She snorts. “Petrified.”
“You’re good under pressure.”
“I am?”
“Yeah.” My lips twitch. “Remember when you pierced that woman’s ear and she started screaming bloody murder? Pretty sure the other customers in the shop thought you were harvesting organs.”
Laughter bubbles out of her.
“You barely flinched. The rest of us were ready to duck and cover. I don’t know how you talked her down after that.”
“Yeah, she was fun.” Kelly sighs happily. “Hey, is this Dad’s?” She angles another frame toward me.
It’s similar, but she’s right, it’s not his work. I take it from her. “This looks like Scrotum’s work.”
“Scrotum?Who the fuck is Scrotum?”
I chuckle. “He’s a fellow artist, Jeremiah.” I point to the corner of the canvas. It’s tiny, but I can see a portion of the signature before it disappears behind the frame. “Yeah. Right here. J. Yelnatz.”
“Oh, I remember that guy!”
Kelly shifts her body against mine. Damn, she smells good, like fresh iris and orange. “Why do they call him Scrotum?” she asks.
“Because he was pretty close to being a dick, but not quite.”
She’s sent into a fit of giggles, and I pause, taking a second to admire how damn pretty she is when she laughs. My fingers itch to touch her, tilt that delicate chin toward me, and claim her lips. Instead, I force myself to look away and pick up a nearby sketchbook, opening the cover.
I turn the page, and Kelly calms her laughter, leaning over to take a peek.
“I love that one,” she says.
Her mom is posed with legs tucked up, head resting on her knees as she looks out a window.
“It’s achingly beautiful . . . in the best way possible.”
She smiles down at it, nodding.
The next page is different. It’s a portrait of teenage Kelly, standing barefoot in rolled-up jeans and an oversized shirt, painting on an easel and wearing a smile on her face as she dips her brush into the watercolor palette.
“That’s me.”
As if I wouldn’t recognize her. It’s like a black-and-white snapshot in time, back to when I first met Kelly. She was so young then.
I flip another page.
“Whoa.” I bring the whole book into my lap.
She tilts toward me, straining her neck to get another look. When she recognizes the image, she smiles and sits back. “Aren’t those great?”
They’re realism sketches of her mom as a pinup model. “Damn,” I murmur, turning the page. I’ve never snooped in his sketchbooks. “Man, he was downbadfor your mom.”
There are so many in here.
She laughs. “Yeah, the first time I saw it, I slammed it shut. Felt like I was looking at my mom’s nudes, but he drew her the way he saw her. Each stroke was drawn with adoration, one line at a time.”
She laces her fingers together and rests them on my shoulder, leaning in while we marvel at the provocative imagery together. “Do you ever think of doing stuff like this?” she whispers.
If I turned my head right now, I’d have her lips on mine. The air feels thicker. I swallow and pull back, staring straight into her big green eyes.Fuck.My dick stiffens before I can stop it, forcing me to tear away my gaze and think of Clyde. That does the trick.
