, Christos?” Isabella asked demurely in her Portuguese accent.

“Sure,” he huffed dismissively and walked through the French doors to the back deck.

“Isabella,” I asked, “do you want a sandwich?”

“Please,” she smiled.

It wasn’t at all weird to me anymore that Isabella sat naked in front of my boyfriend on a regular basis. The jealousy I’d felt the first time I’d been in the room with Christos painting her nude had shrunk to almost nothing. It helped that she seemed to have lost interest in him, which was odd because before she’d been all over him. Maybe she had met a cute guy of her own. “I’ll go make those sandwiches,” I said. “Care to join me in the kitchen?”

She followed me and we chatted while I pulled ingredients out of the refrigerator.

“Have a seat,” I said, motioning to the chairs at the kitchen table.

“Oh, no sitting. I sitting all day. Now I stand,” she smiled. “Standing good.”

“How’s the modeling up in Los Angeles?”

“L.A. is good. I busy, all the time busy.”

“That’s good,” I smiled as I pulled a loaf of sourdough out of its paper sack and sliced off several pieces with a bread knife. “I imagine you’re making good money?”

“Very good. Also nice to work here with Christos. No cameras. He make me perfect without the Photoshop.”

“Yeah,” I grinned. “Christos is an amazing painter.”

“I thought I heard you in here,” Spiridon said as he walked into the kitchen.

“Do you want a sandwich?” I asked him.

“Please,” he smiled. “Isabella, can I get you anything to drink?”

“Agua, por favor?” she said. “Oh, uh, I mean the water, please?”

“We have plenty of água,” he winked at her as he pulled out the pitcher from the fridge.

A loud crash echoed in from the studio.

I jumped where I stood at the counter, “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” Spiridon said, setting the pitcher down. “I’ll go look.”

There was another crash.

“Fuck!” Christos shouted.

Was he hurt? I dropped the knife I’d been using to slice a tomato and ran past Spiridon into the studio.

Christos held the painting of Isabella over his head.

“Christos! What are you doing?” I gasped.

He smashed the painting into the cement floor, splintering one corner of the wood frame. Then he bent over, grabbed the broken pieces of the frame, and tore the canvas halfway down the middle.