My mind is a blender, coherent thoughts are chopped and killed. I have no idea what I’m doing right now but if Oliver wants to be drawn . . . well fuck. I’m going to fill this goddamn book with sketches.
Sprinting back to the living room, I nearly wipe out on the wood floor in my socks and manage to grip the wall just in time to see Oliver with his back to me, looking out the enormous loft windows. He reaches behind his neck and pulls his shirt over his head and off.
Oh.
Oh.
“Oh,” I groan.
He whips around and looks at me, mortification spreading over his face. “Were we not doing this? Oh, God, we weren’t doing this. We were just doing face and stuff, weren’t we?” Holding his shirt to his body, he says, “Fuck.”
“It’s fine,” I manage, looking at a pencil in my hand as if inspecting the quality of the sharp peak. I’m staring so hard I could break it with the force of my eyes alone. Oliver is shirtless. In my living room. “This is totally fine, I mean it’s really good to draw you without a shirt because I can focus more on muscle details and hair and nip—” I clear my throat. “Things.”
He drops the shirt, eyes still searching mine to check that I’m sure. “Okay.”
I sit on the couch, looking up at where he stands near the window. He looks out over the skyline, completely at ease. By contrast, my heart is tunneling a path out of my body through my throat. I spend more time than I should on his chest, the geometry of it: perfectly round, small nipples. A map of muscles, built of squares, rectangles, darting lines, and sharp angles. The triangular tilt where hipbone meets muscle. I feel him watch me as I draw the dark hair low on his navel.
“Do you want my pants off?”
“Yes,” I answer before thinking and quickly shout, “No! No. God, oh my God, it’s okay.”
My heart could not possibly beat any harder.
His mouth is half unsure smile, half straight line. I want to spend a year drawing the exact shape of his lips in this moment. “I really don’t mind,” he says quietly.
The devil on my shoulder tells me, Do it. Do it. Your geometric style never works with drawing legs. This would help.
The angel just shrugs and looks away.
“If you’re sure,” I say, and then clear my throat, explaining: “You know I’m really bad at drawing legs and . . .”
He’s already unbuttoning his pants, hands working the soft denim, unbuttoning the fly one tiny pop at a time.
It would be good for our friendship if I could look away, but I can’t.
“Lola?”
With Herculean effort, I drag my eyes up to his face. “Yeah?”
He doesn’t say anything more, but holds my eyes as he pushes his jeans down his hips and kicks them to the side.
“Yeah?” I repeat. I am breathing too hard for this. It has to be noticeable.
This is totally different. Something is happening this morning that is not canon Oliver + Lola. I feel like we’re stepping through the doorway into Wonderland.
“Where do you want me?”
“Want you?”
“To stand?”
“Oh.” I clear my throat. “Right there is good.”
“I’m not backlit?”
He is, but I don’t trust myself to direct him right now.
“I don’t mind sitting—” he starts.
“Maybe just lie down or—” I stop abruptly as his words get processed. Shit. “Or sit. Sitting is fine. I mean, whichever.”
He gives me his tiny mysterious smile and goes to the rug in the middle of the room and lays down in a giant sunbeam.
The panel shows the girl, staring at the boy, her skin covered in licking, blue flames.
Oliver tucks his hands behind his head, crosses his legs at the ankle, and closes his eyes.
Cock.
COCK.
It’s all I can see.
It’s there beneath his boxers, half-hard, obviously uncut, following the line of his hip. My God, it’s thick. And if Oliver is a grow’er, he could knock a woman’s teeth out when he fucks her.
I tilt my head, my hand hovering over the paper. Why is he half-hard? Is this a guy thing that happens when they’re being drawn? Probably. Is that awesome or totally embarrassing?
Obviously for Oliver it’s awesome because look at it. I mean him. Look at him.
“Lola? You okay?”
That’s right. He can hear my lack of scribbling. I sit on the couch and begin furiously drawing every tiny detail of his body: the dark hair on his legs, the corded muscle of his thighs, deep grooves beside his hips, and yes, even the shape of him beneath his boxers.
I’m flipping through dozens of pages, determined to get every detail down and color it later. My hands are a mess of charcoal, my fingers cramping with the speed and intensity of my work.