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Ugh.
I’d rather turn a new page and doodle. Perhaps that’s why the drama playing out beside this chapel is compelling. It’s a perfect distraction from work I have no idea how to finish.
Settle on a hero, that agent told me.One hero, Rae, not several.That’s what this unhappy couple needs too—a hero to save their big day for them, and that ex-goalie could be it.
He’s calling in a favour, and after what he said about making a walk of shame in front of his own sisters, I kinda want this win for him, so I settle in to watch.
Glynn Harber’s art master has other plans, and Sol Trebeck is a persistent fucker. He always has been, even if he looks like Bambi’s wide-eyed, less assertive cousin. “Rae?” He nudges my arm and keeps his voice low. “How about we leave them to it, yeah?”
“How about, no?” I stand my ground. “Wait for two more minutes, Sol. I wanna see how this plays out.”
Sol hooks a hand through my elbow. “How about, yes? Come on. I need to leave soon to get Cameron to London.” He means his nephew, who, in the years since I last saw him, has turned into an adult. That’s wild, when it only seems like five minutes ago that he was a little kid who used to visit us at art college. Now he’s heading there himself, which is wild too. It’s also shitty timing. “Come on,” Sol repeats. “I’ve found somewhere for you to stay until I get back. Someplace where you can plan your next meeting.”
“Meeting?”
For a moment I’m blank, a goldfish complete with a three-second memory, too busy goggling to answer. Not at Sol. It’s a much bigger man with burrs in his beard and bird shit on his shoulders I can’t look away from.
Look away from him?
I’m too busy picturing him in my sketchbook.
What if I drew him wrapped in oak leaves or ivy? Maybe add a few birds peeking out of that shaggy beard and?—
“Yes,” Sol reminds me. “Your second meeting with that agent on Monday. I looked up her details. Your mentor must have called in one hell of a favour for her to let you pitch your idea to her not once but twice.”
He isn’t wrong. Like that ex-football player trying to help this unlucky couple, my mentor won’t give up on me either. I should feel grateful for this second chance he’s scored for me.
Right now?
Monday’s deadline smothers me like a sand dune, and believe me, once those fuckers start to slide, they don’t stop for anybody. Neither will this weekend countdown on me finally figuring out how to fix a journey I’ve drawn over and over, one I started years ago and still haven’t finished.
Sol still tries to herd me away. “You got some ideas about how to revise your pitch yet?”
“No. Not yet.” And maybe never if I can’t find my focus.
He must see me come to the same conclusion. Sol always was observant, good at noticing my most preoccupied moments when we should have been studying together. Now he nudges me away from another diversion.
“Let’s go plan a strategy, yeah? Break down what the agent wants to see into smaller sections. I only wish I didn’t have to shoot off when you just got here. Come back after your meeting, yeah? So we can catch up properly?”
“I would, only I gotta head back to France.”
“Already?” He’s such a mother hen. Here he goes clucking. “Okay. That’s even more reason to get started.” He steers me further away from this huddle of high drama.
I crane my neck to soak up a not-so-happy couple listening in on a phone call, and I glimpse them both tensing as Hayden says?—
I don’t get to hear. Not when Sol says, “If the sprinkler system in the art building wasn’t being reworked, you could have stayed at my place while I’m away. Luckily, Rowan is staying with his boyfriend for the weekend. He’s okay with you borrowing his room.”
I stop Sol from drawing me away any further, standing my ground again while whispering, “Listen, I don’t want to crash anyone else’s private space. I don’t even need a bed. I can always camp.” Fuck knows I’ve spent months doing just that across the English Channel. For now, I’m more interested in whether that goalie will get to make his save, which doesn’t look too likely. He’s still holding that veil. It’s as white as his knuckles when he ends one call only to make another, all while looking worried.
Atlas.
That’s who I’d draw him as.
Atlas wrapped in ivy, only with a giant football on his shoulders and?—
“No need to camp,” Sol promises. “There’s room for you at the stables. You’ll have the place almost all to yourself all weekend to work on your pitch revisions. And you’ll get to sleep on a real bed.”
He always did know how to tempt me. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t sleep on a camping mat or air mattress. My spine could weep at the thought. “Some alone time would actually be good, thanks.” Even being almost alone would be amazing. After the hustle and bustle of my last encampment, any peace is hard to imagine. So is a happy ending materialising for the story that Sol hustles me away from.
