Archive of Our Own

It’s been weeks. Weeks since the last time she finished something – a small, simple watercolour she’d painted while out hiking one of the local trails. It wasn’t much of anything really. Muted tones bleeding into one another: greens and blues, marked out only against the rusted brown outline of a bridge. Nothing more than a rippled page in her sketchbook.

Since then, the well’s been running dry. She’s got commissions sitting in her inbox, half-painted canvases dotted around her studio and only blank pages filling her head. 

After another long, listless day at work, with not much to show for it, she surrenders to absently channel-hopping in bed, desperate for the blessed distraction of the television. She searches for something, anything, to push nagging thoughts of work to the back of her mind, to help her forget the unfinished and abandoned projects that await her downstairs. It’s all just colours blurring on the screen, white noise in the background of her whirring brain, and before long she gives up on the idea. She leaves it on whatever random sports channel she’s found, not wanting to be alone with her thoughts, and tosses the remote onto the bed sheet. 

She’s absently rubbing her hand over her face as it happens, as the voices blaring from the television speakers get quicker, louder, more urgent. And then she sees it: a long-range banger from just outside the 18-yard box, the player’s body twisting into it, her leg outstretched behind the ball as it flies through the air, curving in a perfect arch. There’s a grace to the motion that feels otherworldly. It isn’t like the sports she knows, sports she’s seen before. She’d played a little soccer as a kid; no one she’d seen had ever looked quite like that when they’d struck a ball. The movement is so smooth and controlled, the ball so perfectly placed, it is hypnotic. It brings everything back into focus, the ball flying through the air, gliding gracefully, like there are wings carrying it to precisely where it belongs: top corner, barely beyond the fingertips of the keeper.

She can’t look away, wouldn’t dare press another button to change the channel. It feels like she’s witnessing an earth-shaking fork of lightning.

Tobin plays it back a few times. She takes note of the number 23 printed on the player’s jersey. She takes note of the long, smooth line of the player’s body, from the tips of her fingers dangling in the air for balance to the toes of her kicking foot as it sends off the shot. She takes note of the joyous, liberated way the player throws her hands to the sky after it’s done. 

Tobin finds herself captivated by the shapes, the angles, the form.

It’s 1am when she starts painting. The studio is situated below what could generously be considered her apartment, so it barely takes a few steps before she’s reunited with her easel and brushes. Despite the long, dragging hours of wishing she could be anywhere else, suddenly she’s half-running back to it all, any earlier desire to throw the lot out the window now entirely forgotten.

It’s been forever since she last drew people, faces, figures like this. She can’t remember the last time. Art school, perhaps. She doesn’t pause to worry about it, and somehow the pencil strokes come out like she’s been drawing this woman all her life. It’s a vaguely sketched outline, light gray across the primed cotton surface, before she applies a wash to dull the white of the canvas. She knows she has to – she knows it’s all part of the process, the tube of raw umber almost all used up for how many times she’s done this – but it feels tedious now. She thins out the colour swiftly before spreading it over the vast white square, no longer utilizing the opportunity for procrastination, instead eager to exploit the burst of inspiration that’s taken hold of her. 

Her oils are exactly where she’d left them after hours of creative block, the colours now seeming somehow brighter than they did a few hours ago. Tobin quickly reaches for her favored paintbrush and begins to mix. 

It takes all night. 

She’s still perched on the stool when morning light bursts through the windows to bring her out of a frenzied fever of productivity. It’s as though she’s stirring from a dream, woken up by the sun to find the painting there, right in front of her, waiting. It’s finished.

She appraises it now in the light of day, remembering the number 23 with a strange, urgent feeling sitting on her chest. It’s exactly as she recalls the shot. The movement is captured with a ghosting echo of the player in motion, a soft blend of colours creating a kinetic trick of the eye. 

It’s like nothing she’s ever painted before. 

Tobin walks aimlessly about the room, her private studio, not really knowing what to do next. She feels the rare urge to show it to someone, to show it off.  

She finds her DSLR abandoned on the cluttered desk and grabs it, walking back to her easel to take a picture. It feels all too simple. The natural lighting of the first shot allows her to capture it as closely as she’s ever seen, and there’s something thrilling to it. To feel inspiration flood her bloodstream again with such wild excess. She’s eager to preserve this odd moment, her momentary rush of inspiration, and share it. So she does. It’s not that she expects it to mean much to anyone else, but it’s a timestamp on a rare, free-flowing moment of creativity. 

She posts the picture straight away, and then sleeps away the rest of the morning.

It happens while she’s dreaming. It becomes something far beyond her wildest imagination. She calls the painting only “23”, but it’s not as subtle as it feels. Everybody saw 23. It just so happened to be the World Cup final. Everybody was watching. Tobin had only been watching number 23. A few seconds and in. She hadn’t known what it was or what it meant. She’d taken for granted that her place in the world might overlap with 23’s.

The thing is, she lives and works in Portland. She’s established in Portland.

Portland is a soccer city. 

When she posts the picture of her canvas, it starts in Portland. It begins there and ends just about everywhere. By the time she wakes up, her world is different and so much bigger. She finds out that the Portland art community has grown tenfold in her sleep; she finds out that 23 is her lucky number; she finds out what viral means. Because, it turns out, the whole world had been looking for a way to celebrate 23. Their American hero. The left foot strike that had won a World Cup. And then a portrait by a local artist had gained traction on the West Coast, capturing everything about the moment in a blend of red, white and blue. The iconic, patriotic tones are softened by Tobin’s palette: ivory, dusk blue, deep maroon. 

She’s already received countless requests for image rights or comment before she stirs for lunch. 

She ignores the rest, barely blinking an eye at the vast infringement of copyright that’s spread like wildfire across every social media platform she can think of, but chooses to reply to a single request from Time Magazine that seems almost miraculous. The amount of money offered feels extortionate. She is characteristically terse during brief conference call negotiations as they firm up an offer, all too aware of the rent she hadn’t been too confident of making this month. She grants the rights for image usage but maintains ownership of the original, feeling unusually protective of her canvas. 23 will live in her studio a little longer, a pleasant reminder of this ephemeral success. 

The portrait grows bigger and bigger with time, with Time. It earns the cover, accompanying a lengthy feature on the soccer star whose name is Christen, it turns out. 

She finds out more about 23 in the process of selling her portrait. She’d only seen the strike, Tobin says when asked about her inspiration for the artwork. No, she didn’t know about the historic goal-scoring streak leading up to it that transformed the player from sub to star. No, she’s never met the U.S. women’s national team’s winning forward. 

She doesn’t mention the fire she’d felt in her chest, or the frenzied way her brush had colored the canvas as though taken over by some other force. She hadn’t had to think for a second, in truth. It had seemed to paint itself, the details of 23’s face, her posture, her movement so instantly embedded in the memory. Even now, she feels sure she could render it anew just as accurately.

Tobin gets asked for more: portraits of other players on the team, portraits of sports stars from across the different leagues. It’s strange to suddenly be so highly in demand. Uncomfortable with the sudden flurry of interest that overwhelms her inbox and her head, she shies away. She keeps to her modest little studio in downtown Portland, hiding from whatever spotlight the world wants to shine on her. She gets a lot of calls and texts from unknown numbers. Her sisters suggest ways to market herself, to capitalize on the moment. There comes a point when she stops looking at her phone entirely, but for the requisite contact with family and friends from time to time. She stops checking her emails. 

She doesn’t stop thinking about 23, about the way that perfect ball had shaken the net. The way it had shaken Tobin’s whole life. 

It’s another month before things calm down enough that she opts to revisit the moment that had changed things so dramatically for her and, by all accounts, for her subject. She sits down in the center of her bed, the TV hovering above, and watches the match repeat, finding herself just as mesmerized by the number 23 as she had the first time, oh so briefly. The rest of the game provides a flood of context, broadening Tobin’s appreciation for the player’s artistry on the ball. With every minute, it becomes clearer and clearer that she hadn’t witnessed an isolated moment of brilliance; she’d witnessed one of many. 

It’s in the middle of a quiet summer’s afternoon when Tobin hears a light knock at the door of the studio. Two light raps on the glass, and she turns her back to the canvas to see her there. 23.

Something takes her breath away. The shock of it, or perhaps it’s those distinctive eyes. 

“You’re 23,” Tobin says, can’t help but say, her mouth moving the way her paintbrush had that night, without autonomy or consciousness. The woman only laughs, running a hand through hair that’s wild and curly now where it had once been sleeked into a ponytail. She’s wearing a tight, fitted t-shirt that comes up a little short, revealing a sliver of dark gold skin above the waistline of a long, flowing skirt that moves with her. She looks so different now that, on reflection, Tobin doesn’t quite know how she recognizes her so immediately, but the familiarity is intimate and undeniable.

“You’re Tobin Heath?” 23 asks, and smiles from her eyes first. Her eyes, Tobin notices most of all. She hadn’t captured those eyes well enough at all, hadn’t even got close. She’s too caught up in the thought to reply, and then she notices the awkward silence stretching out in the vast expanse between them. The open space of the studio feels oppressive suddenly, so Tobin takes a few steps and 23 takes a few steps in turn. The gap between them becomes small – small enough to close with an outstretched palm. Instead, she keeps both paint-stained hands fixed at her sides.

“You’re here,” Tobin utters, a little astounded. It feels like she’s painted a vision only for it to come to life. 

“You didn’t answer the phone. I–I tried… getting in touch some other way but…” 23 trails off, her head tilting to the side as though trying to take a study of Tobin. It’s unsettling to suddenly feel like the subject, like her portrait is being sketched as she stands there. It’s only fair, she figures. 

23’s eyes – that she tries to exact in a shade, somewhere between gray and green, perhaps olive, sage, moss – drift past Tobin’s face to land upon the portrait. It’s sitting right there, behind Tobin, propped on a shelf in front of a collection of other paintings. “Do you–” Tobin shifts uncomfortably, a little reluctant with the words. “Do you want it? Is that why you came?”

“No, I, umm… I was in town for a game and I wanted to thank you. It’s… something, you know?” she says, her voice small. It blooms a little as she adds, “It’s beautiful.”

Tobin doesn’t quite know how to reply, swallowing down the urge to argue that it’s simply a portrait designed to capture its subject faithfully. Upon their introduction, she finds her work to be wholly inadequate. It’s beautiful, perhaps, but the real thing is far more exquisite than her oils have shown it to be.

Tobin bows her head, nodding something like thanks. When she looks up again, she notices 23 scanning the room, taking it all in. 

"Your talent,” her visitor says distantly, voice drifting away on a daydream. “I'd love to be able to create art.” It’s the voice of someone who’s got no idea the hours Tobin whiles away in this studio without her brush so much as touching the canvas. 

Tobin folds her lips over a smile, tucking it away between her teeth shyly. She thinks about that painting, the one that’s brought them together, and the fact that it was a piece of art before Tobin had even sketched out the lines of it. She can’t help but reply, almost flippantly, “Trust me, I've seen you play. You can create art."

“You watch a lot of soccer?” 

Tobin quickly glances away, as if caught in a lie. “No, uh, that was, like, my first game. But I feel pretty confident.” 

23 shrinks a little at that, hiding a smile. Looking up through her lashes, she says, “I guess I have to trust your eye.” Before Tobin can scoff dismissively, she insists, “Really. You’re so talented.” 

Uneasy with the compliment, Tobin’s hand squeezes the back of her neck, her posture as awkward as her words are strained. “You say that, but for weeks I've just had this, like, block." 

She doesn’t quite know why she admits it, but it feels suddenly urgent that she say it. To someone. Perhaps only this particular someone. She’s been struggling for weeks but hasn’t been able to admit it to a soul. Not to her agent, not to her friends, not to her clients. She’d kept it to herself, covered it in excuses, locked it away. Now, she’s handed the secret to a stranger. 

23’s eyebrows lift with her smile as she laughs easily, a warm kind of laugh that feels infectious, gesturing at the painting. “Clearly not anymore!” 

Tobin gives a wry nod, but it comes out serious and earnest as she quietly concedes, “No. Not anymore.” 

It hangs there. Heavy between them. Loaded with tension.

There’s a question in 23’s eyes, one that Tobin can’t quite figure out. It goes unspoken. It’s like the soccer player is instead working it out for herself, her gaze focused as her mouth hangs a little agape, caught in hesitation. 

Tobin doesn’t notice herself holding her breath until the woman speaks again to say, “I, uh… It was good to meet you, Tobin.” It’s strange the way that Tobin’s own name suddenly sounds brand new as 23 speaks it. Before she turns to leave, Tobin’s visitor adds, “It’s Christen. My name. I didn’t know if you knew.”

Tobin smiles fondly because, though she did, she hasn’t really thought of her as anything other than the enigmatic number 23 until now.

With a wave, Christen disappears. Gone, just like that.

Tobin paints her again that night from memory. It’s barely anything. An outline, a wash, the trace of her remarkable eyes. Suddenly none of the other portraits she’s been trying to work on can hold her attention. Her paints are mixed to find that perfect shade of gray-green, nothing quite accurate enough. 

She doesn’t have to wait too long before getting another chance to study that indefinable colour. Christen comes back the following day, knocking twice again.

She’s bathed in sunlight as she opens the door, closing it behind herself in a way that makes the studio feel so much smaller than it had yesterday. This time, she’s got a certain impatience about her as she looks over at Tobin, who’s slouched on the edge of her favored stool and peering out from behind a canvas. “Are you going to sell it?” Christen asks abruptly, determination furrowing her brow as balled fists hang at her sides. They loosen once the question is asked, her hands moving to tuck her hair neatly behind her ears.

Not wanting to admit the unusual possessiveness she feels about the piece, Tobin only replies, “Maybe, someday. I don’t know.” She places her brush down in the well of the easel, slipping off the stool to face her guest.

“You’ve had offers,” Christen replies, and it’s not a question.

“You’re a, uh, popular subject,” Tobin points out, thinking of the surreal hours she’d spent that first day, bemusedly browsing through the stratospheric figures being thrown at her by the soccer star’s keen admirers. Forget rent. For the kind of money some were offering, she could make a downpayment on a place of her own with change to spare. She’d only marveled. She’d tried not to examine her reluctance to consider any of the offers too closely.

Christen bows her head, tucking her chin tight to her chest. “It’s not like your other work,” she says, looking down still, barely loud enough for Tobin to hear her above the silence of the studio. There’s a faint echo, as if to confirm that the words weren’t a figment of Tobin’s imagination. 

“No, I, uh…” Tobin’s not too sure what to say, glancing around the space to remind herself of the abstract portraits she typically prefers, along with a few of the sprawling Oregonian landscapes she’s captured when trying her hand at more traditional work. And then there’s the footballer. There’s something about her, something about her that compels Tobin to honesty. “You know, I meant what I said yesterday. I was inspired. You inspired me.”

Christen's looking down, absorbed in a small canvas awash with the pinks and oranges of a sunset, but Tobin catches her cheeks flushing anyway.

“I wish, umm…” Christen dares a glance at Tobin as if checking that it’s okay, or safe perhaps. 

Tobin only listens – patiently, intently. She is frozen, captivated by the soccer star who comes and goes, so fleetingly that it leaves the painter wondering if it’s all just flickers of the imagination. She had left without a trace, without anything to convince Tobin that she hadn’t just stirred from a hallucinatory reverie. Even now, she appears like a vision, surrounded by the bright morning sunlight afforded by the south-facing windows of the art studio. She thinks Christen Press, number 23, with the eyes that refuse to be painted, would be exactly the kind of woman to dream up.

“I wish I could hold on to that moment. Your painting, it made it last a little longer.” Christen finds her voice looking directly into Tobin’s curious eyes, her own gaze unguarded and seeking. It makes Tobin feel utterly transparent. 

“It will last, you know. People will remember.” Tobin tucks her bottom lip beneath her teeth as she acknowledges privately that she certainly won’t forget.

“Sport is fleeting.” Christen sighs, and there’s something joyless and flat about her voice. “You win, and then you’re back fighting to win again. I play tonight, here, just a few streets over. Odds say I lose. This image of me,” she says, looking past Tobin now and instead at the portrait. “They’ll realize it’s a load of crap the moment I miss a shot. The next time I fail.” 

Tobin knows so little about the sport that Christen’s talking about, and yet there’s something so familiar about the nagging dread of failure. Perhaps that’s why Christen tells her, she thinks. Tobin wonders if she senses it, if it’s her own admission of creative block that prompts this moment of honesty, of vulnerability, from the world’s newest star. While everyone’s praising Christen and craving her attention, she’s standing here in this quiet little spot in Portland, waiting for the noise to turn to silence. They might not be so different after all.

What Tobin’s learned from her own 23 is that no matter how much struggle comes along the way and no matter how many attempts go unfinished, people only truly care about the end result. Sport and art can’t be so different. 

“A moment like that isn’t undone by some small future failure,” she offers, her lips slanting to offer a consolatory half-smile. “The point of it is that it’s a moment of greatness so, like, remarkable that they paint portraits just to honor it. Like, you created something so important that it can’t be erased, no matter what happens next. It’s a piece of history. That’s why they all want the painting.” She gestures vaguely to the artwork a few steps away.

The corner of Christen’s mouth quirks up, just a little, as though she’s keeping Tobin’s words like a secret. Her lips tightly pressed together, she breathes out through her nose like a sigh or a laugh, something that Tobin’s not quite allowed to understand yet. But her eyes. Her eyes are wide and open, glinting and gleaming in the daylight like there’s gold gilding with all the green. It’s maddening, Tobin thinks, feeling the limitations of her skills keenly as she stares into those eyes.  

When Christen leaves again, taking with her all the good luck that Tobin has to offer for her game, the artist returns to the portrait she’d begun the night before. 

This time, the oil colour edges a little closer to matching Christen’s eyes, but the depth isn’t there, nor that subtle, fleeting glint of gold. She mixes and mixes, combining metallics with every shade to try to capture flecks of vivid life, unable to do justice to the way the colour had transformed in each new light, as if evading capture. When she calls it quits late into the night, she’s ready to resign herself to defeat. She tucks the painting away out of sight to return to, perhaps, when she's got some time and space from this whirlwind few weeks, from Christen. In fact, she's ready to dismiss both encounters as mystic daydreams – a sign that she’s not getting enough sleep.

But Christen refuses to be dismissed.

For the third day in a row, she comes back to the studio. This time, she wanders around it with a little added confidence, admiring loose sketches and finished canvases awaiting dispatch and a gallery of photographs. There’s a curiosity about Christen that had been there since the first day, but now she seems at her leisure to indulge it, even as Tobin refrains from outright encouragement. 

“I’m distracting you from your work, aren’t I?” she says as Tobin watches her float about the space, the paintbrush clutched in one hand entirely forgotten as her eyes follow Christen’s movements. 

It’s hard to deny the statement, so Tobin says nothing. 

“Will you paint something for me?” Christen asks when she realizes she’s not getting a reply. Her finger is pulling at her lip nervously as she says it.

“Like what?” Tobin pushes back, but she knows her question is quirking up into a smile.

“I don’t know.” Christen throws her arms up a little, smiling brightly in a way that prompts a pang of... longing, desire, warmth? Tobin can’t quite pin down the feeling. “Anything. I feel like… we’re connected somehow, me and you. You saw me. And I just… want to see you.”

There’s something in Christen’s eyes. Daring. Another flash of gold. Possibility.

Tobin rises from the stool, stepping only a touch closer.

“There was a picture of you. When I searched your name,” Christen admits, words rushing out in a flurry as she spins to turn her back. She makes a show of admiring one of the framed prints Tobin had been experimenting with that’s hanging on the wall. “I was kind of… expecting a guy at first.” She seems to almost laugh to herself at the notion. “I didn’t know, really, and then I found a picture.”

If Tobin’s learned anything about the strange, sparkling number 23 over the course of their three brief encounters, it’s that she is unsettled by silence. There seems no secret thought she wouldn’t share just to fill a silence. So, Tobin doesn’t respond. Aching with curiosity, swallowing loud between her ears, she waits. 

“You, umm, were working on something, I guess. Holding a paintbrush. First thing I noticed were your hands.” It sits in the air, and Tobin wonders if she’ll elaborate. The curiosity grows so intense, it burns in her chest. But Christen pivots: “I knew you’d be quiet too, the way your hair hid your face. You weren’t looking at the camera.”

Christen glances over her shoulder, as if her gaze is the camera now, forcing Tobin to look away, to look down. Turning back again, as if accepting Tobin’s refusal to catch her eye, she asks, her voice quiet but laced with daring, “Did you know that I’d be… like this? Did you wonder about me, about who I was outside of that moment?”

Tobin glances up at her, studies the back of her head like it’s one of the portraits her mother had taken her to see as a child, an artwork that’s all questions, no answers. Christen’s natural curls fan out over her shoulders, a little more on the right than the left from the way she’s styled it to one side. Her frame is slight and toned, her outfit similar to the one from their first meeting; today it’s a white cami top paired with a variation on her flowing maxi skirt, which has been replaced by a multi-colored floral print this time. At her side, her hands glimmer in the light to reveal thin gold bands on each of her fingers. Tobin takes inventory of all of it, every detail. The ones she’d missed in the portrait, the ones that are new from even the day before, the ones that prove that Christen’s real.

Tobin slowly scans over every inch of her visitor as though trying to wake herself up from a dream.

And then, like a bolt of lightning jolting her alive, she catches Christen’s eye in the reflection on the glass of the frame in front of her. She’s staring. She’s staring without inhibition and not shying away as Tobin notices, instead holding her gaze like they’re playing a game of chicken. 

“Yeah,” Tobin confesses quietly, replying at last, but not daring to admit a syllable more. 

Instead of words, she dares to edge nearer, careful not to change the angle, careful not to break eye contact. Their gaze is locked in the glass reflection. 

Though her words are spoken softly, when Christen breaks the silence, the sound feels rough and heavy as a delicate feather of possibility hangs in the air. “There isn’t one other person in here. It’s words, and landscapes, and wonderfully abstract shapes. But you painted me.”

It isn’t a question. Tobin wouldn’t have the answer if it was. 

When she doesn’t say anything to that, Christen smirks. Outright smirks at her in the reflection. It’s enough to make her wonder how number 23 has ever failed at anything in her life; anything she wants, she can have. Real or not, Tobin can’t look away. 

She edges closer still – another step, and another. 

Their eyes stay fixed. 

They don’t seem to blink and yet time stretches out endlessly, a vastness to the encounter that makes Tobin feel like nothing has come before it. Not yesterday or the day before, not the painting, not her whole life. There is only this gaze that stops her breath in her throat, that floods her body with heat.

Before long, Tobin has closed the space between them to almost nothing. Those remarkable eyes are on her the whole time. They could be almost impassive, only Tobin’s stared at them enough, even in the short time they’ve spent together, to know better. There’s a hint of curiosity in the way Christen watches, utterly still, accepting. When Tobin stops at her shoulder, doubt catching up over how impossible it all seems – the goal-scoring maestro who’d wowed the world here in her studio, seeking comfort in the arms of a struggling artist? – Christen’s head turns just slightly. It’s almost imperceptible, but it’s enough. It gives her away, a flash of want in her eyes. It’s as if she’s helplessly chasing the contact, pulled by a force greater than herself to meet Tobin there, to encourage her past any last second hesitation. 

Her confidence buoyed by the momentary flutter of Christen’s eyelashes and the way the player’s body begins to twist towards her, Tobin moves a hand up to Christen’s cheek before guiding down to hold her neck, feeling the tremors of her racing pulse beneath her fingers. The gesture prompts Christen to turn her face to the side, finding Tobin there, watching, waiting, the subtext now glaring – a heading, bold and underlined. This is looking and really seeing. Not the distant, distorted sight of each other’s reflection. Only sharp close-up, Tobin’s gaze scanning over soft features that are near enough that she can feel Christen’s breath hitting her cheek. Her thumb smooths out against the line of Christen’s cheekbone, the motion of it prompting Christen’s eyes to flutter closed as her mouth falls open in sweet synchronicity, daring Tobin to close the gap. 

When she does, their lips meet softly, hot breath escaping to each other’s mouths, teeth grazing Tobin’s bottom lip, before they awaken to something more, something passionate. It has Christen turning her whole body toward Tobin at last, no longer keeping a shoulder guarded between them. Christen’s hand moves to mirror Tobin’s, holding Tobin’s jawline reverently to tilt her face up. It anchors Tobin, somehow, even as their kiss makes her feel wildly adrift from anything like reality. 

Christen leans in again, her heavy gaze flicking down from Tobin’s eyes to her freshly-kissed mouth, before she’s softly teasing over Tobin’s lips with her own. Teasing and then not. Teasing and then kissing like Tobin’s never been kissed before.

They’re slow and patient, their foreheads resting together when they stop to catch their breaths. Tobin feels a hand in the curve of her spine, still at first, before it moves higher to pull her in close. Tobin returns the gesture gratefully, urgency in her grip as her hand settles at Christen’s waist while the other cradles her cheek appreciatively, fingertips buried beneath soft, wild curls. 

The wanting that’s been clamped like a vice around Tobin’s heart softens a little inside their embrace, but she feels it move lower. It’s shifting to something altogether different and more heated. It’s a flutter in her stomach, then a burning lower and lower. 

It’s not like she’s an innocent, wide-eyed ingenue feeling her first exhilarating rush of lust. She’s never had trouble picking up women. She’s had her fair share of one-night-stands, and one, two, three-night-stands that drag out into loose attempts at something real. She’s been casual about that, mostly. It’s just sex a lot of the time. There’s never been the need for more. She finds it easy by herself; she’s happy as a free spirit, a rolling stone, moving through the world solo, always searching for her next burst of inspiration. She’s always been more interested in the pursuit of art than love or anything like it. Mutually equitable arrangements with friends and strangers have worked out fine, or not worked out at all. But it’s never felt like this. It’s never been this. This urgent, intense want that suddenly seems to make sense of all the poems, the songs, the paintings. 

She’s been looking for art all this time, and there it is. Right in front of her. There she is. 

She can’t think about what it all means, what it could become. All she knows is she doesn’t want to stop. 

Christen’s head rolls to the side as Tobin kisses a line from just below her ear, down her neck, to her shoulder, letting the strap of Christen’s top dangle against her arm. While one hand cups Christen’s jaw, the other splays out against her ribs, daringly close to the curve of Christen’s breast. Close enough to earn a low moan as Christen comes loose in her arms. 

When she’s finished peppering the trail of light affection along Christen’s bare skin, Tobin straightens up to study the look on Christen’s face. Eyes darker, mouth wet and swollen, the line of her lips softened now, Christen looks exactly as wrecked as Tobin feels, though Tobin can’t resist teasing a thumb across her nipple – a spark of daring overwhelming her. The jolt it earns is slight but satisfying, the corner of Tobin’s lips giving away her bad intentions and prompting Christen to crash against her in a messy, desperate way that belies the briefness of their acquaintance. They anticipate each other easily, hands guiding freely over eager, urgent bodies. They’re quickly fumbling with clothes, pulling at any scrap of fabric within reach. 

When Tobin finds herself overheating under her baggy sweats, she pulls her sweatshirt over her head without a thought to how it might appear, what it might assume. It’s only once it’s thrown off to the side that the insinuation dawns on her, her eyes meeting Christen’s again. She’s met with breathless, enthusiastic encouragement, eyes that drift quickly down her body to the thin, braless t-shirt she’s left with, and further still to the low-hanging sweatpants that allow the marked line of her hips to protrude noticeably, a faint V-line teasing between top and bottom. 

A breathless laugh escapes Tobin at the unabashed hunger in Christen’s gaze. 

She’s reckless about drawing her back into another kiss, her hands toying with the edge of Christen’s top, her thumb hooked beneath the fabric, dragging it up and up until Christen’s moaning into the kiss and pulling to rip it away any which way she can. 

They kiss there, in the middle of the brushes and paints and easels. They kiss there, like it’s a conversation: tongues doing all the talking, saying more than either of them has put into words. They kiss there, until kissing doesn’t feel like enough. 

“Upstairs,” Tobin manages to get out, the words rough and low and loaded with feeling, Christen’s eyes blowing wide at the suggestion. Her dark eyelashes stand out against the hoods of her eyes. 

In so many ways, it feels like little more than a continuation of the space they’re already in. But it’s a line. It’s the point of no return, the difference between her studio and her home suddenly the difference between fantasy and reality.

Tobin knows they both feel it. She can see it in Christen’s heavy stare now.

Together, tangled inside a magnetic embrace, they make a stumbling, sloppy path past half-finished paintings and misplaced furniture. She doesn’t give a thought to the state of the room, nor to the organized chaos that awaits them upstairs. When they reach the steps at the back wall of the room, Christen leads them up with Tobin’s hands guiding her at her hips, the bedroom unfolding in front of them as they reach the top step. 

There’s safety in the destination, in knowing that they both know what happens next. It’s no longer a fight to prolong the moment, to divest it of all they can claim. 

At the top of the stairs, Christen moves a little further into the room and then stops, with Tobin’s hands still lingering on her hips. Her own hands move to cover Tobin’s, warm palms flat and encouraging as Tobin dares to press tighter. They stand flush against each other, Christen’s back pressed to Tobin’s front. As Christen sinks back against her, Tobin allows her hands to guide over the flat of Christen’s stomach as her mouth sucks at the warm curve of Christen’s neck. That’s enough to earn a low, whimpering moan; it’s enough to have Christen pulling at her hands, bringing them up to knead her breasts over a thin, cotton bralette. It’s enough, and then it’s not. Soon, Christen’s turning in her arms, her eyes sparkling and wide in close-up.

They’re slow as they peel away each item of clothing that remains, a kiss pressed gently in the space between every one.

The low ache between Tobin’s legs intensifies with each flash of contact or fleeting glance. It’s a kind of wanting that she’s never known before, something impossible and mystical and thrilling locked inside the knowing and not knowing of each other. It’s like every time Christen touches her, every nerve in her body is sparked alight. 

Tobin’s t-shirt is swiftly abandoned, then her pants – only white boxer briefs left. 

As Christen straightens up after stepping out of her skirt, her hair falls over her shoulders again, cascading over her breasts as if to conceal them. They stand one in front of the other, the gaze so direct, it feels intoxicating. Tobin steadies herself with a touch, light but grounding, against Christen’s forearm. She drifts gently up the line of Christen’s arm, brushing softly over the smooth skin of her shoulder, meeting the locks of hair that cover her still to lift them over her shoulders. Christen’s head bows to watch her hands, her eyes attentive to the way Tobin pushes against loose curls of dark brown with the back of her fingers, and then she watches with studious intensity as Tobin takes her in. 

“Are you real?” Tobin whispers, breathless, part of her not wanting to know the answer. “Did I make you up?”

Christen’s smile twists to a smirk again, teasing, tormenting, breathtaking. “You’re good, but you’re not that good,” she replies, the chuckle of laughter that belongs to it buried deep in a kiss, a kiss that moves them to the edge of the mattress, stepping recklessly over abandoned clothes and forgotten hesitations. 

Tobin guides Christen onto her bed, her hand appreciatively smoothing across the naked plane of Christen’s stomach as Christen simply lets her. She contentedly lies back across the bed, waiting for Tobin to move closer – letting out only a gasp of pleasure, not surprise, when Tobin’s weight presses down against the length of her body, a hand all that’s left between them, those expressive, skilled fingers that had caught Christen’s eye finding the very center of her desire to work her up. With the other hand, Tobin finds Christen’s, their fingers sliding together before intertwining, tightening around one another, all the tension in their bodies held between their palms.

They kiss again, tongues dancing together as the slick heat of naked skin goes unhindered. It’s relief wrapped up in anticipation, and Tobin relishes the sharp intake of breath that Christen makes as her hand deftly teases out Christen’s pleasure. She feels nails, short and sharp, scrape down her back, drawing a groan from Tobin herself even as she doubles down in her efforts to earn the same, and so much more, from Christen.

When Christen pulls her head back against the pillow and gazes up at Tobin hovering above, a faint line forms between her eyebrows. It’s like she’s working out a riddle. Christen’s hand comes up to Tobin’s face, fingertips gently moving over it, memorizing every feature like she’s learning her in braille. Tobin simply holds her gaze as long as she can, watching the effect she’s having as Christen’s eyes slam shut, as she gasps and trembles, as she keens forward against Tobin’s shoulder before pressing a tender, grateful kiss to her cheek. 

Overwhelmed by the tenderness of it amid their heated embrace, Tobin stills to press a gentle kiss to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. She keeps going as Christen’s body arches to meet her lips. 

Tobin’s eyes flash up to find Christen’s once again, expecting lust and pleasure and fire. 

Instead, she’s met with awe. A kind of look she’s never seen before. It feels profound and terrifying and exhilarating all at once, and all she can do is continue kissing her way down Christen’s torso just to hide away from it, scared by the way it shakes her. By the way it feels so transformative and addicting.

She buries herself at the apex of Christen’s legs, raggedly breathing every spark of feeling against the very source of it.  

Her tongue moves like her brush. Light strokes at first. Tentative, careful, teasing out the idea as Christen’s legs move up around her. Her confidence blooming as she hears low, breathy moans and feels Christen’s hand in her hair, Tobin strokes more firmly, more certain. Each slick, generous motion builds the picture, bringing their scene into glorious technicolour, making the rest of the world disappear. She’s using her fingers too, drawing out a shudder first, then more, brushing against Christen’s clit while her tongue continues, until Christen is clenched around her, finished. 

As she pulls back from her position between Christen’s legs, which stay draped limply over her shoulders, Tobin marvels at the sight of her lover spent and satisfied. Her gaze rakes over Christen’s body: the muscles of her stomach taut as her chest rises and falls in wild, uneven breaths, her face flushed, hair a riot across the pillow. Tobin watches her sigh out a laugh of giddy relief, the back of her hand against her forehead, eyes shining and fixed on Tobin.  

It might be the most spectacular portrait she’s ever painted. 

Later, as they lie together after, their skin still misted with sweat, bodies mutually sated and heavy, Tobin hears Christen quietly say, “Don’t sell it.” She’s curled around Tobin with her head rested against Tobin’s chest as the painter absently combs a hand through thick, dark brown curls that sprawl outwards across bare skin. They’re breathing evenly again now that afternoon has become evening. They’re somewhat recovered, but those words stop Tobin’s breath in her throat. Christen turns her head just a little to press a tender kiss to Tobin’s body like it belongs to her now, her words pressed to Tobin’s skin like she’s printing them there to be remembered. “I don’t want you to sell it.”

It halts the easy, gentle movement of Tobin’s hand. Instead she settles it against the curve of Christen’s back. “I couldn’t,” Tobin admits finally, eyes fixing on the plaster patterns of the ceiling above, spinning half-moons in a busy constellation. 

The confession prompts Christen to push up on her elbow against the mattress, leaning to kiss Tobin on the lips once more. It’s light at first, barely brushing Tobin’s plump bottom lip – a little plumper than usual. Christen smiles into it, her tongue softly stroking against Tobin’s mouth before it quickly becomes something more. It’s broken only when, between kisses, Christen teases, “Is this how you usually meet women?” 

“No,” Tobin says, lips curling around it fondly. She shifts to position her arm beneath her head, finding herself with a far better view of Christen laid out across her. Wrapped up in each other, their limbs form a single silhouette, like branches of a tree reaching out from a singular origin. They’re one like this. 

“You paint them,” Christen punctuates a pause with a kiss just below Tobin’s jaw, “make them feel like you’re the only one who really sees them,” she shifts down to add another, this time to the hard flat of her sternum, “then wait for them to show up here, desperate for a little more.”

Tobin doesn’t say anything, too distracted by drawing circles against Christen’s back with her index finger, enjoying the calming lilt of Christen’s voice. 

Teasing and a little restless, Christen carries on: “The mysterious artist, hiding away in this little big studio across town. Face like a model, and quiet. You’re, umm… infuriatingly quiet,” Christen tells her fondly, poking her stomach lightly with the accusation. “You barely say anything. It’s all just little looks, teeth biting down on your lip just to keep secrets locked tight. But that’s part of it, isn’t it?” 

She brushes Christen’s hand away and sweeps it up in the motion, their fingers weaving together easily.“You talk a lot,” Tobin says, laughing it off. The laughter comes easy to Tobin; she likes letting it stream out of her, breaking the tension between them that feels as dangerous now as it had the first moment number 23 had wandered into her studio. It’s a chance to take a breath. 

“You make me nervous.” Christen looks away before lying back down against Tobin, the top of her head tucked beneath Tobin’s chin. “Besides, I like making you smile. It’s fleeting, the moments when that little line between your eyebrows fades and you allow me a smile. It’s like you’re always taking a study of me.” 

“I’m sorry,” Tobin grants her, feeling truly sorry about it. But Christen’s finger lazily traces a line up her bare arm that suggests she’s not too hurt.

“Why did you paint it?”

Tobin takes a breath deep enough that she sees the way it moves Christen against her chest, lifting and falling. Looking at her, at the eager curiosity that she understands on a most profound level – understands because she feels it too, Tobin struggles to grasp the answer herself. Her forefinger delicately sweeps a lock of Christen’s hair from her eyes before she admits, “It was like, I don’t know… I saw you and I had to paint. There was no, like, reason.”

Christen smiles to herself, hiding it a little from Tobin’s view, as though pleased with that answer. As though she’s been proved right. When she fixes on Tobin once more, her voice is even and sure as she asks, “Will you paint me now?” 

“Now?” The memory will hold until tomorrow, Tobin knows. She won’t forget the number 23 for the rest of her life. Not her eyes, not the nervous smile, not the toned, hard muscles of her stomach, not the moans that escaped her, not the way her head had turned from side to side as pleasure had rippled through her body. None of it would be forgotten.

“I want you to do it again. I want you to make the moment last longer,” Christen confesses, and it’s so decisive that Tobin knows she’ll surrender. She’ll have no choice. “I want to see myself as you do, to always be able to come back to this moment, as we began.”

“Began what?”

Christen only smiles a maddening smile. “We’re inventing something, me and you.” 

“What?” Tobin laughs then, even though she doesn’t find it funny at all. Not even a little bit. If she could only look it up somewhere, the answer to what this is between them. How it’s moving so fast, how she can’t seem to slow it down, how it occupies every thought.

“Why did you paint me before?” Christen pushes her, asking the same question again, only now with a fire in her eyes. 

Tobin swallows. “Because… you looked so alive.”

Christen sits upright, her legs folded beneath her as she stares down at the artist. Looking her in the eye with a boldness that terrifies Tobin, she says, “What if I told you this was the most alive I’d ever felt?”

There aren’t words. Tobin searches for them, but nothing comes.

Instead, she watches as Christen pulls the sheet around herself. She allows it to encircle her, covering her modesty just barely before she walks away, a white train of the fabric trailing behind her. 

Quickly, Tobin follows, grabbing a loose t-shirt that’s hanging off the back of a nearby chair, letting her rumpled hair stay tucked beneath the neckline after she throws it on. She follows Christen to the center of her studio, watching, rapt, as Christen positions herself on one of the wooden stools, the sheet still wrapped around her loosely like she’s caught in a knot of white. She settles directly across from where Tobin’s easel stands holding its blank canvas. 

Following Christen’s lead, Tobin moves slowly through the room to where she’s being directed. The way Christen commands the space, it makes Tobin feel like the subject now, no longer in charge even in her own studio. She follows along, understanding her role. Fumbling for her palette, her brushes, her pencils, she looks up intermittently as though checking her eyes. Still there. Still there. Still there.

Christen waits.

A single stroke against the white cotton of the canvas, and Tobin pauses. “Are you just gonna… make me fall in love with you and then leave? Is that what’s happening here?” 

Christen smirks, pulling up the sheet a little around herself. 

That’s all the answer she gives, and Tobin accepts it. She hides her own smile behind the corner of the canvas, letting her lips spread out freely behind the barrier of her work in progress. Then Tobin paints. She paints away until, eventually, she looks up and notices Christen’s eyes slowly falling shut.

She’s dreamy like this. Her hair wild and unkempt around her, swept completely to one side just to keep it out of her face, and the rumpled sheet wrapped around her. 

There’s something private about it; only Tobin gets to see her like this, the painting a secret between them. It’s a smaller canvas than before, small enough that it can be hidden away later; small enough that all of the details are a delicate puzzle to solve as Tobin attempts to distil every nuance, imbuing each with the intense feeling that lives inside the moment. One of safety and daring, of fear and possibility. The worry that this reverie she’s in will end is fighting with an urgent need to live in the happiness of it, relishing the delicious thrill of human connection. 

Christen’s head begins to droop as she struggles to hold herself up on the stool anymore, the sheet slipping lower without correction. She sinks down a little before jerking upright again, and then repeats. Tobin watches her drift gently off for a third time before abandoning the painting altogether.

“It’s late. Let’s stop,” Tobin says, coming over to give Christen someone to lean on. Without a word, she takes Christen’s face in her hands. She leans down to press a featherlight kiss to her forehead before Christen moans against her, nuzzling her head against Tobin’s chest and wrapping her arms around her waist. The warmth and weight of her is almost too much to bear. She realizes that the moment this magical apparition disappears again, her most sacred space will be indelibly tinged with memories. Wrecked ever after.

“No,” Christen moans sleepily, still with her eyes closed. “I can… I can do it.”

“We can finish it later,” Tobin promises, stroking her hand through Christen’s hair. “I’m almost done.”

“What’s left?”

“Your eyes. I can’t quite… get the colour right.”

When Tobin looks down, she sees Christen smile to herself like she’s proud of the challenge she’s posing. 

“Come on,” Tobin whispers, smiling to herself while Christen’s eyes stay closed, the tired footballer’s head hanging heavy. She scoops her 23 off the chair and helps her to her feet, careful enough that her sleepy guest barely stirs. She guides her back up the stairs with an arm around her waist, Christen’s skin warm through the soft, cotton sheet as she leans against her. Tobin tries to blink away the strange, overwhelming rush of adrenaline she feels when Christen sets her temple against her shoulder. She tries to fend off images of slow mornings after and long, tiring drives and days buried with sunsets. She tries to ignore all the cozy pictures it paints in her mind.

She lays her down carefully on the bed, and watches as Christen happily tucks a hand beneath one of the pillows. Tobin stands back up straight, wondering what to do, before she hears, “Come to bed.”

Feeling unable to resist, she climbs in beside Christen and lets herself drift off. It’s like a switch is flipped as soon as her head hits the pillow, the warmth of their union enveloping her completely. She sleeps deeply and happily through the night, only waking up as Christen stirs beside her and sunlight streaks through the blinds. She feels the mattress dip with the motion of Christen shifting to sit upright against the headboard. 

When Tobin turns over, Christen smiles a warm, drowsy smile at her before brushing her hand roughly over her face in an attempt to wake herself up. Tobin can only think about the alternative, about staying beneath these sheets forever, wrapped up in each other as long as possible. But the spell’s broken as Christen presses a close-mouthed kiss to her lips and says, “I have to head home now.” 

“Home?” Tobin prompts, the word sounding small but not small enough.

Christen looks down at her hands, turning one of her rings between two fingers. “Utah. I was meant to fly back already, but I changed my flights.” Tobin feels a grin spread across her face, and Christen returns the look, a little bashful, before continuing, “It’s where I play now.”

Tobin can’t help the way her arms reach around Christen’s waist beneath the covers, pulling her closer. Quiet, as though it’s not quite meant to be heard, Tobin says, “I didn’t finish the painting.”

Christen smiles at her. “S’okay. Just gives me a reason to come back.”

Tobin can’t quite bring herself to ask when. Instead it suddenly dawns on her that she didn’t ask, “Hey. Did you win your big game yesterday?”

Christen’s smile brightens, so broad and blinding that Tobin’s straining to look up at her like the sun’s in her eyes. “Yeah.”

“Did you score?”

“Yeah. I scored. Couple times, actually,” she confesses, rolling her shoulder playfully and raising her eyebrows with it. “Guess I was inspired.” Closing her eyes, she sinks back into Tobin’s embrace a moment longer, giving a light close-mouthed kiss before smoothly sliding out from beneath the covers. 

Tobin’s quiet as she watches Christen dance about the room, recovering abandoned items of clothing from around the bed. Christen catches her looking and gives a warm, easy laugh. Like they know each other. Like they’ve done this a thousand times before and will do it a thousand more, her smile glowing even as she shakes her head just a little. 

As Christen perches at the edge of the bed again, leaning to press one last kiss to Tobin’s lips, Tobin does all she can to drag out the moment. She knows that she’s meant to let it be a goodbye, to sit back and watch Christen disappear down the stairs. But she can’t. 

She pulls herself out of bed to follow Christen down the stairs. Still drowned in the oversized, tie-dye t-shirt she’d thrown on the night before, she pads along behind Christen until they reach the spot where they’d first met. 

“You should hang it up,” Christen turns back to say, her eyes drifting from Tobin to the painting in the background. She says it like it’s a warning, like Tobin might be in trouble with her if it’s not hung properly by the time she comes back. That thought alone has Tobin mentally nailing a hole into the wall already. “And maybe check your emails. You know, from time to time.”

Tobin nods, her mind racing, then watches the way Christen’s smile spreads across her face. It settles there as she looks at Tobin one last time, looks like she’s really seeing her. All of her. 

The way the light catches her eyes before she goes makes them shine like peridots.

Tobin looks at the door a minute, then turns back to her paints.