Page 21 of Bound to You

“I recognized that glint in your eye when Caio mentioned my studio. I can recognize a creative mind when I see one.” Nora pushes the supplies into her hands with her signature I-know-better smile. I’ve been subjected to that one more than a few times.

“Just in case you get the urge,” she adds.

I thought Isla was a fine arts major. Why is she so hesitant?

“Thank you.” Isla smiles back this time. I feel like I’m on the outside with these two, and they only met yesterday.

I feel a soft tug on the bottom of my pants, and I look down to see a little lion looking back up at me, her beautiful blue eyes curiously roaming my face.

I crouch down to meet her height. “Hello,” I say.

“Ciao, Mr,” she responds.

“What’s up?”

“You need a face painting to be here,” she says. “We all have one.” She gestures to her friends running around the tent. “You need one too.”

She’s a sassy little lion.

“Oh, do I?”

“Mhm,” she nods, crossing her arms in front of her.

“What about her?” I point to Isla, who’s looking over at us like she might melt at the sight. “Does she need a painting too?”

The little girl nods. She’s adorable, she can’t be over five years old.

“You better pick us out a design then. What do you think? I could be a lion like you?”

“No,” she counters, and her eyebrows draw together, as if she’s using all of her concentration to study my face. “A butterfly,” she says with confidence, nodding her head and assuring herself of her decision.

“A butterfly it is.” I smile. “And what about for Isla here?”

The girl waves Isla closer and she comes to crouch next to me so the little lion can make her decision.

“A tiger,” she says, her eyes glittering as she imagines it.

“A tiger?” Isla says. “I like it. Will you help turn me into one?” The girl’s eyes light up at the prospect of doing Isla’s face painting as she nods. “Why don’t you go ask Nora for the paints then?” The girl skips off to Nora, tugging on her pants to get her attention.

“How is it that you get to be a tiger and I’m the butterfly?”

“She can obviously feel the power dynamic between us,” Isla replies with a little smirk.

I scoff a laugh as our little lion comes running back to us, face paints and brush in hand. She uses the paint brush to point at my face. “You first.”

“Don’tyou forget the doors to my studio are always open to you,” Nora says as we make our way out of her tent nearly forty minutes later. It took the little lion half an hour to create the messy masterpiece that is Isla’s tiger face, and ten minutes to rush my pink and blue splattering of a butterfly before her parents came to pick her up.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Isla says.

Nora’s studio used to be one of the more popular places in town, with people always wanting to purchase art on their way through. But Nora has had fewer artists coming to work out of the studio in the last few years, so I know she’d appreciate the company.

We say goodbye and start to wander back to the hotel. It’s an uphill battle, and we are definitely losing in this heat. Summers on the coast are always warm, but this year is scorching.

“Let’s stop here,” I say when we reach a patch of shade under a tree. Looking at us, you’d think we ran a marathon. I always underestimate this hill.

“Why are you puffing? Don’t you work out like every day?” Isla asks in between breaths. “I have an excuse here. Exercise was never my calling, but you look like you should be better at this.”

“I don’t actually, but I’m glad to know you appreciate my body.” I smile down at her.

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