Page 77 of Fresh Canvas
Val playfully smacked my behind, which only made me laugh harder.
“Consider this my paintball payback.” He grinned, then dunked me under the glittering surface.
twenty-one
AMANTHA
The muscles in my left eye began to twitch. The boardroom screen was too bright, the material too dull to keep my focus. Blythe’s presentation for Lance Stirling’s upcoming exhibition was like a fly buzzing over a theater screen. Blythe stood at the head of the table, her frizzy blonde hair practically vibrating. She wriggled out of her pinstriped orange blazer as she talked, as if she couldn’t think with it on.
“Stirling’s sculptures and mixed-media art are going to make an epic display. We’ve gotta start with…” Blythe’s voice grew muffled as I tried to ignore the temptation sitting across the conference table.
My flustered gaze caught Val’s again. Sparks danced at me among flecks of liquid metal, though his face remained impassive. I silently cursed. Russo was the embodiment of temptation.
Focus.He’s just another employee.
Only, I knew how he tasted.
He’s just grumpy Val Russo.
Whose paint-splattered smile I couldn’t stop thinking about.
My co-worker.
Who had smacked my butt in the pool yesterday.
I stifled my giggle, rolling my lips hard against each other. Rigid as a statue, I zeroed back in on Blythe’s voice, feigning an occasional nod. My eyes began to burn from lack of blinking.
“Okay guys. That’s enough of my yappin’. You get the gist,” Blythe said.
I scrambled to grab my things as Kate’s voice caught my attention.
“Val, I didn’t know you painted.”
Val looked bewildered until Kate gestured to his hands. A few of his cuticles still had Death by Paintball’s cement-like paint glued on. The yellow and blue paint pods had united to create a puke-colored green.
“Oh. That. Uh, yeah. Occasionally.” Val coughed, swept up his papers, and fled.
Kate giggled. “Who knew?”
I let out the breath I’d been holding and trailed behind her, straightening my black pencil skirt as I walked. “I hadnoidea.”
An arthritic snail would have gone faster than that morning. I had been tasked with writing a bio for Stirling as well as short descriptions of each sculpture the museum had purchased. The words my keyboard lamely clacked out sounded uninspired and vague.
I closed my eyes with a frustrated sigh.
Behind my eyelids, the summer breeze ruffled Val’s curls through the open car windows. A brilliant pink sunset blazed behind us as I dozed in and out, Val’s warm hand around mine as he drove my car back to the city last night.
I forced my eyes open.
The clock on my computer screen hadn’t budged. I slumped forward on my desk.
Kate approached me with a stack of pictorials still warm from the printer. She dropped them with a thud on my desk, making me jump.
“Spill it.” Kate’s angular eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“What?”
“You’re acting like a teenager. Spill. It.”
