Midnight Muse

Knox snorts, tugging me toward him for a hug that I easily fall into. My heart soars. I never expected someone as closed off as Knox to be so touchy once he’s finally opened up, but it makes me feel special. I’m the only one that gets to see this side of him, because even on campus his scowls are his comfort zone with almost everyone except for me.

He guides me down the block with a hand on the base of my spine, ushering me down a set of stairs. The walls are filled with graffiti and I look around in wonder at the small lobby we’re in, while Knox checks in with the young-looking boy behind the counter.

I’m squinting at the wall when he rejoins me, trying to discern the oddly shaped letters that are painted onto it. I have no idea what they’re supposed to spell out, it’s bright red coloring stark against the deep teal wall it’s painted on.

“Here you go.” Knox hands me a pair of coveralls and I scrunch my face in confusion. He has his own pair, dark gray, and in his free hand he holds two respirators.

“What’s all this for?” I ask, examining the beige jumpsuit he’s offered me. It’s clean and fresh, so I won’t complain.

“We’re spray painting,” Knox answers almost sheepishly. At his tentative tone, I peer up, nearly grinning at the look on his face. His cheeks are filled with warmth and I think this is the closest I’ve seen him to being bashful.

“We are?” I ask, an eagerness filling my bones. I know spray painting is something that Knox said he, Slate, and Ace have dabbled with, and I’ve always appreciated the creativity that goes into tagging buildings and trains. I even researched Banksy for one of my high school papers, finding the reasoning behind his works intriguing, but I’ve never tried the medium myself. “This is going to be so much fun!”

Knox’s shoulders fall in relief. Smiling softly, he answers, “I think so, too.”

“Where do you get your inspiration from?” I ask Knox, voice muffled through the mask as I watch him paint a long, black line down the wall. The fans in the room are loud, so I have to shout. I was nervous when we stepped inside our assigned studio, cans of spray paint already littering the floor. The walls were filled with intimidating artwork that I hardly had the heart to paint over, but now I’m most definitely enjoying myself.

Knox has been a reassurance from the get-go, explaining that everyone who books time here comes in knowing that whatever they paint is going to be gone when the next guest arrives, so there’s no pressure, the only expectation is to have fun.

And it is fun, getting a feeling for the can in my hand, figuring out how hard to press, how far to hold it from the wall. Knox showed me a few techniques, guiding my hands in different motions to create perfect circles, to get the paint drips I was eyeing from someone else’s work. The only complaint I have about this date is that the masks make it difficult to kiss Knox, who I’ve wanted to jump since he pressed his body up against mine when he showed me how to paint the funky letters, his free hand a solid weight on my hip.

I’ve been in awe of him all night, sneaking looks over my shoulder at what he’s painting: a skeleton stallion with a skeleton warrior riding it, sword raised as if leading an army of the dead into war. He’s skilled with many mediums and my heart aches as I wonder how it’s possible that he hasn’t been able to receive an apprenticeship yet.

Something tightens in my chest. The way that Knox draws, paints, tattoos…there’s a confidence there that I’m envious of. Every line he makes seems so sure, so well laid like he can see the end result as he’s working.

I yearn to feel like that.

“What do you mean?” He asks, beckoning me over to help him with his piece. I begin painting the skeleton horse’s eyes a bright neon green, adding whispers of black shadows swimming from its nostrils.

I sigh, abandoning my can of paint and wiping the remnants of the pigment on my coveralls before taking my respirator off. “All this time I’ve known that I want to be in art, that I want to do something with it, but every time I make something, it never feels good enough. Like I’m not as proud of it as I should be. I don’t have a style like you or Rory do, and if I do, I haven’t figured it out yet.”

Knox fully stops what he’s doing to turn to me and I blush at the attention. He takes his own mask off before his hand comes to caress my jaw, tilting my chin to look at him. His eyes are soft with concern and there’s a wrinkle between his brow that makes me want to reach up and smooth it out, suddenly embarrassed that I’ve brought this up during our perfectly good date.

“Is that how you feel?” He asks, and I shrug shyly. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything at all, but it’s been something that eats at me day by day. “It sounds like you’re missing a muse, Quinn.”

I frown because of his words and the lack of his nickname for me that I’ve come to adore. “A what?”

“A muse,” Knox repeats simply. “Something that inspires you.”

Something that inspires you. I toss the words around in my head, thinking on it. Surely, I find things inspiring. I wrack my brain trying to come up with something, something that keeps me captivated, gives me the urge to put my pencils to my paper and create something beautiful, but there’s nothing.

Well, nothing besides Knox, that is.

“I think that I used to have one,” I admit, remembering my early days as an artist. “I loved drawing, always used to have my sketchpad and a pack of markers with me,” I chuckle softly, sadly. “My parents used to encourage me a lot, enter me in competitions, and the more I won, the more pressure I felt to be perfect, like I couldn’t make any mistakes. Eventually, drawing just felt like work, tedious and something that I had to force myself to do to impress others.”

I don’t know why I’m admitting all of this right now, in the middle of our date, but the words keep flowing and Knox doesn’t stop me, taking my hand as he listens intently.

“I couldn’t wait to go to college. I could finally escape from all that pressure and live my life, try and figure out what the hell I’m going to do. I thought that I’d find my love for drawing again once I had a break, but I haven’t yet, and I’m scared, Knox, I’m so scared of losing the only part of me I know.”

My eyes sting with unshed tears, and I refuse to let them fall because I’ve already soured the mood enough.

“Quinn,” Knox says so softly I’m afraid that those tears might spill over anyway. “Princess, I had no idea you felt this way.”

“Because I didn’t tell anyone,” I answer. “Not even Rory knows how I feel. I’m very stubborn.”

His smile eases some of the tightness in my throat. “Don’t I know it, baby.”

Oh, that’s new.