He gives an exaggerated nod.
“So maybe you want to… move?” I say.
“I’ll cross my fingers that not everyone chooses to walk through me.”
He looks up at me through thick black-framed glasses. A slow smile hooks up more on one side, cocky, until dimples flash and warm his cheeks. His white hoodie’s cuffs are freckled with old paint, making him look younger than he probably is, until he stands to his full height, and I realize he’s about my size, lean and solid. Sun hits his skin, pale and dusted with a constellation of freckles across his nose, and I swear the breeze shifts just to spotlight him, because suddenly I’m overheating. His gaze drifts over me, curious, deliberate, and absolutely aware of what he’s doing.
He’s checking me out.
I glance away, caught.
But he doesn’t. “If the retreat’s starting soon, I’ll walk with you.”
Abort. Abort. This man is too handsome and too confident.
“I meant—” I stammer. “I just didn’t want you getting trampled by anyone else.”
“My hero.” He clasps his hands in a mock swoon, and I laugh, the flush of heat from the first look rushing back. “Here for the retreat anyway,” he adds.
“Really?” I ask. So he’s not just some random artist camped in the woods. He’s heading to the same FI nerd fest I am.
“So surprised?” he asks, amusement tugging at his mouth.
“I mean… I just meant—” I shut my mouth before I dig deeper, then try again. “I mean, it’s cool you paint. I work in tech.”
“Oh.” His grimace wipes out any hint of attraction. He folds his blanket with brisk efficiency that also physically closes him off. “I’m surprisedyou’rehere,” he huffs.
I can’t help poking. “You don’t like tech?”
“Don’t mind the tech,” he says. “Mind the people who work it—bros or creeps, in my experience. And when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
“Maya Angelou,” I say, and that earns me a raised eyebrow. I use the same quote in recruitment training, but I keep that detail to myself. Probably not what Maya had in mind. Instead, I hold out my hand. “Ash.”
“I’m Kael. Nice to meet a fellow… artist,” he says, reluctant, “even if you are a tech bro.”
“At least it wasn’t the first thing you knew about me,” I point out, ignoring the strange spark that comes with being called an artist at all. “So which bothers you more? That I ran you over or that I work in tech?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Which is why you can carry this too.” Kael hands me his box of paints, the palette flipped over as a lid and secured by a leather strap.
“You know, the top five tech companies make up a third of the S&P 500. We’re hardly monolithic.”
Kael starts down the path toward the fieldhouse, not looking back. “I have no idea what you just said.”
“I mean, Idowork in tech, but how can you have an opinion of all of us?”
Kael stops, canvas balanced over his head, and turns in a slow circle. “The fish stinks from the head.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means if the people at the top are willing to run people over, I’m not shocked when everyone under them stops looking where they’re going.”
I hold up the paint box between us, Exhibit A for my argument. “Not all of us have side hustles we love.”
“That’s exactly my point. What’s a ‘side hustle’?” He sets off again. “Why can’t you talk like a human being? Are you going to ‘ping’ me later?”
“It’s a side gig,” I say, hurrying after him. Pine needles crunch under my shoes. “Something you do for extra money.”
“Painting is what I was born to do. It’s what I love. Not some ‘gig.’”
