Page 66 of Double or Nothing

“Show me.”

My eyes are on hers as she tries to maintain her casual stance. I’m already coming to know her too well for bullshit. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, and her smile is too statue still.

“Let’s have a drink first, shall we?” she says, her eyes dropping from mine.

The pang in my chest jars with the hard-on in my pants. Holy fuck, imposter syndrome reeks from her very pores. Her studio is likely more sacred to her than her pussy.

“Yeah, sounds good,” I lie. “Prosecco in a mug, it is.”

Bryce’s eyes are darting all over the place once we’ve done a cheers. He’s mesmerised, examining all the paintings and prints on the walls like they mean something. Some of them look so shit, I’d ship them off to a charity shop. Even then, they probably wouldn’t sell.

An elephant drawn in one single blue line. Whoopty doo. Sunflowers in oil paint. Oh, yeah. Original. Blocks of random colour like a lame game of Tetris, what the fuck? But the pair of them are discussing these canvases like they’re liquid gold.

I absolutely love Gerald Pierce. Have you seen his Stormy Night abstract?

Of course I have! It gave me goosebumps!

I should bail. Cut it and run and leave the wacko art lovers to it. But I can’t.

Screw Gerald Pierce and his Stormy Night bollocks, what I want to see is Alice Rose Parker’s sacred space. The place where Soul Girl’s soul lives and breathes.

It would feel like a peep show. Peering around a curtain at forbidden treasure.

“What do you think, Jack?” Alice asks me. “Is Stormy Night up your street? What’s your favourite style?”

Better get my game on.

“I’m not a massive Gerald Pierce fan,” I say. I point to the Tetris travesty, then hold my hand to my chin. “I like this one. It captures the chaos of the mundane. Random blocks of colour tumbling into life at speed, while we try to make space without hitting breaking point.”

She actually believes me. Her eyes widen.

“That’s so apt a definition!”

Of course it is, it’s bloody Tetris. I could laugh out loud, but her wide blue eyes have me snared as she walks up to the canvas.

There are a lot of red bricks in it, all over the place, so I hone in on those.

“What does the red symbolise for you, Soul Girl?”

“Expectations,” she says, without so much as a pause. I feel Bryce’s eyes on me from the sidelines, and he’s buying into it along with her. He takes a step forward for a closer view.

“What about you?” she asks me. “What does the red symbolise for you?”

The red beams out of the canvas, all of the pieces blaring out from their counterparts as I focus.

“Sex,” I say.

She laughs. “Fucking hell, Jack. I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

Her expression turns, the sincerity palpable.

“Wow.”

My own sincerity on that gives me the ick, so I turn to Bryce.

“What about you, BT? What does the red mean to you?”