Lonely Hearts Won't Break

FIVE｜ SILVER LINING

The blushing orange hues from the sun set a glow over Maya as she rested with her back against the wooden frame of our bay window. With her legs hauled closely to her bare chest, arms wrapped warmly around her knees and waves of her hair flowing down her back like satin drapes, Maya's eyes lingered over the multitude of lives intertwining on the sidewalks and in the street. The fluttering of her lashes was the most movement she had made in the last forty minutes or so and now the stirring of her lips.

"So," she stammered out into the silence of our living room. "How was he?"

"He was...he was different."

"Different like...?"

"Different like," I paused and compressed my lips as the bristles of my brush stroked the acrylic paint across the canvas and the brown bled into its depths, becoming deep as Maya's skin. "Like, he wasn't himself."

"Now what the hell does that mean?" she questioned as her neck snapped toward me. I groaned loudly at Maya's disobedience and on cue my hands palming my smudged palette plopped into my lap. "That literally made no sense."

"Turn your damn head back around!" I shouted as she rolled her eyes. "Muses are supposed to remain still. You're doing a whole lot of everything right now."

"I just asked how your little funky ass date was and you started getting all philosophical."

"Nothing I said was philosophical."

"Yeah, well, like I said. It didn't make sense. So call it philosophical," she shot back, stretching her legs out to the opposite side of the window and arched her toes into a pointe until they pressed into the wood. Her breasts perked into the air, golden hour now adorned her physique rather than my technique, delicately and to perfection. The entire block was now in for a free peep show the way Maya continued to display her curves with every flex and expanse of her limbs. "I should be your muse more often. This naked thing is right up my alley."

"Trust me, I know," I mumbled, planting my feet onto the floor and rose from my stool, setting my palette onto the seat instead. "Our friendship reached peak level when after a week of moving into this apartment you forgot you had a roommate and pranced around with no clothes on."

Assuming our session was done, I gladly marched over to our couch and grabbed Maya's black silk robe from its arm, then tossed it over her head reclined just enough to showcase her sealed eyes and the smirk plastered on her face as she savored her flawlessness.

"Alright, enough. Put that on before one of these prudist white women walks pass our window and calls the nearest catholic priest to rebuke you, again."

"Wouldn't it be lovely," she shimmied, making us both fall into laughter. Maya sat up and eased the material over her body then stood to bind it together at her navel. "Seriously, Tate. What about him was unsettling for you?"

My brow perked up as I quickly turned on my heels, in effort to avoid her question, and trailed toward the kitchen. There was a pint of Madagascan vanilla bean gelato in the freezer calling my name and once I stepped beyond the two pillars dividing our living room from the kitchen, I made sure it was in my possession. I borrowed a spoon from the drawer beside the fridge then leaned against the counter.

"Unsettling? Really?"

"Did I stutter?" she barked back, walking toward my easel with her arms crossed over her chest. Her focus narrowed in on her unfinished self-portrait, leaving me on the spot.

"You didn't but you could bring that tone down a notch," I said, twisting the cap of the container open then dipped my spoon inside. I scooped up just enough of the creamy crack and placed it into my mouth, moaning at the sweet taste. "Damn, that's good."