When lonely artists Ashton and Ria come together, nothing can prepare them for the collision. They're drawn to each other like day and night, but with more in common than they could ever know. After being burned by past lovers, they're hesitant to g...
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GOLDEN BRUSHSTROKES, pale as the early morning sun. The ocean, cyan and ethereal. Fair skin with the faintest hint of freckles on the bridge of an arrow-straight nose. Wildly pink lips, delicious and devilish all at once. A lingering smile. Hidden sadness. The concept continues to litter throughout her sketchbook like an infectious disease.
One night with him and he's trapped in her mind like a prisoner she's impotent to release. Stacks of concept photography and surreal sketches clutter her apartment floor, barely leaving the carpet visible beneath the scattered images she's spent the better part of her morning on. Maybe if she had gotten more than a kiss. Maybe if they had sex as she had planned, she wouldn't have these dawdling fantasies about a man immersed in enigmatic temptations with the promise of a gentle touch and alluring secrets.
Noon draws near, and her eyes are tired and dry from being up for the past six hours. An expressive flame burns in her veins that she cannot tame. Ria's fingers flit across another page with a blue pastel tight between them. She leans in and studies each shape and line. She runs a shaky hand across her forehead and licks her slightly chapped lips. As she scrutinizes her work disappointment sets in again. I can't capture him. She picks up the sketch of a man with lively blue eyes and eccentric blonde hair.
Ashton.
Despite her resistance, his allure has held her mind hostage. The way his body moved. The distance in his gaze. She's losing it. Losing him. Every day that goes by, a detail of him fades; every shade of him becomes muted the more she tries to remember him. Every time her hand touches sketch paper, the outline of his face will appear like uncovering an artifact from the desert sands. Though she can't fill in the lines with the right colors, put the shadows in the right places.
She can't put her emotions on this flimsy, beige canvas paper. Sighing, she shoves the image away and drops her pastel back in its box. She glares at nearly a dozen failures just like it, sketches refusing to reflect the man who kept her talking throughout a lonely night. Why can't I sketch him?
Ria runs her hands through her hair and glares down at them again. Why am I even doing this? If her friends could see her now, they'd declare they told her so and tease her for being infatuated with a man she swore she wasn't. I won't regret my choice. I refuse to.
With a grunt, she shoves the papers into her portfolio, nearly crumpling them with the force of it. She dusts her fingers on her worn jeans; specs of blue residue stain the fabric, making its home next to the other faded colors collected over the years. After cleaning her mess, she washes the streaks of gold and blue pastels from her face and out of her hair, shades and hues that were meant to represent Ashton.
Why am I trying to sketch him anyway? It's not like he's important to me. We just had a night of conversation. "Ugh!" Ria digs her fingers through her curls and throws her head back. "Stop caring." Tossing her regrets aside, she finds herself storming into her bedroom with the same desire she had last weekend; the need to escape into another world.
