“No way. You painted this?”
She nodded, then glanced at the fridge, where a colored-pencil sketch of little pink flowers was stuck with magnets. He had absentmindedly noticed it when dealing with the food, and now gave it a second glance. “You’re an artist.” He looked back at her and got another nod. “A barista and an artist. There, see, I’m getting to know you even if you won’t talk.”
She picked up her latte and wandered out of the kitchen with it.
Unsure about whether to follow, he went back to chopping.
She returned in a minute with a sketchbook, spiral-bound with black cover. She set it next to the tomatoes on the table.
“Do I get to look at that?”
She nodded.
Grady wiped his hands on the dishtowel he’d hung over his shoulder, and picked up the sketchbook. Inside it was mostly black ink or pencil, and the first several pages showed various everyday scenes: rain pouring off an umbrella as someone huddled beneath it, a dog curled up beside a cafe table, a sailboat tied to a buoy, close studies of flowers and other plants.
“These are awesome.” He glanced at Skye, hoping for a smile at least, but she only watched the pages.
He turned to the next one and paused. “More surreal now?” It was like something from a fantasy film, or steampunk maybe: a treetop village with rickety bridges overhung with strings of mismatched lightbulbs, and ramshackle houses wedged between trunks. “That is super cool.”
Skye breathed faster; he heard the swift little sounds through her nose. She looked pale, her eyes bright. Her gaze latched onto the book, then onto him. He gazed back at her, trying to understand.
She reached out and turned the next page herself, then looked at him again.
He frowned at the sketch: another in fantasy style, a gremlin-like creature crouched on all fours, its limbs like twigs, its razor teeth showing in a grin, a ring on a tattered string around its neck. The sketch was all in graphite, except for the stone on the ring. She had colored that a brilliant red, making it stand out like an evil eye. “Wow,” he said. “Creepy. You have serious talent, you know that? You can draw all these different styles.”
Her lips tightened and she released a sigh through her nose, sounding exasperated.
“What?” he said. “You do. I’m not just saying that. I can’t draw at all, so maybe I’m no judge, but I think it’s amazing.”
She took the notebook back, tucked it under her arm, and sipped her latte. Without looking at him, she murmured, “Thanks.”
“Ah, so you are going to talk to me.” He picked up the knife, and began dicing a jalape?o. “Okay, I’m not just going to ask you yes/no questions, then. Where’d you study art?”
She parted her lips, considered, then walked to the counter. She picked up a small note pad and a pencil, wrote something, and brought him the pad. She held it up to show him.
Univ of Puget Sound, it said. Her writing didn’t suggest an unhinged mind to him. It was free-spirited and graceful.
“Cool. Did you graduate?”
She nodded.
Earning a degree at UPS wasn’t usually something the unhinged did either, as far as he knew.
“Okay. Is writing easier for you than talking?”
She tilted her head, as if to say Sort of.
“What about with your sister? You talk to her, at least?”
She scrawled Not much lately.
“You’re left-handed,” he noted. “Okay, so you write messages for her, lately?”
Not much, she wrote.
He looked at her, bemused. “But you’re willing to for me?”
She nodded again, gazing into his eyes with a hint of desperation.
“Why? You said, ‘I pick you.’ I’m almost sure you said that. What does that mean?”
She glanced away, looking miserable.
“You pick me to talk to? To write to, at least?”
She tilted her hand side to side. Sort of.
“You got to know how confused I am here,” he said.
She nodded wearily.
“It’s weird, but I like being with you. I may not know why you picked me, but I’m glad you did. It feels…right.” His heart pounded at delivering this quasi-romantic speech, but then, none of the usual courtship rules applied here, it would seem.
She still looked sad and haunted. But she dropped the notepad on the table, moved closer, twined her hand around his upper arm, and kissed him there. He felt the chill of her fingers and the warmth of her mouth through his flannel shirt. He trembled with each breath. What was this crazy pull she had over him? Why did he already want her so much?
He kissed the top of her head, inhaling the fragrance of her wet hair. They stood like that a moment, almost an embrace, definitely something intimate, he didn’t know what to call it.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t what her sister was paying him for.
He shifted away an inch, and smiled when Skye looked up. “Going to help me make lunch or what?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT DISTURBED SKYE HOW MUCH SHE WANTED TO TWINE HERSELF AROUND GRADY, AND DRAG HIM TO HER ROOM OR the couch or, better yet, some bed of moss deep in the woods. It was the magic at work; she felt that clearly enough.
She retained enough of her un-ensorcelled logic to recognize she would have liked him anyway. A date with him under normal circumstances might have gone smashingly well. But she’d never know, because normal circumstances were far from her reach.
She tried to meet his efforts halfway, or at least quarter-way. After their lunch of breakfast burritos, she helped him put away the leftovers. Then they sat across the small kitchen table from each other, knees almost touching, texting each other questions and answers. She could say more that way, and Grady told her with his cute grin that it made him feel less like he was babbling.
He told her he was twenty-one. She answered she was twenty-three. Their eyes met a moment over the table. A certain humility now mingled with the desire she saw there. Totally endearing. She returned her attention to the phone and thumbed in a question about his cousin.
She learned Grady often came to Bellwater for a few days in summer, to stay with Kit. He and Kit got along well, he said, though Grady didn’t exactly feel like he knew Kit inside and out.
She told him she’d grown up mostly without a father, since the divorce had happened when she was so little, and he had moved so far away. He lived in New York now, and they were hardly in touch; just occasional awkward emails a few times a year.
Grady told her he came from a big and affectionate family; he was the third of five siblings. His dad was a contractor, his mom a substitute teacher. Though she didn’t cook professionally, she was awesome at it, and Grady had originally learned to cook from her.
Skye told him how she had been trying to get graphic design work last fall. Then, she texted, and her thumbs froze. It was all she could do to press send, and throw him that unfinished thought.