His Muse

The best things in life will be the death of me

"Um..." Nic started, but it came out as a high-pitched squeak that just proved her point. She yelped a little, only to have Nic's hand slapped over her mouth. "Sh! Don't say it!"

"Sorry! Sorry—it's just that when we were working on color class stuff, he showed up and we talked for a bit," she confessed, waving her hand dismissively between them. She pinched her fingers over her lips and locked them shut. "I won't tell anyone. I swear to it. But when he came in you looked like you were gonna pass out. Did you know he was coming?"

"No! Now stop talking about it," Nic hissed, and hurriedly squeezed between the desks to get over to the rest of the class. Critique was starting.

Their drawings went up on the cork board and by the time their professor started nitpicking the details, Kieran emerged from the storage room. It took everything in Nic's power to pay attention to his professor, especially when Kieran came to stand not too far from Nic, observing the drawings of himself up on the board. It wasn't a huge surprise to find the model observing the work of the artists who drew him or her, so Nic told himself this was normal. The only person who would suspect anything of Kieran standing near Nic would be the girl who was in his color class.

A minute or so later, Kieran discretely leaned towards him and whispered, "Surprise," before settling back into his disgustingly evil smirk that would be the death of Nic. He ground his teeth together to keep from screaming.

"So Kieran," Nic's professor said, drawing everyone's attention directly towards the two of them standing side-by-side studying the drawings on the board, "this is your first try, right? I know your instructor very well—she recommended you and two other of your classmates to me. How is she?"

"She's great—everyone in the class is," he replied with a gentle smile. Since Nic was incapable of looking at Kieran without turning red in the face, he got to see some of the girls in his class look at one another with knowing grins. A disadvantage of being mostly surrounded by women and other gay men, Nic mused bitterly to himself. But whatever. That meant they all found Kieran attractive, right? So Nic must be doing something right if he managed to snag a beautiful specimen like Kieran.

They'd been talking while Nic's internal monologue went on a rampage. He came back to reality when Kieran started commenting on the drawings, and casually—almost as if he hadn't realized it—pointed out Nic's.

"Nic—I believe we've talked about this before," his professor said, and internally he hissed, Shit, I did something wrong. "But I forget. Did you say you've taken figure drawing classes before?"

"Uh, yeah. Last summer, actually—and the one before that," he confessed.

"It's so realistic. I can't believe you drew that in twenty-five minutes," one of his classmates said, and if possible he flushed an even brighter shade of red. "The shadows are so intense."

"Important to note about the shadows: You've captured the reflected light even in the darkest sections of his side here—it definitely gives the figure more dimension rather than a flat, two-dimensional object. And you've connected it to a basic background, which I want everyone to try on the next go." With that, she walked away with a simple, "Impressive," before moving on. Nic let out a breath of relief. He hated being picked on in class, even if portraiture and figure drawing were favorite parts about the entire program.

***

At the end of the day, Kieran left after changing while Nic's professor chattered on about what to expect for the following day. What supplies to bring. Buy this-or-that paper. And don't forget that the next full-body charcoal portrait would be graded.