Bare
He spent four years not being looked at. Then someone painted his face six feet tall.
Neil Ashworth has a system.
He arrives early. He takes the back staircase. He eats lunch at his desk, marks essays in red pen, and has not been touched by another man in years. His ex-wife knows he is gay. His five-year-old son does not know there is anything to know. His colleagues see a quiet, competent English teacher. Neil plans to keep it that way.
Then the school hires Rory Cavanaugh to paint a mural on the courtyard wall, and Neil's system fails in under a week. Rory is broad, warm, talented, with paint in the creases of his knuckles and a younger brother he has raised since the boy was eight. He looks at Neil with an attention that makes Neil's hands shake.
Over one school year, a careful man unravels. A portrait is painted in secret. A gallery show forces a private life into a public room. And a father, a teacher, and a man who checks his lock twice must decide whether being seen is worth the risk of being known.
- Slow-burn MM romance with a single-dad POV and an HEA
- Grumpy-sunshine: a buttoned-up English teacher and a warm, paint-stained artist
- Forced proximity in a school setting (colleagues, not students)
- Found family, an ex-wife who is his best friend, and a five-year-old who steals every scene
- Open door, heat 4/5, always character-driven