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One

Joe was just seventeen when his mother hired him a painting instructor. He didn't have much ambition and she wanted her son to be more well-rounded. To have a bit of culture in him despite having never left their little town.

The man came from across the seas; some painting prodigy that was pretty well known over in Europe though nobody gave a lick about him here. His parents were going to pay him well and even let him stay in their home for the time being. It was big enough. They had a good stretch of land and even had gates in front of their home, but it wasn't a mansion like some other peoples homes.

His friend Rami came from money. He lived in a big mansion on the hill where parties were always thrown. People drank and danced endlessly. Joe wasn't much for dancing, nor was he much for drinking. Nobody really knew what he liked to do and to be honest, neither did Joe. Not that he minded much.

His daddy was a doctor and he was certain he would follow in his footsteps. Right now, none of that mattered, however. He was young and fresh out of school and his mama wanted him to paint. To make her a pretty picture to hang over the mantle so she could show off to all her friends.

Joe didn't know what to expect when the instructor arrived, but he found himself taken back by the sight of him. He didn't look much like an artist, but rather a work of art. He was increasingly handsome, almost intimidatingly so. There were some good looking people in their town, but nobody like this.

Nobody who had a smile that could light up the whole room or had a booming voice with a delicious accent. It threw Joe off immensely. He played it off as just regular old nerves bundling up around him. He wasn't very good at art. Never had been. Shit, he couldn't even draw a decent heart let alone a gorgeous horizon.

The man — Ben as he had given his name — didn't seem faltered in the least. He was thankful for the career opportunity in the states and was ready to take on any challenge the Mazzello's threw at him.

It remained casual mostly. They would work on something every day, whether it would be a simple sketch that Joe had been working on in his mind or a full-blown portrait. Ben had insisted that everybody was an artist in one way or another and that the key to unlocking those talents laid deep inside the person.

Joe took that was his way of saying even if Joe was absolute garbage at art, that he surely had to be good at something else, right? Joe would never allow it to bother him, not really. He didn't plan on becoming some great American artist and sell his works by the hundreds. All he cared about was making his mama happy and making sure that Mr. Hardy got a decent days to work out of him.

If he was to be taken in by his family then Joe wanted the man to at least pay his dues. Neither man seemed interested in skipping their lessons, which seemed interesting enough. They started out slow, keeping it all professional. Joe had been a bit of a jokester back in school, but he knew the man didn't come all this way just to see his student act like a buffoon.

Eventually, they began to relax around one another and their lessons became less boring as they went on. Ben began teaching him other things, such as languages and literature. He could speak Spanish and French and he brought enough books with him to stock a small library.

The reading Joe didn't mind so much. He had always been a bit of a fanboy when it came to certain comic books so novels weren't very far off. Poetry never interested any of the people around him, but Joe found it fascinating. So much so he began keeping a journal with him at all times to write down the thoughts that would pop into his head.

Some were written in perfect harmony while others didn't make a lick of sense. He never minded really and neither did Ben, who stumbled upon him writing one morning. The air was cooler than normal and Joe found comfort sitting belong a tree in his back yard. He was working on his latest piece when the blond plopped beside him.