Page 98 of Out of Bounds

I turned over to look at him, casually resting back in his seat, watching the darkness outside. He had my curiosity. Was this some interlude to a football thing I had to agree to?

"Yeah?"

"How do you draw people?"

Not what I was expecting.

"What do you mean?" I asked, surprised.

"When you draw people, it’s easy to recognize them," he explained. "I’ve been trying to figure it out. How do you do it?"

A faint blush touched my cheeks. Ryan and I talked about football twenty-four-seven. It made sense, basically dictated our days. But I loved talking about art. It was one of those things I could ramble about for hours and I would never let the opportunity pass me up.

"We call it the Five Line Rule in Mr. Ishisaka’s class," I explained. "If you start with a base, you can draw anybody, as long as you have the five lines picked out."

"Like hands and a face? Is that all one line?"

Pleased, I snuck another look at him. "No. They’re like the little things that make you recognize someone. Like…Coach Lawson with the baseball caps."

"Huh." Slowly, Ryan nodded, taking a left on the road. "Zariah has…curly hair."

"Yeah, you got it. Adam’s always smirking."

"And your lips."

For a moment, I gazed out to the road, letting the words sink in, and I didn’t steal a look, I openly took one in surprise. He was serious and wasn’t afraid to show it.

"My…lips?"

"Your lips," Ryan said, his voice soft. "Your bottom one is a little bigger than the top and there’s an indent on the left side when you show a real smile."

"A real smile?"

"Sometimes I think you smile to smile. And then sometimes you have this real smile and it comes naturally. Those are the ones worth drawing."

Heat pooled between my legs and I had to work to steady my breathing.

Ryan wanted to fuck. I could practically taste it in the car, in the way he spoke to me, in the deep timbers of his voice. We hadfootball practice tomorrow morning but after the alumni night, after we nailed it and put on the song and dance, I was going to direct him to his dorm and find all the ways to make Mr. Intense lose his good composure.

A grin tugged up on my lips as I caught sight of the view. Thousands of little lights were strung on the trees outside the alumni center. Everyone was decked out in their formal wear and lines of expensive cars prevented us from reaching the valet stand.

Perfect. That gave me just enough time.

"Your eyes," I murmured, watching the valet move between cars. "That’s one of your five lines."

I could feel Ryan’s eyes on me. "My eyes?"

"They’re an interesting color."

"They’re…brown," he said slowly.

"Brown is a hundred different shades of wildly different colors. Big art moment here, ball dribbler," I teased him. "Yours are dark honey."

Ryan eased the car to a stop on the curb and he shifted to look at me. "Don’t get out of the car."

"Why not? You want to open my car door?"

"Yes."

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