Chapter 7: The Pit

The painting studio was in the basement of Fenn Hall, and Dash found it by following the smell.

Turpentine, linseed oil, and old coffee.

He had never been down here in three years.

The stairs ended in a long low room with pipes across the ceiling and a dozen easels.

One lamp was on at the far end.

Dash walked toward it, and then he stopped.

The back wall was covered in canvas.

Canvas after canvas, tacked up edge to edge, floor to ceiling, none of them framed.

It took him a moment to see what they were.

A mouth, huge, lips parted, half in shadow.

A man's hands on the oars of a shell, big callused hands, knuckles white.

The line of a back under a crew jacket, the word HAVERFORD in a smear of white.

A shoulder.

A jaw.

A throat, and a hand around it that was not gripping so much as holding.

The same face appeared again and again in a hundred small ways.

It was painted fast and furious, and with a care Dash could feel in his own ribs.

It was his face.

It was all of him, from a week ago and from three weeks ago, from a boy who had been watching.

"You're not supposed to be down here," Wilder said.

Dash turned.

Wilder stood in the pool of lamplight in a smock stiff with paint, a brush in one hand.

He had a streak of Prussian blue across his jaw.

His expression was blank and guarded.

"How long?" Dash asked.

"Since the first week of orientation. I saw you across the Green."

Wilder set the brush down on a palette.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Playboy Hid His Roommate, So the Whole Quad Watched Him Beg from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.