“This is for him. Dad. Or more for me, I guess. Cause I miss him.” She throws me a glance. “He called me his little Rosebud. Pretty as a rose and twice as thorny. He always joked that you had to fight through the thorns to get the real me.”
“I like the thorns. Sure that’s not the real you?”
Her wide-eyed gaze meets mine. Attraction sparks between us, shockingly bright in the candles’ low glow. “Maybe so.”
“How’s your mom now?”
“Recovery’s slow. And we’re constantly worried it’ll happen again.”
“And you just work? Take care of her. Pay bills.”
“There’s lots of debt. College debt, medical bills. Lots and lots of those. Yeah. I work.”
“And come to Kink Camp.”
She shakes with a laugh. “Max made me come. She paid for it, arranged for Vanessa to stay with Mom. It’s my birthday present.”
“She’s a good friend.”
“The best.”
A thought occurs to me. “Where do you live?”
“Couple hours south.”
“That’s not too far.”
“Right.” She sounds skeptical.
“I’ll visit you. If you want.”
“Really?” Her smile’s bright. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”
My chest warms. “Okay. Um, last name?”
“Grace Evelyn Dubois.”
“You’re missing a Rosebud in there.”
Her sigh is deep and content and it gives me that feeling I used to get when I’d wake up on Sunday mornings with nothing to do but be. I want to stretch my limbs and sigh.
“What’s your last name, sculptor man?”
“Oh, uh. King.”
She stiffens. “Holy shit.”
“What?”
“You’re Liev King.Thefucking Liev King?”
I swallow back my discomfort and hope she can’t see my flushed face. “I might be.”
“No wonder. Nowonderyou’re so good.” Laughing, she points at my new work. “I mean. That one? The one of us? When did you start that? Like yesterday?”
“The night we met.”
“Met. Is that the word for what we did that night?”
