Painter’s smile grew sheepish. “He wouldn’t give it to me—said I’m a bad influence and I should stay away from you.”
Well, I could certainly see that. Painter was a bad influence. Here he was at my door after nearly a week of radio silence, and in under a minute he was already eroding my sense of self-preservation.
“C’mon in,” I said, giving in to the inevitable. “I still think you suck for blowing me off, but here’s your chance to make up for it. I’ve got to figure out how to paint small animals on children by tomorrow.”
“What?” he asked, staring blankly.
“Jessica’s got a carnival thing going on at her work tomorrow morning,” I explained. “She works with the kids at the community center—in the special needs program. She asked if I’d volunteer, and because I’m an idiot I agreed without making her tell me exactly what it was I’d volunteered to do. Now I have to paint faces and I have no idea how. If you really want to hang out, hang out and help me.”
He followed me into the dining room, stopping next to the table to study my pathetic efforts.
“What the hell is that supposed to be—a squirrel fucking a dinosaur?”
I sighed, forcing myself to look at the paper. I sort of wanted to bitch him out, but to be honest it looked a lot more like a squirrel fucking a dinosaur than I wanted to admit.
“It’s a ladybug.”
Silence.
Ignoring him, I sat down in the chair, poking at the hateful paintbrush with one finger.
“That’s terrible,” he said.
“I know.”
“No, it’s really bad. Like, I don’t know how a person can be this bad at painting something. Anything.”
“Do you think they’ll cry?” I asked, feeling a little sick—I think some secret part of me had hoped they weren’t quite as dreadful as they seemed.
“Who, the ladybugs? They don’t have any eyes, babe. They can’t cry. Although it’s safe to assume they’re crying on the inside . . .”
I flipped him off, giving a reluctant laugh. “No, the children. How am I supposed to paint their faces if I can’t even paint the damned paper?”
He sat down on the end of the table, kitty-corner from me.
“Well, it’s not really that hard,” he started to say, but I held up a hand.
“Look those ladybugs in the face when you say that,” I suggested. “Do they look easy to you?”
His lip quirked and he shook his head. “I’m trying really hard not to make a sex joke about easy ladybugs.”
“Don’t,” I said, fighting my own smile. “Besides, they’re not anatomically correct. So, do you think you can help me? Friends help each other.”
They also reply to texts, so people know they haven’t been murdered or something.
“I’m sure I can help,” he said, reaching out to run his finger down my nose. I forgot to breathe for an instant. “Let’s start with the paint. Sit down and we’ll go through it step by step.”
Half an hour later I was doing better. I mean, it’s not like painting faces was really that difficult, but for some reason I’d been getting the paints way too watery, so they kept running together.
“You’re doing great,” Painter said, watching me brush green across the paper. “That one definitely looks like a lizard.”
I considered telling him it was supposed to be a flower, but decided to just add eyes instead. Still, I had a very nice sheet of rainbows, ladybugs, and clouds. I figured I’d do all right with the kids so long as I offered them only a few choices.
Glancing up, I smiled, because he was close to me and being around him always made me happy, even if it probably shouldn’t.
“So, can you tell me where you were this past week?”
His face shuttered. “Why do you want to know?”
“Don’t be so suspicious—I’m just making conversation,” I said, deciding that I’d get crazy and try to paint a Pokémon next. Jess had warned me the kids were hard-core about them right now, and the little yellow one looked like it wouldn’t be all that hard. Struck with sudden inspiration, I put my left hand palm-down on the table, outlining Pikachu on my skin instead of the paper.
“Wow, it’s different like this,” I said, glancing up at him. “Harder, because the skin moves more than the paper. So where have you been? Unless you can’t tell me.”
“I probably shouldn’t get into it,” he admitted, eyes fixed on my hand. I bit my lip, focusing on getting the little black points for the ears right. Nice. “Club business, that kind of thing. But just so you know, I’m going to be out of town a lot for the next few weeks, maybe longer. Not sure how things will play out.”
Frowning, I dipped my brush in the red for the cheeks.
“Aren’t you on parole?” I asked. “Can’t you get in trouble for traveling around?”
He startled me, catching my chin and turning my face toward his.
“You know I’m not like those guys you meet down at school,” he said with quiet intensity. “My life isn’t like theirs. I don’t want you to worry about me, Mel, because I’m being careful—but I’m never going to follow the rules, either.”
I swallowed, mesmerized by his gaze.
“But you don’t want to go back, do you?”
“Of course I don’t,” he said. “But I’m not going to let fear get in the way of what I need to do, either. If it makes you feel better, I’m not doing anything particularly crazy and I’m not on my own. We just need eyes on a situation. If anything serious goes down, they’ll keep me out of it, because my brothers don’t want me going back, either. FYI—you’re getting paint everywhere.”