Page 24 of Skin Deep

“Hello!” Beth swept into the large room, arms open and purple hair flying. Right behind her was her fiancé, Ford, who carried an expensive-looking bottle of wine that he handed to Meg. “Jo and Theo are just parking.”

Beth picked up a slice of bruschetta from the same platter that Amy had reached for. Amy waited for Meg to smack her hand, too, but nothing happened as Beth sank her teeth into the crusty, tomato and herb–topped bread.

“Yummy.” Beth gave Meg an approving nod.

“Try this one.” Meg sliced a chunk off a homemade loaf and topped it with something from a jar before handing it to Ford, who lifted it to his lips. “This one is eggplant.”

“Have I done something to piss you off lately?” Amy planted her hands on her hips. “Why do they get to eat and I don’t?”

“They’re choosing the appetizers for their wedding dinner.” Meg shared an exasperated glance with Beth. “I need to make sure they try everything so they can choose.”

“You’ve made enough food to feed an army,” Amy pointed out. “And don’t you want my input, too?”

“You? The woman who announced that just because all three of her sisters are heading to the altar didn’t mean she wanted to wallow in wedding details all the time?” Jo and Theo entered the kitchen, the door slamming behind them. They made a beeline for the food as Jo spoke. “Oh, are these the appetizers for Beth and Ford?”

John entered the kitchen then, swinging by the island to grab Meg around the waist and press a kiss into her neck. The oven timer went off, and Meg looked over her shoulder at Amy. “Can you grab those from the oven for me, Ames?”

Grumbling to herself, Amy did as she was asked. She grabbed a purple hot mitt from the counter. She pulled the steaming baking sheet of savory pastries from the hot depths of the oven, then placed them on the stainless steel counter. Turning around again, she tugged the oven mitt back off.

The three couples were clustered around the island, two by two. All were talking excitedly and laughing as they sampled the various things that Meg had prepared. Nobody asked for her opinion, or even looked to include her in the conversation at all.

For the first time in her entire life, Amy felt like an outsider among her own family.

Stung, she tossed the oven mitt back onto the counter. Prickles gathered behind her eyes, at the top of her nose, so she silently slid from the room. Grabbing her messenger bag from where she’d hung it, she slipped out the front door, settling herself on the top tier of the concrete steps.

The early evening air was cool and helped the tears that had threatened to retreat. Amy wasn’t a big crier—she actually couldn’t remember the last time she’d given in to tears—and she was embarrassed that she almost had inside. Sucking in big breaths of the crisp Boston air, she willed herself to calm down.

She and her sisters were close. They always had been. She knew them all well enough to know that none of them meant to make her feel excluded. The fact remained that she did, and she was tempted to jog down the street, catch the next bus and head on home. That way she wouldn’t have to listen to hours of wedding babble that would inevitably make her feel even more left behind. Or the inevitable jokes about each of her three sisters tossing their bouquets straight to her, because there would be no one else.

If she did that, though, she’d have to explain herself when the rest of the crew got home—the perils of still living at home. Instead, she loosened the ties of her bag and tugged out her sketchbook, then rooted around the bottom of her bag for a pencil.

Drawing was the one thing that soothed her when all else had failed. When she drew, she became so utterly absorbed in what she was doing that the here and now—the anxiety and hurt—faded away and she could just be.

She hadn’t been to Meg’s workspace for a few weeks, and in that time, the bower of cherry trees in the park across the street had bloomed. With her pencil, she outlined the tree branches as they reached up toward the evening sky as if in prayer, then shaded in the trunks. She contemplated penciling in the blossoms, so fluffy and full of promise, but decided she didn’t want the gray of the pencil lead to detract from the beauty of the blooms. Eyes still on the trees, she rummaged blindly through her bag for her pencil case, where she knew she had a pastel the exact lavender-pink shade of the silky petals.

Balancing the pastel in her fingers, she pressed it to the paper of her sketchpad, adding the blossoms with light, feathery strokes. Her fingers flew expertly across the page, ignoring the approaching footsteps until someone moved directly in front of her, blocking her light.

“Do you mind?” she asked irritably, expecting one of Meg’s employees, or someone else who rented part of the industrial space. When a familiar hand moved into her line of sight, plucking the pastel from her fingers and nudging her hand to the side, her pulse quickened in her throat.

“Has anyone told you lately how good you are?” Amy looked up, unsurprised to find Fred standing in front of her. He was balanced on one of the lower steps, leaning on the wrought iron railing with his free hand tucked in his pocket.

“Not in the last hour or so.” Her throat went dry as she took him in. He was dressed down for the first time since he’d come back into her life, in jeans and a light sweater, with polished leather shoes. Her eye for detail told her that any one of those pieces had probably cost ten times what she’d spent on her entire outfit—a denim miniskirt and vintage concert tee she’d scored at a thrift store. Still, it suited him. In truth, it took her right back to the first time she’d ever seen him, in that dingy bar—the guy who’d tried to fit in but hadn’t quite been able to hide the layer of polish that came from his very pores.

“May I?” Rather than snatch the sketchpad from her lap, as people often felt was their right to do, he extended a hand in question. She looked at him silently for a moment, then placed it in his hand. He whistled softly as he looked from her quick sketch, then back to her face. “You did this just now? In a couple of minutes?”

“Well, yeah.” She shrugged under the weight of his admiration, not something she was used to. “It’s not something I’d hang in my gallery or anything. I was just blowing off some steam.”

“I love it.” He looked her in the eye, and she saw that his words were true. He ruffled the corners of the pad with her fingertips, as though itching to look at the rest of her work, and she snatched it back before he could.

She made a show of tearing the cherry tree piece from the perforated edge. She hoped it would distract him from the urge to see more work, because he’d only have to go back another ten or so pages to see sketches she’d done of him after she’d ridden him in her tattoo chair. She had no qualms about the fact that she’d drawn him in the nude—he had a fantastic body, after all.

What she didn’t want him to see was the emotion that might have leaked from her fingers to the page. She wasn’t ready to show that to anyone yet, not even herself.

Silently, she handed over the piece of paper on which she’d sketched the cherry tree. “You can have it if you want.”

He was silent for a moment as he studied the paper. Finally, he dragged his stare back up to her face, then placed the paper back in her lap.

“Going to sign it for me?”

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