Page 96 of Silver-Tongued Devil
“All right,” she said, and he let go of that breath. The one he’d been holding.
“And I thought you might give me a hand on the boat with the guys on Tuesday morning, Russ,” Blake went on. “For a guide fee, of course.”
“Nope,” Russell said. Blake was sure he looked taken aback, and then Russell went on. “Friends don’t charge friends.”
“Now, see, if you’d tell that to Dakota…” Blake said. “The way she’s gouging me on that paint job?”
“Oh, friends can charge friends to paint,” Russell said. “But not to fish. That’s too much like a good time.”
“You haven’t met these guys,” Blake said.
Which wasn’t true, of course. As soon as Blake had spent an hour in their company, it was like he’d never left.
Three of them, the early arrivals, went out on the boat with him and Russell on Tuesday morning, and it didn’t take long for the beers to get cracked and the trash talk to start.
Blake had left Russell in the cockpit to drive the boat and was on the mezzanine with DeWayne Johnson, who’d been catching Blake’s passes since Ole Miss, but was catching somebody else’s now. Anton Culpepper was kicking back with only one eye on his rod, not seeming too concerned about any possible salmon he might or might not be catching. And Eric Halvorsen was talking.
“DeWayne and Anton went and got married,” the left tackle was complaining. “Pretty soon, there’s going to be nobody to cut loose with except the rookies.”
“Uh-oh,” Anton said, lazily as always, his ball cap pulled low over his eyes. Anton never looked fast until he did. Saving his energy, he always said. “Somebody better tell Coach. Corrupting the youth. Could be time to dial it back, maybe. Bein’ married’s a whole lot easier. Only one name to remember.”
“Who remembers their names?” Eric said. “I just call ’em ‘honey.’ Plus, she’d want to decorate my house, and I’ve had enough decorating. I got a new house,” he told Blake.
“You’re kidding,” Blake said. Eric was famous for having lived in a hotel for the past three years. He’d always said, “Why not? Maid service, room service, valet parking, full-time security, and two restaurants and a bar in the lobby. I don’t have to hire anybody to make it happen, and I never have to worry that somebody’s going to break in while I’m on the road. It’s like magic.”
“Only problem is,” DeWayne said now, “That house is a flat disaster. Dude’s got a pool table and a La-Z-Boy and a big-screen TV, and that’s about it. You sleeping in that La-Z-Boy, man? Redneck paradise.”
“Nah,” Eric said. “That was before. I’ve got furniture now. I got this lady to do it. She backed up a whole moving van. I’ve got towels, even.”
That set DeWayne and Anton off.“Towels,”Anton said.“Lookout.”
“I got these real ugly pictures, though,” Eric complained. “She asked me what style, and I said, ‘I don’t know. Modern, I guess.’ I meant, not like my grandma’s house. I didn’t meanthat.Like this one? It’s a red stripe. I mean, it’s white, and then there’s a red stripe. It’s not evenstraight.Just smeared across there like somebody took a big fat paintbrush to it. And that’s not even the worst one. I got a black square, too. I’m serious, man. Black square. The lady said it was modern. I said, when my mom sees it, she’s going to say, ‘Eric, honey, you got took. That ain’t art. Nobody in their right mind would hang that over their couch.’”
Blake smiled. “Guess you got three choices, then. Go art shopping, get married, or have your mom come pick for you.”
“Nah. She likes these things that look all… lit up. I can’t explain it. Houses. They got too much light in ’em, like they’re cozy or something. Light in the windows.”
“And, man,” DeWayne said, “you too ugly to get laid if you got that kind of thing on your wall. You better stick with the black square. Girl’s gotta look somewhere else then, ‘cause she ain’t gonna be lookin’ at no black square.”
“I could buy one of those birds like you got hanging in your lobby, Blake,” Eric said. “See, thatlookslike something. You can tell it’s an eagle. It’s not a house with cozy windows, and it’s not a black square. It’s a bird of prey, man. That’s cool. Where did you buy it? Maybe I can order one of those.”
When he’d brought Dakota’s pieces home from Portland, Blake had hung the eagle in the resort’s lobby. It just looked too good there, like the finishing touch. He was getting a little sign made to go next to it with her name on it, too. If he had his way, Dakota would have that stained-glass career sooner rather than later. She’d been made for something more than painting bathrooms.
“You can’t order that,” he told Eric. “That’s one of a kind. But I know the lady who did it. She’s painting my house right now, but she’s an artist, up and coming. She does special projects, too. I don’t mean she’d do exactly what you said, because she doesn’t work that way, but if you said, ‘I want an eagle,’ she’d come up with something better than you’d have been able to imagine. But you should see some of her other stuff. I’ve bought three pieces off her, about the prettiest things you’ve ever seen. And sexy—whoa. Not black squares, and not houses with light shining out of the windows, either. I mean, serious stuff. I couldn’t hang it in the resort, because you could call it downright erotic, but it sure looks nice in my bedroom.”
He was about to say more, but he changed his mind. He realized at the last minute how that would sound. Like he was sleeping with his house painter, that was what.
“Huh,” Eric said. “Well, hey. I should probably do that.”
“Expensive, of course,” Blake said. “Tell her you’re a friend of mine, that I thought maybe she could give you a discount. Only three thousand.”
“Sounds good to me,” Eric said. “So where could I take a look at that?”
Blake finished off his beer. “She’s painting my house, like I said. I’ve got to go pick up my folks at the airport soon as I get back, but go on and stop by and ask her to show you those couple things she did for me. Be sure to tell her I said three thousand. The eagle would be more, though,” he thought to add. “And you’d have to wait.”
With any luck, Dakota would be three thousand dollars richer by tonight. She could start letting go of that mental calculator Blake had seen whirring in her brain all weekend, no matter how many times he’d pulled her into the lake or into bed. She could start to see what he did, that she had a future out there waiting for her. All she had to do was take it.
Dakota was painting trim in a frenzy, thinking that Blake’s house had far too many windows. It was already past two o’clock, and she needed to be done by four if she was going to have time to go home and get dressed in time to come out again and meet Blake’s parents.
