“Oh yeah. There’s a real art to arranging them.”
He listened though her explanations of “color theory” didn’t make a lot of sense to him. He watched his woman sparkle with excited enjoyment, and he wanted to bring home the vendor’s entire inventory just for her. By the time they moved on, he had filed away multiple important items of data. Her favorite flower was the daisy. Her favorite colors were red and purple, and she loved them in a bouquet together.
He grinned to himself. Willow helped him without knowing it. He’d never be a natural at this business of pursuing his mate, so any hint was to be noted and appreciated.
They stopped in front of every booth. That’s what the fair was about, after all, which was the thing Trevor did not understand. He wanted to see only certain things and skip everything else. But Willow understood. Everything was worth a look. Ezra’s body relaxed as they chatted about what they saw.
The minute he glimpsed the dioramas of a new artist named Leslie Snow, her booth became his new favorite. She had everything. A snowy mountainside village, a muddy country road cutting through lumber country, train tracks spanning a lake and winding into a tunnel through rocks.
Rotten luck for him that Leslie Snow was the vampire.
Ezra swallowed hard and approached anyway. Her eyes followed him. Yet she almost faded to background when he stood in front of her work. Almost—apex to apex, she and Ezra couldn’t fail to be hyper-aware of each other.
Not only were there typical-scale models, but also pocket-sized overhead views of beaches and cliffs and arrestingly green jungles. He walked the length of the booth, up and down, again and again, slowly. He gazed at every tree, every moss-covered rock, every seashore shell.
“Oh wow,” he heard himself say.
“Is this what you build?” Willow whispered, as though he were under a spell she didn’t want to break.
“Um…yes and no.”
Views like this, yes. Built of resin, no. His fingers twitched to adapt Leslie Snow’s work to his method. Inspiration filled his chest like helium. He could float away on it. He got out his phone, then hesitated. He met Leslie’s eyes—violet-blue eyes with a metallic glint, emphasized by her pale lavender hair and powder-blue top. Most people would recognize her eye color as that of a vampire, but most would also assume she was a human wearing fashionable contacts. Because of course most humans found it fashionable to imitate all things vampire.
“Are pictures allowed?” Ezra said.
“Sure,” she said with a smile that didn’t show her teeth.
A sign of peace. Baring her teeth at him, even in a human-looking smile, would have set his wolf instincts on fire, and Leslie Snow knew that.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
For much more than permission to take pictures.
He snapped a shot of every last diorama. Willow watched him, and her scent rose, tinged with gladness. For him? Because he was happy? The thought distracted him long enough to drop his phone into the dust and fail, even with his wolf reflexes, to catch it.
“Oh, here,” she said, crouching for it.
Her thumb must have hit the Home button, because the screen shifted to his icons and the photo behind them. The photo of his favorite personal build. Half outstretched toward him, Willow’s hand went still.
“What…?” she said, then brought the phone back to herself to peer at it. “Is that…?”
Ezra shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and ducked his head. Found out.
“This isn’t a model. I mean it is, but it’s not a kit, and it’s not a diorama. It’s a…”
“It’s not a toy,” he said. “It’s an art medium.”
“You made this out of plastic bricks. Of course it’s art.”
He blinked. Really? “Have you heard of AFOL? Adult Fan of…” He nodded toward the picture. “That’s me. That’s what I build.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? This is gorgeous, Ezra. It’s absolutely gorgeous and impressive.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course.” She tilted the phone as though doing so would allow her to see better past the icons obscuring the photo. “Can I see more of your stuff?”
