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His smile re-emerges. “Then you’ll blast out something perfect.”
I’ll need to, given what’s riding on this. My project is self-funded, and I’ve run out of money long before I’ve run out of kids going through much worse than I did.
That thought does sober me in a hurry.
Sol’s smile slips. He also retraces his steps, and this is where anyone who thinks he’s as wide-eyed and wary as Bambi can’t truly know him. He doesn’t shy away from asking this tough question.
“How is the fam? Sorry, I should have asked already.” He meets my eyes, his own so expressive that I wish to fuck he had time to sit for me. I’d draw a whole world of caring in each iris, a supportive galaxy of stars in each of his inky pupils if a clock wasn’t ticking for him.
Time isn’t on my side today, nor is avoiding his question, so I answer quickly. “Mia’s good.” I heft my portfolio like a shield against more probing. “I’ve got everything I need in here. Pens, pencils, sketchbooks. Go, Sol.”
He backs away again, if slowly. “Smash it on Monday, Rae.”
“I will.”
I’d better.
He jogs away, and I turn the key in a door underneath a lucky horseshoe. It opens to prove Sol right about this living space being cosy. He was wrong though about no one else being here.
Someone wet and almost naked leaves a bathroom. Steam billows, but I still recognise him. Hayden is a foggy vision that I itch to put on paper, and his hands must still tremble because his towel slips as he tries to cinch it.
And as for me?
If I’m gonna do him justice, I’ll need a bigger sketchbook.
5
HAYDEN
Thank fuck I’m in too much of a hurry to feel awkward, and I had years of being naked around players in club changing rooms. At least my hands cooperate enough that I can knot my towel more firmly while Rae apologises.
“Sorry. Sol said there was a spare room here where I could get my head down. To work.”
“Work?”
“On some drawings. Got a deadline for them on Monday. I won’t be here for long, but I wasn’t expecting?—”
“To walk in on anyone? I only came back to clean up.” I tug at one of the burrs in my beard. “I’m heading out as soon as I can shift these. Make yourself at home.” I show Rae to Rowan’s room, still tugging at a burr that shows no sign of shifting.
He dumps his bag and portfolio on the bed. “You got scissors?”
“Scissors? Why?”
He gestures at my face. “Because they’re as snagged as that veil was, and you’re making it worse.” He isn’t wrong about that, or this. “The only way they’re coming out is if someone with asteadier hand than yours cuts them free for you. Or you can go ahead and stab yourself in the eye. Your choice.” He softens that bluntness with a smile that touches his lips as well as his eyes, and this is softer. “I’m just saying it’s no problem for me. You helped that bride and groom. Finn and Willow, yeah? Found them somewhere to celebrate their wedding?”
A ripple of pride rises. Not for me. Marc and Stefan are the ones who came through with a venue for free, so I nod.
He nods too. “Then let someone help you.”
He makes it simple to agree, and before I know it, I’m back in the bathroom where he raises scissors to my throat like he threatened to do with my bramble cutter. This time he does it for friendlier reasons. I still instinctively take a step back.
“Hold still.” His hand lands on my hip and he snips burrs away.
I swallow dryly. Close contact wasn’t on my play sheet for this morning. Hasn’t been for the whole summer if I’m honest. I’m hyperaware of his hold on me, of my towel just below his fingers, and of what is underneath it. It’s a hell of a time to realise I’m touch starved, especially when he shuffles closer.
His shirt brushes my bare chest. “There.” He snips some more, then smiles up at me, easygoing compared to tension that chooses now to coil in my belly. “Ten burrs down,” he says. “Only about a thousand left to go. Typical, just when I’m in a hurry.” He’s exaggerating about the number.Joking.I can’t smile back, not when his shirt brushes my chest again, and his palm shifts on my hip.
Christ.
