When I look up, Nell’s studying me with a look of vague curiosity and calmness about her. She doesn’t say anything, simply staring at me with those glistening emeralds in her eye sockets.
I chortle dryly. “What’re you lookin’ at? Hypnotized again by my baby blues?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she teases with a smile. “I was … actually quite drawn in by your story. I didn’t think you had such a background coming into the art school. You give off the impression that you just shut your eyes, poked a finger at the student catalog, and said, ‘Ah, photography, alright, I’ll give it a go.’ But now you seem … different.”
“I make other decisions that way. Like, what to eat. What to do with my day. Who to hang out with.”
“Yeah? Am I just a blind pick for your evening?”
My face straightens. “Hardly. You were a very … deliberate choice. I was secretly hoping I’d see you at the Brigade show.”
“Brigand,” she corrects.
“And I’m really glad I did,” I finish. “I don’t know what it is about you. I want to be around you, Nell.”
She hesitates for a moment, as if questioning whether I’m meaning what I’m saying. Then she seems to trust it, a smile finding her face. “You definitely keep me entertained,” she murmurs.
“So … what is this?” I finally ask. I gesture between her and I. “What do we got goin’ on here?”
“Just friends.”
“Yeah? Just friends? Like you insisted at the art show? Or are we friends with benefits? I think we’re friends with benefits.”
“Why label it?” She shrugs, kicking her feet. “Let’s just go with it. Let it become whatever it wants to become. Like a work of art, Brant. You just apply one stroke at a time.”
“Is that a cock joke?”
“And you don’t judge or criticize or worry about the strokes,” she goes on, trying to ignore my jest despite her lips curling into a tickled smile. “You just keep making them until you have a beautiful picture in front of you.”
“Is that what we are? A beautiful picture?”
“We’re … something.”
Her words cause the next joke on my tongue to die away, left unuttered. We’re something. My chest flutters at the sound of her voice saying that, working me up inside. What the hell is this feeling? Is it hope? Is it anticipation? Is it worry? The emotion is so alien to me, my gut reaction is to be terrified of it.
Or maybe I’m just still freaking out about being on the ledge of a tall-ass building.
“We’re … We’re something,” I return, and it feels like an affirmation of a hundred other words neither of us seem brave enough to say just yet. “I don’t know if …”
“Hmm?”
I swallow, lick my lips, then try again. “I don’t know if maybe it’s too soon to ask, but uh … I’d like to take you on another date. To make up for the awkward time I kinda made of our last one.”
“I’m not really the dating kind of gal,” she admits. “All the fuss. All the fixing up. All the obligation and expectation and worry. Can we just call it hanging out?”
“Sure,” I say, jumping on her wording at once. “Hanging out. Let’s hang out, Nell. I’d really, really, really like to hang out with you.”
“Good. And what’ll we do?”
“I was thinking, my friend Dessie—that’s Clayton’s girl—she has a show this weekend at the Throng & Song. Not sure if you’ve been there before …”
“Nope.”
“Well, she’s singing a new thing she co-wrote with the resident band that plays there. Maybe you’d like to be, like … my person … who goes with me. To that thing.”
“Your person who goes with you?”
“My date. Except not my date. Because we’re not dating.”
She tilts her head, which has the lovely effect of tossing all her dark, beautiful hair. She bites her lip, considering my proposal for too long a while.
Finally, she nods.
“That’s a yes?” I ask, excitement drumming through me. “Yes? You’ll go with me?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Hell yeah! Score one for Rudawski.” I give the night air a fist pump and a hoot, which earns a snort from Nell. “I think you’re gonna have a lot of fun. You’ll get to meet my roomies too. Everyone’s gonna be there. I can’t fuckin’ wait.”
“Why don’t you dangle your legs over?”
I blink. “But my shoes might fall off. And then they’d be lost to me forever. I happen to like these shoes.”