Page 11 of All My Love
Admittedly, my feet are starting to hurt, and that’s probably the only thing that’s stopping me from floating away on a cloud at this very moment. No one can get everything they want, so if a woman is having an otherwise-perfect day, she’s probably doing it with pinchedtoes.
“What do you say we head home soon?” Ben asks next to me. I look up at him and take in the sight. A square-jawed, bespectacled man with deep blue eyes and a streak of something quietlydangerous.
The kind that sneaks up on you and makes you feel like it’s always beenthere.
“Sure,” I say, clearing my voice when he looks down at me. I feel a drizzle of rain in my midsection, like the kind that forms like dew on your windshield. Barely there but it could make you crash if you’re not careful. “I wish I could stay out all night, but my feet are telling meotherwise.”
“Wait just a minute,” Ben says, grabbing my hand and walking me over to an artist under a wide redumbrella.
I give Ben a disapproving look. I’ve learned to love the way I look and even embrace my curves, but there is no way I am agreeing to having a caricature artist sketch me.No.
“We have to. To commemorate your birthday,” he says, sitting me down on one of the stools in front of the artist. He perches on the one next to it and looks over to me, giving me a look at hiseyes.
“They always exaggerate your features,” I hiss toward him as I turn away a little, but there’s part of me that’s into this idea. Even the simple requirement to be still next to Ben for several consecutive minutes has my heart fluttering, and the way he took me by the hand and drove me into the artist’s den has my neck muscles relaxing into the warmth of the memory of his touch. At least now I get to take a load off myfeet.
“Sir,” Ben says to the artist, “if you wouldn’t mind, can you please draw us in a realisticstyle?”
“Of course,” the man says, bringing his pencil to his easel. The look in his eye tells me there’s going to be some funny business afoot, but I can’t say no to Ben. Don’t want to,either.
I adjust my shoulders from slumped to straight and settle in. As the artist begins to sketch us, I let my mind wander a little. It’s odd, because every little piece of my skin, face, lips, eyes feel alive yet soothed as the artist moves his pencil across the canvas. It feels like I’m being pampered from afar. This is downright relaxing. The point of the pencil scratches against the thick canvas paper and when he rubs the back of his pinky against the charcoal I feel a drizzle of relaxation slide down my spine. It doesn’t hurt that Ben is right next tome.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” Ben asks. I take the chance to glance over at him. Of course he asked for a realistic sketch. I’m sitting next to the winner of both the George ClooneyandTom Hardy look-alike contests here and the only difference between them and him is that for some reason he’s decided to take me under his wing. Maybe he feels sorry for me, maybe he’s doing it out of obligation. He’s not doing it because he has any kind of feelings for me, that much has become more and more evident, and yet the tension I felt between us for that fleeting moment a year ago is still very much here, even if it is only on myside.
“Yes, it’s fun,” I reply. “It’s relaxing. You don’t get many chances to not have a screen in front of you. Oh, I noticed that you don’t have atv.”
“Not in the living room, no, but I do have a tv in my bedroom.” Bedroom. The mention of bedroom and the way he said it makes me want to tell him I’m in a Bachelor bracket back at school and absolutely must watch the show live, which strictly requires me to be in his bed on Mondaynight.
“Sometimes I like to get manicures solely for the opportunity to not have my eyes glued to a screen for a little while,” I tell him to change the subject. I catch the artist scrawling something at the bottom corner of his easel. It must be his signature, which means the portrait iscomplete.
He unclips it and stands up to present it to me andBen.
“Oh my god.” I feel my cheeks heat up with a blush that sweeps all the way down to my feet and then back up again, settling somewhere in mymiddle.
“This is going on the refrigerator,” Ben says with a chuckle, pulling out his wallet and thanking the artist. “Thank you very much, sir. It’s perfect. No, this is not going on the fridge. I am framingthis.”
I peer down at the portrait in my hands and then look back up at Ben and then theartist.
“This is your idea of realism?” I ask the artist with a smile. I don’t mean to smile, but I do. The portrait shows Ben looking down at me, all rugged lines, and me looking up at him with my hands folded over my heart and stars in myeyes.
I’ve never asked to speak to a manager before, but if this man had a manager, I’d ask to speak to them so I could praise how good he is at his job. After I got Ben firmly out of earshot. Then I’d ask if the artist could draw Ben from memory like one of his French girls. No, I wouldn’t. The mere thought of it is striking me withjealousy.
“Come on,” Ben says, throwing his arm around my shoulder, “let’s get youhome.”
Home. I let it sink in. The word sounds so good coming fromhim.
