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And that was more unsettling than anything.

Why did he want to cling to this medium?

Where was his dignity?

Gone, apparently. Misplaced. He’d lost it in the fox den, probably.

Or maybe it was the isolation. Fifty years alone would make any man form an unreasonable attachment to the first person who spoke to him. That was all this was. A reasonable response to unreasonable circumstances. Nate happened to be the only person in the world who could see him, and so naturally Leo preferred his company to no company.

It was practical.

It had nothing to do with the way Nate looked at him as if he mattered.

Nothing.

“Alright,” Leo said loud enough to speak over the voice in his head.

“Alright?”

“You’ll do your job. I understand. You’re very dutiful.” He arranged his hands in his lap. “But the house won’t be done for months. I’ve seen the way you work.”

“What’s wrong with the way I work?”

“You’ll take forever. And because you’ll take forever, there’s no reason to discuss this now.”

“I guess so.” Nate’s shoulders came down an inch. Almost as if he was relieved. “Now,” he picked his brush back up, “keep looking at me just like that.”

Leo stared straight into Nate’s eyes. Brown eyes. Warm and deep, studying him. Taking in all of him.

Nate went still for a moment.

Then he began to paint, glancing between Leo and the canvas, mixing something small on the palette. Leo held the look and let himself be seen, green-eyed and dead and in no hurry at all.

If he was going to be gone, truly gone, one day, let something of him stay behind.

Something created by the last person who could see him.

The last person who cared.

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

It was a few hours later that Nate made the final brush stroke and leaned back to admire what he’d done.

Leo seemed to know instantly.

“Is it done?”

“Well—”

Leo left his spot by the window before Nate could say anything else. The next moment he hovered over Nate’s shoulder, staring down at his own face.

Nate held his breath without meaning to.

“Hm,” Leo said.

“Hm?”