Follow the River

I let out a breath of relief that I made it to the bathroom without Rain getting his hands on his sketchpad. Don’t get me wrong, I feel guilty as hell for locking myself in here with something he clearly doesn’t want me to see.

But shit.

He drew me?

“Abhai

Normally, I’d love the sound of his begging, but the sound from him right now makes my heart squeeze in my chest, utterly ripping me apart. Under any other circumstance, I would give in to his requests or demands. I’d submit, like he fucking loves.

But submission isn’t in my nature.

Only sometimes and only ever for him.

I don’t answer him, instead moving to the vanity and slide to the floor, my back against the base cabinets. Taking a deep breath, I do my best to drown out the sound of Rain begging and beating at the door.

But it’s fucking difficult.

I hope he doesn’t rip the damn thing off its hinges trying to get to me before I have the chance to look through this.

“River, open this fucking door right the fuck now!” he yells, anger rising in his voice as the doorknob continues to rattle.

I don’t respond, letting him stew in his rage.

He drew me.

He drew me.

He. Fucking. Drew. Me.

No matter how I think it or how many times it crosses through my mind, it doesn’t make sense.

“Babe, please. Just do this one thing. Open the door and I promise we can look at it together.”

Ah, he’s already trying to make a deal with me.

A lot of people don’t know this, but the stages of grief apply to more than loss and death. Rain, whether he realizes it or not, is already on the third step: bargaining.

I open the pad to the next page, then the next, and the next after that.

It’s page after page of sketches.

All of me.

My tattoos.

My chest.

Arms.

Abs.

Lips.

Eyes.

My entire fucking face.

It’s all here in graphite and paper, staring back at me like a mirror.

I don’t know how long I sit flipping through page after page of his sketchbook. I must go through it half a dozen times, still unbelieving that he almost filled an entire pad with nothing but me.

When did he do these?

I’ve never seen him with this pad before. He’s never sketched in front of me, save for that one time on the FaceTime call. He hasn’t taken any photos of me, that I know of, to sketch from.

Which means this is all straight from his mind.

Which also means… each time he touched and kissed and licked every single inch of my body… he wasn’t just worshipping it.

He was memorizing it.

My heart pounds in my chest and my palms start to sweat as I stand on shaky legs. I feel like fucking Bambi just learning to walk as I cross the bathroom and open the door.

I expect to find Rain still right in front of me, but in my reverie, I must have missed that he was no longer banging against the panel of the door. Instead, I see him sitting on the ground across the hall from the doorway, his head in his hands.

Stage four, depression.

He heard the door open from the way his shoulders stiffen as I step into the hallway, but he makes no effort to look up at me or say anything.

Squatting down in front of him, I place the closed sketchbook on the floor to the side of him, but he still doesn’t look up.

“You drew me?” I whisper, my voice shaking and full of emotion. It wasn’t meant to be a question. Or maybe it was.

I have no clue what this means, and I’m sure he doesn’t either.

That’s probably why he didn’t want me to see them.

Look at me, baby, I plead silently, my stomach clenching with anticipation.

As if he can read my mind, he lifts his head from his hands, his amber eyes meeting mine. They’re red around the rims, as if he’s been holding back tears, and I hate the idea that this caused him pain. It was never meant to, but I can’t help being selfish sometimes and only thought of my own desire in the moment.

I watch as a stoic mask slides into place over his face, one he hasn’t worn around me in weeks, and I have the urge to grip his shoulders and shake him out of it.

We aren’t like that. Not anymore.

And then I realize.

Stage five, acceptance.

But acceptance of what? My anger or outrage when there isn’t any?

Grabbing his wrists with both hands, I haul us both up to our feet before taking his face in my hands. My heart feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest to get to his. If only to let his know mine has never felt so completely whole.

I love you.

The words are there, have been for along fucking time, waiting to make their presence known. But I don’t say them.

All they would do is scare him away.

But I beg silently, searching his eyes for any recognition that he understands the way I feel about him. That this is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me, inadvertently or not. That he just gave my heart wings and let it soar.

That I fucking love him.

And I do. Goddamnit, I do.

I’d give anything to be able to tell him at this moment.

But I can do the next best thing.

Show him.

I crush my mouth to his in a blistering kiss, backing him against the wall. Biting at his lower lip, I flick my belt open, unbutton my jeans, and slide down my zipper in one quick move before begi

“Your talent is so fucking sexy,” I murmur against his lips, sliding my tongue along the seams before gripping my shirt and tugging it over my head. I toss it to the floor of the hall and walk back to his room, yanking off my jeans before crossing the threshold. As I do, I hear SayWeCanFly’s “Pavement” coming from my still open Spotify app on my phone, giving me an idea.

“You aren’t mad?” I hear Rain ask behind me, uncertainty evident in his rough whisper.

In only my underwear, I step around the canvas on the floor and start digging through the containers holding most of his acrylics. “No, not at all,” I tell him as I grab a couple large bottles of paint. Foregoing the small hole of the squeeze top and just ripping the entire lid off before crushing the bottle in my hand and dumping royal blue paint all over the canvas laid out on the ground before me.

“What are you doing?” Rain asks, a tremor in his voice.

I glance up at him as I unscrew the other cap on the second bottle of paint, this one forest green. He’s standing barely out of reach on the other side of the canvas, naked down to his boxer briefs and hard as a fucking rock. My mouth practically waters at the sight.

Showing you that I love you.

I squeeze out every drop of the paint from this bottle, too, spreading it all over the canvas and not giving a damn if any gets on my hands, arms, or any other part of my body.

Once the bottle is empty, I toss it to the ground with the other and turn to face him, sliding my underwear down my legs and throwing them across the room. I reach over and grab his hand, giving it a swift tug, and force him to step onto the paint-covered canvas.

Slipping my fingers into his waistband, I smear the mixture of paint against his hips as I tug down his boxers, kneeling before him as I go.