Page 69 of Alpha Varsity

“Whoa. Okay. So any advice?”

“I mean…are you thinking about art school?”

I let out a harsh laugh. “It’s not for me. She already graduated from the most prestigious art school in the country.”

“Ohhhh–she.” Lauren looks at me speculatively. “Ms. James.” She glances at Abe for confirmation.

“Would it be okay if we kept this between us?” I ask. “Abe knows, but that’s it.”

Lauren’s lips curve. “Scandalous.”

“Please, Lauren. It’s not my life that would be ruined if it got out.”

Lauren mimes locking her lips with a key. “My lips are sealed.” She throws the imaginary key over her shoulder. “So, yeah. There are gallery owners you can approach. I can ask my dad if he can connect me with one of our family friends to get some specific contacts if you want.”

“Really?” This went way better than expected. “Yeah. I mean, yes, please. I would really appreciate that, Lauren.”

“No problem. I'll talk to my dad tonight at dinner and get back to you. Want me to text you?”

“No way you’re getting my girl’s phone number,” Abe interrupts.

Lauren rolls her eyes again. “We’ll group chat then.”

Lotta

The next night Asher meets me at school as I’m cleaning up to come home. “Am I late again?” I ask breathlessly when I open the locked door for him.

He picks me up to straddle his waist, the same way he did last time.

I wriggle. “The janitor’s still here,” I whisper, and he drops me immediately, sending me a boyish, dimpled grin that makes my insides melt.

“You’re not late, I just wanted to take some measurements.” He pulls a measuring tape from his jeans pocket as he strides down the hallway to my studio.

“Measurements?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna frame your paintings.”

I stop walking. “What?”

He turns and grins. “You heard me, Ms. James.” He tilts his head toward the studio. “I watched a Youtube video on how to DIY frames and save hundreds of dollars.”

I’m still melting. Scrape me off the floor where I’ve become a puddle.

I jog to catch up with him, looking around quickly for the janitor before I loop my arm through his. “Thank you. That would be amazing. My paintings do need frames. I mean, I don’t think that would’ve helped at the galleries–it was more a gatekeeping thing, but…”

We’re inside the studio now, and Asher stops my words with a kiss.

I melt against him, my arms looping up around his neck, my body softening into his. “That was really thoughtful, Asher. Thank you.”

He kisses me again, but he’s a man with a mission. He strides back to the stack of paintings and starts to measure and inventory them. “These have names?” he asks, ripping a piece of paper from my sketchbook and thrusting it at me. “Will you write down the name of each one and a description, so I know which is which then I’ll put the dimensions underneath.”

It takes over an hour, but Asher doesn’t seem to mind. By the end of it, I have a list of every painting I’ve made over the last five years. The paintings I had to go into debt on my credit card to ship back here.

“Wow. I’ve produced a lot of art.” I look at the list. It feels satisfying. Not that I’m a quantity-over-quality kind of artist, but it’s nice to see what a long list of art I have available to sell, if I can ever get in a gallery.

“Have you thought about an Etsy store?” Asher asks.

My brows pop. I notice the same resistance rise up in me that I had when Olive suggested we visit galleries. Is it fear of putting myself out there? Or my wolf instinct telling me it’s a bad move?

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