When Lauren steps up to the counter and glances around, I angle away from her as much as possible, pointing to Bea’s paper napkin and the dark lines she’s drawing. “Still creatively blocked?”

She glances up, pen in hand, then back down to the napkin. “It’s getting a little better. Thankfully Sula’s chill and doesn’t rush me. I’ve come up with enough designs that we have a pretty solid variety in our stock as is.”

“Are you happy, working at the Edgy Envelope?”

“I love working there,” she says, sketching still. “I mean, Sula and Toni drive me up the wall, but I enjoy designing, being creative. It’s a good place for now, even if it’s not my forever place.”

“And did you always want to be”—a blush heats my cheeks—“an erotic artist?”

“I studied art in college, and my favorite work was with nudes. I was fascinated by how beautiful humans are. You know?”

My heart drums against my ribs, something deep and foreign unfurling in my chest. “Yes. The human body is beautiful. Terrifyingly complex beneath the surface, but beautiful.”

“Exactly!” she says, brightening, her feet wedging between mine under the table. “I was hooked. How original and singular each person is. The parts of our bodies that diet culture and photoshopping tell us we should try to erase and hide—human ‘imperfection’—they were what I thought, and still do think, make us works of art. Stretch marks. Wrinkles. Freckles and fine lines and rolls and curves. I realized I wanted to make art celebrating that, defending that belief.”

Glancing up at me, Bea frowns, then peers back down at her napkin, her pen flying over the delicate paper. “I realized it’s even more powerful,” she continues, “when I can show the sensuality of those so-called imperfections. How we can appreciate ourselves and desire each other not when we’re perfect but when we’re us. So I started drawing, then painting, lovers together, individuals loving themselves. That was my art career before the Edgy Envelope—commissions and selling paintings through exhibits.”

“What made you stop?”

She pauses her sketching and hesitates for a moment. “I . . . had a really toxic relationship. My partner fucked with my head, personally and professionally. He’s a very talented artist, and I valued his opinion. So when he started critiquing my work, I internalized a lot of doubt. I didn’t realize he was jealous of me, that instead of seeing our successes as compatible, he felt threatened.”

I nearly drop my tea. “That son of a—”

“It’s okay, Jamie.” She nudges her foot against mine beneath the table.

“It’s not.”

“You’re right, it’s not. It’s in the past, is what I mean.”

“And is it to do with him, why you haven’t painted since?”