Page 108 of Falling for my Brother's Best Friend

Thirty-Four

Savannah

After dinner, Liam convinces me to paint with him. Now he has me dressed in an oversized button-down shirt that was his once upon a time.

“I better be the first girl to do this with you.” I point at the paint splatters on the shirt.

He bends down and kisses my lips. “I promise.”

“Then care to explain how a nice shirt like this got ruined?”

“I came in here and painted without changing my clothes. Had the picture in my mind and didn’t want to lose it so…”

I look down at the blue dress shirt, but I can’t remember him wearing it. “What was the picture in your head?”

He chuckles. “You trying to catch me in a lie?”

“Just curious.” I shrug.

He’s setting up my easel with a fresh white canvas, paints, and brushes at the side. This is insane. My picture will look like a five-year-old’s. I’m not saying a five-year-old’s picture is bad. They’re just five. I’m thirty-one. Big difference.

“If you have to know, it was after Brooklyn and Wyatt’s reception.”

I narrow my eyes. “When you yelled at me?”

He shakes his head. “When you yelled at me, you mean.”

He kisses my forehead. I know it’s just to appease me, but the man knows how to use his lips to distract me.

I focus on the white canvas as my gut twists and turns. The last thing I want to be doing is this.

“Okay, you’re all set. Any specific music you wanna listen to?” He heads over to his stereo, which I missed my first time in here.

I can’t stop checking out every painting he’s done. He’s so talented. I don’t understand why he doesn’t have a gallery on Main Street. The landscape paintings would fly off the shelves because they capture our small town perfectly.

“Then I’ll decide.” His thumb presses and slides around his phone. Through the speakers, Lewis Capaldi plays.

“Are you trying to pull sadness out of me? And put your shirt on. It’s distracting.”

He chuckles, sitting down at his own easel. “We could skip the canvas and paint each other and roll around the floor.”

“I think I’d do just about anything not to have to paint right now. This is so unfair. What if I put you in front of a computer with an Excel spreadsheet and a P & L statement?”

He laughs and leans to the side of his easel to look at me again. “You forget, I’m a business owner.”

I growl and fling a brush at him.

“I’m sure there’s something you can make me try that I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing.”

His words sound good, but he’s so easygoing that I know he wouldn’t care whether he sucked. I’m not used to sucking at anything because I shy away from anything outside of my comfort zone.

“Just relax and let it come to you.”

I sulk on the chair for a bit, hearing his paintbrush swooshing across the canvas.

The song changes. In the pause between songs, he must hear me sighing because he comes over to me, picks up my hand, and puts a paintbrush in it. “Let’s start with your favorite color.”

“I don’t have one.”

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