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Then, when we arrived at our destination, which was a construction site in the town proper, and he pulled out his stencil, I wanted to lob a thousand questions at him. How do you decide where to paint? Do you even consider it painting? How many different stencils do you have? What does this one mean?
    But I kept my mouth shut as instructed. So I was shocked when he broke the silence with a whisper. “Speed is the most important thing once you start.” He was struggling a bit to keep the stencil flush with the wall with one hand while shaking a can of paint with another.
    â€œLet me hold this in place,” I whispered, pressing my hands against the black paper cutout. I couldn’t make out what it was from this close vantage point. He hesitated a moment, and I added, “Won’t it be faster if I hold it?”
    He must have agreed, because he moved like lightning, spraying the openings in the paper with red paint, which would show up dramatically against the gray-painted plywood fence surrounding the site. It took only a minute, and then he stepped back and nodded for me to do the same.
    â€œOh!” I gasped. It was Reagan again, but he was holding a lightsaber. “Star Wars!” He had interpreted the president’s sinister plan to arm the heavens as straight out of the movie Star Wars . It took my breath away how a single image could make such a powerful statement. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was silly, but I felt like I helped the tiniest bit, since I’d held the stencil, and been, like, an accessory.
    â€œYeah, I’m working on a matching Gorbachev, but it’s not done yet.”
    â€œIt’s…perfect.” It was. It was a simple image that managed to, in a matter of seconds, make you think about a wider political issue in a whole new light. Me, I talked a lot. I wrote—I wrote many, many words. But this? This was something else entirely, something beyond language.
    Then it hit me all at once, a new, astonishing thought replacing the Plan B I had been so doggedly pursing. Maybe I didn’t need Matthew to get to Curry. Maybe I just needed Matthew.
    â€œSomeone’s coming.”
    Oh, crap. Sure enough, I could hear voices at the far end of the block, where the construction site started. I reached down to try to shove the stencil back into the portfolio, but he stopped me, pulling me around so my back was to the fence. “I’m just trying to get this out of sight,” I tried to explain. “So—”
    And then he was kissing me.
    Matthew Townsend was kissing me.
    And, like his art, Matthew’s kisses were jolting. A revelation. There was no lead-in. No windup. He just grabbed the sides of my head and crashed his mouth down on mine. I don’t know if it was the shock or what, but my knees actually buckled a little. Because it felt like my lips—no, his lips—were directly connected to my clit, which was suddenly throbbing and achy. He responded by pressing me back against the fence, using one of his legs between my own to prop me up. When he tilted my head farther back, I let my mouth fall open, and his tongue brushed against mine. I couldn’t help the moan that escaped. It was like I wasn’t in charge of my own body. I might as well have been a figure he was painting, he was that in control—not in a scary way, just that what was happening felt inevitable. So I performed my role, which right now seemed to require me to twine my arms around his neck and shamelessly kiss him back. It was everything I could do not to rock myself against the thigh that was propping me up.
    He made a noise that was something like a cross between and grunt and a groan and tore his lips from mine. He let his forehead rest against mine for a heartbeat before stepping away completely, leaving me feeling exposed. Cold.
    â€œThey’re gone.”
    I blinked, confused. “Who’s gone?”
    â€œThe people who walked past