Page 57 of Law Of Love

She yanked her door open, gazing up at me with surprise, her face slightly flustered.

“Call in sick to college today. I'll be waiting downstairs,” I told her, descending the stairs.

“What?” She swung her arms over the landing railing, and I arched my brow at her, my face stern.

“Just call in sick, Freya.” My tone left no room for argument.

I was going to take her out. She hadn't been herself all weekend because the police claimed they couldn’t trace her father's call. Couldn’t and wouldn’t were two very different matters, though, and something wasn’t right.

Now that Monday had rolled around, Freya was having to force herself to head to college and plaster her usual contagious smile onto her face in an attempt to fool everyone into thinking that she was okay. In reality, she was struggling, and I hated it. I’d do anything to take the pain away from her. I didn’t care what it was.

I waited three minutes before she came barrelling down the stairs in a rush, her face full of concern. “What's going on?”

I chuckled at her lack of faith in me. “We're going out.”

“And I have no say in this?”

“If you'd rather sit in a classroom full of pretentious art students who all believe they possess an ounce of the talent you do, then be my guest, sweetheart, but I doubt your lecturer will be teaching you anything today that you don't already know.” She shivered at my words as I took a step closer, and her ears tinged red, making me smile. “Let's go. I'm driving.”

We didn't speak much during the ride. I could tell that Freya had a lot on her mind, and whenever she dropped her happy façade, her eyes would glaze over, and she would sink back into her state of overthinking and anguish.

I hated that there was nothing I could do for her regarding her father. The police were doing jack shit, and my chief had declined my request to trace the call—there wasn’t anyone in the organisation that worked in the necessary department I could ask that wouldn’t report back to him.

“We're here.” I opened up Freya's door for her, and her eyes expanded at the sight of the pottery studio in front of us. “I thought this might cheer you up, but if you're not in the mood for it, we can give it a miss.”

Art and I weren't the best of friends. I’d never had much interest in it—besides tattoos—but Freya was good. Too good for the people she was surrounded by at college. I’d dug deeper when I’d got Zach kicked out and had done some research on the students in her class. Their pieces were mediocre at best. They lacked passion, originality and charm.

But there was something about Freya's work that drew people in. Even my mother had spotted her sketch pad that she’d left open on the table the other day and had commented that her drawings looked like something you would see selling for thousands of dollars. My little artist just lacked faith in herself sometimes when it came to her talent.

“Kaleb,” she breathed, shaking her head and smiling up at me. “This is perfect.”

The lady behind the studio desk got us all set up—the fact that I had to wear a stupid oversized apron made me groan. But I was willing to do it for Freya. I’d do anything she wanted me to do, no matter how ridiculous it made me look. If it would make her smile, it was worth it.

“What are you going to make?” she asked me as she whirled her clay around using the pedal connected to the potter’s wheel, her hands effortlessly moulding it into a long tube. I was surprised by how easy she made it look.

“I don’t know. Have you ever done this before?” I questioned her, and she shook her head sheepishly.

Of course, she hadn't, but like I’d expected, she took to it like a duck to water.

“What got you into art?” My thigh brushed her own, her body relaxing.

She hummed in response, stealing a glance at me before turning her attention to her perfect-looking vase. “Um, I guess it was the one thing I had control of when I was younger. My mom and dad fought a lot when he wasn't working, and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop them from arguing. But when I drew or painted, everything was my choice. The colour. The shape. The emotion the piece portrayed. I had control. A lot of my artwork revolved around anger when I was a child. It was the one thing my mom noticed. It was usually red or contained fire.”

I bit down on my bottom lip, feeling frustrated by Freya's admittance. Art had been her comfort growing up—it had allowed her to escape from a family that battled one another. She hadn’t felt heard in her own home, and that was deathly wrong.

“I don’t have any siblings either.” She shrugged. “It was hard to find something to do. My mom wanted more kids, but my dad didn't. Apparently, it took him a lot of convincing just to have me.”

I nodded in understanding, my head snapping up once Freya released a loud laugh, her eyes focused on my vase. Well, what was supposed to be a vase. It actually looked more like some kind of deflated elephant penis.

“Do you want some help?” she asked, moving off her stool and gesturing for me to shuffle up, perching on the edge of mine. Her body was so close, and I could feel her breath on the side of my neck as she took over the pedal of the potter's wheel.

My jaw was solid as she took hold of my wrists, moving my hands around the clay slowly, shaping it into a model similar to hers. It caused my skin to tingle. She was so soft. Tentative. Delicate. I wondered if she'd be as gentle when touching—

“Kaleb, you need to concentrate,” Freya complained, shaking her head and frowning at the collapsed clay.

“You're making it very hard for me to do that, sweetheart.”

We called it a day after around thirty minutes of whirling my pottery around—admitting that I just didn't possess the natural talent that Freya did when it came to moulding shapes—and left the pottery studio to head home.

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