Page 17 of Spike

“Show me yourbook,” I demanded.

He chuckled.

“You can’t deny menow,” I pointed out. “If you show potential clients your art, youhavetoshow your sister.”

Jenson hadalwaysdrawn. Always. He’d doodle in church, he’d doodle in school, but his ‘real’art, the stuff of his heart was hidden away in his room, usually some place Icouldn’t find it (I’d tried) and he’d always refused to show me because he saidit was personal.

He handed me aniPad which contained scans of his work. I squealed and started to swipe throughdrawings. I gasped when I came upon a pencil drawn sketch of me. “When did youdraw this?”

“Ah…” He leaneddown and pointed to the date. “You were in high school I think.”

I squinted,focusing on the fading date and bit my lip. “That’s the day after theBeach BlanketBlowout dance. Why do I look so sad?”

“Because youwere,” Jenson said. “You locked yourself in your room and cried. Well, afteryou yelled at Mom for an hour because she’d been a mega bitch for something.”

I met his eyes. “Inever called her a bitch.”

He grinned. “No.I’m paraphrasing. But remember? Matty and I snuck into your room and broughtyou gummy worms because you were grounded. You never did tell us why you wereso upset. Not even Matt, which was weird because you tell him everything.”

“I know why,”Gemma said.

“Shut it,” Iwarned, then continued to ‘flip’ through his ‘book.’ “These are amazing, Jens.I don’t know why you’d hide any of this from us. Seriously. It’s unbelievable.”

“Thanks, sissy. Iappreciate that.”

Gemma flopped downin one of his chairs just as Spike sauntered over. It took everything in me notto let out a schoolgirl sigh.

“Hey.” He gave mybrother a chin lift. “I’m Spike.”

“Jenson.” Mybrother shook his hand.

“Dev said you hada book I could look at.”

Jenson grinned.“Oh, yeah, man. You lookin’ at getting more ink?”

Spike nodded, hiseyes going to me.

“I’ll scrollback.” I flipped Jenson’s ‘book’ back to the beginning and handed Spike theiPad. Gemma rummaged through her purse to grab her phone while Jenson pulledhis from his pocket and I watched Spike go through the sketches.

He swiped through,studying the pictures while simultaneously glancing at me over the screen.“Fuck, man, these are unreal. Devlin’s word didn’t do you justice.”

“Right,” I saidexcitedly. “Isn’t he amazing?”

“Yeah, Trixie,he’s amazing.”

Jenson’s headwhipped up. “Trixie?”

“Just drop it,Jens,” I warned.

Spike gave me awink.

I bit the insideof my cheek and forced my face to stay neutral. Oh my word, the man just winkedat me and I swear my panties might have just flooded. I was going to have topray a little harder tonight. Very quietly. Actually, silently in case my voicecarried on the wind and my mother heard it.

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Spike

I couldn’t stoplooking at her. I pretended to be going through her brother’s book, but Iwasn’t really seeing any of the images, I was too busy taking her in.

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