Free I Call Him Brady by K. S. Thomas Page A

my state of humiliation. “Like what?”
    “Oh, good. You can still talk.” He plopped down beside me and placed his hand on my knee as though it were completely normal, and for the first time I realized just how long it had been since I’d been touched.
    I had been fine with being single. I had Jessa and May, and a guy just seemed unnecessary.  Or at least that’s what I had told myself. A lie that became easier to believe the more time went by. Now, as I felt the weight of his hand resting on my leg, felt his body heat coming out of his palm and into my skin, I couldn’t believe I’d ever bought into that crap.
    As images of my elevator do-over flashed in my mind, I heard Brady’s voice calling me back.
    “I’ve been meaning to ask…what’s up with this?” He was tugging at a patch of dried paint right below the knee of my pants. “I noticed most of your wardrobe has this issue. Is this a new fad or something? Or do you just buy all your clothes from a painter’s second hand store?”
    I laughed. “Is there such a thing? Because I would totally shop there.”
    “Seriously, I need to understand this. Who wears painting clothes when they’re not painting?”
    I shrugged. “I guess I do.”
    “But why?” He was bordering on exasperation.
    I took a deep breath in and let it out as though it would help propel me onward as I pushed myself up from the couch. “Come on.” I headed for my room.
    “Where are we going?”
    “China.” I pointed at the door straight in front of me. “My bedroom, where do you think?”
    “Your bedroom. Hey, do I need to go grab my bag for this?”
    I turned around and made a face. “ Ew, no!”
    His expression fell into a dramatic frown. “That was harsh. You could have just said, no thank you.”
    “Okay, no thank you. I do not want to have sex with you after your penis was in the Marshall penis zone. That would be like having sex with him too, and he’s practically my brother-in-law.”
    I could see his jaw clenching with bitterness. “There is no proof that we ever shared a penis zone, and more importantly – I have showered since. Quite thoroughly I might add.”
    “Oh, well in that case, yeah, let’s totally do it.”
    His face lit up in pleasant surprise. “Really?”
    “No.”
    I turned back toward the door, opened it and walked in. Once Brady was inside, all talk of our potential hook up was entirely forgotten as he stood there with his mouth agape staring at my wall. It was covered from floor to ceiling in a mural of a massive pirate ship sailing out under a clear night sky. I had completed it only a few days ago.
    “Did you do this?” he asked, his eyes still wide in disbelief.
    “Yeah.”
    He took several steps closer and reached out his hand. He never actually touched it, but let his fingers hover over the wall in midair as they traced the outline of the waves all the way over to the dark ship. “This is amazing.”
    “Thanks.”
    “I mean it, people should see this. Have you done any others?” His eyes searched the remaining walls for any traces of misplaced paint.
    “Sure, I’ve probably done a hundred. All on that same wall.” I came to stand beside him.
    “What do you mean?” He couldn’t comprehend what I was saying. Others had had the same problem in the past. “Are you saying, you paint something as beautiful as this…and then you just paint over it again?”
    I teetered back and forth from my heels to my toes. “Yup.”
    “But that’s insane! Why would you do that?” Brady wasn’t taking the news well. He was running his hands through his hair repeatedly and shaking his head as though what I had said was just unfathomable.
    “Because, I don’t paint for the end result. I paint for the process. It’s like my own version of therapy. Besides, I take pictures of everything before I clear the canvas.”
    He sighed. I’d finally made a point he couldn’t argue. “How long have you been doing this?”
    “About seventeen years.