Page 61 of Finding New Dreams

But it killed me, not talking to her. I talked to her at the gallery, of course, but it was light, friendly small talk. Nothing more.

However, her words said one thing while her body told me something else. Whatever I was feeling, I wasn’t alone. Any time we’d gotten close, I’d seen her pupils dilate, heard her breath quicken.

But did heat also build low in her belly like it did in mine? Did she watch me when I wasn’t looking, remembering every touch we’d shared?

I wanted to know. But I refused to push her down a path she was scared to explore.

The gallery door burst open, and Mrs. Q and her class filed into the room, bringing blessed noise and chaos.

Dressed in a hot pink skirt and a ruffled yellow top, Mrs. Q waved and smiled at me before she instructed her kids to put on their paint smocks and sit in front of the canvases.

Rose stood up, bouncing on her toes and craning her neck until she found Dom. She waved him over to sit next to her.

A dark shot of envy burned through my gut that he got to paint with her and I didn’t. But I smiled at him and the rest of the kids, who chattered to each other like monkeys.

Mrs. Q stood next to me, her eyes twinkling with their usual excitement. “They’ve been talking about this all week. A famous artist. Let’s show ’em what you got, hon!”

No pressure. I swallowed hard.

Rose gave me an encouraging smile, her brush already in hand, the perfect student. For some reason, that soothed some of the cold anxiety rippling through my chest.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” I said loudly over the hubbub. “Let’s get started.”

The rumble of conversation faded away, and over a dozen sets of eyes focused on me. My nerves stretched tight again. Damn it, why did I miss the noise?

I cleared my throat. “Okay, well, how about we start with…uh, brushes.” I picked mine up and rolled it between my jittery fingers.

Like an idiot, I rambled on about different brushes and their uses for five straight minutes. When I finally looked down at my audience, I grimaced at their glazed eyes and tapping fingers. Rose’s lips were pinched together in a sympathetic frown.

I sighed and dropped my brush onto the table with a clatter. “Well, that sucked.”

A few kids giggled.

I grinned back at them. “Confession: I was really nervous about teaching you guys today. Hence that boring lecture you just heard.”

A few more of them smiled. At least they were paying attention now.

I continued, “So how about we switch gears, and I’ll show you a technique I learned from a brilliant artist. It’s something you can use whenever you’re feeling like me—too scared to take the first step.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rose sit up straight on her bench.

I dipped my thumb in brown paint then pressed it, upright, onto my canvas. A deep sigh left my chest before I turned to my class. “Your turn.”

Eyes bright, and with a few whispers to their classmates, the kids dipped their small thumbs into the paint. A few glanced my way as if to confirm they were really allowed to do this, while others gleefully smashed their painted thumbs onto their canvases.

I nodded my encouragement, chuckling when Rose and Mrs. Q followed suit. “Excellent, everyone! Now, from that thumbprint, add a few more to create a tree, like this.”

Rolling my thumb over and over on the canvas, I painted a spongey-looking tree trunk. A hum of chatter rose again as the class imitated me. I hopped off my stool to take a quick turn around the benches.

One girl with blond pigtails and glasses waved her red-painted thumb at me. “Mr. Higgins, is it okay to use a color other than brown?”

I smiled at her and her bloody-looking tree. “Of course! What’s your name?”

“Hannah.”

“Well, Hannah”—I raised my voice—“and everyone else, when creating art, the normal rules of the world don’t need to apply. You can have red, blue, black, or even rainbow trees. Whatever color makes you feel the strongest. We’ll call it our tree of courage.”

Excited discussion broke out after my announcement. Paints splattered and water splashed.

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