I placed a hand on my chest. “Did you just say something nice? I should write this down and preserve it forever.”
“I’m serious. I saw how she looked at you at the gala and how happy you two were.”
Memories of that night washed over me. “Thank you. Speaking of the gala…” I pinned him with a look.
“What?”
“Whatever happened with that woman I saw you talking to? Fiona…something?”
Something changed in Coen’s face. Was he…blushing? He cleared his throat. “Thatcher. Fiona Thatcher. She was nice.”
“You slept with her, didn’t you?”
He winced.
I almost fell back in my chair as I laughed, pulling my feet off my desk and setting them on the floor. Leaning on my elbows, I said, “She must have really been something.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was just a one night stand, Liam.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Are you still talking to her? Where does she live? Are you going to see her again?”
Coen stood. “Enough with the questions. It was two adults agreeing to have fun for the night. That’s it.”
I shuffled the papers around on my desk. “Ah. I see what happened. You had a night of pleasure with a beautiful woman. But she disappeared and you didn’t get her information. That’s why you’ve been even more broody than usual, hiding in your lab.”
“I hate it when you do that, you know.” He walked toward the door.
“Did you at least figure out where she worked? Perhaps you could track her down that way.”
He turned, his hand on the handle. “First of all, I’m not going to ‘track her down.’ Second of all, no. All I learned was that she was in between jobs at the time. She attended the gala to support a friend getting recognized.” He sighed. “And she ran out on me before I could press for more information.”
“Well, she obviously made an impression if you’re still thinking of her a month later. Poor Coen. His one night stand has turned into pining.”
“Fuckyou.”
He left my office, disappearing down the hall, his frustrated stomps echoing behind him.
“Not like that,”Cerise said, wrapping her hand around mine and guiding the paintbrush I held. “Sideways strokes, like this.”
“You don’t have to do itexactlylike the instructor does. It’s called creative expression. Perhaps I wish for my ocean to appear vertical.”
She released me with a laugh and re-focused on her own canvas, violet eyes flicking back and forth from the scene before her to the example at the front of the class.
Cerise was visiting me this weekend and I’d scheduled one of those teacher-led painting classes. We were both having a blast—me with my ‘vertical ocean’ and Cerise painstakingly trying to copy exactly what the instructor did.
I set down my paintbrush and watched her. Brow furrowed, she stuck out her tongue as she mimicked the strokes we had just been shown, trying to perfect the reflection of the moon on the water.
After a few minutes, she glanced over, catching me watching her. “What?”
I let my eyes wander over every feature of her face. The slope of her nose, her rounded cheeks. “You’re enchanting…you know that, right?”
A flush along the bridge of her nose made her even more beautiful, as if it were possible. “You say the sweetest things.”
“I say what I feel.” I squeezed her thigh.