"See, this is why I need you. You're my creative consultant." Liam grabs an orange tube and squeezes it next to the purple. Mason sits down at our table, pulling his robin drawing with him.
Reed stays where he is for about thirty seconds. Then he stands, picks up his backward chair, carries it across the aisle, and sets it down at the end of our table with a thud. He sits, legs spread, arms folded, looking at all of us like he's doing us a massive favor.
"Don't get excited, Farley," he says. "Mason's over here. I'm supervising."
"Supervising," I repeat.
"Someone has to make sure you people don't corrupt him."
"That's rich, coming from you."
"I'm a great influence. Ask anyone."
I roll my eyes. Reed grins with that unhinged edge. But there's no venom in it today. He seems almost under control. Must be taking some meds for the mania.
"Your boy's got paint on his neck," Reed says to me, nodding at Liam. “Go clean him up.”
"I'm letting it happen."
"Loving the lazy leadership approach. It fits you,Farley.”
I roll my eyesagain. He doesn’t deserve an answer.
Jack holds up his charcoal drawing. "Opinions. Now. Behonest but also be nice because I'm sensitive."
It's a portrait. Rough, expressive, the lines heavy and dark. It takes me a second to recognize who it is. Griff. Jack has captured him mid-lecture, one hand raised, mouth open, that vein in his forehead practically pulsing off the page.
"Holy shit, that's actually incredible," Liam says, leaning over. “Much better than the caricature I drew of him.”
"Wow, Jack," I say. It’s so good. He's caught something in the expression, the exhaustion under the authority, the way Griff looks like he's carrying the weight of every kid who's ever passed through here.
"Told you I could draw," Jack says, trying to sound casual, but his ears are turning red.
Reed tilts his head, studying it. "The jaw's a little off. And the nose. But the eyes are good."
"Constructive," Jack says. "I appreciate the deeply specific and unsolicited critique."
"You asked for opinions."
"I asked forniceopinions, douchebag."
"That was nice. For me."
Mason has migrated fully to our end of the table now, his robin abandoned, watching Jack add shading to Griff's portrait. "Can you teach me to do that?" he asks quietly.
Jack looks up, surprised. "The shading?"
"All of it. I can draw technical stuff, but I can't draw people. Faces."
"I mean, I can try,” he says, all excited that Mason asked him that.
Mason picks up a pencil and starts. Jack leans across to correct his proportions, their heads close together, voices low. I watch Reed watching them. He's calculating whether Jack is a threat. He must decide Jack isn't, because he relaxes back in the chair, crossing hisarms, smiling.
Liam goes back to his sunset, which now looks marginally more like a sunset and less like a bruise.
"What do you think?" he asks me, holding it up.
It's messy and amateur and the proportions are wrong and the colors bleed into each other.
