I walked out of the hotel with Paul, blinking in the bright sunlight. I wanted to ask him if he had heard from Beatrice, but I was afraid of him saying yes, of asking if I wanted to pass a message along to her, because I knew I'd blurt out what I had done. Paul stuck two fingers in his mouth, letting out a sharp whistle, and sure enough a cab pulled over for us. Giving me a smug grin, he opened the backseat door for me.
"Picked that up when I was a cabbie," he said, getting in with me, and I grinned.
"I'd have hoped you picked something up from that job just based on how awful the hours you worked were," I teased, and he grimaced.
"Yeah. I'm just glad I don't have to do it again for the foreseeable future," he muttered, and I chuckled.
"I don't think our band is going anywhere for awhile. We'll be fine."
"Mhm," he said, staring out the window.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye, frown furrowing my brow. He seemed even more distant than he usually kept himself. I never could quite crack him open and figure out what was going on inside, instead being left to piece it together based on the very few things that he allowed to slip through the cracks. I liked Paul, sure, but he clearly didn't like me enough to open up about anything. Or maybe he liked me too much to want to do that. I wasn't sure, I didn't really care. I just felt bad for him.
We reached the art museum and Paul paid the fare, tipping generously.
"You really don't have to come if you don't want to, I don't want to make you feel that--"
"Paul. I like art. I want to go to the museum," I said, cutting him off, and he gave me a nervous smile.
"Alright. But you can leave anytime if you get bored."
"Do you want me to leave?" I asked, and he immediately shook his head.
"No, no, of course not. You're my friend. I just don't want you to feel like you have to stay here, that's all," he said, holding open the door for me, and I smiled, shaking my head with a laugh.
"Did you ever think that you're also my friend and I'm here because I also want to spend time with you?" I asked, and to no surprise he gave me a rather confused look.
"Oh...I guess, yeah," he said, looking away from me.
It wasn't that Paul had never had friends before. We had met through a mutual friend, after all. It was just that he seemed perpetually surprised that people actually wanted to stay as his friend, always operating on the assumption they'd leave at any minute.
We each paid for our tickets to the museum, walking inside. Paul grabbed one of the flyers that highlighted their most popular exhibits while also doubling as a map, unfolding it with a slight frown.
"Got anything you're itching to see?" he asked, and I shrugged.
"This was your idea, so you tell me," I said, pulling off my sunglasses and tucking them into my collar. As nice as the sunglasses were for avoiding recognition, walking around an art museum with shades on would certainly lead to enough looks for me to probably wind up recognized.
"Gallery 5 seems interesting," Paul mumbled, folding the map up and tucking it into his back pocket, although it was a bit of a struggle since the pants he had opted to wear hugged his ass rather tightly.
I followed after him as we walked through the museum, glancing at the paintings and sculptures we walked past before at last we reached the gallery he had wanted to visit. It was emptier than the rest of the museum, evidently not the most popular area. The silence felt thick, like I could have gathered it all up and shoved it out of the room to let a little noise in. But instead I just opted to walk as softly as I could manage, wandering around the room.
I stopped in front of a painting of two women with their dog, looking at it with a soft smile. The woman in the middle reminded me of Bea, with curly dark hair and dark brown eyes that turned down at the corners. But it wasn't an exact match. Bea was prettier.
"You like this one?" Paul asked, walking over, and I shrugged.
"Kinda reminds me of Beatrice," I said, gesturing at it carelessly, still struggling to hide how in love with her I was. Not like I had acted that way recently though.
"Portrait of the Misses de Balleroy in a Landscape with a Dog," Paul said half to himself as he read the nameplate before taking a step back, eyeing the painting up and down. "Which one reminds you of her?"
"That one," I said, pointing, and his eyes roved slowly over every inch of the canvas, as if he was trying to commit the image to memory.
"I don't see it," he said after a pause, and I scoffed.
"Well then you're blind, because there's definitely a resemblance," I grumbled, and he shook his head.
"I don't see it," he repeated.
"That's because I know her better than you do," I muttered under my breath, and he chuckled, small smile turning up just the corners of his mouth, as if he was afraid to smile too much and wind up with laugh lines a few years down the road.
"I suppose."
"Have you heard anything from her recently?" I asked, unable to stop the words from dropping out of my mouth, although I certainly wished I could scoop them back up and swallow them.
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, tearing his gaze from the painting for just a moment.
"You really like her, don't you?" he asked, and I shook my head.
"Of course not. I just have a score to settle," I said dismissively.
His eyes slid back to the painting and he stood there in silence for a moment, shoulders slumped just slightly lower than his usual rigidly casual posture. "Oh. You sure talk about her a lot, for only wanting to fuck her."
"No I don't," I said, unable to think of any excuse for why I always seemed to talk to him about her.
Paul only hummed in response, still staring at the painting, before pivoting on his heel with a shrug, walking to look at something else. It felt as if some spell had been broken and I glanced at the portrait of the Misses de Balleroy one last time before joining him across the room.
But the hair on the back of my neck was standing up, and I felt uneasy, as if things had flipped and the Misses were staring at me now.
