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me that you would like to paint me, I thought that you would do something similar to the grey and black paintings downstairs. But there’s so much orange and beige and gold. But what’s that...” She hunched down and squinted her eyes. “It’s that a bone?”
    From the cabinet nearby, he took a sheet, forced his way between her and the easel and tossed the sheet over the painting. “Yes.” It was actually a sketch of bones, not just a bone. “It’s has a symbolic meaning.”
    She didn’t say anything, just lifted her eyebrows.
    “It will be self-explanatory when it’s finished.” He gently pushed her aside. “No more peeking, okay? Not until it’s finished.”
    His phone rang.
    He took it out of his pocket and checked its display. It was his mother. He answered it. “Yes.”
    “Hello, Ashton.”
    “What do you want?” He moved to the desk and leaned on it.
    “Is that any way to greet your mother?”
    His mother was fond of long monologues, which she also liked to practice over the phone. If he wanted to avoid her chattering, he had to put a stop to it before she even started. “I’m in the middle of something.”
    “Your dabbing again?”
    She could at least remember that even though he painted, he was more of a sculptor than a painter. He inwardly sighed, covered the receiver with his hand and said to Kris, “I’ll be right back.” He strode into the next room, where sacks of material covered the shelves and canvases leaned against the wall. Because of the blinds covering the windows it was quite dark. He told his mother to put his father on, and when his father answered, he asked him, “What is it?”
    “We’re coming to the city on Saturday, for a few days, and we would like to have dinner with you.”
    “You’re not planning to stay at the hotel, I hope, when there’s a spare bedroom in the flat.”
    “We wouldn’t want to bother you and Kalen.”
    “You mean you wouldn’t want to bother us,” Ashton said and then quickly continued, “Kalen is on a trip and I’m rarely there. You two would actually have the apartment to yourselves.”
    “Mother’s not going to be pleased; she wanted to have Sunday dinner with both of you boys.”
    “She’ll have to be satisfied with me.”
    “She would probably insist that you bring that girl you are dating, what’s her name? Mary or something, the one you know from school.”
    “I’m not dating Mary; we’re just friends.” With benefits, but he wasn’t about to share that with his father. “Listen, I really am in the middle of something, can we talk later?”
    “Yes, of course,” his father said, which was followed by goodbye.
    “Bye.” Ashton turned off the phone, pocketed it and returned to his studio where he found Kris in front of the canvas. “I told you not to look.” He stalked toward her.
    She released the edge of the sheet that she held upright and stepped backwards. Playfulness laced her voice as she said, “I just peeked a little.”
    “Yes, I saw what ‘a peek’ means in your vocabulary.” He stopped before her.
    “I was curious.” She took another step backwards and then when he stepped forward, she continued to walk backwards.
    He followed her. “Did you know that curiosity killed the cat?”
    “I’m not a cat.” She took another step backwards.
    He stepped forward, his eyes slid up and down her body. “No, you are not.”
    Her legs hit the counter. “Are you sure?”
    “Pretty sure.”
    She shifted left.
    He set his hands on the counter’s polished surface, trapping her.
    The playfulness in the air thinned and tension replaced it.
    “Ashton.” His name slipped out of her mouth like a brush of breeze.
    His tongue darted out and he licked his upper lip. “May I touch you?”
    “Huh?”
    “May I touch you?”
    “Touch me?”
    “Your face. May I touch it?”
    For a moment silence stretched between them, tightening the tension, and he thought that she might refuse him, but then she pushed her chin