“Hey,” Kevin said, walking in. He was dripping sleet and holding a beer.
“Hey.” Amy put her phone down. Jonah was seventeen. He was going to have to figure out the underwear conundrum on his own.
Kevin looked at her easel. “What’s that supposed to be?” He stepped closer, leaning forward. “Is thatMom?” he asked, pointing the neck of his beer bottle at her canvas.
Amy looked at the painting of four ladies in red hats on a sleigh.Duchess was riding shotgun, her tail high, her nose in the air. They were barreling down a snowy hill toward an enormous, silver-tinsel Christmas tree, arms and legs flailing. “How did you get Mom from this? You can’t see their faces because of the hats.”
“What do you mean? It looks just like her. Why are they wearing bathing suits?”
“I wanted it to be unusual,” Amy said.
Kevin glanced sidelong at her. “Ladies in bathing suits and red hats sleighing down a hill is not only unusual, it’s weird.”
Amy felt herself blush. “And whimsical.”
“Nope. Weird is what it is,” Kevin said.
“Thanks for the boost in confidence.”
He ignored her and looked around the studio. “So that’s what you’ve been doing here? Why couldn’t you do this at home?”
Amy almost bit clean through her tongue in an effort to keep from punching her brother. Obviously, this was what she’d been doing here. She had explained this to him before. And she couldn’t do this at home because ofhimand two boys, both of whom had texted her this morning. Ethan’s text had been one long whine about how it wasn’t fair that Dad wouldn’t get him a new video game, and would she? She was doing this here because at home someone was always invading her space. Needing a ride. Wanting food. Looking for underwear.
She had made some art that amused her and made her happy. She didn’t know if she was completely satisfied with them yet, and she didn’t know if anyone would want them, and it was entirely possible that they might laugh her right out of the contest…but she wanted to continue. At last, the Bossy Posse had a purpose in her life—as her muse. Who knew?
“I have been doing this here because I have the chance to do it here, Kevin.Alone. Without interference. Or opinions. I don’t have that at home, as you well know. Or should know.”
“Well excuse me,” Kevin said. “But I wouldn’t have gone in this direction,” he said, gesturing with his beer bottle at the canvas again.
“Okay! I look forward to seeing the direction you go when you are invited to submit to an art show.”
“You don’t have to be mean.”
“And you don’t have to pretend to have any understanding of art,” she shot back.
“Hey, I understand art. I happen to love the painting of the dogs playing pool. You know, the one on velvet?”
Amy gaped at her ridiculous brother with a mix of hopelessness and despair.
He suddenly grinned and playfully shoved her shoulder. “I’m kidding, doofus.”
She sighed. “You’re a riot, Kev. What are you doing here?”
“You mean at the lake? Or here, in this shed?”
“It’s a studio, but I mean here, at the lake. I thought you were just dropping things off.”
“I am. I did. Dad is ready to go, but he wants you to come inside first.”
“Why?”
Kevin shrugged. “Actually, I think he’s hoping that golfer guy will come in with you.”
Amy felt her face flame. Did they all know he’d been out here with her? “I don’t know where the golfer guy is, but I’ll go if that’s what it takes to get you to both leave.”
“So hostile,” Kevin said, grinning. He gestured to the door. “After you.”
Amy grabbed Duchess and darted up the stairs to the mudroom door. Inside, she put Duchess down and shook the sleet off herself. Kevin, who came in right behind her, didn’t bother. She carried on to the kitchen, but she drew up short. Something had happened in the few hours Amy had been painting and avoiding the family drama of her parents’meltdown. For some reason, the elf suits had been donned by the Posse, and Dad was filming them.
