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I raise my eyebrows. Ewan, whom I’m fairly certain has never engaged in a physical altercation in his life, threatened to chop off my balls and feed them to the lobsters if I entered his studio. Oliver was allowed in and out—genitals intact, as far as I know. Ewan, meeting my eye, rolls his dramatically, as though he can read my thoughts right off my face.

“You can come,” he says, smirking at me as his eyes drop to my waist. Mom, who doesn’t know that her only son’s balls are in danger, looks delighted.

“Come along, then. Your father will catch up when he’s fixed the door.”

Grumbling at the reminder of my perfectly fine door, I trail the pair of them out the back door. Mom stops to admire the standing planters I built on her urging before once more leading the charge toward Ewan’s studio, sitting on the corner of the property. Hooking a hand around his hip, I pull him close and kiss the side of his head.

“Am I allowed to come?” I murmur into his hair. He huffs a soft laugh.

“Yes. I’ve got something to show you, anyway.” He smirks after saying this, fiddling with the key he pulled off the hook by the back door.

The studio—which I last saw when we’d put the finishing touches on the interior—is nestled in the long grass at the corner of my property. It’s easily walkable from the house, but far enough away that Ewan could play music at a volume hewasn’t able to achieve at his loft in LA and still not disturb me. The north wall of the building has massive windows to allow enough natural light while also making it easier for him to avoid direct sunlight. The windows, I notice, are the cleanest thing in the room. Mom laughs under her breath as we walk in, looking fondly at Ewan as though remembering his own mother’s complaints about how messy he was. Some things never change.

“Well, here it is,” Ewan says awkwardly, voice gruff as though he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t feel emotional about letting us in. I stay by the door, not wanting to make him nervous by looking too closely at anything.

Mom, however, has no such reservations. She flits around the room like an annoyingly hyperverbal butterfly, praise tumbling from her mouth so quickly Ewan looks shocked. After five minutes of this, the astonishment morphs into embarrassment and eventually into a silent plea for me to help him. I clear my throat, rising from where I’d been leaning against the doorframe.

“Mom? We’d better get back up to the house before Dad misses us.”

“Dinner might get cold,” Ewan puts in, knowing full well that dinner is in the Crock-Pot and has no chance of getting cold unless we experience a power outage.

“What’s this, honey?” Mom asks, ignoring the pair of us and stopping in front of a canvas propped on an easel. Her head is cocked to the side as she looks at the painting, apparently trying to discern what it is. It’s not usually a problem when it comes to Ewan’s work, as he does mainly landscape scenes. Isquint around her, also having a hard time figuring it out. A potato with hair, maybe?

Ewan’s cheeks flush a bright red underneath his dark scruff, eyes bouncing between us. Clearing his throat, he gestures vaguely, arm flopping like he doesn’t have good motor control of it.

“That’s what I wanted to show you,” he says to me. I watch him closely, unable to decide if his tone is stressed or humorous. “I was practicing doing portraits.”

Tilting my head and squinting my eyes nearly closed, I look at the canvas in a new light. Ewan doesn’t like doing portraits—never has. In fact, I’ve never once seen a portrait done by him, and I’d always assumed that’s because there aren’t any in existence. Looking at the one sitting in the slowly waning light filtering through the window, I wonder if that’s not still the case. This portrait really does not look like a portrait.

“Sure,” I agree, scrambling to think of something both smart and supportive to say. “Like Picasso, right? Abstract?”

Ewan’s lips pinch together in a flat line, and humor flares to life in his eyes.

“Please don’t insult Picasso in this sacred place of art,” he jokes before turning his attention back to the portrait. “Can you tell it’s you?”

He can hardly get the question out without laughing. He knows it doesn’t look like me. Not unless every mirror I’ve ever looked into was lying to me and my eyes really are that crooked and misshapen, my mouth a black hole in the middle of what I now recognize as facial hair but looks more like strings of kelphanging from my chin.

“Oh, sure enough,” my mom tries valiantly, turning to look at me and back at the portrait. “Spot-on. You even captured Joe’s forehead.”

Ewan tips his head back and blinks rapidly at the ceiling. I shake my head at Mom, amused. Idohave my dad’s forehead, but if it looks the way it does in that portrait, it’s a miracle either of us was lucky enough to find significant others. You could land a plane on that forehead.

“It’s really bad,” Ewan says when he’s managed to get himself under control. “I thought it might be romantic to paint Shiloh, but as you can see”—he points at the monster staring sightlessly at us from the canvas—“it didn’t really work out.”

“I feel like the eyes are following me,” I comment, which makes Ewan snort and my mom look at me sternly.

“Well, I think it’s lovely. You’ve got such a unique way of seeing the world, and you’re so talented,” she tells Ewan kindly. And she’s right, he does. There’s a reason collectors want everything he touches. Hell, they’d probably even want this if they saw it.

“We’ll hang it up inside,” I say, making sure everyone in this room—Ewan included—knows it’s mine. Ewan grimaces but doesn’t argue. He knows never to show me his work if he doesn’t want to see it every day when we’re sitting on the couch.

After we finally move my mom out of the studio, Ewan locks the door behind us. Mom strides off toward the house, where my dad is kneeling on the patio, fiddling with who-only-knows-what on the planter boxes. I lean into Ewan, waitinguntil his pretty eyes meet mine, lips curved into a soft smile.

“Romantic, huh?” I comment.

“Be glad I didn’t try and paint you naked,” he warns, smile widening when I laugh.

“We might need to burn sage.” I hook a thumb back at the studio as we walk toward the house. Ewan’s hand slips into mine. “There was an air of haunted Victorian spirit in there.”

“And you want to bring it into the house!” He nudges me with his shoulder playfully.

Letting go of his hand, I wrap an arm around his waist instead. The Ewan of not long ago would never have shown me that. He’d never have laughed and made a joke about it. He probably wouldn’t even have tried to paint it—too stuck in the knowledge that he couldn’t and the fear of certain failure if he tried. He can tell me he loves me all he wants, but it’s the little moments like this that show it clear as day.

“I love you,” I tell him, kissing his head again. I don’t have any paintings to use as romantic gestures. All I have are the words.