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myself. Don’t be afraid... stay calm.
    I took a deep breath turning around to him. He had on only a t-shirt and jeans, and the shadowy outlines of his pecks were clearly visible through the fabric. I wanted to touch him for some odd reason, as if he was hypnotizing me with those eyes. His voice was so calm and reassuring. Maybe this was a trick on the new girl.
    “Nope, not lost,” I assured him. “Just going back to my car.”
    He stared at me. The silence between us made me nervous.
    “Yep,” I said to fill the void. “Just going home so I can get dinner started.”
    “Let me show you something before you go.” It didn’t sound like a request.
    He walked past me to a red metal door a few steps away. Opening it, he motioned for me to go inside, as if I had a choice. Around him, I felt like I should do as I was told.
    I glanced behind me to see if there was someone who might hear my cries if, in fact, Mo was going to try to hurt me.
    “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said as if reading my thoughts. ”We can leave your cart right here.” He took it from my hand and pulled it closer to the door. “This is a small town. No one is going to steal it.”
    His smirk was filled with mischief. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had something planned for me behind this red door.
    Be careful, Jaime. You don’t know this man , my conscience warned me as I stepped into the building. A part of me was enjoying the uncertainty. Being with Mo felt dangerous, and I needed a little of that in my life.
    As I stepped inside, I saw what looked like the back room of an art studio. A dim light hanging from the ceiling was the only illumination in the area. Paintings lined the walls and there was a table filled with paint, brushes, and empty canvases in the corner.
    “This is my studio. If you want, I can do a painting of you,” Mo said from behind me.
    No one had offered to paint a picture of me before. The door slamming behind Mo made my heart skip a few beats. Looking back at him, he stood with a smile watching me and my reaction to his work.
    “It’s all very beautiful,” I told him as I took it all in.
    The paintings were a varied lot. Some were of women naked and posing, others of animals, and even a few of houses. One painting was of a burning house, and the detail was so realistic my body temperature started to rise just looking at the flames. The pictures covered the entirety of the walls from ceiling to floor. There were so many of them.
    “You can have one, if you want. Until you let me do one of you.” Mo was so close now that I could feel his breath breezing through my hair.
    “Thank you,” was all I could say. The butterflies had taken flight in my stomach again, and I felt it was a good idea if I didn’t look at him at this moment.
    Instead, I concentrated on the pictures. One painting in particular caught my eye. It was of a man looking into a pond at his reflection. He looked down as a man, but his reflection was that of a wolf.
    I was drawn to it, walking across the room to get closer. I even touched the wolf, the paint strokes rising up under my fingers.
    “Is that what it feels like?” I asked Mo, daring to turn around and look him in the eyes.
    He took a moment, pondering my question. He looked at the wolf also and then at the man, as if he was taking himself back to the place that allowed him to paint such an intimate picture.
    “Sometimes. There are good and bad sides to every circumstance.” He moved closer, crossing the room to be next to me and his painting. He touched the canvas in the same spot that I had.
    “What’s the bad part of it?” This was the first time that I’d been able to ask any questions about what I’d seen last night. I was too afraid to talk about it with anyone else in town, and Mo seemed like as good a person as any to ask.
    “Well, some people don’t understand, and sometimes you have to do things that don’t come natural,” he said as he tugged at his