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Summary
Edward Teach is sick of being Blackbeard, the "bad boy of performance art." He decides to take a painting class with famous(ly bland) landscape painter Stede Bonnet.
If you guessed that they're going to fall in love, you're right.
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But when Ed dreams, he dreams of beauty: of delicate flowers, riotous swirls of color, soft hands adorned with opals and rubies. He wakes up grasping at sunshine through filmy georgette curtains, but they fade away as he blinks the sleep from his eyes. And then it’s back to black: jeans, shirt, leather jacket, boots. Constant reminders that he’s made for stomping on daisies, not picking them.
Maybe it’s the smile lines on his face, maybe it’s the fact that he’s swinging his legs back and forth like a toddler, but there’s something inherently kind about the guy. “The Sunshine Painter” is an appropriate moniker: even in this bright space, he seems to radiate golden light.
Ed shrugs and grunts and inwardly berates himself for regressing to a Neanderthal every time Stede tries to talk to him. He’s always been able to turn on the charm when needed, but something about Stede’s proximity makes him feel wrong-footed, like he can’t pilot his own body properly.
Stede’s eyes crinkle. “It just takes practice! I can tell you have a lot of natural talent. You’ll be producing masterpieces in no time!” “Yeah, probably,” Ed says. “Might even let you buy one.” “I’d be honored, Ed.” “You might not be able to afford it, though.”
Stede clasps his hands dramatically to his heart. “I would sell my home if I had to,” he intones. Ed can feel his lips twitch. “But then where would you hang my painting?”
Ed opens his eyes and nearly spits out the very nice wine that Stede had poured him. Stede’s apron is printed with the torso (and… other parts) of Michelangelo’s David, and while it’s obviously not Stede’s actual naked body, it lines up well enough that Ed can’t help but imagine .
As he wanders the grounds looking for picturesque shots, he finds himself imagining Stede walking alongside him, commenting on the various species of trees, stopping to admire the prettiest flowers. Maybe Stede would tell him their fancy Latin names and what they symbolize. Maybe their hands would accidentally brush as they walked.
There is, of course, the small issue of not having any idea if Stede is even into guys, let alone Ed specifically. The man is deceptively hard to read. Every single emotion he experiences seems to write itself across his face, which you’d think would make it easy to tell what he’s thinking, but the sheer glut of information means that he’s giving off more conflicting signals than a rugby ref swatting at a bee. That’s not what crushes are about, anyway. Crushes are about riding the emotional wave until it eventually crashes on the shore and returns to the undifferentiated sea. As he crouches down to get a shot of sunlight filtering through the branches of a maple tree, Ed decides that his next field trip will be to the beach.
“You must be very flexible,” Stede jokes. Ed squints at him, trying to decide if he’s intentionally making a sex joke or if sex is so far from his mind that it didn’t even occur to him. “I do yoga,” he lies, figuring that will suffice either as a flirty response or as an innocent continuation of the joke.
“Yes,” Stede answers, without hesitation. Ed will unpack that later, in great detail, probably at night while lying in bed.
“Your thighs are perfect.” Stede’s gaze snaps back up to Ed’s face. “Sorry?” “I mean, thighs are perfect. For a first tattoo. Outer thigh barely hurts at all. Easy to cover up.”
He starts picking at a loose thread at the hem of his swim trunks; Ed briefly imagines that if he tugged on the thread hard enough, the trunks would unravel completely.
“ You make me happy.” And he can’t help it — can’t hold it in any longer. He leans in and kisses Stede
Stede kisses with certainty. There’s none of the self-effacing freneticism he’s usually accompanied by; instead there’s just the firm grip of his hand on Ed’s waist, the gentle but deliberate graze of his tongue against Ed’s. His hands, sneaking under the hem of Ed’s t-shirt to blindly trace his tattoos. Here, in Stede’s care, surrounded by him, Ed has never felt safer.
They cook dinner together, hips and elbows bumping despite Stede’s enormous kitchen. They clean up after dinner, then watch an hour or two of TV. (Ed has been making Stede watch “Game of Thrones,” and Stede has retaliated by making Ed watch “The Great British Bake-Off.” Ed does have to admit that, drama-wise, the Red Wedding has nothing on the Baked Alaska fiasco.)