#3 Lost in You (fan fic - in progress)

Chapter Nine

I sat painting in the first floor campus art studio with Deyvon, two weeks later. I had managed to get back to the grounds to sneak out the unfinished painting earlier that morning but found that it was missing from the back of the pile. And there was no sign of it anywhere in the house. I hadn't signed the painting nor was it even completely finished yet, so I wasn't sure who would just swipe an unidentified unfinished painting. I thought maybe Lo took it, but when I asked around the house no one had seen him since before Thanksgiving.

"How was LA?" I asked eyeing my work. I was now in the midst of working on my final project. I had planned to paint music. Literally. And I wanted to finish and use my painting of Lo as part of it, but that was obviously not going to happen. So I decided to do what I did best mixing media for an abstract/photography experimental series. Deyvon was feeling it so far so I felt a bit more confident in my idea after having to scrap my previous plan.

"It was Aight. Spent time with the fam. Caught up with old friends. Missed the hell outta you though." Deyvon smiled at me from over top of his own canvas. He was doing a series of portraits. I couldn't lie. I had nothing on him when it came to recreating people on canvas. I was jealous. "How'd things go here? Hope you weren't too lonely."

"No. There were a few others around. And I spent most of it working at the restaurant or catching up on school work."

"Finals coming up soon."

"Don't remind me." I sighed. My nights had been consumed with nightmares of failing and getting dishonorably escorted off campus by campus security.

The fact that Deyvon and I were having this conversation was actually surprising. Him admitting that he missed me was too.  The first week after classes started back in session, he was distant again like he was for the couple weeks  after I stood him up. I figured he was busy since the semester was ending soon. But then he showed up with AO that next weekend to Tika's apartment since I was hanging there too, and ever since then he was back to being much more attentive again.

We fell back into a previous pattern of working together and hanging out with AO and Tika as a foursome. But despite calling me his girlfriend that one time in front of Lo he still had not even hinted at something more between us. I was starting to think he did it to be petty because I was asking so many questions about Lo but I had yet to be courageous enough to bring it up. Tika and I tried to pry some info about Deyvon's intentions out of AO but Tika's smoker boyfriend was so oblivious to everything that this was a complete waste of time.

"Oh. Did you see the pop up exhibit that GZBG just posted on the campus website this morning?" Deyvon smirked handing me his phone which had Instagram open showing screen shots of the LSU website after it temporarily was hacked for the art exhibition. I scrolled through the shots of art work until I stopped mid scroll recognizing one of the paintings as my half done portrait of Lo. Shit. So that's where it went. "Ummm.. do you know who does this??"

"Nah." Deyvon shrugged speaking vaguely. "Like I said before it's random. Coulda been any of us."

I wanted to point out one of the paintings was mine. But then Deyvon might ask who was in the painting or why I was painting another guy. And I wasn't ready to answer any of those questions. So I just pushed out my lips and hummed in response.

"Hey so... I was hoping maybe we could hang out and grab dinner after this. Talk a bit." Deyvon stated taking back his phone.o

"Like a date?" I asked to clarify. Deyvon and I had been hanging out for a few months now and everyone just assumed we were together. But so far we had only gotten as far as a small kiss on the lips. I really liked Deyvon. I was attracted to him and I wouldn't have minded being with him officially. Of course this was all complicated by the fact that I still couldn't get someone else's boyfriend off of my mind.