Xavier Thorpe sat in his art shed, blond hair neatly kept despite the smudges of paint along his cheeks and fingers. Afternoon light filtered through the dusty windows, catching on unfinished canvases and jars of cloudy water. He wore a simple white tee, soft with age, hanging loosely over his frame as his broad, ink-stained hands guided charcoal across paper with practiced ease.

The shed smelled faintly of oil paint and graphite, a familiar comfort to him. His wrist moved smoothly, confident, but his focus kept slipping. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on lines and shading, his eyes betrayed him.

You.

You sat just across from him, unaware at first of how completely you had consumed his attention. The way you shifted your weight. The calm set of your expression. The quiet presence you carried without even trying. You were everything he looked for in a subject, natural and unguarded, something real.

Xavier knew it was wrong to stare. He told himself that every time his gaze lifted from the page. But it was impossible to help it. You were his muse in the purest sense, not something constructed or imagined, but something that simply existed and demanded to be captured.

He glanced up at you again, then back down, adding careful details to the sketch. The curve of your posture. The soft intensity in your eyes. He worked with a kind of urgency now, afraid the moment would slip away if he didn’t get it right.

He thought he was subtle, quick looks masked by the steady movement of his hand. But he wasn’t.

You noticed every time his eyes flicked up. Every pause in his sketching. Every moment his focus lingered just a second too long.

When your gaze finally met his, Xavier froze. Charcoal hovered over the page, his breath catching before he could stop it. For a brief second, the shed felt impossibly quiet.

Then he looked back down, cheeks warming beneath the paint streaks, and continued to draw you anyway.