Page 123 of Chaos
“A what?”
“You know, a date night. Where we sip”—I pointed to the champagne chilling in an icy bucket—“and dip.” This time I pointed to the two tabletop easels I’d found and the array of old painting supplies. When Merri didn’t immediately say anything, I rubbed at the back of my neck. “I did some research. It’s supposed to be pretty popular. But if you think it’s stupid?—”
“No. No, Sin, I don’t think it’s stupid. You set this up for me?”
“For us.”
The wonder on her face was reward enough. If she could just look at me like that all the time, I’d be happy. Wow, was this what dating felt like? I understood why people did it now.
“Where did you find this stuff?” she asked, moving over to the little stations I’d set up for us.
“Chaos’s room.”
She stumbled, turning around so fast the end of her ponytail whipped her in the face. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, didn’t he mention his recreational activity of choice? He said he found it meditative. He’s a big fan of that one dude. Mr. Rogers, no. That wasn’t it. The guy with the afro and the baby squirrel.”
“Bob Ross?”
I snapped my fingers and pointed at her. “That’s the one.”
“You’re telling me that Chaos, the horseman War, is a fan of Bob Ross.”
“Yeah, big time.”
Her eyes were as wide as saucers. “I... I have no words.”
I smirked. “You should see his face when you mention happy little trees.”
She beamed at me as she picked up a paintbrush. “So where do we start?”
Striding to the champagne, I picked up the bottle and popped the cork before pouring us each a glass. “First we sip.”
She took hers and clinked the crystal with mine, bringing the flute to her lips and taking a taste. “Oh, that’s really nice.”
“Don’t tell Mal. I found it in the back of his wine cellar, so I’m sure it’s some super rare snooty vintage.”
She giggled as she set her flute down. “What are we painting?”
“Each other.”
She stared at me for a second before laughing. “I think you’ve wildly overestimated my artistic abilities. You’re lucky if a stick figure comes out with the right number of limbs.”
Laughing, I took up my place across from her and began squirting each color of paint out onto the makeshift palettes I’d fashioned from two paper plates. “You’ll be fine.”
“I’m really more of a paint-by-numbers girl.”
“We’ll call it abstract. Feel free to embrace your Picasso era.”
She huffed out another laugh as I added some red and yellow to the plates. “Oh, I can pretty much promise that.”
“I’m sure whatever you come up with is going to be perfect, kitten.”
She shook her head at me, and I couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t stopped smiling. Painting had totally been the right choice.
“So we just stare at each other and paint?”
I shot her my best smoldering look, which just made her giggle again.
