Page 17 of Dravin

I never stopped to think that what he was doing could have been on the right side of the law, or at least the right side of a moral argument.

I never really stopped to think at all, and that… hurt him. He’s lost whatever manic emotion drove him out here to attack the grass with absolute savagery.

He looks like he can breathe again, and oddly, I can too. Relief snaps through me like static sparks flaring in a dark room on my next breath.

“The red is a base.” I offer the words as a white flag, a truce of sorts, and most of all—an unspoken apology. “You need a base before you can build anything else. I did say it can be painted over.”

A line appears between his brows, deep and anguished. The sun doesn’t change position in the sky, but shadows flicker over his strong features. It’s so strange how this man is a mass of contradictions. He defies logic simply by existing.

There’s a good chance that my brain is completely fucking addled by information overload and possibly some form of heatstroke. I was out here tanning for far longer than I should have been. It’s fucked my hormones too. I can’t stop focusing on how shirtless Dravin is.

Because I’m wearing his shirt.

We need a subject change. We meaning Dravin and myself. Meaning my brain and my body. “If you want to blend in here, you should get some tattoos.”

Slowly, the rest of that manic mowing fever bleeds away. “Where?”

“Tramp stamp. Definitely. And then a lion and a compass somewhere. Probably some roses. And buy a fucking bike if you’re in a biker club.”

His bark of laughter shocks the hell out of me. It’s a rough sound at first, like his voice, but it changes, the cadence morphing to something lighter and more musical, the same way the way the lawnmower engine chugged until it found its purr.

“We’ll go somewhere else,” he says when he sobers. It’s irrational as hell, but I almost miss his smile. “I need time to arrange it. Until then, you’ll have to make do.” He’s looking less and less like flower murder is on the menu for this morning and I don’t want to provoke him into finishing off the yard.

“No, just… Okay. Yeah.”

That’s not enough. I’ve been horrible and if I can’t apologize now, I need to find a way to do it in the future. Marcus wouldn’t have wanted me to treat this man badly and make his life hell, which is what I’ve been doing, at least for the few weeks that we’ve been here.

I came like a prisoner, and I’ve remained that way. I’ve held any and every crime against this tiny little northern city. It’s my fault that I haven’t seen it as anything more than an ugly stain, when in fact it’s lovely.

“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try. With the women, at any rate.” Maybe they’re not so bad. They might be biker babes, but they’re probably not as coarse as the men. I can’t exactly trust Dravin’s opinion ofnot so bad.I might have made assumptions, but that’s all I had to go on, and just because I feel bad right now, doesn’t mean that I’m entirely wrong. I still have to protect myself.

I don’t know anything.

That’s the problem.

If I’m going to get through this, maybe it’s a problem that I have to rectify. I might get out of this alive, but what kind of person will I be? If I ever want to find my way back to who I was before Marcus died, then I need to start reclaiming my life. I thought that was escaping and making my own destiny, but there are smaller, more important ways.

I need to heal my heart. Find my compassion and empathy again. Do more than go out and buy a whole horde of art supplies with a bank account that a man I told myself I hated had set up for me. I need to do more than slap red paint on all the canvases and sit there for hours staring at them.

I used to have a huge circle of friends, a massive network of people I knew and loved, and a vibrant life. I was always out doing something. I loved being a part of anything bigger than who I could be just on my own. I had a support network. I had a community. I’ve missed that. I’ve missedme.

Dravin’s stayed silent this whole time, watching me sort out my shit in my head.

“Uh… I’ll make you a deal.”

He doesn’t look like he’s in the mood for bargaining, but he doesn’t protest either.

“I’ll attempt to try and be more… uh… agreeable.”How very archaically proper. Would you like some tea with that?“If you’ll agree to model for me.”

Damn!Where did that come from?

He looks at me like I’ve totally lost the plot, and maybe I have. “Model?” He tests the word like he’s never heard it before and can’t comprehend the meaning.

“With clothes on.”Damn it. Seriously?

Great. If it’s not bad enough that he’s already half naked and I’m swathed in his clothing, now I’m picturing the rest of him nude. In an artsy way. His legs would definitely be as sculpted and muscular as the rest of him. He for sure has an ass of steel. Tattoos? Probably not. As I pointed out, he’s decidedly lacking in that area. Piercings?Don’t even go there.There’s no blaming the sun for the heat that invades my body now. I am the sun. It’s inside of me. More scars? From an artistic standpoint, I find so much beauty in the imperfect.

It’s a thousand times worse when I have to flick my eyes back to Dravin’s face and feign normalcy, like I wasn’t just thinking about his dick being pierced.

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