Art isnt safe anymore
444 Words
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✨ Episode 4: Art Isn’t Safe Anymore
The wind outside bit cold, but the air between them was hotter than it should’ve been.
Zara walked beside Ethan, hands in her pockets, trying to ignore how close he was. Too tall. Too still. Too quiet. Like a storm in a suit jacket.
They strolled past graffiti-tagged walls, food trucks, and rush-hour noise. No drivers. No bodyguards. Just him.
“Do your people know you’re slumming it in Brooklyn?” she asked, glancing at him sideways.
He smirked. “They’d call it a PR disaster. I call it... refreshing.”
Zara shook her head, amused despite herself. “You’re still annoying.”
“And you’re still pretending you don’t like me.”
She stopped walking.
He stopped too.
“I don’t like you,” she said. “You’re arrogant, unreadable, and complicated.”
“You forgot handsome.”
“I left that out on purpose.”
He smiled. That real smile again — the one that made him look less like a billionaire and more like a man trying to breathe.
They ended up outside her studio again. Zara hesitated at the door.
“You want to come in?” she asked, immediately regretting it.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
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Inside
Ethan walked slowly around the space—her world. Paint-splattered floor, brushes in jars, a canvas in progress.
He paused at a portrait.
A woman with fire in her eyes and a c***k running through her chest.
“That one yours?”
Zara nodded.
“She looks... broken.”
“She is,” Zara said quietly. “But she’s still standing.”
He turned to her. “Is that how you see yourself?”
Zara didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to.
He stepped closer. Not touching. Just near.
Too near.
“Art makes people uncomfortable,” he said. “So does honesty.”
“Maybe that’s why people hate both.”
“Not me.”
Zara looked up at him—and for a terrifying second, she thought he might kiss her.
And the scariest part?
She didn’t want to stop him.
But instead, he stepped back.
“I should go,” he said, voice low.
“Yeah,” she breathed. “You should.”
He walked to the door, paused, then turned.
“But I’ll be back. You’ve already sketched me. Might as well paint me next.”
He left with that line hanging in the air—bold, daring, and reckless.
Just like him.
Zara closed the door and leaned against it, heart pounding.
This wasn’t safe anymore.
Not her studio. Not her art.
And definitely not Ethan Blackwood.
- Writer
