They stared at each other for a second, then busted out laughing again, because they were both covered in paint. Not just covered—coated. Paint was everywhere, completely layered over their aprons, in their hair, and splattered over their exposed skin, all mixing together into one dark greenish-bluish hue.
“Oh my god,” Daphne said, inspecting her own arms.
“We look like swamp creatures,” April said, plucking her paint-soaked apron away from her thigh. “It’s starting to dry in places already.”
“On the bright side, I think we got more paint on our bodies than the drop cloth.” Daphne’s cheeks flamed at the usually innocuous word—bodies—but luckily paint concealed any reddening of her face.
“Easy cleanup, then,” April said, glancing down at the lightly speckled cloth.
“Can’t say the same for us,” Daphne said.
April laughed. “I’m trying to think of the best method here.” She wiped her face but only smeared the paint over her skin even more. But then she froze, her eyes snapping to Daphne’s. “Actually, I do have an idea.”
Daphne lifted her brows. “Oh?”
April grinned. “Well. It’s kind of wild.”
Daphne grinned back.
Chapter
Seventeen
They drove towardtown, the night dark and starry around them.
They’d cleaned up the brushes and paint and palette quickly, leaving their canvases in the art room to dry for now. April had taken the drop cloth, though, spreading it over her car’s driver and passenger seats so she and Daphne wouldn’t leave paint everywhere, but honestly, she wasn’t sure she cared all that much at this point.
She wasn’t sure she cared about anything, and it felt good. She wasn’t numb, exactly, just blissfully empty. Cleaned out. All her emotions thrown at the canvas, all of her worry and hurt and loneliness.
And she was glad to have done it with Daphne.
Glad to laugh with her as they slung paint, glad to cry, glad to be in this car with her right now, heading toward Mirror Cove. Any emotions she did have left were focused on the woman next to her, paint covered and smiling, the wind from the open window licking through her lavender hair. April wasn’t sure what the emotions were, only that they existed.
She pulled into the public beach lot near the cove, threw thecar into park. “We’re going to have to walk for a second,” she said as she unclipped her seat belt. “Is that okay?”
“I go where you go,” Daphne said, smiling at her in the dark. April smiled too, but something about those simple words—silly words, even—made her stomach flutter, her heart swelling in her chest.
Her phone buzzed in her bag, but she ignored it as she got out of the car. She knew it was Ramona, but right now, she just couldn’t.
She rounded the car and, before she could really think about what she was doing, held out her paint-splattered hand to Daphne. Daphne’s eyes widened a little, but she tangled her fingers with April’s. This was the third time they’d held hands tonight, and it felt almost natural and easy, even though she knew there was nothing natural and easy about the two of them. They were a rare event, like a super blue blood moon or Halley’s Comet, flaring in the sky and then gone.
April led them to the woods in front of the lot, then onto a lesser-walked trail.
“I feel like someone just yelled ‘action’ on a horror film set,” Daphne said as she stumbled next to April, ducking when a branch nearly swiped her across the face.
April laughed. “I said it was a wild idea.”
“So I should expect someone with a bloody machete at the end of the trail?”
“Something like that,” April said, squeezing Daphne’s hand playfully.
Daphne squeezed back, and soon, the trees parted. The lake here was very still and clear, and the moon played hide-and-seek with the clouds, shedding silver onto the water before covering it back over with shadows. The area was deserted, the rocks in the water and along the beach making for a precarious swim, and most summer people didn’t even know this cove existed.
But April knew it by heart.
So did Ramona and Dylan, as it was where they’d first met, but before that, before the Hollywood romance captured Clover Lake’s hearts and minds, Mirror Cove was April’s.
Ramona’s and April’s, really, a place they’d go as kids to tell secrets, to get away from pressures in their homes, to be seen and understood. She’d never even brought Elena here. Elena hated beaches, claiming that sand was just a beachy word for dirt, and she hated the feel of it between her toes, the way it hid in every nook and cranny.
