Page 2 of Illicit Illustration

She rolled her eyes. “We both know your brother is all talk. He might threaten Reid’s dick if he hurts you, but if you two actually wanted to take things past your awkwardly tense friendship, then go for it.”

“He’s got a type, and I am not it.” Reid liked women who had much bigger assets than my smallish A-cups and slim frame. And I didn’t have any tattoos or piercings, despite always having been curious about them. Every time I was near Reid on Halloween, I had to fight off the thought of playing with his nipple piercings, since the attractive jerk had spent the entire night without a shirt on.

And every time I thought about what was hidden underneath his tight shirts, questions I would never get the answers to ran through my head. Like… If I tugged on one, would it make him hard?

“I think now that Hudson and I are moving in together, Reid is realizing that they’re not lost boys who don’t have to grow up. He hasn’t been picking up women here for a while. Coincidentally, he’s been a good boy since…you took a bat to someone’s twat and then flirted with a cute baseball player all night on Halloween.” Charley grinned, clearly laughing at the memory of finding out that I’d assaulted my brother’s toxic monster of an ex. “Which he extensively told your brother about on multiple occasions, becauseHaz deserves better than some minor leaguer wannabe who won’t stick around, anyway.”

“Christian was just being nice to me. We texted for a few days, but then I never heard from him once their conditioning started. He’s busy with school and practice. And Reid’s right, even if he doesn’t play after he graduates, he won’t want to stay in a small college town in rural Colorado. All the students end up leaving eventually.” I shrugged, and she rolled her eyes at me.

The transient nature of living in an area heavily reliant on tourism was why a lot of locals never dated the college students or the tourists who flocked to Sage Springs and the surrounding small communities during the ski season. My cousin Colette was a ski instructor, and she’d warned me years ago not to fall for any of the smooth-talking tourists.

“Not all of them do.”

Yet another reason I wasn’t sure about this whole blind dating thing. Since I had no way of identifying the man on the other side of the screen, what if I ended up with someone who didn’t have plans to stay here?

Although that might be a good solution for my virginity problem. If I was terrible at it, he could just leave town, so I didn’t have to hide above my brother’s bar. I could just be the weird word porn illustrator who lived a life of seclusion with her dildoes and a collection of penis art because she was allergic to pussies.

The animal kind, not my vagina.

“You’re doing it again, Haz.”

Yet another reason I wasn’t sure I was cut out for blind dating. I had five minutes to pitch myself to someone as a date. With my ADHD, I’d probably end up getting distracted, go off on a tangent with weirdly specific knowledge about what was supposed to be a conversation starter topic and then get flustered and clam up from mortification that I couldn’t have a conversation like a normal person.

My friends and family may tolerate my social quirks, but I knew my tendencies to interrupt and have rapid-fire topic changes during a conversation annoyed most people. I irritated myself regularly, but no matter what medications I took, how much I tried to mask it, or how often I attended cognitive-behavioral therapy, it happened anyway.

Sometimes my ADHD could be a blessing. I had hyper-focus when I was working on commissions as long as I stuck to my usual routine, but it also meant I forgot to do things like feed myself, drink water or check the clock so I wasn’t late for my shifts at the bar.

“Just… Fine. I’ll do it. But I swear to God, if I get any dick pics during the texting part of this whole experience, then I’m printing it out and plastering copies all over Hudson’s garage door with my craft glue like a phallic collage art masterbatorypiece.”

“Sounds reasonable, but I think we managed to weed out the unsolicited peen pic posters during the vetting stage. Pretty sure Hudson made some of them hand over their phones so he could scroll through their camera rolls.”

He’d better not ask to look through mine. Because it was currently full of source photographs from my various ‘research’ sources. Some illustrators used 3D models, posing diagrams, and illustration textbooks to help them capture realism in their work.

I also used Pinterest, Instagram, and porn.

The last one hadn’t been helping with my dirty fantasies about Reid. No matter what they looked like, every man in a video I watched—for purely research purposes, only…obviously—turned into him.

And every time I got myself off thinking of him, it made it harder to resist the urge to run away from him when we were forced to be in the same room.

“I promise you’ll have fun. Or you’ll at least have funny stories to tell me afterward. Since you’re debriefing me about the entire process so I can improve things for next time. If Hudsonis convinced the experience was a success, he’s more likely to let me make it an annual thing.”

She grinned at me, and I felt terrible that I really did not want to support my friend. But I also knew she’d thrive off my embarrassment when I inevitably did something cringeworthy.

“Ifno one texts me the next morning, I’m going to never speak to you about this again.”

“Fair enough,” she laughed. “But I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about. You’ll probably have a few guys fighting for your attention, if not all of them. You’re funnier than you give yourself credit for, and some guys find humor sexy. Everything will turn out fine.”

Spoiler Alert: Everything indeed did not go fine.

Hazel

“What is he doinghere?” I hissed, but my attention was quickly averted to watching the way the muscles rippled beneath the short sleeves of Reid’s shirt in a way that should not have had me salivating and wanting to take a picture so I could sketch it later.

I never expected to be the kind of girl who got off from observing some arm porn. But I realized how wrong I was as I watched, hypnotized, as the tendons in his forearms flexed and shifted. Reid was currently across the room holding up one end of the divider screen, so Hudson could attach the support feet, his back flexing while he tried to hold it steady.

“He’s helping with set up. Hudson asked him to come get everything ready for tonight. Then I think they’re going to drink beer with the cooks and guard the doors.”

“Reid’s not doing the event, is he?” I asked, shifting uncomfortably as my hands began to sweat. There was no way I could go through with this if she asked him too.

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